Iowa good news for libertarians.
The Iowa caucuses presented two very good pieces of news for libertarians. The first was the strong vote for Ron Paul, who ended up just over 3% below the near dead heat for first place with 21.4% versus the 24.5/6% for Romney, Santorum, which is encouraging. It will be interesting to see how he fares in the primaries to follow, but it is reasonable to expect a stronger presence in the polls than occurred in 08.
The second is the early reports that Paul won convincingly among the under 40s, demonstrating that the rising demographic is moving significantly towards the libertarian position. We will be even stronger in years to come, and given that Ron Paul is well over 70 years old it is unlikely that this is a passing fascination brought about by his boyish good looks and sex appeal. Libertarianism is an idea whose time has arrived.
Ron has less than the proverbial snowflake in hells chance of making it through to the nomination, the political establishment and their media acolytes will see to that, but rather than this being a negative, it will give the Libertarian Party a strong appeal to non statist voters if they have Gary Johnson as their nominee. Liberty minded Republicans do not have to hold their noses and vote for the nominee this year; they have a viable alternative.
The LP has never had a candidate with a proven record of executive governance as a candidate before. They have the chance this time around to present their vision with a credible presence in the lead. While he lacks Ron’s kudos, he has a solid record as a libertarian governor in a successful eight years of good governance, and none of the baggage Paul has been weighted down with over the newsletter problem.
The GOP is effectively a divided house and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. The contest (with the exception of Paul) appears to be between big government moderates and big government conservatives, both reinvented and rebadged as limited government fiscal conservatives. If elected both sides will revert to their origins.
Libertarianism will come to the fore.
Libertarianism has come a long way.
ReplyDeleteBUT (there is always a but) the three GOP Big Government candidates (Romney, Santorum, Gingrich) together racked up 63% of the vote.
It was a crushing defeat for Liberty.
On the other hand, 75% of the people weren't happy with any ONE particular RINO offered up by the establishment.
ReplyDeleteNot that the RNC will take notice.
I'm looking on the bright side Gary, we are progressing in the younger and growing demographic which means we are gaining where it counts for the future.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that neither of the frontrunners could attain 25% of the vote is significant given the millions that were spent to attack Gingrich, (without actually destroying him) only to have him replaced by a guy who was languishing a fortnight ago. Nobody is happy with the choice on offer.
If Paul were a little more rational he would be in the lead. The idea that the slaves could have been bought and released was rather silly. It would have created an even larger market for slaves with the North buying, presumably with the taxpayers buck.
Meanwhile Gary Johnson is up to 9% nationally since he left the RINO party and as he said, he is closing in on Obama. This is a libertarian with 9% support despite having the libertarian icon Ron Paul opposing him.
We are not doing too bad.