A Liberal's Voting Advice to Libertarians

Matt Welch | October 19, 2004

From The American Prospect's Matthew Yglesias, writing on his personal weblog:

I continue to think that the best way for libertarians to advance the small-government cause over the long haul would be to try and convince the GOP leadership that the "miniscule proportion" theory is wrong by voting for Michael Badnarik. Thus, much as I would welcome a Stuart Benjamin vote for John Kerry, I think libertarians should pull the lever for the LP, the well-known problems with the LP and Badnarik notwithstanding. If Bush loses to Kerry and the LP gets a historically large share of the vote (not a hard hurdle to clear) then the GOP will hear the message that they need to pay more attention to the small government vote. If Bush loses to Kerry and the LP gets its typically tiny share of the vote then the GOP will hear the message that it needs to try and coopt some Democratic issues (think -- pharmaceutical price controls and backing away from social security privatization) and will likely become even less libertarian. If Bush wins, the GOP will just steam on ahead as deficits and body bags pile up.