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David Weigel wonders what happened to those socially conservative "values voters" who were supposed to save the Republicans from their downfall.
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|12.14.06 @ 9:27AM|#
22% is not a lot of voters. The way the results of the polls were reported sliced and diced other voters into even smaller categories, but 22% is a really tiny slice of the electorate.
Just to provide some scale, 22% is roughly equivalent to Dick Cheney's approval rating.
|12.14.06 @ 9:28AM|#
I don't have time to read the article right now, but why should I let that stop me from cutting off John, et al? "Great another Weigel pom-pon piece for the Dems. When will Reason learn..."
|12.14.06 @ 9:31AM|#
22% is not a lot of voters. The way the results of the polls were reported sliced and diced other voters into even smaller categories, but 22% is a really tiny slice of the electorate.
I agree, and it doesn't bode well for the 15% of the voters are "libertarian" notion that we got with the exit polls this time.
|12.14.06 @ 9:41AM|#
"The libertarian West," Hotline Editor Chuck Todd wrote in a post-election column, "is a region that is more up for grabs than it should be. And it's because the Republican Party has grown more religious and more pro-government, which turns off these 'leave me alone,' small-government libertarian Republicans.""
If the Democrats are going to govern like Republicans and really commit themselves to small government and a "leave me alone" mentality, more power to them. Politics in this country have become like sports, with people rooting for laundry not ideas. I frankly could not care less whether the advocate of a good idea is a Democrat or a Republican. If what this article is saying is true, the election was a victory for small government conservatism not liberalism. Somehow I doubt the Democratic congressional leadership, which is overwelmingly from the left wing of the party, look at it that way. Moreover, I doubt the Democratic voters in the Red states voted Democrat in hopes of getting a good old fashioned small government protect the land owner Congress that Grover Norquist can be proud of. To all of those Democrats who won in the West crusading as small government types, I wish them luck because they are going to need it.
|12.14.06 @ 9:46AM|#
David,
"Libertarian" is a meaningful category. "Moral values voters" is not.
Also, the "libertarian west" likes its guns and dislikes fiscal lunacy, but it also likes its Social Security and dislike selling off federal open space for development.
Wanting to be left alone by a far-off government does not translate into an endorsement of conservative economic policies.
|12.14.06 @ 9:49AM|#
"Also, the "libertarian west" likes its guns and dislikes fiscal lunacy, but it also likes its Social Security and dislike selling off federal open space for development"
They also don't like things like the ESA and like things like drilling for oil and gas and mining for minerals. How do you square the Democratic greens with that?
|12.14.06 @ 9:49AM|#
If the Democrats are going to govern like Republicans and really commit themselves to small government...
Huh? Typo? "small" = "big"? Or did you miss the better part of the last decade?
|12.14.06 @ 9:53AM|#
No Chris, I meant like Republicans claim to govern. However you look at it, if the Democrats want to cut the size of governmen, more power to them. I seriously doubt that is going to happen, but if it did, I won't complain.
|12.14.06 @ 10:06AM|#
"How do you square the Democratic greens with that?"
Actually, John, they seem to like the extractive industries to operate in a responsible manner that minizes impacts on open space and agricultural uses. So that squares pretty well with the Democrats. Ditto with the ESA - environmental preservation is a big deal to people who define themselves in terms of living in a unique area.
Now, the mechanisms for achieving that goal are very much up for debate, and the Democratic establishment is going to have to flexible in this area if they hope to retain westerners' loyalty.
Basically, we've had decades of fights between big government environmentalists and small government anti-environmentalists. If the Democratic Party is smart enough, its newly appended western brach can teach it small government environmentalism.
|12.14.06 @ 10:09AM|#
Being from a very conservative county I see many people who fall under the "values voting" category. I do hold more conservative values personally, but do not find it as the Government's role to make others see it that way. I see many of them turning against Republican canidates now that fiscal responsibility is once again becoming a focus. PACleanSweep also brought back into focus the abuse of the tax payer's dollar. I think many of the "values voters" will be having a change of focus in the 2008 elections.
|12.14.06 @ 10:11AM|#
"If the Democratic Party is smart enough, its newly appended western brach can teach it small government environmentalism."
Good luck. Seriously good luck. The most innovative and effective ways to protect the environment is through market based approaches. At some point the greens have got to realize that the market can protect the environment and central control based environmental controls have already done about as much good as they can do. The sad fact is that outside of a very few groups, most environmental activists don't realize this and are wedded to command and control based approaches. The smartest thing the Democrats could do would be to reform their green and consumer advocate wings loosing those wings' fear of the market, their superstitious and irrational fear of nuclear power and their pathological hatred of the pharmaceutical industry.
|12.14.06 @ 10:12AM|#
I have a simple solution for libertarians who are discouraged by the slow progress of their cause. Start looking at evidence more sellectively. Rigorous critical thought is a killer.
|12.14.06 @ 10:15AM|#
Joe,
I don't see why 'values voter' is any less of a term than 'libertarian' voter is.
Under 'values voter' I would put any of the following issues as theirs
agains gay marriage
against abortion
in favor of janet jackson not showing her boob on tv
not federal funding a cross in a jar of urine
maybe something about violent video games or some such too.
Now there are probably a wide range of 'value voters' just as there are a wide range of libertarian voters.
But it seems like a valid block to me. I mean I know some of them on the democrat, and some fo them on the republican side.
Why are they not a real block?
|12.14.06 @ 10:16AM|#
"Libertarian" is a meaningful category. "Moral values voters" is not.
I'll agree that "Moral values voter" is meaningless(frankly, I've alway been annoyed by the implication that people who vote differently are immoral), but I'm not sure that "Libertarian" is any more meaningful. People who claim to be "fiscally conservative and socially liberal" can have strange standards for what those things mean.
|12.14.06 @ 10:18AM|#
Kwais,
Also all the article said was 22% of the voters in "this election" said they voted based on values. That doesn't mean that percenage may rise in future elections. It may be that some of the people who voted based on values in 2000 and 2004 were motivated by other issues, like Congressional corruption and pork, this election. There is nothing to say that they won't be motivated by values come 2008. All you can really conclude from that statistic is that this election wasn't so much about values. The statistic doesn't say anything about 2008 or beyond.
The Wine Commonsewer|12.14.06 @ 10:25AM|#
Refering to the headline on the linked article: Unless you enlarge the tent to a size that renders it meaningless, it is a myth that the libertarian vote swung this election or any election.
Libertarians may find themselves allied with the left on some issues such as gay marriage but a vote for a dem because dems are more likely to work toward legalized gay marriage isn't a vote for libertarian principles. It is a single issue vote.
Libertarans aren't necessarily socially liberal, they are socially hands off or mind your own business. That is a distinction worth noting.
While libertarians don't care if you take birth control pills, libertarians don't applaud when the 9th Circuit tells the Catholic church in Ca that they must provide birth control pills to diocese employees as part of their health care package.
|12.14.06 @ 10:50AM|#
Hi, I'm the big elephant in the room. My name is Iraq. Why is everyone ignoring me?
|12.14.06 @ 11:17AM|#
The "libertarian west" is shrinking eastwards. As more and more Californians move to Nevada and retire to Arizona, a phenomenon that has exploded in the last 5-10 years, they are taking their love of big-ass gubment with them.
|12.14.06 @ 11:22AM|#
The "libertarian west" is shrinking eastwards. As more and more Californians move to Nevada and retire to Arizona, a phenomenon that has exploded in the last 5-10 years, they are taking their love of big-ass gubment with them.
Sad but true. We dont' need a fence at the Mexican border, we need one at the California border. Is there something in the water in that state that makes people stupid. "Jeez, I left Califonria because the taxes and government regulation were so out of control, you know I think this new state we are living in needs the exact same policies."
Mike|12.14.06 @ 11:40AM|#
Also all the article said was 22% of the voters in "this election" said they voted based on values.
Why the hell would you bother getting off the couch to vote if you weren't doing it based on your "values"? Are the other 78% voting based on smell? Alphabetical order? Whichever sign the dog pissed on that morning?
|12.14.06 @ 11:52AM|#
Huh? Typo? "small" = "big"? Or did you miss the better part of the last decade?
Well, call it a variation on the "only Nixon can go to China" theory: Carter deregulated the airlines. Clinton signed the welfare reform bill and balanced the budget. Historically (at least in the short term), we seem to have a better shot at reducing government when the Dems are in.
I'm not saying they WILL, I'm just saying the odds are probably better (which may not be saying much)...
ChrisO|12.14.06 @ 12:27PM|#
Well, call it a variation on the "only Nixon can go to China" theory: Carter deregulated the airlines. Clinton signed the welfare reform bill and balanced the budget. Historically (at least in the short term), we seem to have a better shot at reducing government when the Dems are in.
Carter managed to offset any deregulation by creating the Depts. of Energy and Education. Some small-government president. Clinton only became a putatively small-government type after the bloodbath of '94.
I'm not saying that the GOP has done much, or anything, to reduce the size of the federal government, but that doesn't mean that the Dems will do so.
Larry A|12.14.06 @ 2:21PM|#
The TV networks' exit poll showed 22 percent of voters naming "moral values" as the key to their ballots. (In 2004)
1. Which moral values? Opposing the torturing of people suspected of being "terrorists" is a moral value.
2. Which side were they on? People can vote either side of gay marriage and name "moral values" as the key to their ballots.
3. Things change in four years.
ChrisO|12.14.06 @ 2:53PM|#
Larry A., that just points out the idiocy of calling someone a "values voter." This kind of crap mostly serves to let political consultants justify their salaries.
|12.14.06 @ 3:09PM|#
...whereas the term "libertarian" actually refers to a defineable, recognizeable political orientation.
ChrisO|12.14.06 @ 3:44PM|#
Actually, joe, it does. More so than "conservative" or "liberal" in modern American parlance, I'd say.
|12.14.06 @ 8:22PM|#
Larry A., that just points out the idiocy of calling someone a "values voter." This kind of crap mostly serves to let political consultants justify their salaries.
Yes. It's also the kind of crap that allows pundits to construct whatever reality they desire to make their case, grounded in reality or not. Apparently, "values voters" is shorthand for "Christian fundamentalists", and the latter term would be far preferable in terms of not muddying the issue.
Hell, I voted for the gay marriage ban in Ohio, but it was according to my own values, which is that marriage should not be a function of the state. Happily, hilarity has ensued now that domestic violence cases brought by unmarried partners might not pass the new legalistic muster. Not that I think any law will prevent domestic violence occurrences, but the fact that the laws already on the books might become trumped by the gay marriage ban show the folly of the state defining marriage.
|12.14.06 @ 9:10PM|#
Chris O,
I wasn't being sarcastic. I was contrasting "libertarian," which does refer to a defineable, recognizeable political orientation, to the mushy "values voter" label, which does not.
|12.15.06 @ 12:28AM|#
Very likely, in any evolved democracy, voters get two real choices…even in systems that are more tolerant of minor parties:
Center-Right and Center-Left
A.) Foreign Policy
C-R Trigger-happy
C-L Gun-shy
B.) Law and Order
C-R Tough on crime
C-L Soft on crime
C.) Political Structure I
C-R Executive initiative
C-L Legislative priority
D.) Political Structure II
C-R Unilateralist, Federalist, Judicially Restrained
C-L Trans-national, Centralising, Judicially Activist
E.) Economics
C-R The Center-Right no longer resists middle-class security concernswherever an overwhelming consensus exists, but does exercise restraint whenever that consensus is non-existent, or sketchy
(I attribute the pork of the past half-decade to the fact that the '94 Congress should have cycled out in 2000-02...in which case, we would be talking about the Democratic education, agriculture, medicare and transportation bills. A one-party government absorbs many of the characteristics of the excluded opposition).
The Center-Left party is no longer socialist in any real sense…but they perceive the go-ahead to impose taxes, spending, regulations and unfunded entitlements based in the narrowest and most capricious "majorities". (And maybe fair enough…that's what they do.)
F.) The "Social Issues"
The Center-Right defers to popular preference and long-standing tradition.
The Center-Left tilts toward innovation and "progress".
There is no birthday cake here for libertarians. One makes a choice. I find myself far more comfortable with Center-Right…but that could just be me. And, in any case, a cycling is necessary.
Before concluding, I will anticipate joe's rejoinder that the Democratic Party is not a Center-Left party much like any you find in any indusrial democracy, but rather a unique dream-catcher for Truth, Beauty and Pure Intention Married to Infallible Common Sense…across decades and generations. And if you believe that crap you are a fool, and not a libertarian.
The Wine Commonsewer|12.15.06 @ 1:06AM|#
John, you, also, have made the xmas card list. Why is it that Californios leave to get away from the crap and then want to change the new state so it looks just like where they fled?