Veronique de Rugy on the Fight for the Millennial Voter
For many libertarians, it's a recurring frustration: Why do candidates who seem attractive before the race begins suddenly sound so much squishier once they hit the campaign trail? Take Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator with high hopes of becoming the Republican presidential nominee in 2016. He's far more libertarian on foreign policy and the surveillance state than most members of his party. But in recent weeks, he has taken a harder-line stance on using military force, even calling for an increase in overall military spending.
A concept from economics called the median voter theorem provides one explanation for this wobbliness. In short, our majority-rule system means candidates are forced to position themselves strategically to try to win more than 50 percent of the vote. Since a Democrat in a two-party race knows she can more or less count on the support of everyone to her left, for example, it behooves her to put as many people as possible to the left of her.
Libertarians' goal, then, should be to make the median voter more like them: that is, more inclined to vote for people who want to get government out of the way. The great news, reports Veronique de Rugy, is that this is already happening.
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?