Bad news for the LP may still be good news for libertarians

Come Wednesday, Libertarian Party officials will almost certainly turn to their traditional task of putting a positive spin on miserable vote totals (don't blame me folks -- I threw you a bone). But amidst the spare electoral pickings, there may be more than a bit of hope for those of us who prize the message more than the messenger. As the Fort Worth Star-Telegram tells us:

Shrink the government. Cut taxes. Respect a person’s property and right to privacy.

In Texas, those are widely embraced political ideals.

They’re also bedrock principles of the Libertarian Party, which is fielding a whopping 174 candidates on Texas ballots in Tuesday’s election.

But 20 years after South Texas U.S. Rep. Ron Paul ran for president as the Libertarian nominee, introducing America to the message of economic conservatism and social tolerance, the party is still very much an underdog.

The culprit, as always, is the bipolar nature of American politics. People are convinced that they have to vote for Coke or Pepsi, so RC doesn't get a hearing (and unlike in the beverage marketplace, supporters of niche political products don't get to enjoy their minority selection). Nominally, that means a choice between free markets or social tolerance, although that's giving the major parties entirely too much credit. In real terms, it's turned into an oh-so-attractive race between know-better-than-you nanny-statism and thuggish meatheadism.

But people still project their expectations on the Democrat vs. Republican dichotomy.

As the Star-Telegram article points out, though, there is a constituency for a libertarian-ish message -- perhaps not a purist one, but certainly ones that tends in a more-freedom rather than less-freedom direction. The question is, does anybody other than the LP care enough to cater to that audience?

Democrats are poised to win the current election on a platform of general social tolerance, lukewarm enthusiasm for civil liberties and economic idiocy, so there's little incentive for the donkey party to fine-tune its message, unless it's concerned about holding on to gains in the West.

The Republicans are poised to suffer just desserts for eight years of militarism, authoritarianism, intolerance of legal niceties and general cronyism, so they're more likely to reconsider the product the party is selling. But all signs now point to the GOP positioning itself as a party of populist flag-wavers, sort of like the Australian National Party which, while it wanders a bit, tends to blend social conservatism and nationalism with "agrarian socialism."

The Cato Institute says that libertarians, broadly defined, make up about 10%-15% of the electorate, and Ryan Sager writes in Reason that those voters are up for grabs, though generally disgusted with the mouth-breathing program the Republicans have been peddling.

An early October Zogby Interactive poll found that self-identified libertarians (about 6 percent of the poll's sample) give McCain only 36 percent of their vote, lower than the 45 percent and 42 percent Zogby found them giving Bush in the last two elections. The libertarian voters claim to be defecting mainly to Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr and other third-party candidates, not to Obama. A Gallup poll conducted in September, which identified libertarian-minded voters with a series of ideological questions about the role of government in the economy and society (pegging them at around 23 percent of the electorate), found that only 43 percent of these voters plan pull the lever for McCain, slightly fewer than did for Bush in 2004. The Gallup poll also finds a significant uptick in libertarians planning to vote third-party, with 3.5 percent supporting Barr. ...

Tax cuts or no tax cuts, a party that can be roused in time of deep crisis only by fear and tribalism—a party that a supposed moderate is now deeding to its most extreme elements—can scarcely serve as a safe home to liberty or the voters who cherish it.

That leaves an opportunity for the Democrats looking to hold on to recent gains, for reinvented Republicans, or for somebody else (a professionalized LP?) who wants to court a constituency interested in both economic freedom and civil liberties.

Or maybe we'll just get neglected. Again.