This Is Why It’s A Waste Of Time To Reach Out To Libertarians

I know some people might say that if the Libertarian Party gathers a high percentage of the vote, it forces the two mainstream parties to try to go after their voters, but that’s not true, because Libertarians have beliefs that are so far out of the mainstream that it’s impossible to try to cater exclusively to them. When you’re talking about people (many of them at least) who favor legalizing crack and prostitution, favor open borders, favor abortion without restriction, gay marriage, essentially oppose any and all government intelligence programs designed to stop Al-Qaeda from killing Americans, then it’s practically a given that no politician can make them happy on most issues without alienating 90% of the general public at the same time. Since, as a politician, you know going in that you can’t truly make Libertarians happy, all you can do to reach out to Libertarians is emphasize any parts of your platform where you happen to agree with them and hope they don’t notice everything else. — John Hawkins, November 14, 2006

Barack is a diehard socialist who is spending money and expanding government at a pace never before seen in recorded human history. Mitt Romney, for all of his flaws, is promising to slow spending, reform entitlements and he’s no fire breathing social conservative. Meanwhile, Libertaran Gary Johnson is a dead dog loser who’ll be lucky to get 1% of the vote. As a practical matter, voting for Gary Johnson is functionally no different than choosing not to vote at all because he can’t win.

Yet, over at Reason there’s an article that tells how the “staff, regular contributors, and other people important to the libertarian universe of ideas” will be voting.

Gary Johnson: 19
Not Voting: 7
Mitt Romney:
Barack Obama:
Won’t Say: 1

I don’t care how high your IQ is or how well you can explain economic theory, if you’re voting for Gary Johnson, you’re kind of a dufus.

Getting beyond that, what do we hear constantly? We’ve got to kick all of the social conservatives to the curb to appeal to the sort of people who are so out-of-touch-with-reality that they’re voting for Gary Johnson this year.

Say what you want about Christian conservatives, but they don’t write in “Rick Warren” because the Republican candidate isn’t promising to make pornography illegal and gambling illegal. Libertarians will never be that practical.

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