Libertarian Leverage

Via Liberty Maven, Ron Paul Forums member 'Peace&Freedom' made an excellent post summarizing five ways that the Barr-Root ticket advances the rEVOLution. In a nutshell, the Barr-Root ticket will:

1. Ensure McCain's defeat, making it easier for Ron Paul Republicans to take over the party in the next cycle.

2. Pressures the GOP to move towards a pro-liberty position from within and without

3. A strong LP showing will prevent the GOP faithful from blaming the Paulites for the loss

4. Barr will continue Paul's themes, keeping Paul's campaign alive past the convention

5. Keeps alive the possibility that the GOP could choose to throw McCain overboard at the convention

Of all these benefits that the Barr-Root ticket provides, none is more intriguing than the possibility of the GOP rejecting a McCain candidacy that is 15 or 20 points behind in the polls at convention time. If McCain is down 55-35-10 (Obama-McCain-Barr) at the convention, couldn't the GOP libertarian caucus propose a joint Paul-Barr ticket in order to avert disaster in November? Although such a scenario is not likely to unfold, it remains a possibility.

Although we focus on a McCain-Paul swap-out at the convention, I wouldn't count out a McCain-XXX change. As I've stated before, I think that this race has the potential to become a lopsided victory for Obama. Although still in a primary fight, Obama is already leading in key swings states, and polls far better when Hillary's name is not included in the questioning. If he's down by 20 points at election time, what prevents one of his numerous health problems from being an excuse to drop out and the GOP going with Romney or Huckabee. Even without a backroom deal to have him drop out, what prevents the GOP from just throwing him overboard if he's down by 20 points? His only appeal, after all, to the GOP is his 'electability'.

At InTrade, McCain is currently trading at 95.5 for getting the GOP nomination. That's a 20-fold profit for anybody who has the foresight to short the contract if the GOP ends up dumping McCain.

Libertarian Leverage

Via Liberty Maven, Ron Paul Forums member 'Peace&Freedom' made an excellent post summarizing five ways that the Barr-Root ticket advances the rEVOLution. In a nutshell, the Barr-Root ticket will:

1. Ensure McCain's defeat, making it easier for Ron Paul Republicans to take over the party in the next cycle.

2. Pressures the GOP to move towards a pro-liberty position from within and without

3. A strong LP showing will prevent the GOP faithful from blaming the Paulites for the loss

4. Barr will continue Paul's themes, keeping Paul's campaign alive past the convention

5. Keeps alive the possibility that the GOP could choose to throw McCain overboard at the convention

Of all these benefits that the Barr-Root ticket provides, none is more intriguing than the possibility of the GOP rejecting a McCain candidacy that is 15 or 20 points behind in the polls at convention time. If McCain is down 55-35-10 (Obama-McCain-Barr) at the convention, couldn't the GOP libertarian caucus propose a joint Paul-Barr ticket in order to avert disaster in November? Although such a scenario is not likely to unfold, it remains a possibility.

Although we focus on a McCain-Paul swap-out at the convention, I wouldn't count out a McCain-XXX change. As I've stated before, I think that this race has the potential to become a lopsided victory for Obama. Although still in a primary fight, Obama is already leading in key swings states, and polls far better when Hillary's name is not included in the questioning. If he's down by 20 points at election time, what prevents one of his numerous health problems from being an excuse to drop out and the GOP going with Romney or Huckabee. Even without a backroom deal to have him drop out, what prevents the GOP from just throwing him overboard if he's down by 20 points? His only appeal, after all, to the GOP is his 'electability'.

At InTrade, McCain is currently trading at 95.5 for getting the GOP nomination. That's a 20-fold profit for anybody who has the foresight to short the contract if the GOP ends up dumping McCain.

Why Obama-Hagel Makes So Much Sense

As I mentioned earlier today over at LRC, an Obama-Hagel ticket is making more and more sense. After taking a look at the electoral college calculator, the Democrats win if they (1) win Iowa, (2) win Colorado, and (3) win Omaha's Congressional District (Obama could also win w/ NM and NV if they lose CO). Based on that, Hagel will deliver at least one of Nebraska's 5 electoral votes (maybe even take 4 out 5 there) and help shore up Obama's support in Iowa, where he is strong but could always use more help. Hagel could also add a couple of points across the board for Obama (and maybe even help in MO), giving Obama a lock.

From Jonah's Lips to God's Ears

Yesterday, I fantasized about McCain running on a unity NeoCon ticket, a ticket that would be a political windfall for the Libertarian Party. Today, NRO's Jonah Goldberg calls for the very same thing:

Meanwhile, a national-unity ticket would, among other things, expose Obama’s fraudulent claims to be a post-partisan uniter and reformer. The party-line, left-wing Democrat has done almost nothing in his short political career to support either claim. He is a product of the profoundly corrupt Chicago machine, not an enemy of it. And his definition of bipartisanship amounts to welcoming the unqualified support of Republicans who support his liberal agenda. The most liberal member of the Senate in 2007, according to National Journal, wasn’t even a member of the bipartisan gang of 14.

Such a daring move on McCain’s part would also signal that the country might enjoy a timeout from partisan rancor. Even the Obama-sycophantic mainstream press would have to admire such a profound gesture. The benefit for Republicans might be substantial. The party could rightly claim to have the bigger tent and the stronger commitment to serious reform. And for movement conservatives, the next four years could be a time for much-needed rebuilding. Obviously, a Joe Lieberman or Sam Nunn would not be the presumptive front-runner for the GOP nomination in 2012. And the lack of an heir apparent would encourage a healthy and vigorous debate for the future of the party.

I sure hope Mr. McCain reads Jonah Goldberg's editorials. For one, if McCain picks Joe Lieberman as his running mate it will tear the GOP asunder. The pro-lifers, (remaining) fiscal conservatives, and foreign policy realists will walk out the party in disgust; the GOP will be left in a pile of rubble, eaten from the inside out by NeoCon termites. And after a disastrous loss in the fall, they will be looking for new leadership. A second reason I yearn for a unity NeoCon ticket is that it will serve as a realigning event: the new paradigm will be the war party vs. the (relative) peace party. When the GOP is stripped of its attractive facade of pro-lifers and fiscal conservatives, it will be seen as nothing more than the ghoulish monstrosity that it is: a collection of warmongers, corporatist hacks, and shills for the redistributionist state. Post '08, the GOP (or a successor party) would have to re-build a coalition of freedom-minded individuals.

NRO: 'Barr is Irrelevant'

So irrelevant that the NRO brain trust had to put together an editorial excoriating Barr for changing his mind on the Patriot Act, the War on Drugs, and the Global War on Tactics:

We don’t begrudge anyone the right to change their views, and applaud Barr’s change on medical marijuana. But on the war on terror, he’s simply wrong, opposing laws that have updated and rationalized the government’s powers to counter terrorism, and doing so while balancing respect for constitutional liberties with the need for public safety. Barr has resorted to the most demagogic arguments against the laws, including hysteria over the “library search” provision of the Patriot Act.

In a close presidential race, every vote is important. The press is speculating that Barr could be John McCain’s Nader. We doubt it. It will probably be Barr’s fate to be ignored, and those libertarians who care about the credibility of their cause should be glad of it.

Guys, if he's irrelevant, why devote an entire editorial to attacking him for "flip-flopping", while you've never mentioned Romney's? The party hacks are scared – Lowry, Frummy, Kristol, and the rest of the Lincoln cult over at NRO (except for Derb, their token rEVOLutionary). When Rush Limbaugh talks about McCain 'crossing the aisle' to talk to conservatives', something is foul in the GOP air. They know they have a revolt on their hands as they're driving the GOP off an authoritarian cliff. This editorial was nothing more than an attempt to tell the kiddies to lock the doors, buckle up, and ignore all the other vehicles slamming on their brakes...

(thanks to Daniel McCarthy for first seeing the absurdity of loudly announcing the "irrelevance" of a candidate)

Update: More on Obamanomics

Update: I received an e-mail from a reader who did not buy the ends/means argument, but Murray Rothbard sure did. From his essay "Left and Right: Prospects for Liberty" (1965):

Thus, with liberalism abandoned from within, there was no longer a party of hope in the Western world, no longer a “Left” movement to lead a struggle against the state and against the unbreached remainder of the Old Order. Into this gap, into this void created by the drying up of radical liberalism, there stepped a new movement: socialism. Libertarians of the present day are accustomed to think of socialism as the polar opposite of the libertarian creed. But this is a grave mistake, responsible for a severe ideological disorientation of libertarians in the present world. As we have seen, conservatism was the polar opposite of liberty; and socialism, while to the “left” of conservatism, was essentially a confused, middle-of-the-road movement. It was, and still is, middle-of-the-road because it tries to achieve liberal ends by the use of conservative means.

In short, Russell Kirk, who claims that socialism was the heir of classical liberalism, and Ronald Hamowy, who sees socialism as the heir of conservatism, are both right; for the question is on what aspect of this confused centrist movement we happen to be focusing. Socialism, like liberalism and against conservatism, accepted the industrial system and the liberal goals of freedom, reason, mobility, progress, higher living standards for the masses, and an end to theocracy and war; but it tried to achieve these ends by the use of incompatible, conservative means: statism, central planning, communitarianism, etc. Or rather, to be more precise, there were from the beginning two different strands within socialism: one was the right-wing, authoritarian strand, from Saint-Simon down, which glorified statism, hierarchy, and collectivism and which was thus a projection of conservatism trying to accept and dominate the new industrial civilization.

So, we're down to choosing a candidate (Obama) that pursues liberal ends (freedom, reason, mobility, progress, higher living standards for the masses, and an end to theocracy and war) by statist means (statism, central planning, communitarianism) with the chance that he is open to liberal methods, or a candidate (McCain) who pursues statist ends (statism, hierarchy, and collectivism) by statist means.

More on Obamanomics

As I mentioned yesterday, the nuts and bolts of an Obama economic policy is much more market-oriented than the MSM has led us to believe -- to the economic right of Clinton for sure and possibly to the right of McCain (depending on whether you see another tax cut paired w/ a debt orgy as market-oriented or not). Now, David Friedman (the anarchocapitalist son of Milton Friedman) is coming out favoring Obama over McCain:

Perhaps I am too optimistic about Obama, but I do not think he is going to turn out to be an orthodox liberal. There is a group of intellectuals connected with the University of Chicago who have accepted a good deal of the Chicago school analysis but still want to think of themselves as leftists. They are, as I see it, trying to construct a new version of what "left" means. Examples would be Cass Sunstein and Austan Goolsby, both at Chicago, and Larry Lessig, who used to be there.

Sunstein describes himself as a libertarian paternalist, meaning that he wants to take advantage of elements of irrationality in individual decision making to nudge people into making what he considers the right decisions, while leaving them free not to if they so wish. Goolsby, judging by webbed pieces of his I've read, is a pro-market economist who happens to be a Democrat, rather like Alfred Kahn, who gave us airline deregulation under Carter. He is also Obama's economic advisor. I do not agree with all his views—for details of one disagreement see an earlier post—but I like them better than the views usually supported by Democratic politicians and their advisors.

Obama himself, while obviously constrained by the fact that he is trying to get nominated, has occasionally let things slip that suggest a more libertarian view than typical of liberal senators. At one point he said something mildly favorable about school vouchers, retreating rapidly under pressure from the teachers' unions, and similarly with marijuana decriminalization. His most visible disagreement with Clinton is over her plan to force everyone to buy health insurance. He appears uncomfortable with that degree of coercion, even though he is willing to use the less direct version—taxation to subsidize the insurance that he thinks people ought to have.

Bush was elected on a pro-market, small government, platform and proceeded to greatly expand the size of government—and not only in the form of military spending. His view of the legitimate power of the executive branch, including the authority to deliberately violate federal law, I find frightening. Perhaps, if we are lucky, Obama will turn out to be the anti-Bush.

Personally, I don't see any political reason why Obama wouldn't take market-based approaches to achieve liberal goals, as (1) it would capture centrist voters wary of intrusive government programs and (2) be more likely to be a policy success. Examples of possible "market-based approaches" (I apologize if I'm using the term too loosely) could include carbon surcharges paired w/ tax cuts (the Gore "green tax shift", his only half-decent policy idea) instead of carbon caps/bans (the McCain approach), payroll tax cuts, make savings and investment tax-deductible from the bottom bracket up (tax savings are based on the payer's lowest tax bracket, not the highest), hard money (inflation is a tax on the poor), eliminate corporate taxes and regulation that favor big firms and drive up the cost of consumer goods, replace the patent system with a prize system or patent buy-outs (the latter advocated by the Independent Institute), and a host of other policies.

As Mark at Publius Endures recently wrote, the difference between classical liberals and modern liberals is a question of means, not ends -- and Obama's history indicates he is willing to consider alternative approaches to achieve his liberal goals.

Obamanomics

After I read the great review of "Nudge" at LvMI this morning, I started doing a little reading on the subject and I stumbled upon this upcoming NYT review of the book.

According to the article, Obama and his economic team oppose outright bans and strict regulations, but instead prefer the "nudging" approach. After reading the article, I've came to the conclusion that Obama is to the right of Clinton on economic issues (opposed to the narrative that he's to the left of her) and pretty close to McCain, with McCain possibly favoring more outright bans and restrictions on economic activity than Obama would -- and I include the environment in that category; McCain favors capping total economic output (by capping industrial CO2 emissions), while Obama favors CO2 taxes that would allow CO2 emissions to grow, but at a higher cost to them. Neither are good options, but an Obama CO2 tax paired with a payroll tax cut is far preferable to McCain's anti-growth plan that erects massive barriers to entry for new market participants (under his plan, emitters get credit for current emissions, while new producers have to pay for the carbon credits).

Combined with his opposition to the war and his support for civil liberties, Obama is far, far preferable to McCain, although I'll still be casting my vote for Barr (who I see as a flawed Paul -- similar in many ways, but nowhere near the real thing) if he gets the nod.

Barack Gorbachev?

David Seaton of TPM asks if Obama is the American Gorbachev:

What can we expect from an Obama presidency? If he gets a huge mandate and a Democratic Senate and Congress, there are two possibilities that I can see, either he doesn't try to really change anything... a lot of disappointed kids and a lot of wasted time. Second possibility, he does try to change things, and it all falls apart....

The secret of much of what is happening today is that America was almost as badly damaged by the cold war as the Soviet Union. Like the Soviet Union, while others were learning to build good cars and TVs, airports and roads, Americans only built 'intelligent' munitions. People are waking up to reality and in true American fashion, they are reaching for the tranquilizer... the man with a plan, the change they can believe in... Not that dumb? We are talking about the same people who reelected George W. Bush, now with buyer's remorse... Wheeee! The USA is just waiting for an amateur to tinker with it.

If you buy the argument, either Obama ends the war and does nothing as far as legislation goes (much better than McCain's endless war and energetic domestic policy on climate change and free speech restrictions), or he tries to implement major, system-wide reforms and it all collapses. Gorbachev tried to reform a system that couldn't be reformed, and it collapsed. What's so different about what Obama's selling?

General Election Prognostications

I really don't think it's going to be that close. For one, the polling data does not reflect the severely-depressed GOP turnout that we'll see in the fall, the anti-GOP sentiment, the energized democratic base, or the massive black voter turnout we'll see if Obama is the nominee. The Obama camp has said that their strategy is to capitalize on the resurgence of the party in the Mountain West to capture the presidency. If the '04 map stays the same, Obama wins if he turns CO, NM, and NV -- all close in '04 and all of them are far more blue in 2008. If Obama "goes west", he will focus his message to woo mountain state libertarians, probably more numerous in the belt that runs from Montana to the Mexican border than anywhere else in the country. He will probably pledge to protect gun ownership rights, offer a payroll tax cut with part of the money saved from ending the war, promise wind and solar energy tax credits (solar for AZ, CO, and NM, wind for CO, WY, and MT), and reluctantly support oil shale production as long as the energy companies (1) find their own water source and (2) are fully liable for any environmental damage; McCain's immigration policies will also severely depress the turnout of usually-reliable GOP voters in the region as well. Outside of the Mountain West, there's no way the GOP will win another squeaker in Iowa, nor will they edge out the Dems in Missouri, which has been blue-ing as well. Throw in a possible win in Virginia or even a Deep South state (especially in Georgia if Barr is running), and you have a democratic landslide. On top of that, the temporary lull in violence that the surge facilitated is collapsing rapidly, and McCain is wedded to that policy more than any other American politician, including Bush.

What you reap is what you sow, and 7 years of Red State Fascism will come back to bite them in November; It could get ugly...

Will the GOP Lose the South?

Probably. Throughout the south, McCain remains very unpopular amongst GOP supporters -- if it wasn't for Romney and Huckabee splitting the dixie vote 50/50, McCain would have lost every southern state except for Louisiana (which Ron Paul won anyway). Throw in the tidal wave loss for the GOP that's coming in the house (and we saw a glimpse of it last night) and a massive, heavily-energized black voter block, McCain could lose large swaths of the south to Obama -- giving us a massive realignment of the US political map. If Bob Barr indeed wins the Libertarian Party nomination, Obama could even win Georgia by a significant margin.

Southern Republicans are not going to show up to the polls to vote for a leftist who sees the Confederate flag as a symbol of hatred (I'm talking about McCain), but blacks WILL show up in records numbers to elect Obama in a landslide victory.

Rebuilding The GOP From November's Ashes

As I've mentioned before, SC Gov. Mark Sanford is the highest-ranking libertarian in the United States, agrees w/ Dr. Paul on 99% of the issues, and provides the best near-term hope of getting a libertarian in the White House. Despite his stances, the MSM has been floating the idea of McCain picking Sanford to prevent libertarians from defecting to the LP ticket (if it's Barr) or Obama. Today, TNR's The Plank pointed out how absurd such a notion would be:

McCain, of course, has also voiced displeasure with some aspects of Bush's record in this regard, so perhaps it's not as implausible a choice as it might seem. But given that the Republican Party's intellectual establishment has wedded itself to a theory of untrammeled executive power as a response to the ongoing war on terror, one wonders if the fiscal conservatives championing Sanford realize that in many respects, when it comes to the role of the state, he's a quasi–civil libertarian who's closer to Ron Paul and Bob Barr than to any other major figure in the party.

TNR Also had a short interview w/ Sanford after a recent CATO event, where he called 'liberty' the 'ultimate homeland security':

TNR: What sort of sacrifices is it reasonable to ask citizens to make in the war on terror, in terms of privacy? Is there anything that citizens will have to give up, compared to what they were used to before 9/11?
MS: I don't see 9/11 as a seminal event in that regard. Liberty is the ultimate homeland security, and anybody who promises, 'I can take care of this problem for you,' at the end of the day, I don't think is telling the truth. … Tragically, post-9/11, there's been a lot of earnest, well-intentioned but ultimately destructive activity that expanded federal power inappropriately and encroached upon state authority.
TNR: How would you assess President Bush's record in the realm of homeland security and the war on terror?
MS: History will be the ultimate judge. I will say, though, that I unabashedly come from the conservative side of the ledger. I think that some of his policies not been particularly conservative in their approach. In the long run, I believe that that undermines both homeland security and liberty.

After the GOP implodes in November, the Ron Paulians and the Huckabites will rebuild the party -- they are the only GOP grassroots left. If McCain does indeed lose (he may still win while the GOP loses 6 Senate seats and 15 - 20 House Seats), we should be able to utilize the rEVOLution for a Sanford 2012 run. But a McCain loss may require Bob Barr on the LP ticket to sandbag McCain in key swing states by taking 5 - 10% of the vote away from him -- making the LP race all the more important.