Freedom Democrats: What a McCain Victory Means

"Given that the 'Bush Dog' capitulations are consistently on issues of foreign policy and civil liberties, a Republican Presidency with a working conservative majority in the Congress is an abysmal prospect for libertarians, regardless of ultimate partisan affiliation. Despite Barack Obama's own dismal stance on FISA, I view an Obama Administration as less likely to push for a continued imperial foreign policy and statist War on the Bill of Rights. He may well capitulate to Congress on these issues, but I think he's unlikely to actively push such legislation."

Read the rest of this excellent post - and its follow up - at Freedom Democrats.

Libertarians for Obama in the News

Alex Tabarrok makes the case at Marginal Revolution.

"With war has come FEAR, magnified many times over by the governing party. Fear is pulling Americans into the arms of the state. If only we were better at resisting. Alas, we Americans say that we love liberty but we are fair-weather lovers. Liberty will flourish only with peace."

Co-blogger Tyler Cowen agrees.

"In my view the current priority is avoiding a war with Iran," he writes in the comments of Tabarrok's post.

Even the New York Times acknowledges the libertarian movement toward Obama with a post on its Opinionator blog.

"Republicans Lie": Another Libertarian's Take on Obama

Today I ran across this post that a blogger named lesowijs made back in February. Since it sums up many of my thoughts on Barack Obama and this election so much more eloquently than I could, I hope lesowijs doesn't mind that I'm going to repost it in its entirety.

"The hostility I see from the more right-leaning libertarians towards Obama is bewildering. I can understand that you disagree with virtually all of his positions - so do I - but there are two things to consider here:

"1. Republicans lie. They don’t care about small government. It’s time to face the facts and realize that Reagan was both an anomaly and not as libertarian as the paleo-libs who eulogize him today claim. Despite the rhetoric, we’ve been let down by every single Republican presidential nominee since Goldwater. John McCain stands for the continuation of virtually every un-libertarian policy Bush has pushed forward in the last eight years. The fact that anyone who claims to be a libertarian could even consider voting for him is astonishing.

"2. Libertarians need to examine this country and determine what the biggest threats to liberty in America are right now. The biggest threat to liberty is clearly the War on Terrorism. The second biggest threat is the War on Drugs. McCain and the Republicans stand for an even further increase in efforts toward both.

"Obama isn’t perfect, but he’ll do better on those two massive issues than any Republican besides Ron Paul would. Libertarians need to stop pretending that if we lower taxes enough everything else will turn out okay. It’s becoming increasingly clear that economic freedom will not lead to social freedom, in the country and in the Republican party - the most economically free states are frequently the most socially oppressive. On the other hand, it seems much more likely to me that modern liberals could be swayed towards the free market, once the realities of economics become apparent to them.

"Thus I suggest that the Democratic Party is a more natural ally for libertarians right now than the Republican Party, barring some sort of massive sea change within its ranks. Let the paleo-libertarians do what they want; they are more concerned with fantasizing about some ideal conservative libertarian society than actually promoting freedom the best they can. It seems clear to me that an America under Barack Obama or perhaps even Hillary Clinton will be far more free than an America under John McCain."

Drudge for Obama?

There's an interesting story in The Politico today about self-proclaimed libertarian Matt Drudge skewing his coverage against John McCain and in favor of Barack Obama. Is this enough evidence to add Drudge to my list of links to libertarian blogs that have had good things to say about Obama? Sure.

Justin Raimondo and Libertarian Backlash

In a recent post on AntiWar.com, longtime libertarian activist Justin Raimondo came out of the closet with his "man-crush on Obama." It wasn't quite an endorsement, but Raimondo made it clear that he'd like Obama to be our next president. More interesting, though, was the reaction on the AntiWar.com blog. It's a pretty good indication of the difficulty of selling libertarians on Obama, no matter how much they have in common with him. The comments ran about evenly for and against Obama, but here's a sampling of the con viewpoints (and the categories they fall into):

"This is just a case of Obama being everything to everyone. He will end up the same as every other president from the war party, except he will be harder to oppose because he is more capable and will be able to fool more people."

(General libertarian distrust of all politicians)

"Obama has made it clear that he has no problem with US foreign interventionism in a general sense, using the US military to spread “goodness” around the world."

(Conflation of support for small-scale foreign intervention with support for Bush-style total war)

"Ah yes, those PATRIOT Act enhancements and extensions were so appealing to antiwar libertarians. As was “tort reform”. And the pledges to expand the military. I may swoon any minute now."

(Libertarian doctrinal rigidity and refusal to support anyone who is not a total libertarian)

"O-bomb-a would likely send troops into Pakistan which would likely start a nice “little” regional war that would likely eventually involve Nuclear weapons."

(A misunderstanding for Obama's position on Pakistan that's widespread beyond libertarian circles. I'll address this in a future post.)

As I've said before, convincing libertarians to go for Obama was never going to be easy.

David Friedman on Obama

"If I were voting in the Democratic primary, I would vote for Obama."
- David Friedman

Everyone's favorite anarcho-capitalist economist sees some libertarian traits in Barack Obama's interest in decriminalizing marijuana and the fact that Obama's health care plan doesn't force people to buy insurance if they don't want to. On his blog Friedman goes on to suggest two ways that Obama might be able to appeal to libertarian voters.

1. Obama could instruct federal law enforcement not to go after people using marijuana for medical reasons.
2. Obama could promise to use at least half of the money saved by ending the Iraq war to reduce the federal deficit. "That puts him in the position of the fiscally responsible candidate, which should appeal to conservatives as well as libertarians. And it is a pledge that McCain cannot match, since he supports the war and so is not going to have any peace dividend to allocate."

Friedman recognizes - as I do - that Obama is not a libertarian. But Friedman believes that either or both of these steps would be enough to swing a significant number of libertarian voters to Obama from the Republican camp which, he notes, "hasn't provided much for them in recent years."