I’ve been trying to avoid saying anything about the US Presidential election, partly because it is not my country, and partly because the ongoing self-destruction of the Democrat party is is just too darn depressing for those of us from outside the US who hope the country will vote itself a sane leadership this time around. Looking from the outside, it seems very likely that, in much the same way as Ralph Nader did for Al Gore, angry Clinton will supporters do for Obama. Unless… unless…
The Economist has come up with an interesting idea. The Libertarians might yet ride to the rescue. Not, of course, the loony “freedom to own slaves and kill people I don’t like” Libertarians, but rather those “soft Libertarians” who, like The Economist itself, are conservative on economic issues and liberal on social issues. As the paper points out, Dubya has hardly endeared himself to Libertarians:
Mr Bush has presided over the fastest growth in federal spending since the Great Society in the 1960s. He put the Republican seal of approval on the biggest intrusion of federal power into the classroom in history (No Child Left Behind), the most expensive public-works programme ever (the 2005 highway bill) and the largest new entitlement programme since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid (the prescription-drug benefit). He launched an open-ended “war on terrorâ€. He rode roughshod over states’ rights on issues such as assisted suicide. And he has expanded the government’s power to eavesdrop on its citizens.
And that’s a whole big pile of potential wedge issues. The Economist apparently thinks that these issues are potentially serious enough for a small but not insignificant number of voters to desert John McCain and vote for Bob Barr instead. I have no idea whether they are right, though I’ve always suspected that conservatives have an innate advantage in elections because they tend to value power above all else whereas liberals are likely to value principle above all else. Still, it is perhaps a comforting thought for those of us across the pond who are watching the current outpouring of fury from Clinton supporters with a considerable degree of nervousness.
“I’ve always suspected that conservatives have an innate advantage in elections because they tend to value power above all else whereas liberals are likely to value principle above all else. ”
Hm. Do tell. And you’d say you were seeing that exemplified in the Democratic primary?
What’s to tell, Mike? I thought the point was fairly obvious. There was a brief flurry of interest a few months back in a study (I think from Germany) that conservatives tended to be motivated by other people having more power than they did, whereas socialists tended to be motivated by other people having more money than they did, but I can’t find any references to it right now.
Possibly also it has something to do with conservatives wanting to get into power to stop anything changing, whereas liberals want to get into power to change things, so if the price of getting into power was not changing anything they’d feel they had failed.
But I’m thinking of this primarily with regard to Republicans v Democrats. You could perhaps argue that Clinton is further to the right that Obama and was more prepared to do anything to win, but I think the race was much more complicated than that.
But I thought everything was reducible to the pursuit of sex and money? Or was that power and revenge? Oh, never mind, these questions came out of a detective novel I read last week, not a scholarly study.
Sam Konkin used to tell me that the Libertarian Party, if it had any justification, was as an intermediate point for people who still needed to be educated to stop voting altogether. I mention that because it would be easy for me to point out the blemishes on all the major candidates, but I still plan to vote for one of them so it would be dishonest to act as if none of them deserve my support.
It might be easier to explore whether liberal and conservative motivations are so difference by looking back 40 years at the figure of Lyndon Johnson, seen through the eyes of his biographer Robert Caro. As Caro tells it, there is a fellow who would and did do practically anything to gain power. Then, his use of that power is really a complex study, with that great civil rights record, but also, Vietnam.
“Democratic” Party, please? “Democrat” Party is for Rush Limbaugh listeners and Joe Lieberman.
Ah, thank you. Maybe I have spent too long in San Francisco where, you may recall, the Democratic party are the evil right wing folks.