Not just GOP but libertarians have failed message

Dec. 27, 2012

By Chris Reed

There has been lots of perfectly appropriate anguish among Republicans over their party’s failures in California and nationally. Losing to a president with a bad record has prompted vast soul-searching among GOP true believers.

But who else is failing to get out an effective message? Libertarians. Romney lost to Obama by 10 percentage points among young voters who described themselves as fiscally conservative/pro-free market and socially liberal.

“[A] plurality (48 percent) of these fiscally conservative socially liberal millennials planned to vote for Obama, compared to 38 percent who planned to vote for Romney. However, including Gary Johnson as a potential third party candidate left Obama’s numbers fairly unchanged, but brought Romney’s numbers to 29% of these young libertarians as 17 percent said they’d vote for Gary Johnson.”

This is mind-boggling. There has never been a less libertarian president than Obama, with the possible exception of Richard Nixon.

There are many libertarian voices in our political culture compared to the old days. But what they’re saying isn’t sinking in with young voters. Or maybe these young voters just hate social conservatives so much that they can’t vote Republican — even if the alternative is a horrible chief executive.