where the fork in the road goes

"Imagine a Democratic candidate who, say, supported private accounts for Social
Security (as President Bill Clinton considered doing in 1998), promised to cut wasteful programs, and actually defended civil liberties. He or she would surely build on Kerry's 38 percent support from libertarians." -- From Cato's study in 06 of the supposed red-blue state thesis.

Basically it reminds me that I'm part of a rather powerful group of people. In 04, there was a good deal of focus on Ohio, but that study pointed out that the libertarian base in states like Colorado, Nevada and N Mexico could just as easily have turned the elections had they turned out in slightly smaller numbers for Bush. Based on this criteria, it may be possible to explain Obama's rapid surge and high polling numbers as having captured a significant portion of the swinging libertarian vote. (It doesn't swing that way necessarily, but it is a bit more tolerant of the people who do).

McCain's biggest detraction, at least in my estimation, is his McCain-Feingold act limiting political free speech and placing restrictions on campaign funding (which he is ironically forced to step carefully around during his campaign). Obama has made some nebulous promises regarding campaign finance reforms, but without a substance like M-F to cling to, there's an obvious delineation between the two to be made. On other instances, libertarians tend not to support the Iraq War, Obama voted against it. Bush's administration has drastically re-defined all sorts of civil liberties in the process of 'national security'; Obama has opposed, either directly or rhetorically, most of these. This sort of thing continues. While economics remains a visible blemish on Obama's record, the voting public is not educated enough to understand that he really has no concept of what economic policy he should have (libertarians probably do know what he's suggesting, and speaking for myself, we don't like what we hear on that front).

I'm not endorsing the man, but it does appear that he has managed on important secondary fronts to inspire people to a different cause. Something more tangible than I'm not Bush, which was the crux of Kerry's and the 06 Congressional campaigns. Barring some horrible discoveries (or war with Iran) between now and November, this is probably who will be seeing in January give a SoTU address.

And I don't much like my alternatives. "It's a two-party system - you have to vote for one of us... Go ahead! Throw your vote away?"

(though to be fair, I'll probably still vote -L). Or: "My fellow Americans. As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball. But tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!"