December 15, 2006
Podcast #5: Libertarians, Liberals, and Swing Voters
In this edition Dave Weigel and I discuss how we define the libertarian vote and whether liberals and libertarians have a future together. Plus, we break new ground by including an audio clip taken from a relevant discussion at another website. The conversation runs 32 minutes, 45 seconds.
Links mentioned in the podcast:
Dave on "The Myth of the 'Values Voters'"
My 2004 warning about values-vote hype
David Kirby and David Boaz on the libertarian vote (.pdf) and their recent TCS Daily column on the subject
Ramesh Ponnuru noting Republican gains among libertarians, and noting Kirby's point that this wasn't statistically significant
Daniel Larison arguing that the GOP can take libertarians for granted
Brink Lindsey's "Liberaltarians"
Matt Yglesias and Ross Douthat chatting about Liberaltarians
Noah Schactman in 2003 on libertarians flirting with Democrats (based on a sample from a small social circle)
Jeremy Lott on government vs. religion
Will Wilkinson on how Social Security is un-Rawlsian (.pdf; see pages 9-11)
Ezra Klein, uninterested in all this philosophy stuff
Lordy, what a self-important conversation, of the "I sure am glad that I think these things seriously unlike lesser mortals like liberals who just *feel* things" variety.
Posted by: dbomp at December 17, 2006 01:09 AMSorry if I sounded condescending, but I don't think the point that liberals tend not to think very hard about the roots and implications of their ideology is particularly controversial. A couple of years ago Jonah Goldberg tossed off a blog post about liberals' intellectual deracination, and The American Prospect's Michael Tomasky thought it was such a good point that he hired Mark Schmitt to write a series of columns exploring the history of liberalism. (Schmitt and Goldberg discuss that here.)
Posted by: John Tabin at December 17, 2006 05:13 AM>Lordy, what a self-important conversation
By "self-important," I assume you mean "takes both ideas and politics to be important things." Because it does. This is a very good conversation.
Posted by: Jeremy Lott at December 18, 2006 09:27 AM