Rep. Ron Paul won the most support for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination in an unofficial straw poll of conservative activists attending an annual conference.This straw poll does not mean much, but Paul's success does raise a crucial question for Republicans: are they going to lean conservative or libertarian?
A libertarian from Texas who has railed against spending and the Federal Reserve, Paul won the Saturday contest at the Conservative Political Action Conference with 31 percent backing.
Another libertarian the Republicans might nominate in 2012 is Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico. You can read about him here and here. Full disclosure: I have been working with Johnson on his economic program.
4 comments:
Libertarians need to break away from the Republican party. Although we share some values, Republicans have shown themselves incapable of living up to those values and importantly there are MANY issues on which we will never agree, eg. drug policy, immigration policy, and defense.
Call me naive, but America could benefit from a third party, now is as good a time as any for that to happen.
In the context of this posting, asking if Republicans are going to ‘lean conservative or libertarian’ implies (I think), that the preponderance of recent Republican party activity has been conservative. The argument can be made that its contemporary record has been anything but conservative, such as the record of deficit growth and burgeoning debt, pork-barrel politics (even with its ‘Washington tradition flavour’), &c.
If this divergence from conservative principles is repudiated, a very interesting argument does open up for Republicans on whether to adhere to orthodoxy (broadly conceived) or to incorporate libertarian beliefs into its programme; twenty-first century foreign policy is one area of clear disagreement, as is social policy, as libertarians eschew what they call the Republican accommodation of the welfare-warfare state.
Jeff, I was listening to his videos and saw that he doesn't support cap and trade or any Pigouvian taxes- have you talked to him about this or know why?
The only question is: "When will people realize that the outcomes from things that are open to the Paul Poll Packers is less than meaningless"?
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