Matt Welch has penned one of those Look West, Young Democrats! articles that pops forth every once in awhile. The thesis is basic: by turning into a quasi-libertarian party, we can peel off libertarians and libertarianish Republicans, thus constructing a durable majority, winning the West, and consigning Big Government, crony capitalism conservatives to the dustbin of history. It's gonna be great. And he's right, it will be. For everyone but the libertarians and libertarianish Republicans.
Welch's starting point is that the Republican Party, the party that actually professed to believe in small government and state's rights, has proven a variety of old adages about power being bad and transformed into a bloated, deficit-increasing, government-expanding, liberty-shrinkin' monstrosity. So Democrats should start advocating charter schools, deficit reduction, low taxes, and all the other planks of the Reagan/Republican Revolution. Which is fine, I guess. But Welch may want to ask himself: if Republicans, who promised belief in these ideals, abandoned them once in power, why won't Democrats, who love Big Government, want to nationalize health care, and are adopting this stuff for craven political gain, do the same? Parties reposition for political advantage, but they rarely undergo fundamental changes, and the Democratic base certainly won't embrace a shift to libertarianism. The NAACP is still more important to the party than
And from the Democrat's side, is there any evidence libertarians really can be picked up? How about economically conservative Republicans? We kept hearing about how these folks were going to defect in 2004, but that didn't quite work out. Nor did Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate for President, pick up any significant amount of the vote -- so who were all those libertarians voting for? If Democrats want to search for treasure troves of ballot punchers, the poor and disaffected, Hispanics, and single women all offer much richer pools to grab from. And while trying to activate those constituencies rarely works, there's not any evidence backing Welch's assertion that the John Birchers of yesteryear are willing to support progressive policies if we only promise not to create more Terry Schiavo's. For Democrats, appealing to the West is fine, but a quick shift into libertarian rhetoric is unlikely to get us any more votes or leave libertarians any happier. It's lose-lose.
