APPARENTLY I AM NOT ALONE
I renamed this blog “Conflicted Libertarian” because of my political conflicts as both a mainstream evangelical Christian social conservative and a Ron Paul libertarian. It seems that I may not be alone.
Stephen Gordon in his blog on the Next Right site has a fascinating article on how the GOP can reach the tea partiers. A few observations:
Gordon suggests that many of the tea partiers are influenced by Cong. Paul and his movement:
Considering that a considerable portion of Tea Party organizers have ties to the Ron Paul movement, this should come as no surprise.
The tea party movement may have had its origin in the Paul 2008 campaign. The second Trevor Lyman “money bomb” was scheduled for December 16, 2007 – the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. It raised over $6,000,000!
But, Gordon observes that there is another group in the GOP tent, what he calls the “Whole Foods, South Park and Starbucks” Republican. They are fiscally conservative but not necessarily in favor of the agenda of the social conservatives:
Although the GOP ignored them (to their misfortune) in 2006 and 2008, there is a large and growing bloc of voters who are fiscally conservative but are turned off by some of the more extreme social conservatism (Internet gambling bans, Terri Schiavo case, etc.) associated with the Republican Party.
I do agree that the Terri Schiavo case was a PR disaster for the GOP leaders. They came off as interfering in a personal decision. While the specific facts might have been an injustice and I have grave concerns about starving a living human being by court order, I also see the personal, family, privacy side of this. I suggest suburban women fled the GOP in droves in large part due to this. Besides, the federal government should not be passing special laws to benefit one person. Paul voted no on the Schiavo bill.
Back to Gordon: So who are they, according to Gordon? A surprising answer:
Like the Tea Party movement, there are a lot of Ron Paul supporters in this demographic group.
So, a libertarian message for 2012? Perhaps so according to Gordon:
A candidate who can appeal to more traditional Republicans, the Tea Party crowd and Whole Foods Republicans could create a mandate not seen since 2004 or the Reagan years.
Perhaps, we need a candidate who can appeal to both the tea parties and the Whole Foods Republicans. You have to be sincere and have real answers. Maybe here (cited by Gordon) is an idea for a proposed (I suspect Sen. DeMint is not nominating himself) candidate:
Freedom will mean different things to different Republicans, but it can tether a diverse coalition to inalienable principles. Republicans can welcome a vigorous debate about legalized abortion or same-sex marriage; but we should be able to agree that social policies should be set through a democratic process, not by unelected judges. Our party benefits from national-security debates; but Republicans can start from the premise that the U.S. is an exceptional nation and force for good in history. We can argue about how to rein in the federal Leviathan; but we should agree that centralized government infringes on individual liberty and that problems are best solved by the people or the government closest to them.
We’ll just wait and see. I suggest that if Governor Jindal could find a principled way to shift his direction just a bit toward the Ron Paul side, he’d be a serious contender for that proposed candidacy Sen. DeMint suggests.
