Words Appearing on This Site for the First Time Ever
Ryan Sager’s piece is excellent. Allowing for different political tendencies, his article on the “libertarian” threat to the Republican Party in the intermountain West is closely argued and strikes just the right notes, as when he responds to a conservative critic with
Libertarians want to destroy the Republican Party.
How to put this … It’s not our first priority. But neither is keeping the Republican Party in power. And, for the record, social conservative don’t typically consider keeping the Republican Party in power their first priority either. Political parties aren’t an end, they are a means.
Where I differ from Sager is that I want to deliver the Republican Party a stinging rebuke. In fact, I can’t think of a better outcome, from a libertarian perspective, than the Republican Party losing power at the Congressional and Executive levels because the socially-tolerant, individualistic West deserts. That is to say, I want the GOP to ride the “Southern Strategy” to defeat. Sager is basically willing, where I’m hoping.
A brief note. Sager writes
Honing a Democratic message out West that appeals to disaffected, libertarian-minded Republicans won’t be easy. Issues like guns, the environment and the longstanding association of Democrats with big government will all be roadblocks.
I think the Democratic Party has largely solved its gun problem by ceasing any serious push for new gun controls. The Gore campaign embraced the Million Mom March and lost the candidate’s nominal home state doing so. Since then, official and unofficial Democrats seem to have decided that a) gun control is a political loser; and b) it doesn’t actually matter. That is, it doesn’t affect crime one way or the other.
That leaves the environment and “the longstanding association of Democrats with big government.” As to the latter, voters now see a shorter-standing but intense association of Republicans with big government. The former may not be the sure loser issue for Democrats that Sager thinks. How will the demographic changes Sager discussed play into environmental politics in the Rockies? Non-ranching immigrants may value environmental amenities over the land use issues that sparked the Sagebrush Rebellion of the late 20th Century. The collapse of anthropogenic global-warming skepticism may vitiate some libertarian-leaning voters’ opposition to political environmentalism. Some Democratic candidates may push environmental policies that seem less bureaucratic than policies voters in the region have previously rejected.
Or not. But my guess is that the environment won’t be the automatic winner for the GOP among western lib-like voters as it has been.
Comment by jlw —
July 18, 2006 @ 10:38 pm
Could you fix the last sentence? I think I know what you mean when you say ”But my guess is that the environment won’t be the automatic winner among western lib-like voters as it has been,” but I’m not positive. Winner for the GOP, right?
Comment by dave —
July 18, 2006 @ 10:41 pm
I think the Dems can make the environment a winning issue in the West (or at least a draw) by framing it in rod ’n’ reel terms. Individualistic Westerners might dislike hippies, but they will really not like it when their fishing hole dries up and elk never come any further south than Alberta.
Of course, I’m equally sure than the Dems will once again not miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Comment by Realish —
July 18, 2006 @ 10:48 pm
I’m not sure the stereotype has caught up with the reality, but today’s environmentalism is much more libertarian-friendly (relatively speaking) than the command-and-control focus of yore. Lots of ranchers, farmers, and hook-and-bullet types have started seeing the damage rampant development and oil and gas drilling have done to their much-loved landscapes, and joined with enviro organizations to buy land to set aside in perpetuity — so-called land conservancies.
In general, the greens focus much more these days on using market forces to their advantage, on seducing rather than bashing business, and on creating ground-up local initiatives rather than top-down federal ones.
Like I said, I don’t know if your average ornery Western libertarian knows all this yet. But I imagine it’s starting to seep in.
Comment by SomeCallMeTim —
July 18, 2006 @ 11:25 pm
Yeah, baby! This is my dream scenario. It would be nice to hand the Republicans a defeat. It would be nicer still to have them defeated for their slavish devotion to the Southern Republicans. But nicest of all would be building a Democratic coalition that didn’t itself feel obliged to pander to Southern Whites or their agents in the DLC.
Comment by Glen Raphael —
July 18, 2006 @ 11:26 pm
”anthropogenic global-warming skepticism” was on the ropes for a while but seems to be making somewhat of a comeback in the last few weeks with the help of the NAS study and the Wegman Report. Even RealClimate has been reduced to engaging in actual *debate* for the first time in ages. (For instance, see this thread, especially down near post #55.)
Comment by Hesiod —
July 18, 2006 @ 11:35 pm
Jim is right, guns have been essentially neutralized as an issue. The only Democrats who still have any attraction to gun control are urban minorities, and perhaps suburban women.
But its not a huge issue to suburban women, and urban minorities have other more pressing concerns.
Ironically, lower crime rates have made it easier to junk ”gun control” as a political issue for the Democrats.
And I actually think the association of Democrats as protectors and stewards of the environmentis an advantage out West, for the most part.
Globalization and immigration have supplanted ”tree huggers” as the great satans of the working class males who occupy dying, or non-competitive industries.
And, there is a growing consumer-driven ”green” movement that is a libertarian wet dream. It achives a social good (protecing the environment) by free market choice.
If anything, libertarians should embrace and encourage this to use it as exhibit A for their ideology.
Comment by Hesiod —
July 18, 2006 @ 11:40 pm
I have to say I find it rather mystifying why libertariuans, necessarily, would find growing evidence of ”anthropogenic global-warming” to be threatening, per se.
If, as I pointed out above, it leads consumers to make individual choices in the marketplace that cut down on environmental degradation, why would libertarians oppose this? Heck, the consumer driven green movement is so powerful, it’s got the auto-companies competing hard against one another to build better and more efficent hybrid vehciles.
I can certainly understand why Republicans would have a problem with this. They care more about protecting their corporate paymasters in the (literally) Dinosaur energy sector than encouraging consumers to use less gasoline.
Comment by Gary Farber —
July 18, 2006 @ 11:48 pm
”Honing a Democratic message out West that appeals to disaffected, libertarian-minded Republicans won’t be easy.”
As I’ve pointed out, Colorado voters in 2004 elected Democrat Ken Salazar to the Senate, and gave the Democrats control of both the State House and Senate for the first time in decades. The governor of New Mexico is the fairly popular Democrat Bill Richardson. The governor of Arizona is Janet Napolitano (D).
Brian Schweitzer in Montana.
Not completely hard, then.
Western Democrats have been pleading with the national party for years to quit ignoring the West. (Sending the Democratic Convention to Denver might be a small good signal.)
Comment by vaskeli —
July 18, 2006 @ 11:50 pm
I don’t know a thing about the gun control debate, so I’m curious about how someone arrives as decision b.
How could neither the extent nor quality of crime be affected by a huge, accessible stockpile of guns?
Comment by Gary Farber —
July 18, 2006 @ 11:52 pm
Later: ”Also, Hynes claims that businessman Pete Coors lost the Senate race to then-Attorney General Ken Salazar despite being a social moderate. But while Coors was more moderate than his primary opponent — who was seen as far too socially conservative to be electable statewide — he changed his company’s insurance policy during the campaign not to cover abortions and supported an anti-gay marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
Sager neglects to note that Coors was completely savaged by the Republican establishment in the primary, because he was a ”liberal” in not hating teh gays enough, and not generally being enough of a fruitcake on all the touchstones of modern Republicanism.
As a result, he went into the general election as damaged goods, and without the support of much of the Republican establishment. The results were surprising to no one (save maybe those who believe God picks the right candidate).
Comment by Madeline F —
July 19, 2006 @ 12:50 am
Alas, I’m a Californian now, but for the first 20-odd years of my life I was a Westerner, a Coloradoan. The most irritating thing about the environmental movement was that it often seemed like colonialism on the part of the coasts. ”You screwed up your environment, so now you’re using your overwhelming masses of people to insist you know better.”
Playing West vs. East or West vs. California or West vs. Texas was almost always a winner. West vs. South… Eh, the South gets screwed over just like the West. They have issues, sure, but it’s sort of an obvious ”You kids distract yourselves fighting each other, while we continue on handling things…”
I have little idea how well the Democrats will play in the West this year, though.
Comment by Sifu Tweety —
July 19, 2006 @ 1:40 am
”How will the demographic changes Sager discussed play into environmental politics in the Rockies? Non-ranching immigrants may value environmental amenities over the land use issues that sparked the Sagebrush Rebellion of the late 20th Century. The collapse of anthropogenic global-warming skepticism may vitiate some libertarian-leaning voters’ opposition to political environmentalism.”
The nice thing about environmentalism, from a partisan perspective, is that it becomes EVER MORE OBVIOUS that something has to be done, particularly if you live near a lot of nature, or have a lot of appreciation for it.
It’s all part of the same process happening all over the west as suburbanization creeps merrily in: small-government, keep-off-my-property libertarianism, not to knock it, stops working when the population densities inch high enough. I mean, if you love the mountains or the desert, for whatever reason, would you like them to exist in some non-ranch-home non-fiery-desert state twenty five or fifty years from now? Well, no shit. When it’s obvious that is what at risk, leftwards lurches the American west.
Comment by bago —
July 19, 2006 @ 2:16 am
I remember pre-94 hearing people argue about a 2 or 4 % budget increase. Now we’re arging 20-30.
Comment by abb1 —
July 19, 2006 @ 2:17 am
But isn’t it all about the taxes in the end? I always though it was.
Republicans will borrow/spend on the military-industrial complex, the Democrats will tax/spend on the social programs.
You have to decide which one you prefer – missiles or public housing, it’s simple as that.
Comment by jlw —
July 19, 2006 @ 8:58 am
Per Sifu Tweety’s comment, who was behind the repeal of the urban boundary laws in Oregon? Just business-type Republicans, or the don’t-tell-me-what-to-do-on-my-acre libertarians?
I know it’s heresy in this tube of the Internet, but I really loved the growth boundaries. You could drive from Eugene to Portland and see something other than end-to-end sprawl. I hate to think what the Willamette Valley will look like in 20 years.
Comment by Wild Pegasus —
July 19, 2006 @ 11:53 am
Someone should point out just how much environmental degregation and sprawl is caused by subsidies and government intervention. Sprawl is a product of free or nominally-priced expressways and interstates combined with extensive zoning. Separate people from their work, play, and shopping, and subsidise long-distance commutes, and you get a lot more pollution and sprawl.
- Josh
Comment by Thomas Nephew —
July 19, 2006 @ 12:16 pm
Not entirely sure Salazar is a win for libertarian politics, liberal politics, or anything but Salazar politics, Gary; he was a reliable pushover for Alito (by voting for ending cloture, then ”voting no”), Roberts, Gonzales, the Patriot Act renewal, etc. etc. If he’s the best you all can do out there, so be it, but he’s not worth very much, and I think he’s off topic here.
Comment by CalDem —
July 19, 2006 @ 5:44 pm
I’ve been curious about the libertarian attitude toward environmental regulation for a while, it seems like a tough nut for ya’ll when there is demonstrable harm to humans.
Can libertarians stomach tradable permits and revenue-neutral pollution taxes, or are all disputes supposed to be settled via common law in the court system? In other matters I lean libertarian but living in Los Angeles I would not want vehicle exhaust etc. to be unregulated, I already get enough colds and shortness of breath during smog season.
Comment by Gary Farber —
July 19, 2006 @ 8:52 pm
”…but he’s not worth very much….”
We’ve been over this. Our other Senator is Wayne Allard; if you think Salazar isn’t worth endlessly more than Allard, or than Nighthorse Campbell, than I don’t know what to say.
Comment by Lynn Gazis-Sax —
July 19, 2006 @ 9:15 pm
I think the Democratic Party has largely solved its gun problem by ceasing any serious push for new gun controls.
At a national level, this particular not particularly gun friendly, not particularly libertarian Democrat is happy enough to see that trade-off, given that it’s hard for me to see how any national gun control measure could have the net life saving effect of not getting into a $%^## third war.
At a local level, I think that those parts of the country that have significant gun control friendly populations should be able to have local measures that are stricter than those in other parts of the country.
Comment by Thomas Nephew —
July 19, 2006 @ 11:49 pm
Gary: Yes, we’ve been over this, and you still keep touting Salazar. The question at hand is whether he is part of ”[h]oning a Democratic message out West that appeals to disaffected, libertarian-minded Republicans.” Maybe I’m wrong, but I say he isn’t. I think he is, at best, an unreliable part of a Democratic majority that might appeal to disaffected, libertarian-minded Republicans. That’s something, I’ll grant, just not much in the way of message-honing. But I agree with you that there are even worse senators from Colorado.
Comment by Kevin J. Maroney —
July 25, 2006 @ 4:29 pm
I saw some Republicans (and worse, supposed Democrats) who opposed John Kerry vigorously because he was a gun-grabber. It doesn’t matter what position high-profile candidates actually take on the issue; there is a certain body of single-issue, pro-gun voter who will not vote Democratic as long as there’s an alternative.