Mike Kole, this year's Libertarian candidate for Secretary of State, and Kyle McDonald, Libertarian Party of Indiana Executive Director, were on WXNT's Abdul in the Morning show this morning. Indiana Licensed Beverage Association Executive Director Brad Klopfenstein was the guest host.
At least a couple of callers strongly suggested that the Libertarians had caused the Republicans to lose in many races and blamed the Libertarians for the Democrat's ascension.
I only heard a part of the hour Mike and Kyle were on the air, but they had two responses I heard:
1.) Republicans did it to themselves by wasting 12 years claiming to be fiscal conservatives but instead failed to control their spending;
2.) About 1/3 of Libertarian activists are former Republicans, 1/3 are former Democrats and the rest are independents or non-voters.
Here is some other interesting information on Indiana races in which a Libertarian ran, as the LPIN begins to study the results:
1.) Pursuant to polling conducted in early November by WHAS in Louisville on the US House District 9 race, about 1 of 5 planning on voting for Libertarian Schansberg were conservative, and about 4 of 5 planning on voting for him were liberal. The logical conclusion - Libertarians prevented Republican Sodrel from losing by as much - or conversely, Libertarians prevented Hill from winning with a larger margin of victory.
2.) Initial studies of the Indiana Senate District 41 race show that Gividen did slightly better in Democrat precincts than he did in Republican precincts.
3.) Initial studies of the Indiana House District 20 race show that we took heavily from the Democrat, who was one of the few Democratic candidates running in that area to not win.
My conclusion - the Republican loses are self-inflicted - blame yourselves. Meanwhile, the Libertarians will continue to grow as more and more voters in the center find their home with us.
Radio station WXNT 1430 AM is in Indianapolis.
2 comments:
How can Libertarians take votes from Republican candidates when the votes belong to the VOTERS and not the candidates?
Such hubris is why the Republicans lost.
Many of the whining callers convinced me that they are more interested in the success of the Republican Party than they are in the advancement of liberty. One blamed the Libertarians for handing the election to the Democrats, thereby enabling socialism.
That's some Grade 'A' wilfull ignorance for you. Who authored the largest entitlement in history? Who brought us more complete federalization of education with No Child Left Behind? Which president lost his veto pen? Which president is now going to capitulate on minimum wage?
Blame all these on Libertarians if it helps you sleep at night, but if you prefer intellectual honesty, you'd have to concede that the Republicans have done the most to advance socialism in the last six years.
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