Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Ron Paul: Transpartisan Political parties always adapt to shifts in popular sentiments. If they don't, they die.by William Westmiller
(libertarian)
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Ron Paul is certainly a Republican, but his libertarian inclinations have gained traction within the party and his enthusiastic supporters could remake the American political landscape.
Over the past decade, voters have slowly abandoned the two major political parties by registering as independents or affiliating with minor political parties. Nationally, more than a quarter of the voting population has abandoned the historic majors. As independents, they are now a plurality of voters in ten major states. The "transpartisan" population, those with no fixed commitment to either the Republican or Democratic Parties, will be the deciding factor in many elections over the next decade.
With those transpartisans, and most of the country's voters, unhappy with "the way things are going," it's no wonder that every presidential candidate is running on a "change" platform. The open question is: "What changes whether they will change the direction of the parties and the nation?"
A large majority of voters disapprove of the Iraq War, so foreign policy may be one of the issues that needs an "advocate for change." Yet, all the Republican candidates, save one, want that war to continue, even for the next million years. Leading Democratic candidates seem to waffle on the issue, as their party leaders have for the past year. Ron Paul is the only candidate who agrees with the majority of Americans in both parties, as well as most independents, that U.S. foreign policy must change. He appeals to partisans to follow the course of "Mr. Republican" Howard Taft and the Founder's pleas to avoid "entangling alliances," but he also finds common cause with anti-war Democrats and independents. His position goes beyond the partisan party boundaries.
On several other issues, there are partisan splits and even splits within the parties. The emphasis varies on social and economic issues, as well as foreign policy. The Nolan Chart gives us a guide to the shifting political axis. The "left-right spectrum" is represented by the horizontal axis, from liberal to conservative.
The new dimension is the "statist-libertarian spectrum" that goes from bottom to top. What makes the diamond shape is the amount of liberty that candidates and voters advocate on economic (bottom to left) and personal (bottom to right) issues. The premise is that the "left" seeks 100% personal liberty and 0% economic liberty, while the "right" is 100% economic liberty and 0% personal liberty.
There are always variations of sentiments in each sector, but the Chart gives us the 0-0 liberty position for "statists" and the 100-100 position for "libertarians". On this version of the Chart, I've placed pictures of the current (and some past) candidates for President. For those who have held federal office, the position is dictated by the "Liberty Index" of the Republican Liberty Caucus. For others, it is based on their stated positions on the primary issues.
As is evident, the Republican candidates tend toward the upper right and Democrats toward the lower left. What this means is that the current axis of sentiments among the American voters has shifted from a left-right range to one that is slightly inclined toward the top-bottom of the Chart. The distribution of representatives in Congress gives a goodindication of this "tip" from left-right to bottom-top over the past decade. Until September 11, 2001, the political landscape had almost totally shifted to the statist-libertarian axis. Since then, it has drifted back to the left-right axis of earlier decades. [Note that the Liberty Index is not "tipped" like the Nolan Chart used here. Libertarians are on the upper right and the quadrants are divided into smaller segments.]
The key to political change is that the range of sentiments among voters tips, but always goes through the middle, "Centrist" area. This is considered the "moderate" average of the entire voter distribution. Don't confuse centrists with transpartisan technocrats who disdain party labels. They tend to be statists, believing that they can make big government work, if only the parties would set aside their principles and cooperate on pragmatic fixes for a broken system.
On the left-right political spectrum, the extremes are variations of communism (left) and fascism (right), which seek to use government force for their own purposes. We can describe them with less inflammatory words, but it's essentially a "class conflict" analysis: "poor v. rich," "labor v. business," or socialism against corporatism.
With that background, we can look at the current crop of both Democratic and Republican candidates. On the Democrat side, the candidates ranged from the "statist" John Edwards (very close to 0-0 on both economic and personal liberties) to Dennis Kucinich on the far left. As is the case in almost any election, the extremes fall away in favor of the "middle ground" for each party. Democrats cluster along the bottom-left line, which is to say between "statist" and "liberal," with almost no interest in economic liberties. The core of their principles requires government redistribution of wealth and control of all economic resources. Their only disagreements are on the "personal liberty" side, where they range from total government control to 100% personal liberty. On the basis of their Senatorial votes, Barack Obama is slightly less statist than Hillary Clinton.
On the Republican side of the chart, there are a wider range of choices, although they tend toward a centrist conservative line. The two most popular candidates, John McCain and Mitt Romney, are centrists. They favor the current "moderate" amount of government. Neither is really in the "conservative" quadrant, which is notably vacant. Mike Huckabee tends toward conservative, but favors a larger government intervention in both the economic and personal spheres. Fred Thompson had good "libertarian" ratings while he was in the Senate, but tended to be "conservative" on social issues. Of course, the withdrawn candidates are "fading away" from the contest, and the Chart graphic.
Which brings us to Ron Paul, who is certainly "out of the mainstream" of our current political culture. He favors a maximum amount of economic liberty, which is why he's called "Dr. No" for voting against every tax increase or expansion of federal government power. At the same time, he favors almost complete personal liberty (with some diversion from standard libertarian positions toward the "conservative" side). He opposes unwarranted wiretaps, national ID cards, drug wars, and lifestyle legislation. He doesn't fit anywhere in the traditional left-right spectrum, although he tries to use Barry Goldwater's "conservatism" (actually very libertarian) as a token for his own positions. He's the only candidate who can claim a personal political endorsement from Ronald Reagan.
Unlike the statist technocrats, Paul is "transpartisan" in the sense that he blends the liberty themes from both parties and both ends of the left-right spectrum. He favors maximum economic liberty (like the extreme conservatives) and maximum personal liberty (like the extreme liberals). He is certainly an advocate of liberty, which is what makes him a libertarian.
The intriguing question is whether Paul's advocacy will have any effect on the "tilt" of the Republican Party. Is it moving away from the hard-right "conservative" end of the spectrum, toward a more libertarian inclination? It's too early to tell. However, the absence of a "real conservative" in the race seems to suggest that the axis has already shifted from the centrist-conservative axis to a centrist-libertarian axis. The general election campaigns of either McCain or Romney will stand firmly on "centrist" grounds, rather than strong conservative issues. That is necessary because of the growing number of "moderate" and unaffiliated voters who have abandoned the Republican Party, at least partially because of the strong "statist" positions of President George Bush.
The current political reality is that the vast majority of Americans consider themselves "fiscally conservative and socially liberal," which suggests that they want more economic liberty and more personal liberty, not less. If that moves Republican campaigns into a major "tilt" of the political axis, from center-right to center-libertarian will depend on how well they communicate their libertarian sympathies. It's a winning formula. Sadly, Ron Paul was just a little ahead of the times. Nevertheless, he has moved the debate and exposed millions to the message of individual liberty and greater freedom. That's a step, possibly a big one, toward changing the political axis of the American electorate.
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The views expressed in this
article are those of William Westmiller only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. William Westmiller is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
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Over the past decade, voters have slowly abandoned the two major political parties by