I've been taking some mild flak the last few days for my quasi-endorsement of Obama, by which I mean that I currently support him, and would support him over any other potential major party nominee. However, I may yet decide to go with the LP nominee in the general election, depending on how things play out between now and November. To reiterate, though - I have no illusion that Obama is himself a libertarian in any way; however, I believe he is more genuinely open to libertarian solutions than any candidate of recent vintage, particularly on social and civil liberties; on economic liberties, he appears far better than any Democrat in many years (though I hasten to add that in effect, the Clinton presidency wound up being quite pro-market).
In any event, my sentiments appear to be seconded by Cosmo's Brain, who has gone even more whole-hog for Obama than I have. Cosmo also hits on a theme that I've been striking with increasing frequency of late: the Republicans are no longer a good home for libertarians.
Money quote:
I have come to learn something very important about the Republican Party and libertarians: the big tent welcomes libertarians only when it suits their convenience to do so (which is about every even numbered year). When those same libertarian principles Republicans champion are applied to issues like drugs or morality, then Republicans do not want to hear what libertarians have to say. Rudy Giuliani believes in expansive executive power; Mitt Romney is more pro-business than pro-free market (somebody should tell Mitt that being a businessman and being an economist are not the same thing); John McCain would gladly sacrifice civil liberties in the name of “clean government;” and Mike Huckabee, well, he is a statist who calls himself a conservative.
Later tonight, I think I will try to start a compilation of libertarian, libertarian-ish, and small government bloggers currently supporting Obama.
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