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Random Election Tidbits to Tide You Till December

NaNoWriMo is upon me, and so I am unlikely to be posting much more until December. And given that I am increasingly convinced that the novel is going to be a worthless piece of crap (hopefully that’s just the perfectionist in me), I probably won’t post excerpts of it here (maybe in my currently unused LiveJournal, but no promises).

I still have a long to-blog queue, so rest assured I’ll be a-blogging a-plenty again in December, so check back then. But before I take my leave, let me say one last word on the election (who am I kidding, a helluva bunch of words). Let me first clarify my stance. Despite my Case Against Bush post, I do live in California, which is not a swing state, and unless the polls get really close here, I am most likely to vote for Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik (although I might still write in Tyler Cowen — or John McCain, as fellow SFBayBlogger and NaNo’er Rich Thomas is planning to do), not John Kerry. So I guess you could consider me in the “Anybody But Bush” camp. So I would vote for Kerry if I lived in a swing state.

Also let me further clarify my case by reprinting a part of one of my comments from Winds of Change:

…let me reiterate that an argument in favor of the Iraq war is not necessarily an argument in favor of Bush. Even if you think invading Iraq was the right thing to do, a politician doing the right thing for the wrong reason should not be very comforting. For example, if you are a free trader, you probably shouldn’t vote for a politician who cuts steel tariffs because he hates steel workers and wants to kill them all (not trying to smear Bush here, who, remember actually imposed steel tariffs). Such a politician is not likely to make good decisions in other areas of policy.

This was the whole point of my tax cut example. Let’s say you are a Keynesian (which I am not), in which case, you believe that the government should try and mitigate the business cycle by cutting taxes and increasing spending during recessions to fight unemployment, and raising taxes and cutting spending during expansions to fight inflation. Should you take comfort in Bush’s cutting taxes during a recession? No. Why? Because he gave every indication that he’d have cut taxes even during an expansion.

What you have is not a Keynesian, but a President who switched from supply-side language to Keynesian language merely because circumstances changed, making it more politically convenient for him to switch. Not surprisingly, the policy itself bears little resemblance to a tax cut designed to spur demand, which is not surprising given the tax cut’s origins and intent. Indeed, Bush also talked about cutting taxes on dividends and capital gains. While this is all and well when you are trying to stimulate investment and savings on the supply side, it works against you if you are trying to stimulate spending and demand (especially in a recession that was caused by excess inventory, or supply).

Now, doesn’t this sound very familiar in regards to Bush’s shifting choice of arguments and language for the Iraq war?

I went on to address other specific points, but that was the gist of it.

Also, since that post, several notable endorsements have finally come down the pipe. Dan Drezner has come out in support of Kerry and Armed Liberal in favor of Bush, neither of which was all that surprising. Also, via HedonistiX (who supports Bush), The Economist, a center-right publication, is endorsing Kerry. All of them with great reluctance, as might be expected when plurality forces you to pick the lesser of two evils.

And, of course, in a tremendous shock to nobody, Giblets endorses Giblets, and not with any reluctance, but with great gusto. Hmm. I might have to reconsider my Tyler Cowen vote.

Most of those posts don’t really say anything you probably haven’t seen elsewhere (in particular, Dan Drezner has been fairly influential on my own point of view — in fact, maybe I’ll write him in as Tyler Cowen’s Vice President!). But an alternate point of view that I’d like to bring your attention to is from Jane Galt, a fellow moderate libertarian, only much smarter, taller, prettier, and more articulate than me. After a series of posts asking commenters to argue for their guy, she finally settles on Bush with a lengthy explanation that goes policy-by-policy. I think Bush’s decision-making process is unusually deficient, which to me is enough to trump everything else, but she merely finds it worrying.

Of course, she lives in New York, which is not a swing state, so I didn’t try to persuade her to vote for Kerry, but for Michael Badnarik. However, she has repeatedly explained that she’s not voting for him because he’s “a barking moonbat.” Of course, I already responded to this point back when Kevin Drum made it, but Jane doesn’t read my blog. <sniff> Maybe I should keep referring to her as “the ever-effervescent Jane Galt” like our future president is often wont to do?

The ever-effervescent Jane Galt did once respond to a comment I made at Drezner’s blog a while back, where she argued that Proportional Representation wouldn’t help libertarians:

…We tend to forget that while proportional representation would give us more power, it would give equal amounts of power to the folks who oppose us. It won’t do libertarians much good to get a seat at the table if Uncle Ralph and Cousin Pat have seats at the other end.

The problem libertarians have isn’t politicians, and it isn’t the structure of the government; it’s that the majority of voters don’t agree with us. There’s no good shortcut to convincing them, slowly and painfully, that we’re right.

I think the ever-effervescent Jane Galt is wrong in this case, and I have a lot to say about Proportional Representation, but that’s probably not till about Part 5 or 6 of my series on Electoral Reform, and I’ve only written up to Part 2 so far. So in the meantime, I’d like to direct you to this excellent piece by libertarian Paul Hager that echoes most of my thoughts in response (it’s kinda long, but hey, you won’t be reading me for a whole month). His message to libertarians in particular is as follows:

• According to polling data, there are enough philosophical libertarians for the Libertarian Party to become a major party co-equal with the Republican and Democrat parties.
• After 30 years, our candidates still only get 2% (if that) in three-way races.
• Libertarian Party membership in Indiana and nationally has been declining since 2000.
• Existing and new campaign finance laws make it impossible to fund third party campaigns and will cripple the ability of the national party to even function.

I explained that the problem wasn’t our message. Republicans who were philosophically libertarian won in two-way races. The problem was the voting system. If we focused on fixing the voting system so it no longer favored a two party system, we would have a fighting chance to become a major party. If we didn’t, the party was going to die.

Hopefully I’ll expand and illustrate this further, but for now, I’ll have to get back to the book. See you in December! If you start suffering from fling93 withdrawal, try checking out my About Page which also has a list of my best posts.

Oh, and if you want my advice, remember to write-in Tyler Cowen and Dan Drezner when you vote tomorrow! Well, unless you’re in a swing state (gawd, how I hate the Electoral College), in which case, I’d have to recommend holding your nose and voting for John Kerry.