The libertarian wedge, it doesn't move

Another episode in the Republican crack-up. Is the libertarian vote up for grabs? Does it matter? Will they swing against the Republicans? Clive Crook has the goods. This guy can write.

And how much effort are these voters worth? Although it is true that the libertarian vote is up for grabs, in other ways it is a tactically unappealing target, because it will always be up for grabs. With a social conservative, or an anti-market statist, you know where you are. It is worth investing in those kinds of voters -- not in changing their minds, of course, because you cannot do that, but in persuading them that you have moved to their side. But you will never turn a libertarian into a loyalist of any party.

That is not all. Because they are skeptical not just about government but also about politics and the people who devote their lives to it, libertarians may be disinclined to get out and vote. The commentators who have recently been arguing for divided government, saying that it is better to have a weak, do-little government than a government, whether Left or Right, with the ambition and the capacity to do lots of big things, certainly have a point. But unfortunately that temperament is close to the one that wearily says, "I cannot be bothered and want nothing to do with this process." Disenchanted and few in number: Why spend limited resources on reaching them? Libertarians are disenfranchised for a reason.

The American idea -- expressed in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution -- is quintessentially a classical liberal idea. It is all there: Limited government; checks and balances; civil liberty and economic liberty. Libertarians won those arguments, but they have been on the losing side for about the last 70 years.

Today's main political battle is between those who want to run the economy from Washington and those who want to dictate the country's morals from Washington. (George Bush's Republican Party apparently wants to do both.) And we libertarians should not delude ourselves: If this is true, it is not because politics is letting people down but because most Americans feel comfortable in one or the other of those camps. As long as only one in 10 people reject both of those ideas, the choices facing the electorate will continue to be about as inspiring as the choice that presents itself on November 7.