In this article about the potential Libertarian threat to Bush’s re-election effort (via Hit & Run) we see the following:
A senior adviser to the campaign, who did no want his name used so he could speak more frankly, said there was no concern in the campaign.
“None, none,” the adviser emphasized. “[Mr. Bush is] as strong as Ronald Regan was in 1984.”
Now, even if the advisor meant only “as strong in unifying his base of support, as immune to a third-party challenge,” this is nuts. The 2004 election is going to be much, much closer than the 1984 election was, in all likelihood. That means that even a tiny Libertarian vote total in the low two-hundreds of thousands (which is what Libertarian David Bergland got in 1984, if memory serves) could easily tilt the balance. That is, even if Bush’s base were every bit as content as Reagan’s was in 1984, Bush isn’t as immune to a third-party threat.
But Bush’s base is not as content, and wasn’t even before Iraq started going south. Fiscal conservatives in particular are not amused by the fact that spending has risen so much faster under Bush than it did under Clinton. I don’t know whether fiscal conservatives will vote Libertarian, stay home, or what. But in an age when a few thousand votes in New Mexico, New Hampshire, and Florida can decide the Presidency, and given the number of ways that different parts of the base are annoyed right now, if the Bush campaign really doesn’t think it has to worry about bleeding a few tens of thousands of votes it’s nuts. “As strong as Ronald Reagan was in 1984” describes approximately no aspects of Bush’s current position.
Update:
Just to be clear, I’m not (here at least) endorsing any particualr course of action for disgruntled fiscal conservatives. I’m certainly not endorsing an as-yet-unnamed Libertarian. And I’m not engaging in wish-fulfillment fantasies of Libertarian vote totals in the millions. I’m saying: Bush can’t afford to bleed even a few tens of thousands of votes, and if his strategists are absolutely certain that they won’t bleed that many votes to either low turnout or a Libertarian, they’re deluding themselves. If they’re counting heads, they should treat Bergland’s 200,000 as a floor, not a ceiling, for Libertarian votes; and every vote above that floor should make them nervous. (I’m assuming that this year, as traditionally, Libertarians will draw somewhat more votes from the Republicans than from the Democrats; indeed I would expect that to be more true this year, because libertarianish Republicans are so disaffected while Democrats seem pretty firmly united.)
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