22. Shailagh Murray and Jeanne Cummings,
to Separating the Liberals from the Conservatives,"
"Democrats Tap a Rich Lode: Young, Well-Off
National Journal, May 8, 1982. National Journal is still
Social Liberals," Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2004.
publishing this rating every two years. For a liber-
tarian, however, the ratings are almost useless;
23. Stephen Moore and Aaron Steelman, "An
National Journal defines such interventionist mea-
Antidote to Federal Red Ink: Term Limits," Cato
sures as busing, automobile regulation, and food
Institute Briefing Paper no. 21, November 3, 1994.
stamps as "social liberalism." Also, because the
magazine determines the conservatism or liberal-
24. "16 Percent of Voters Are Libertarian, Poll
ism of a vote on the basis of who votes for it, not its
Says," NewsMax.com, September 8, 2000.
substantive content, in the Bush years measures
such as the Medicare prescription drug entitlement
25. Opinion Research Corporation, "Public
are counted as "conservative." See, for instance,
Attitudes toward Current Political Issues," study
Richard E. Cohen, "How They Measured Up,"
conducted for the Clark for President Committee,
National Journal, February 28, 2004, pp. 61344.
ORC Study #69134, Princeton, NJ, May 1980, pp.
12223. ORC asked these questions of 1,217 peo-
9. Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks, It
ple as part of a large survey of adults aged 18 to 40
Didn't Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the
for the Clark for President Committee. It also
United States (New York: Norton, 2000), p. 30.
asked them of 2,105 people as part of a larger sur-
vey of the total public. The survey described liber-
10. Herbert McClosky and John Zaller, The American
tarianism this way: "Libertarianism stands for
Ethos: Public Attitudes toward Capitalism and Democracy
maximum individual liberty as well as for the
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 2.
least possible government involvement in peo-
ple's personal behavior and in the activities of
11. Richard Hofstadter, The American Political
business." After being read the definition, 20 per-
Tradition (New York: New Vintage, 1972), p. xxxviii,
cent of the public said that they agreed strongly
quoted in McClosky and Zaller, p. 3.
with that point of view, and 43 percent agreed
12. Samuel P. Huntington, "Postindustrial Politics:
somewhat.
How Benign Will It Be?" Comparative Politics, January
26. "In Search of Ideologues in America," Pew
1974, p. 188, quoted in McClosky and Zaller, p. 5.
Research Center Poll Analysis, April 11, 2006, http:
13. McClosky and Zaller, p. 20.
//pewresearch.org/obdeck/?ObDeckID=17.
14. Ibid., p. 18.
27. American National Election Studies, The ANES
Guide to Public Opinion and Electoral Behavior,
15. Pew Global Attitudes Project, "Views of a
19482004, http://www.electionstudies.org/nes
Changing World 2003," June 3, 2003, Topline Re-
guide/nesguide. htm.
sults p. T-42, http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.
php?Re portID=185.
28. The observed increase in the libertarian vote
from 1992 to 2004 is significant at a 99 percent
16. Cass R. Sunstein and Stephen Holmes, The
confidence level (t-stat = 3.559).
Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes (New
York: Norton, 1999), p. 216.
29. Using a two-tailed t-test, a statistical test used
to compare changes across two samples, we can
17. Lipset and Marks, p. 82.
say the observed libertarian swing between 2000
and 2004 is significant at a 99 percent confidence
18. McClosky and Zaller, p. 5.
level (t-stat = 3.0136).
19. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/page
30. Using Pew data--which employed a different
s/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html.
callback methodology in 2004--we find that a
majority of libertarians voted for Kerry, 56 to 44.
20. That's a much smaller margin for smaller gov-
However, Pew did not conduct the survey in the
ernment than most polls show. Three other polls
2000 election, so Pew data do not permit a trend
in 2000 and 2004 found "smaller government
analysis to confirm the trend observed in the
with fewer services" preferred by margins of 59 to
ANES data.
26, 57 to 32, and 64 to 22 percent.
31. ANES researchers grouped terrorism responses
21. Using ANES 2004 data, we find 29 percent of
to include "terrorist bombings/hostage-taking;
Kerry voters answered "the less government the
political subversives; revolutionary ideas/approach-
better." Kerry received about 59 million votes: 29
es; Homeland Security mentions; the war against Al
percent of that is 17 million voters.
Qaeda; Islamic terrorists or extremists."
24