The Odd Case of the Undecided Fiscal Conservative/Social Liberal
By Daniel Larison • October 13, 2012, 12:37 PM
The undecided voters quoted in this James Fallows post don’t have very good arguments for their indecision.
For example, I’m fiscally conservative, but socially liberal. So my quandary is choosing which set of policies are more important to me, and to the country, this time around.
Gary Johnson would seem to be the most obvious candidate for this voter, but Johnson’s name is never mentioned and a third-party vote is never even raised as a possibility. I take this as one more piece of anecdotal evidence that “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” Republicans are not meaningfully “libertarian.” When presented with a credible Libertarian candidate as an alternative, these voters will tend not to support him despite the apparent unacceptability of the major party candidates. If someone truly is “fiscally conservative and socially liberal,” he certainly should vote for Johnson, but the vast majority of those that describe themselves this way will typically end up backing a Republican ticket that doesn’t represent their stated preferences in the slightest.
