Pollster John Zogby sees Libertarian Gary Johnson having an impact on younger voters nationwide

Writing in Forbes, pollster John Zogby notes that President Obama will have a more difficult time capturing the youth vote ("First Globals") this time around because

. . . hard times and the growing libertarian leanings of young voters will make them a more difficult target than four years ago.

While Zogby predicts that a majority of these voters will still cast ballots for Obama, he sees their turn-out being depressed, and a potentially significant minority defecting to . . .

John Zogby

Very few of Obama’s young supporters from 2008 are likely defect to Romney. Some may not vote, and I see the possibility of others abandoning both parties and instead choosing the Libertarian candidate.

Although Zogby believes Ron Paul would make a more effective candidate than Governor Gary Johnson, he nonetheless believes that with this youth defection from Obama, Johnson could become a significant factor in the General Election:

Young voters have been the energy behind Ron Paul (remember him?) He is still in the GOP race for President, apparently looking to impact the party platform. Had Paul chosen to be the nominee of the national Libertarian Party, he would have had the biggest impact of any third party candidate since Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996.

Libertarians meet this week to choose their Presidential ticket. Gary E. Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, who briefly ran for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, is the most likely nominee. He wants to legalize marijuana, and that is what the media will likely most focus on.

Johnson expects to be on the ballot in all 50 states. That will be his chief resource. I don’t expect the debate commission will give him a chair alongside Obama and Romney. But the Internet will give him access to the many First Globals who aren’t keen about either major party choice.

How would this be significant?

While most Republican strategists worry about Libertarians tipping a swing state like North Carolina way from the GOP column, Zogby thinks that the exact opposite is a possibility:

Should any battleground states be decided by one or two points, the Libertarian candidate could tip the balance. In an interview with the New YorkTimes, Johnson said he expects to take more votes from Obama than Romney. We’ll see.

Once again we are confronted with the possibility that the Gary Johnson/Jim Gray ticket could be on the verge of an LP breakthrough.

But once again it has to be said that this will only occur if the campaign plots a strategy that is all at once focused, imaginative, and realistic, rather than engaging in the haphazard campaigning that has afflicted LP candidates in the past.

Comment Rescue (?) and child-related gun violence in Delaware

In my post about the idiotic over-reaction to a New Jersey 10-year-old posing with his new squirrel rifle , Dana Garrett left me this response: One waits, apparently in vain, for you to post the annual rates of children who either shoot themselves or someone else with a gun. But then you Libertarians are notoriously ambivalent to and silent about data and facts and would rather talk abstract principles and fear monger (like the government will confiscate your guns). It doesn't require any degree of subtlety to see why you are data and fact adverse. The facts indicate we have a crisis with gun violence and accidents in the USA, and Libertarians offer nothing credible to address it. Lives, even the lives of children, get sacrificed to the fetishism of liberty. That's intellectual cowardice. OK, Dana, let's talk facts. According to the Children's Defense Fund , which is itself only querying the CDCP data base, fewer than 10 children/teens were killed per year in Delaw

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici

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