The Myth of the 'Values Voters'

Frist managed to prove how deep their myopia was at the same time p***ing off some 12 million predominately young people with his Unlawfull Gambling Act, covertly slipped into the Port Security Bill in the dead of night. I suspect this was one reason for the much higher turnout among the 20-34 year old crowd.

Not that I doubt you, but do you have any links for sources?

KDD, thank you very much for the links found in comments# 161 & 162 about how the GOP managed to blow it

I don't want to flog a dead horse here. But one final comment on data like these, which ties into what I have been saying on the thread previously.

Do not suppose that because a voter agrees with a single libertarian position (in this case, online gambling), that they are a libertarian. E.g. the swing women I mentioned before, who take a "leave me alone" (libertarian) stance on abortion but are "nanny-state-here-we-come" on a wide range of other issues.

Now, take the 2-3% of voters who may have voted because of online gambling in a couple of congressional races. Before I called them "libertarians", I would have to see data that suggests a smaller government attitude would inform the rest of their voting. If they were younger voter's I suspect you will find that 2/3rds of them think tax increases for the very wealthy and Campaign Finance Reform are really good ideas. It is certainly possible this was the emergence of a young libertarians voting bloc in Arizona. But it is just as possible that it was a bunch of typical statist youngn's who like to gamble on the internet.

neverdem, we don't disagree about the R's blowing it. My main beef with this thread is the notion that this was a libertarian revolt in 2006 that made any measurable difference. All the data I see, both here where I collect it and nationally, strongly suggest this was a micro-issue election with no particular ideological trend. The one common factor is that R's annoyed about 2% of the electorate (who switched parties when they voted or the equivalent percentage in folks who stayed home) and that there were a whole lot of different reasons they switched or stayed home. It was not a "libertarian" revolt. That is media spin.

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