They do take some from the rats (unlike the Constitution party), single issue potheads mostly, and some wouldn’t vote at all, but I think it’s hard to argue they don’t take significantly more from us than from them, looking at the results bares that out in my opinion. Their ideology is closer to ours than to the rats, I never hear of fed up rat voters thinking about voting Libertarian this year. Those of them on the Internet are mostly Ron Paul worshipers.
My personal opinion comes in part from past exit polls showing that third parties (of any stripe) end up drawing fairly equally from each of the major parties.
Didn’t that special election in FL recently bear that out? I’m sure there are exceptions to that.
Here’s an example for you - Karl Denninger (love him or hate him). market-ticker.org
He is a libertarian and is on the record as voting for Obama. He, like many libertarians, hate both major parties.
I think a lot of classic liberals have defected to the libertarian side over the Patriot Act and NSA surveillance. Rand Paul is having a lot of success hammering the NSA on college campi - which makes me scratch my head.
Kids are incensed over the government accessing their phone and email accounts, yet think it’s just fine to have government know intimate details of their sex lives and their right to have government provide their means of contraception.