More on the Political Landscape

Here’s an interesting piece from Bruce Bartlett that ties in with our recent ‘Idle Speculator’ piece on potential shifts in the U.S. political landscape. Bartlett offers a historical narrative that reminds us that, prior to stagflation and the withdrawal from Vietnam in the 1970s, libertarian activists were typically associated with the political left.  

As interesting as these speculations are however, they assume that libertarian minded voters swung the recent election, and there is no such agreement among Democrats. In fact, there is major disagreement over the reasons for their success, and ‘old left’ elements like the AFL-CIO have been very vocal in claiming the electoral mandate over more centrist and conservative members. For example, it was reported by the WSJ recently that Robert Rubin, one of the primary architects of President Clinton’s (relatively) centrist economics, received an intense grilling from some incoming members of Congress, especially on trade policy and globalization.

We expect to see these divisions laid bare in the upcoming Congressional session, and we also expect them to play a key role in determining which Democratic presidential candidates survive the early primary season for 2008. In fact, the presidential nomination will provide something of an ideological referendum for Democrats.