So in New York City, like in any large state or metropolitan area, the mayoral race is EXPENSIVE.

In fact, incumbent Mike Bloomberg is going to spend more than $100 million by most accounts. Of course, Bloomberg, who is endorsed by the Republican and Independence Parties despite having repudiated his Republican affiliation in 2007, is able to spend his way to victory easily.

The most interesting candidate, though, you never have heard of. His name is Jimmy McMillan.

Jimmy Macmillan is running for mayor on, I can’t make this up, the “Rent is Too Damn High” line in New York City.

He even made his own mayoral rap song, which you can hear on his website, about how the rent is just too damn high! Who couldn’t support this guy?

He’s spending something like $0 dollars.

You can hear his rap song, which is oddly catchy (scarily so) on his website.

Jimmy McMillan for Mayor, “The Rent is Too Damn High”

Of course, to be entirely serious, Mr. McMillan does have a very reasonable point.

Rent in New York City is too damn high! But the reason is not because of capitalism, as most in New York City would probably assume. New York City has some of the strictest rent controls in the United States, and due to a variety of land use regulations, their land value is enormously high over the market value. There’s no doubt that New York City would be a high rent market regardless of the public intervention, but it would be much more reasonable without it.

If you’re really interested in the subject of New York City’s rents, here’s an interesting article from the 1990 (New York) City Journal which talks about the enormous public works program of the city of New York.

I went to Barnes and Noble earlier to browse around, and ended up deciding to pick up a copy of Reason magazine, which I am prone to doing on occasion.

When checking out at the counter, I noticed a small display with little fliers announcing the new Barnes and Noble electronic reading device, called the Nook.

Now, let me be clear about this: I’m dry. But am I more dry than, say, a stale piece of Arizona toast? I think not.

So occasionally I can be sarcastic.

To the young thick-hipster-glasses-and-piercings woman behind the cash register, I said “What a bastard capitalism is!” as my fairly obvious copy of Reason stared at the both of us on the boring wooden countertop.

Noticing a pause in her manner, I went on further: “I bet Amazon is upset about this competition, what with their Kindle being so popular.”

Another pause. She’s slow to catch on.

Now, at this point in the non-conversation, do you simply give up? Or, trying to push on someone your self-perceived ideal of “wit,” do you pursue yet another angle to your joke?

Perhaps I believe too much in human beings, but I just had to get a positive reaction (affirming the value of capitalism) from this woman, who seemed utterly liberal even if I had no reason to believe that other than her pseudo-gothic bookstore trendiness.

“I wish the government would just own everything,” I said.

Suddenly, the hamster found the cheese. And what a cheese.

“I agree!” she burst out. Obviously not noticing the instant befuddlement on my face, she didn’t miss a beat in adding, “I voted for Obama!”

Without getting a chance to chime in myself, she continued on even further.

“Barnes and Noble is being forced to price the Nook really low to compete with Amazon,” she said with obvious disgust.

I’m not sure if I muttered anything after, but she said a bit more about the product in a skeptical-of-the-market sort of way, and suddenly I found myself on my own way.

“Holy shit,” I thought to myself as I walked away from the counter.

Yet, once I was out the door, I burst out laughing.

That’s what Jon Corzine, New Jersey’s incumbent Democratic governor, has been accusing his Republican opponent US Attorney Chris Christie of in recent weeks. The New Jersey gubernatorial election is November 3rd, so it’s getting down to the wire.

Christie is, let’s be honest, a pretty big guy. But to go after someone’s weight in a campaign is rather harsh, the sort of bottom-of-the-barrel ad hominem stuff that tends to destroy the candidates who use them.

Before I get too ahead of myself, here is the ad that Corzine has been running:

“In both cases, Christie threw his weight around as US Attorney and got off easy,” as a picture of his head which makes him look rather large is on screen.

Cut to a shot of him getting out of the car, where you see how big he is. Yes, he’s a big guy. Normally, larger candidates try to hide behind things so that they aren’t seen to be large, because larger candidates can sometimes be badly perceived by the public. I’m not going to cite anything on that, you can Google for yourself.

Okay, I said that ad hominem attacks tend to destroy the candidates who use them.

Overall, there is a strong perception in political science and among commonplace pundits that “negative ads work,” but there’s a point where it goes too far. I’m no expert on the subject, but I have a story about this.

In 2006, my very own Texas Congressional District 17 (Democratic) Rep. Chet Edwards was as vulnerable as ever. He should be considered such, as this district is the most Republican in the country that elects a Democratic congressman. The reasons for why that is are varied and far-reaching, and complicated. But suffice to say, bloody Republican primaries and Chet’s excellent media image have contributed to him leveraging his incumbency to his maximum possible advantage.

The guy that the GOP ran that year was named Van Taylor. Van Taylor was, among other things, a rich investor, an Iraq war veteran, and a telegenic all-American “family man” with young kids and a pretty wife. He didn’t even live in the district – he moved here just in time to run for Congress, and settled in West, TX, just north of Waco.

Rumor has it that Congressman Pete Sessions of Dallas, perhaps the most influential in the Texas GOP delegation, convinced Taylor to run. However it went about, however, Taylor was seen as a sort of “golden boy” on whom to pin District 17’s hopes and dreams of ousting Chet Edwards.

And in fact, it started off fairly well. Taylor, though having no significant name recognition in the district, managed to become fairly well known with a huge media campaign. In addition, he raised tons and tons of money from all over the country, as the GOP saw his seat a chance to knock of a Democrat — in a Democratic year, of course.

Taylor wasn’t the brightest guy on policy, but so what? Most people would never see the likes of the following MSNBC interview, in which he tangled with a fellow Iraq War vet who happened to be a bit more liberal. TRUST ME, you NEED to watch this if you want to know how NOT to argue anything on national television:

So we’re not talking about a guy who exactly knew the issues.

However, somehow he was able to poll fairly well against Chet and most Republicans in District 17 gave him a reasonable shot of, well, having a shot.

Which doesn’t mean much in District 17, because virtually every Republican candidate (with the exception of the last candidate, Rob Curnock) has been given “a shot.” Again, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Perhaps Van Taylor could have done something magical and knocked off Chet Edwards. Not that I would want Taylor as my congressman, but hey, he’s not Chet Edwards.

Then, at some point in the summer of 2006, Van Taylor began running heinously negative ads against Chet Edwards. Like the one that follows, makes me laugh every time:

In case you didn’t hear, CHET EDWARDS IS LYING

The first time I showed that to my father, he said “What an idiot!”

Indeed.

Taylor didn’t stop there, he ran other ads though none of them have quite the “zing” factor as the “Lying” commercial. Here’s another example, with a bizarre cinematic quality:

The lone commentator on the video mused “Nice Fox graphics,” and I must say I agree.

Finally one more ad. This one I would rank second in hilariousness to the first one, but you might even prefer it. Notice the stringing-together of two completely unrelated subjects, the hilarious graphics, and the cheesy “serious” voiceovers:

So what’s the point of the story, you ask? Well, besides giving myself an excuse to dig up (and laugh at) those old campaign ads again, the response that I heard about those videos was astounding.

See, in that campaign season I was just joining the College Republicans and had to work the phones for Van Taylor’s campaign. It didn’t take me long before I was extremely critical of his campaign to everyone that would listen, including his campaign manager, who was often at the office when I was there.

There’s a difference between “cold calling,” where you call any random person whether or not they are a Republican, and “phone banking, “list calling” or calling off of a list of known, voting Republicans. To have been there calling the phones with me and a few others, you might have been forgiven for thinking we were cold calling, and just happening upon a bunch of Democrats.

“Van Taylor is too negative. I’ve never voted for Chet but I think I will this year,” was the sort of thing I heard a lot of.

“Why can’t this campaign be more positive?”

“What is Van Taylor’s problem?”

“Chet Edwards has more class than Van Taylor,” and etc. etc. etc.

Van Taylor ended up getting absolutely trounced, 58 to 40 percent. One of the worst performances against Chet Edwards ever.

So maybe Jon Corzine will regret his fat-man fanaticism.

Friday, Barack Obama came to Texas A&M.

Though I was not invited to the speech, I did attend the “protest rally” and otherwise stick around to see the president come and go.

There were two major protest groups there. One was figured, before Friday, to be the “big protest” that turned out not to be. That would be the Young Conservatives, whose president, was in the New York Times on Thursday:

Believing his fellow students have lost their conservatism to a mix of apathy and professorial indoctrination, he has planned a rally for Friday afternoon involving costumes like Dr. Obama (a jab at the president’s stance on health care), the Grim Reaper (a less subtle jab on the same topic), and Uncle Sam (?).

Since the egg-throwing episode, Mr. Pulliam has grown determined to keep protest signs focused on policy messages. But he has little control over the nonstudent groups, the likes of the Tea Party chapters of Dallas and Houston, that have announced plans to join his protest. Though he submitted a request for space across from the auditorium, Mr. Pulliam anticipates being pushed across campus.

The Young Conservatives of Texas are indeed a wild group, a conservative sort of protest group that manages to be incredibly influential both despite, and because of, their antics. I’m friendly with most of the group, and I count a few of them as good friends, Justin included. Their protest was supposed to be insane and crazy.

Ultimately, their presence Friday was rather muted. Though they probably drew only around 50-100 students to protest Obama’s visit, they seemed to get most of the media coverage.

Likely owing in large part to his coverage by the Times Justin even had a phone interview with MSNBC before Obama actually spoke at 4pm. He was supposed to have been on Hardball with Chris Matthews but in a hilarious development, College Station is a fairly small place and doesn’t have an NBC affiliate. Therefore, they couldn’t go to a studio or bring a truck out to get the interview. Hah, what horrid luck.

No, the Young Conservatives didn’t get the “W” on attendance, that would actually go to the “Hands off Texas!” rally held jointly by the Brazos County Republican Party (of which I am a member) and the College Republicans (of which I used to be a member, an officer actually, for two years… and then was more or less ousted for wanting to make the club conservative).

The “Hands off Texas!” rally was so named, well, I’m not sure why it was named that way. One professor of mine sarcastically said the other day that “apparently, Obama is holding Texas right up to his bosom.” Well, I didn’t name it.

The GOP rally (as it will hereafter be referred to) was essentially an offshoot of the “TEA Party” movement, as it was planned by a number of people who had been involved with those events, as well as the ordinary, aforementioned involved Republicans.

Originally it was thought to perhaps end up a gigantic event. Thousands of people might come, it was speculated. Perhaps Glenn Beck or a similar talk-show host might show up! That was a few weeks ago. As of earlier this week, expectations were tempered significantly. Most people within the county party, and even the more optimistic College Republicans, were guessing that at most, perhaps one or two thousand might show up.

Of course, that didn’t stop the (journalistically sloppy) student newspaper The Battalion from quoting College Republicans Chairman Danny Stevens as saying there might be 5-10,000 people at the rally.

Danny told me that he was misquoted, and he was so furious about it that I have a hard time not believing him. Also, considering how many people I know have been either misquoted or taken out of context by the Battalion (myself included), it’s not without precedent.

In any case, only around 500-600 people showed up at the rally. It was difficult to say precisely how many were students and how many were TEA Party activists and Republican activists, but I would wager that between 20 and 30% were students at any given time. A number of students would stick around for a while and then leave. Also, some of the Young Conservatives of Texas came over to the rally.

I spoke at the GOP rally, for perhaps 15-20 minutes. I covered a broad range of topics but more or less stuck to economics (of course). For the most part, I covered the bailouts, General Motors, and TARP (specifically, the fact that not all of TARP has been spent yet).

What I failed to realize when writing up this little speech (as I usually don’t write my speeches) was that much of the crowd at hand would not really care too much about the economic specifics, and even simple figures are a bit too mundane for a rally of this kind. I realized this because I somehow got roaring applause for certain lines that were not really meant to get roaring applause; and for lines which were supposed to get the loud cheers and whatnot, those often didn’t.

Which got me thinking even further, what is the nature of political activism in this country? Where is it that this country stands on so many issues, as far as the general population is concerned? Do I expect every person in America to understand economics as an academic would, or to realize that polemicists make horrible arguments and shouldn’t be emulated? Of course not.

But do I expect a “higher level” of debate? Yes! I cannot help but to think that Friday, I might have very well lowered my own standards a bit for what is, and what is not, appropriate argumentation. Of course, you have to have a “stumpness” to any sort of speech in front of a gathered crowd like that, I mean the point was to protest Barack Obama’s policies.

Well, so it goes with second-guessing myself.

Overall, the speech was well-received.

Hmmm…. I guess, I got to see Barack Obama wave as he was leaving. That was kind of neat.

Perhaps later I’ll go through and tell a few more specific things about this whole ordeal of Obama’s visit.

Anyway, so it goes with protesting.

Great article just posted over at Reason.com about the ridiculous Federal Housing Administration:

Given the collapse in real estate prices, the weak economy, and the epidemic of foreclosures, banks are acting with more caution than before. They now commonly require home buyers to make down payments of 20 percent to qualify for a loan. But the FHA often requires only 3.5 percent.

That’s the equivalent of playing pool with a guy named Snake, and it’s had two predictable effects. The first is that the agency is insuring about four times as many home loans as it did just three years ago. The other is that the number of FHA-approved borrowers who are not repaying their loans is climbing. Since last year, the default rate has jumped by 76 percent.

Of course, comrades, hopefully we can all collectively agree that nobody should challenge the compassion and unquestionable dedication of the government’s policies towards “increasing homeownership” under the headline of “affordable housing.”

The housing crisis is hilarious. Politicians who puff out their chests and bellow that “the market failed!” miss, either on purpose or out of sheer ignorance (my guess is the latter) that government policies created the housing boom – and set up the subsequent bust.

Although the FHA was a fairly small player in the bubble, it is but one of a myriad of bad policies which encouraged the collapse in the first place. And besides, FHA really is more symptomatic of a broad consensus in government that “affordable housing” is worth society’s while, damn the consequences.

But is that the case?

I’d argue that perhaps if we just let people rent and save for down payments, although they might not get to live in that shiny new suburban house as soon as they’d like, they would at least be financially solvent and actually own the house.

I don’t care what anyone says, if you have a mortgage on 97% of your house, you don’t really own the house. Ownership comes when you have a stake in something, and if the market was truly fluid in housing, most people who had poor credit histories and low incomes would have to pay a significantly higher percentage down.

And really, what’s wrong with that? With responsibility?

Anyone want to take bets on how soon FHA is bailed out? I’ll take the under on a year…

Laugh Out Loud.

So the Senate Finance Committee voted on Max Baucus’ disaster of a health care bill. No real surprises except… Olympia Snowe voted yes. That may not be shocking in and of itself, but perhaps more rousing is the bizarre rhetoric she used to support the bill.

From the AP:

“When history calls, history calls,” said Maine Republican Olympia Snowe, whose declaration of support ended weeks of suspense and provided the only drama of a 14-9 vote in the Senate Finance Committee. With her decision, the 62-year-old lawmaker bucked her own leadership on the most high-profile issue of the year in Congress, and gave the drive to remake health care at least a hint of the bipartisanship that Obama seeks.

She went on to say, in essence, that something had to be done now.

I guess I never realized that imminent health care legislation that would destroy the healthcare economy is “history calling,” but that’s not what’s significant here.

The whole “OMG! DO SOMETHING!!!!111″ attitude of politicians in the last couple of years is interesting for two reasons.

First of all, the things over which the bureaucrats are hastening are not things that need to be rushed, or even touched at all. The healthcare bill fiasco is but one very recent example of something better left to the market for which there is a rush to intervene. A better example are the bailouts of last year.

A financial market that was so overloaded with bad credit that it NEEDED to collapse and renew itself through the natural business cycle. It needed to purge the companies which had made risky decisions and reward the conservative investors. It did nothing of the sort, because the government got there first.

Nancy Pelosi, George W. Bush, and both Democrats and Republicans, be they “conservative” or “liberal” in Congress, united to screw over the taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of billions. In addition, they set the precedent for Obama to “stimulate” even more.

Secondly, the “rush to action” or “calling of history” as our friend Olympia would say, is always absent when it comes to the actual imminent crises!

For example, how many politicians are really calling for the dismantling/complete overhaul of Medicare and Social Security? I can count them on my two hands, and many of you probably can, too.

So we have trillions upon trillions of these program obligations that are about to hit us like a ton of bricks, coming conveniently at a time when foreign countries are starting to doubt the dollar’s status as the world reserve currency. In other words, we can’t print our way out of this one!

Where are the committees, the AARP ads, the editorial-page hooting for THAT important issue?

Ultimately, Olympia Snowe is only a symptom. A quiet, moderate Republican senator from Maine certainly isn’t the problem. But what she represents – bureaucratic arrogance – is a plague upon our country’s integrity. It exists far and wide, in localities and states and federal branches.

It is in large part this simple thing that those of us who believe in liberty must do our best to combat.

The dragon is not sleeping in the global recession, says the Wall Street Journal:

Chinese leaders are concerned that their nation’s enormous economic expansion is becoming an excuse for foreign suppliers to inflate commodity costs. So, they hope to use their three futures exchanges to fight back.

Government officials say the country is positioning its futures markets to be major players in setting world prices for metal, energy and farm commodities. By letting the world know how much its companies and investors think goods are worth, China hopes to be less at the mercy of markets elsewhere.

If you aren’t sure what reaction to have to that, then let me nudge you a bit:

Heh. Unfortunately, this is no laughing matter.

China is starting to see what the United States is largely blind to: its future depends on being more open economically, its influence depends upon how its market actors flex their economic muscle. Despite its glaring official Communism and political oppression, China shows more signs of understanding the significance of markets than American politicians… and perhaps most Americans (I think we know the answer there, but I’m hesitant to admit that). Granted, China is no capitalist paradise. However, is it hard to see that America and China are moving in opposite directions, and that it isn’t America moving towards a bright future?

Beijing believes hosting big futures markets will enhance the country’s economic security by essentially advertising what the world’s biggest customer for some commodities considers a fair price. For the rest of the world, the exchanges could mean less guesswork about China’s buying habits, possibly reducing volatility in the global market. Already, copper and soybean suppliers shift output toward or away from China depending on how its futures prices are moving. Increasingly, traders say, Chinese futures appear to drive price trends elsewhere, particularly in metals like copper.

An expanding list of 21 commodities traded on China’s exchanges includes many of the goods imported in vast quantities by the world’s fastest-growing major economy. China buys 10% of all crude oil, 30% of copper output and 53% of the world’s soybeans, according to Barclays Capital.

Boring statistics, I’ll admit. But their importance should not be overlooked. The simple fact of the matter is that China has a bigger role every day in global markets, and every investor in the world is affected. The bigger their futures markets, the more the price of what you eat, drive, watch or listen to, etc. will be affected. Commodities affect everything. Commodities fuel the market.

The most interesting bit is this:

American consumers are already feeling China’s buying power in commodities. In 2007 and 2008, markets were gripped by a belief that surging car ownership in China and other developing countries was destined to drive crude oil ever higher. That thinking helped send oil futures soaring in New York to a peak of $147 a barrel in July 2008. American drivers saw the average price of gasoline rise 85% between late 2006 and July 2008. Then, worries about global recession pushed gasoline prices almost two-thirds lower last year.

Summary: China has us by the balls.

If they can whip our economy around by simply increasing speculation about a future rise in commodity prices, then we’re really in for it. Markets go up and down based upon speculative worries all the time… but this is a single country.

Plus, the Chinese government has an enormous role in these futures markets. Many of the leading firms are either government-owned or government-sponsored. Which, as the Journal puts it, “makes the government both player and policy maker.”

That’s something to say shiiiiiiii….. to.

From the New York Times:

Even as President Obama leads an intense debate over whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, administration officials say the United States is falling far short of his goals to fight the country’s endemic corruption, create a functioning government and legal system and train a police force currently riddled with incompetence.

Interviews with senior administration and military officials and recent reports assessing Afghanistan’s progress show that nearly seven months after Mr. Obama announced a stepped-up civilian effort to bolster his deployment of 17,000 additional American troops, many civil institutions are deteriorating as much as the country’s security.

Afghanistan is now so dangerous, administration officials said, that many aid workers cannot travel outside the capital, Kabul, to advise farmers on crops, a key part of Mr. Obama’s announcement in March that he was deploying hundreds of additional civilians to work in the country. The judiciary is so weak that Afghans increasingly turn to a shadow Taliban court system because, a senior military official said, “a lot of the rural people see the Taliban justice as at least something.”

The real question, then, is whether Obama is going to “double down” and toss even more of our military resources at Afghanistan. The supposed “anti-war” candidate sure doesn’t seem to have all that much gusto when it comes to halting a war that has, at the present, become nothing less than an exercise in nation-building. Who can forget also, that Pakistan is not off the table? Obama has spoken at length about pursuing Osama bin Laden in Pakistan…

Quite a paradox for the devoted Obama boosters who claimed that Bush’s reign was the pinnacle of American war-making.

Aha!

Perhaps the socialists, the fascists, and the partisans thought they could bring me down but –ha!– here I am!

Well, that’s a bit over the top. The truth is that I have been rather busy over the last year or so since I last maintained this blog. Unfortunately, as things go, a blog often falls to the very bottom of a priority list.

However, the times in which we live are too significant for me to not have some sort of an outlet for all of my political thoughts and frustrations.

Whether or not the rest of the world cares, well, as we say in Texas – I could give a damn.

I’m going to keep the old posts up because perhaps a few of them have some redeeming, time-tested value. Certainly a few of the economic posts are things I won’t be writing in such depth about again, at least, not in the near future.

New for the New Old Right blog:
- Audio podcasts
- Possible video podcasts?
- Obviously, more frequent posting and I’ll be more accessible to answering questions about conservative/libertarian “Old Right” philosophy.
- At some point, I’d love to do a few more “Obama’s Promises.” As we have seen in the last several months, Barack Obama is hell-bent on increasing the size and scope of government. He’s even doing a better job of that than the previous worst offender, George W. Bush!

You’ll start seeing more posts here, and I hope that you stick around and check back every so often. Chime in if you have something to say, lest you fall into the “quiet acceptance” or “passive disagreement” crowds!

Thanks, and God Bless,

Jess.

Richard Viguerie sends me a lot of e-mail.

By having been a donor to Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, an attendee of CPAC, then an alternate to both the Texas and National Republican Conventions, I apparently got on a lot of lists for conservative things. No wonder I’m so hesitant to put my e-mail anywhere!

Anyway, Viguerie is an interesting guy. He is best known for basically creating political direct-mail, going back as far as the Goldwater movement, something that helped many conservative Republicans win elections in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

Reason just did an interview with him, and you may find the interview at this link. It’s interesting to hear from someone who represents an entire swath of the Republican party that has been left out in the cold: economic conservatives, libertarians, non-interventionists, etc. He also represents the one area in which most Republicans have been conned into accepting the status quo Republican leadership: “cultural conservatism.”

I have no problem with cultural conservatism; I embrace it. To a large extent, I am a cultural conservative. As a Christian, many of my personal beliefs about social issues are pretty conservative.

However, because I so distrust the power of the state to coerce individuals, I don’t make a huge deal out of gay marriage or other such issues. Abortion is one that I care a great deal about, but in abortion, there is no voluntary consent. Gay relationships are between willing individuals harming nobody but themselves, and even if I find it morally wrong, there are plenty of other things that are wrong in society that probably are worth more attention.

Who really cares to prosecute homosexuality? Who really wants to enforce a ridiculous law against sodomy (which Texas had, remarkably, before a 2003 Supreme Court case)?

Marriage is not the province of the state. But that’s the subject of another post, sometime later.

Anyway, Dick Viguerie. He’s got some interesting things to say, particularly about having religious/cultural conservatives in the Republican Party:

reason: You were key in bringing the religious right into the conservative political coalition in the 1970s. Do you still think that culture and values issues are key to conservatism?

Viguerie: When I started in politics in the late ’50s, Republicans would customarily get 45 to 47 percent, not often 51. In those days the base of the GOP to a large extent sat on a two-legged stool: anti-communism and fiscal responsibility. Then in the late ’70s when the Moral Majority formed and the Republicans began to bring the religious right on board, everything changed. Then Republicans would get 51, 52, 54 percent of the vote.

The left screams and yells about the separation of church and state, how it’s terrible the Republicans use religion as a wedge issue. But they complain because it has allowed conservatives to be as effective as they have been in the last 30 years or so. It’s the only part of the Republican Party where there really are ground troops. The Left has different minority groups, unions, any number of groups that serve as ground troops and Republicans don’t, other than the religious right leaders, [who are] the only ones with any troops out there. Economic conservatives don’t have troops on the ground and are not organized in the way values voters are.

So values voters, social conservatives, continue to be vital to the GOP. Look at Ohio. We know in ‘04 Ohio was the difference. Bush beat Kerry by 120,000 voters there with the same sex marriage issue on the ballot, and religious value voters worked to carry Ohio. McCain got [nearly 200,000] votes less than Bush did, because religious voters didn’t turn out, their leadership wasn’t engaged as they were for Bush. If values voters don’t turn out, it’s going to be very difficult to elect Republicans.

On some level, I think he’s absolutely right.

Yet, he is also absolutely incorrect about “values voters” and why the GOP needs them. These “values voters” can be persuaded to take a more liberty-minded view of things. After all, didn’t God give us free will? Some of you atheists might rather say that such rights are inherent, but the point is that religious voters tend to be of the mindset that things like objective, natural rights do exist and ought to be protected by government.

The area in which many libertarians feel that cultural conservatives are harmful to the Republican Party is in the area of laws that legislate morality. On most counts, I would agree, but having most religious conservatives recognize that legislating morality is tantamount to unjust government coercion is not impossible.

Especially when you tell someone who is a cultural conservative about the truly secular, insensitive, unfeeling nature of government action, and how government steals from some individuals to give to others. If you combine politicians and government agencies of all sorts, perhaps every one of the Ten Commandments has been broken, regularly, by the U.S. Government.

It should not, then, be that hard to tell people who are of a more religious political persuasion about liberty. Nor should it be an unwelcome chore: anytime we may bless people with the real knowledge of freedom, shouldn’t we?