It's no secret that spending under Bush has soared , despite (or maybe because of) Congress being controlled by the GOP for much of his term. Federal control of education was solidified with NCLB, the Medicare part D bill was passed, government continued to heavily subsidize oil and alternative energy companies, the disastrous drug war continued unchecked, intrusive surveillance of dubious legality became commonplace. Our foreign policy switched from strong defense to spreading democracy, and the war in Iraq has sucked in billions of dollars and cost thousands of American lives in what has become an effort at nation building while fighting AQI and sectarian strife. Republicans made their contempt for libertarian principles quite clear through their actions even while they continued to pay lip service to try to retain their votes. Now, even that charade is ending.

Ron Paul is probably not the ideal libertarian candidate. He is oddly fixated on immigration, leans pro-life, and has a knack for irritating political opponents. Nevertheless, his longshot candidacy has attracted real money and attention, and he commands significant support online. The most likely explanation is that libertarian voters see him as the best candidate among those running. Given that he has (let us be honest) no chance of winning, and that most polls show the general election leaning Dem but still close, one would think the frontrunning GOP Presidential candidates would want to avoid alienating Paul supporters. One would be wrong. The other candidates, particularly Giuliani , have used heated criticism of Paul to appeal to the hawkish wing of the GOP. Now, this probably seems like safe electoral politics -- what are libertarians going to do in the general election, vote for Hillary? Giuliani is betting that at worst they'll vote for a third party candidate and so won't hurt him come November.

There are two problems with this analysis. First, libertarians actually are voting D in greater numbers, probably mostly because they are disillusioned with R politics. Second, the number of people who are sympathetic to Paul's positions is much higher than the number of vocal supporters he commands. Particularly when it comes to Iraq, polls indicate that the GOP frontrunners are outside the mainstream of American opinion. So when Paul is attacked for holding positions with which a large chunk of Americans agree, it has the potential to dissuade moderates as well as libertarians from voting Republican.

Ron Paul is attempting to tap into the online activism that propelled Dean to initial success before he imploded (with the help of the media) after Iowa. At the same time, Republicans are trying to counter the lead in internet politics that liberals enjoy over conservatives. One would think that there is a natural match here -- Republicans can increase their online share, get the Ron Paul supporters involved in their sites and then appeal for their votes/cash in the general. One would, once again, be wrong. Instead of trying to use the Paul phenomenon to their advantage, to grow the Republican presence online, the largest conservative blog (Redstate) has actually banned all promotion of Paul by new (<6 months) posters. This is a site on which GOP Presidential candidate Fred Thompson has posted repeatedly, upon which many GOP members of Congress post repeatedly. Leon (an editor at RS and a former contributer here) had a revealing anecdote :

Now, the Ames straw poll is a Republican event. Ron Paul holds lots of positions that Republicans like. So you would have expected his supporters to shout *those* things at us - "Ron Paul wants to eliminate wasteful spending!" and the like. Wrong. I heard "Ron Paul wants to abolish the IRS!" twice. The rest of the things I heard were exclusively leftist anti-war slogans - "Iraq didn't attack us on 9/11!" "Ron Paul will get our troops out of Iraq!" "No WMDs in Iraq!" It's like these people didn't even *know* how to talk in a way that doesn't tick off mainstream Republicans.

Of course, these "leftist anti-war slogans" are simply factual statements -- yet expressing them ticks off mainstream Republicans. I don't mean to overstate this, there is certainly a legitimate point Leon has about framing your argument for your intended audience. However, his perspective that Paul and his supporters should do a better job of appealing to Republican principles is fundamentally flawed -- Paul doesn't need the GOP for his campaign, which has always been about making a statement rather than winning; instead, the GOP needs Paul, to avoid losing a significant block of voters. RS should be making an effort to emphasize and discuss the points of agreement between Paul and these "mainstream Republicans" -- their actual decision is shortsighted and will hurt the GOP.

So, whither libertarians? Hillary is not an appealing candidate, I quite understand, and neither is Giuliani. It's entirely possible that if these two represent their respective parties that libertarians will have no appetizing choice and will vote third party or abstain. Or, they may have to make a decision as to the lesser of two evils, and one suspects that an increasing number of them will grit their teeth and vote D as a way to vote against R. The bigger picture here, with apologies to the hardcore libertarians, is what will happen to those moderates who are sympathetic to some of Paul's positions, and see the way he is treated by the GOP candidates and by the largest online Republican blog. They may well conclude that the GOP is hostile to their views and vote accordingly.

The GOP will regret tossing libertarians to the curb. The big tent is fracturing, the coalition is breaking apart, and the upcoming election and beyond will show the cost of Republicans finally openly expressing their disdain for the libertarian principles they pretended to support in the past but rarely did.