Soccer Dad

Il-libertarian

Rasmussen reports that Libertarians prefer Sen. Obama to Sen. McCain. (via memeorandum)

While Hot Air questions the classifications used by Rasmussen, I wonder if there might be something to this result. (UPDATE: I should point out that Hot Air makes the observation that if it's true that Libertarians prefer Sen. Obama to Sen. McCain, then Bob Barr may hurt the former even though he's vocally running against the former. That irony would be compounded if Barr's presence in the race would have the effect of turning the election to McCain by siphoning off enough votes from Obama in some states.)

Back in January, the Volokh Conspiracy asked for endorsements of the various Republican candidates at the time by Libertarians. Sen. McCain was the only major Republican not to net a single libertarian endorsement. (I noted at the time, with surprise, that my favored candidate, Giuliani even got a libertarian endorsement.) Maybe because he was deemed out of the race by then. Or maybe because McCain is really as anti-libertarian as a candidate can get.

Mat Welch at Reason has written Be afraid of President McCain. (Not everyone at Reason is frightened by McCain as Jonathan Rauch has dubbed the virtual Republican nominee "Mr. Conservative." But that's not a libertarian endorsement.) I'd also point out that the increasingly libertarian George Will has been a lot harsher on McCain than he's been on Sen. Obama.

While there might be questions about how Rasmussen classified libertarians, it would appear that there is plenty of animosity of McCain from some very public libertarians.