How can the GOP broaden its base? I like what David Boaz, Executive Vice President at the Cato Institute, writes comparing Jeb Bush to Rand Paul:
Both Jeb Bush and Rand Paul are talking about broadening the appeal of the Republican Party as they move toward presidential candidacies. Both say Republicans must be able to compete with younger voters and people of all racial backgrounds. Both have talked about the failure of welfare-state programs to eliminate urban poverty. But they don’t always agree. Bush sticks with the aggressive foreign policy that came to be associated with his brother’s presidency, while Paul wants a less interventionist approach. Bush calls for “smarter, effective government” rather than smaller government, while Paul believes that smaller government would be smarter. Perhaps most notoriously, Bush strongly endorses the Common Core educational standards, building on George W. Bush’s policy of greater federal control of schooling.
Boaz, author of The Libertarian Mind, also writes in Time:
In studies that David Kirby and I have published at the Cato Institute on “the libertarian vote,” we have found that only 2 to 4 percent of Americans say that they’re libertarian when asked. But 15 to 20 percent – 30 to 40 million Americans – hold libertarian views on a range of questions. The latest Gallup Governance Survey finds 24 percent of respondents falling into the libertarian quadrant, matching the number of conservatives and liberals and up from 17 percent in 2004 and 23 percent in 2008. And when asked in a Zogby poll if they would define themselves as “fiscally conservative and socially liberal, also known as libertarian,” fully 44 percent of respondents – 100 million Americans – accept the label. Those voters are not locked into either party, and politicians trying to attract the elusive “swing vote” should take a look at those who lean libertarian.
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