A lot of Americans identify as libertarians

An analysis published by the Cato Institute on January 21 offers a variety of statistics to support the notion that Americans are becoming more libertarian, and that they are becoming more comfortable with the word "libertarian" itself. I thought this study was very interesting, and I encourage you to take a look at it.

According to the study, a 2006 Zogby poll posed the following question to a sample of voters: "Would you describe yourself as fiscally conservative and socially liberal, also known as libertarian?" Apparently 44% of the respondents said "yes"! That's very encouraging to me, because I had thought the word "libertarian" was scary or confusing to most people. I doubt that all of those 44% really have political views that I would describe as libertarian, but I think it's great that they feel comfortable with the libertarian label.

The authors of the study used a different poll to determine how many voters are actually libertarian. According to their criteria, about 15% of voters are libertarian. I think one of the most important jobs of the Libertarian Party is to make sure that libertarian voters are voting for Libertarian Party candidates. There is a lot of untapped potential out there.

Obviously, the Republicans and Democrats in Washington are not making voters happy. Fewer and fewer voters are identifying as Republicans or Democrats.