The Country Thinker

Obama should be concerned.

Thoughts on Politics

William McGurn had an inter­est­ing edi­to­r­ial today regard­ing Rick Santorum’s social con­ser­vatism and its por­trayal in the media. I agree with McGurn that San­to­rum comes across as sin­cere on social issues, and when he says mar­riage is between a man and a woman, he believes it. That is why the lib­eral media so fright­ened of him. (His gen­uine­ness on social issues stands in con­trast to his sup­posed con­ver­sion to fis­cal and eco­nomic con­ser­vatism; no one is tak­ing the Bush-​​era Key­ne­sian big spender seri­ously on these issues.)

Obama, McGurn notes, also says that mar­riage is between a man and a woman, yet it does not elicit the same media uproar like it does when San­to­rum says it. McGurn believes the rea­son is that no one in the media believes him—it’s just a throw­away line to keep from cre­at­ing rip­ples in the heartland.

Obama’s prob­lem this time around is Lib­er­tar­ian can­di­date Gary John­son. He has made it clear that if gov­ern­ments are going to license or reg­u­late mar­riage, the Con­sti­tu­tion requires same sex mar­riages to be treated on equal foot­ing with het­ero­sex­ual mar­riages. Obama may agree, but he won’t say it aloud, and more impor­tantly, won’t do any­thing about it.

So Obama’s disin­gen­u­ous­ness has put him between a rock and a hard place. John­son is actively court­ing a demo­graphic that Democ­rats have long taken for granted. Tired of sit­ting on the back burner, many LGBT vot­ers are enthu­si­as­tic about the first seri­ous pres­i­den­tial can­di­date to embrace their vote-​​turning issue as his own. So either Obama is going to have to change his cam­paign trail stance on same sex mar­riage and risk anger­ing the “bit­ter clingers,” or he will lose a large chunk of a vot­ing bloc that was safely his four years ago.

The same goes for the mar­i­juana legal­iza­tion crowd. Obama has sent mixed mes­sages about mar­i­juana, such as say­ing that treat­ment is a bet­ter option than incar­cer­a­tion, but still says it should remain ille­gal (?). Worse, lead­ers of the mar­i­juana legal­iza­tion crowd are peg­ging him as “worse than Bush” and “worst pres­i­dent in his­tory” regard­ing med­ical mar­i­juana. John­son, on the other hand, has made it per­fectly clear that he wants mar­i­juana legal­ized and reg­u­lated like alco­hol. For the folks at NORML and other groups for whom mar­i­juana legal­iza­tion is a vote-​​turning issue, John­son is a clear choice from a Demo­c­rat who has let them down like so many before him. Again, another vot­ing bloc taken for granted by the Democ­rats is grav­i­tat­ing toward the Lib­er­tar­ian candidate.

And don’t for­get the peace vote. Obama promised to get us out of Afghanistan, but what did he do? He ordered a surge! Plus, he’s keep­ing “all options” on the table vis-​​á-​​vis Iran, includ­ing ground troops and a Bush-​​era plan to use air strikes to destroy not only the Iran’s nuclear capac­ity, but their entire mil­i­tary as well. The pres­i­dent has blown his cred­i­bil­ity with the peace vote, and they know who the true for­eign pol­icy con­ser­v­a­tive (non-​​interventionist) is—Gary Johnson.

But the largest Obama demo­graphic John­son is cut­ting into is the youth vote. Younger vot­ers were over­whelm­ingly in the Obama camp in 2008, but now both Ron Paul and Gary John­son are mak­ing major head­way with this group. Many younger vot­ers have told me they will switch their alle­giance to Gary John­son when and if Ron Paul con­cedes. Oth­ers are wait­ing for Ron Paul’s endorse­ment, which hope­fully will be for Gary John­son. (It’s too late for Dr. Paul to make an inde­pen­dent run, although he could con­ceiv­ably run on the Amer­i­cans Elect ticket.)

So Gary John­son is poised to pick off a large chunk of vot­ers who would likely have voted for Obama in Novem­ber (assum­ing he gets the LP nom­i­na­tion, of course, which seems extremely likely). Part of this is Obama’s fault; he has might­ily dis­ap­pointed some issue-​​specific vot­ing blocs. In the case of the LGBT vote, he won’t even stand up for their hot-​​button issue, even though many think he secretly sup­ports their cause.

Those of us in the Gary John­son camp know that this elec­tion isn’t about “any­body but Obama.” It’s about “any­body but Obama, Rom­ney, San­to­rum, or Gin­grich.” It’s about get­ting the coun­try off the wrong track and get­ting it on the right track. By neces­sity it means empha­siz­ing lib­er­tar­ian poli­cies that appeal to the base of both halves of the “Big Two.” In some cases it means embrac­ing the vote-​​turning issue of peo­ple who have never had a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date stand up for them before.

And have no doubt, Obama’s folks are watch­ing the grow­ing John­son cam­paign closely.

This arti­cle is also posted at Polit­i­cal Real­i­ties.