My strongest opposition to Hillary (or any other Dem) lies in the entrenched bureacracy. Think of those who have blithely leaked national security secrets in a transparent effort to undermine the president at a time of war. The very same people would be empowered/rewarded by a Clinton administration. Rudy has a record of taking on such bureaucracies. I relish the thought of him vs. the State Department, with him letting them know that THEY don’t set policy (no one elected them).

That’s muscular right-wing speak for military activity.

Actually, its right-wing speak for no more Cambodias.

Anyone who is not a troll with a lame argument would respond to what I actually wrote.

Interesting, though, that in your world, “principled” is a militarist buzzword.

I only know one person who voted for Nixon.

His first victory was not a landslide; he drew 43.4% to Humphrey’s 42.7%.

Nixon was paranoid. But he was an outsider who was never comfortable with the national elite.

Clinton is paranoid too. (Note the recent comments by Clinton consigliere Sid Blumenthal, insisting that the blogosphere’s takedown of Dan Rather’s bogus Air National Guard documents was entirely directed by Karl Rove and his staff. Why does he say that? Because that’s exactly how the Clinton machine would have done it.)

And she combines that with the arrogance of an elite insider. Bill and Hillary are rock stars among the “tranzis”, the Hollywood crowd, Big Media, and the academic left. While Bill was AG and governor in Arkansas, Hillary was sitting on corporate boards and collecting on insider deals.

If there is a Clinton II Presidency, it could well be the most corrupt in our history. And the most incompetent: liberal economist Brad DeLong served in the Clinton health-care “task force”, and came away with the belief that

Hillary Rodham Clinton needs to be kept very far away from the White House for the rest of her life.

And the most wrong-headed. Hillary’s first adult political activity was defending the Black Panthers; she interned with Robert Treuhaft, a far-left lawyer who was a Communist much of his life; her personal associates today are all fashionably left-wing. (But fashionably left-wing: think “trustafarian in a Che t-shirt bullying the staff at a luxury resort”.) Every bad idea rattling around the Left today will get a sympathetic hearing in the Clinton II administration, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience their wealthy friends.

Long term observers of Clintons have noted a long pattern of Nixonian political practices. Nixon, remember, was well thought off enough to win elections in a landslide twice ( and probably should have won a third in 1960) yet his inability to resist using any dirty trick in order maintain power doomed him. The Clinton’s follow the same pattern.

The Hsu scandal shows that the Clinton political machine pays next to zero attention to who they get their money from or what their agenda is. This is a pattern going back decades. Such an attitude is very dangerous. The same sense of arrogance and infallibility that dogged the first Clinton administration will dog the second.

Nixon waltzed to office twice in landslides. Yet his presidency failed and we’re still paying for it. I am not eager to repeat that.

No. The two parties are shifting coalitions composed of factions, interest groups and ideologiclally motivated people. They cooperate to get part of what they want through a process of negotiation and horse-trading. ANY interest group can find a home in one party or the other, unless it is so radical that it will always alienate more voters than it will attract. A faction can take over a party if the things it wants to do can appeal to enough voters.

The model is the original conservative movement, which took over the GOP starting in the mid-1950s. From around 1954 to Reagans victory in 1980 was 26 years; from 1954 to the GOP taking over the House in 1994 was 40 years. These things take a long time. But they can be done.

Let me try to summarize the argument for the sake of discussing it. Tell me if I’m wrong.

1. US democracy is based on a two-party system where third parties have little if no chance to gain meaningfull representation. Right now the two major parties are the Republican and the Democratic.

2. Considering that Hillary Clinton is most likely to become the Democrats’ candidate, and considering that Hillary, for her track record on morals, policies and practices, is absolutely unnaceptable as choice for conservatives/libertarians, said conservatives/libertarians are forced to vote for any GOP candidate as less-worse option.

3. (l)ibertarian policies are not popular enough to amass enough support for changing the hegemonic position of both parties, which tend to refuse their adoption.

As far as 1. and 2. go, I guess there is not much conflict between our positions. I beg to differ on 3.. Firstly, it is not just a matter of standing for libertarian policies, but for conservative ones as well. As an outsider, I must say it is hard to look at the GOP and find a strong stance on basic (conservative) issues such as abortion, free trade, eminent domain, foreign policy, and so on. Even regarding the war against terror, I am not sure what Rudy or McCain stand for. Furthermore, I don’t think Lex has given enough indication that Rudy would see through the nomination of conservative judges, as he claims. Bush had more reason to do it and hesitated once. If this is all so, Reps may end up as undesirable as Dems. Look at Nixon, for a good example.

Secondly, at least regarding some of these issues (abortion, gay marriage, etc.), the American electorate seems to be predominantly conservative. I am trying to find some data on the acceptance of libertarian policies, without much success. Free trade would be my first focus, but relations with China seem to be souring the libertarian position. My guess is that most Americans are against eminent domain decisions, though. (It is just a guess, I admit.) Furthermore, I have the impression most Americans would support a restriction on public spending, lowering of taxes rates and simplification of the current filing system (even some sort of sole tax VAT policy?).

If this is so, at some point some sensible leadership, from conservative or libertarian stock, should be able to capitalize on these issues within the GOP or from a third party perspective. If such leadership does not exist, maybe the problem is indeed, as Lex points out, one of strategic positioning and guts, instead of systemic, two-party-related one. Certainly, it would take time to convince the American electorate to support these policies. But this is my emphasis exactly: it has to start at some point, and it might as well be now. Too bad I am not a US citizen.

I should note that my argument applies, though I think to a much smaller degree, to Giuliani as well as Clinton. The argument that Giuliani is a jerk and will therefore be effective against our enemies is, I think, weak. However, I think that there are other reasons to favor Giuliani. And I hope that I am wrong about Hillary. I think that she is about as bad as they come in the context of national American politics. But if she is elected I hope that she will do the right things. And maybe she will. But, as I wrote above, I would rather we not have to find out if she is up to it.

The labels stay the same. The contents change depending on who is promoting policies.

Political parties exist to win elections, periog. They adopt and change and discard positions to the extent they believe those positions will help them win elections. It is up to libertarians to find policies that are popular enough that they will help candidates win elections. Unless and until they do that, their ideas will only exist on blogs and in beer-soaked kvetch sessions — not that those are not fun in their own way. If the libertarian approach were popular enough to win a lot of elections, it would come to define the party. If the ideas are inherently unpopular, as I think they unfortunately are, then it is a matter of picking issues one at a time and promoting them, where there is the chance of progress, or damage control.

But I increasingly don’t buy this. The Republican Party doesn’t help libertarians make their case. Fusionism got comparatively little.

I refuse to believe that the United States is stuck with the Republicans and Democrats for the rest of its entire history. And I think that small-l libertarianism has a shot at being sold if it is attempted – the Republican Party won’t do so because it is now run by Establishment figures who are fat, dumb, and happy.

Words like “sometimes” are clearly not important modifiers to you; they are to most of us.

Jonathan can defend himself but I find a comment that ends “tick tock” to be offensive and out of place – especially from someone who has clearly not bothered to read Jonathan’s succinct post. What makes you think that is the appropriate tone for comments? What are the conventions of places in which you usually make your arguments?

This is a simplistic and insulting characterization of leaders and voters in democratic countries and I suspect that it would be typical of whoever would make this characterization to make the corollary, that people who do not hesitate to do what has to be done in tough situations are unscrupulous.

But hey, that’s just me.

How about you provide a list of examples from history to back up this condemnation?

In other words, provide some evidence from history to assert that given the opportunity to vote for strong, forthright, principled people, voters in democracies chose instead unscrupulous people and did so because they wanted to get something done.

Tick. Tock. Still waiting …

Right. The small-l libertarians need to become a more effective and convincing faction within the GOP — improving the lesser evil is the long-term proposition. Third parties don’t work in our system, since it is winner-take-all in election. You always have two parties, each one a bundle of factions. If you have views that cannot by themselves command a majority, you must affiliate with one of the two big parties and try to get things done on a case by case basis. That is the program. It beats what exists most places.

In contrast, Obama is remarkably honest for a politician, because he has a lot less to lie about, most notably his Iraq position. I don’t agree with him, but I also don’t see him sticking his finger in the air before bravely voting for a popular war, and then sticking it up again before bravely denouncing the now-unpopular war with weasel words like “Bush misled us into war” (Clinton’s way to get everyone to hear “Bush lied” without unambiguously making such an unsupportable claim).

I have no more in common with the positions of Mr. Obama, and his qualifications are slightly more marginal than those of Ms. Clinton. Further, he is a naif. But a naif can reasonably be expected to learn. A crook cannot reasonably be expected to become honest.