Led by Rand Paul, libertarians hope to become a dominant wing of the GOP. Libertarianism goes mainstream

Stereotyped for decades as pro-pot, pro-porn and pro-pacifism, libertarians are becoming mainstream.

Fair or not, Ron Paul epitomized to a swath of voters the caricature of a goofy grandpa who invests in gold, stockpiles guns, sees black helicopters whirling overhead and quotes Friedrich Hayek.


His ride into the sunset — combined with an evolving electorates’s move away from hot-button social issues — gives a new libertarian guard the opportunity to rebrand their governing philosophy as more reasonable, serious and compatible with the Republican Party.

Led by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), libertarians hope to become a dominant wing of the GOP by tapping into a potent mix of war weariness, economic anxiety and frustration with federal overreach in the fifth year of Barack Obama’s presidency.

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The country’s continuing fixation on fiscal issues, especially spending and debt, allows them to emphasize areas of agreement with conservative allies who are looking for ways to connect with Republicans who aren’t passionate about abortion or same-sex marriage. A Democratic administration ensures consensus on the right that states should get as much power as possible.

Ron Paul, who has been speaking at college campuses since retiring from the House to Texas at the end of the year, feels that more Republicans are either engaging or co-opting the ideas he spent a career espousing on monetary policy, foreign policy and civil liberties.

( PHOTOS: Libertarianism goes mainstream)

“The viewpoint of the libertarian is we’ve been doing the wrong thing for a long time,” he said in an interview. “The group that’s in Washington now is going to have tremendous opportunity because there’s a lot more disenchantment.”

“It’s better late than never,” he added.

Paul and his allies see the re-examination of their ideas as a return to the Republican tradition. The party nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964, who was by any modern conception one of them. Ronald Reagan proclaimed in a 1975 interview that “libertarianism is the heart and soul of conservatism.” But small-government westerners were not enough to forge a winning coalition, so the former California governor cozied up to Southern evangelicals ahead of 1980.

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“Libertarian became a bad word in Republican circles when it became a political party associated with libertine ideas – meaning you can do whatever you want, you’re not grounded in moral behavior or adherence to certain traditions,” said Jesse Benton, who chaired Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign and managed Rand Paul’s 2010 Senate race. “Republicans value individual liberty, and that means cost-limited constitutional government and respect for individual empowerment rather than an empowered state. In many ways, as libertarianism expands in the party, we’re getting back to its basics.”

Perhaps the biggest opening for libertarians comes in foreign policy, where the traditionally muscular GOP doctrine is undergoing a sea change. Fritz Wenzel, who has polled for both Pauls, said the electorate has little appetite for international adventurism in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There will not ever be a single Republican Party ideology,” he said. “That said, there’s no question that the libertarian spirit of the Republican Party is growing in influence. That’s because [voters] feel there is a greater threat to freedom – to their individual freedoms and the freedoms of future generations.”

“They’re coming back to core values, and a lot of these core values are reflective of what has come in the modern era to be libertarian values – an emphasis on freedom, security and privacy,” he added.

This crew believes demographics will work to their advantage. They see a generation coming of age that was too young to fully experience the Sept. 11 attacks yet saw the effects of a major recession and two wars.

“The libertarian message of self-reliance resonates with younger voters,” said another Republican strategist who has worked with the libertarian forces. “Ron Paul tapped into that.”

Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s senior strategist in 2008, said libertarians were always one of the important pillars of the party but the balance within the coalition got out of whack when President George W. Bush signed an act of Congress intervening in a custody dispute aimed at keeping Terri Schiavo alive despite being in a persistent vegetative state.

“This is a manifestation of big government conservatism that a lot of people are uncomfortable with in the Republican Party,” Schmidt said. “The [libertarian] movement has thus far been defined in many ways by what it is against rather than what it is for…In both parties, you have to pass a threshold test of seriousness.”

Rand Paul is aggressively trying to pass that test and unite the various factions. He’s taken a series of steps to distance himself from his father’s most unpalatable positions, from articulating a more nuanced position on the drug war to taking a harder-line on national security and more vocally professing his opposition to gay marriage and abortion. The junior Kentucky senator will give high-profile speeches in Iowa and New Hampshire this May.

“Maybe he delivers the message a little bit better than I ever did,” the elder Paul acknowledged.

These are not your father’s libertarians. The rising generation is more pragmatic than the last. They don’t just want to make a point; they want seats at the table.

More realize that The Libertarian Party is not the vehicle to win elections. Ron Paul ran as the nominee in 1988, winning 432,000 votes or 0.47 percent of the overall vote. In 2008 and 2012, he passed on pursuing the third party’s nomination – recognizing the futility of a quixotic bid but also mindful of the damage that would be done to his son if he cost a Republican candidate the White House.

After failing to catch any fire in the Republican race last year, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson ran as the Libertarian candidate and got 1.2 million votes, or 1 percent. Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr ran for president as a Libertarian in 2008, but he just announced that he’ll run for the House again in 2014…as a Republican.

Paul loyalists felt shut out by state parties in 2008. So, in 2012, they organized and used the rules to their advantage to make inroads in Republican states parties in places like Iowa, Maine, Nevada and Alaska. These insurgents recognize America has a two-party system and that they can maximize their influence by playing inside the GOP.

Now that they are inside the tent and trying to broaden their appeal, many libertarians put much less emphasis on purity. Most of the Paul boosters on the 168-member Republican National Committee, for instance, agreed in January to support the re-election of Chairman Reince Priebus over a less-qualified candidate who had backed Paul – a sign of maturity and a willingness to cooperate.

“The laws force us to use the political parties, but they’re totally controlled by the insiders of the two parties,” the elder Paul said with some frustration. “In many ways, they’re irrelevant compared to changing people’s minds and attitudes.”

He recounted Richard Nixon’s infamous declaration as president that “we’re all Keynesians now” – an embrace of the idea that government can stimulate the economy by increasing spending.

“We’re all Austrians now,” Paul pronounced with a sense of looming triumph, a reference to the school of economics that most values the free market.

“We have a tremendous opportunity,” he added. “It’s been refined, and we’re able to deliver this message like never before with the use of the internet.”

Libertarians have described themselves for years as part of “the liberty movement.” Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), a Paul disciple, wants to get away from this.

“It’s a sizable portion of the Republican Party now,” the 32-year-old rising star said. “The other parts of the party are actually shrinking, and that’s been part of their trouble in recent elections…The establishment-type Republicans, the ones who have really controlled the process here for the past 10 to 20 years, are the ones who have narrowed the base to the point where we have a very difficult time winning national elections.”

Looking to win elections again, many in the party establishment have become more welcoming since November. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, facing a competitive reelection in Kentucky, has hired Benton and developed a close relationship with Rand Paul.

Others are reaching for the Paul mantle in their own way. “Truth be told,” Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) said in a fundraising solicitation for his Senate bid last month, “except for foreign policy, Ron Paul’s voting record and mine are virtually identical.”

Still, clashes will be inevitable as the balance of power shifts.

“Look, the Republican Party isn’t going to change,” former Sen. Rick Santorum said last month. “If we do change we’ll be the Whig Party…We’re not the Libertarian Party, we’re the Republican Party.”

Sara Taylor Fagen, White House political director under George W. Bush, said both parties naturally go through growing pains when they lack an incumbent president who can keep activists marching in one direction behind a common set of goals.

“The longer you go without a successful presidential coalition, the harder it gets,” she said. “There’s enough economic calamity ahead at the federal government that the libertarians and the Republicans really have no choice but to be together to save the country from fiscal ruin…but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be entirely pretty as its coming forward.”

In the wake of Mitt Romney’s defeat last fall, even Washington Post columnist George Will said the 2016 Republican nominee needs to tilt “toward the libertarian side of the Republican Party’s fusion of social and laissez-faire conservatism.”

Liberty for All is a Super PAC co-founded by a millionaire in his early 20s who helped freshman Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) win an upset in his primary last year with a huge infusion of cash. The founder, John Ramsey, plans to invest heavily during the 2014 cycle in state legislative races – especially in places that vote early during the presidential nominating season. The idea is to build a bench and a network to boost other libertarian candidates down the road.

“Let them get their feet wet,” Ramsey said. “It makes a lot of sense to allow them to gain some traction early rather than just try to run for a big office right out of the box.”