ILYA SOMIN, a law professor at George Mason, takes up one of the urgent questions of our age : which libertarian-leaning Republican bucking for the GOP presidential nomination, Ron Paul or Gary Johnson, ought libertarian-leaning Republicans and Republican-leaning libertarians prefer? Mr Somin makes a strong case for Mr Johnson, an ex-governor of New Mexico, citing Mr Paul's "very nonlibertarian positions on free trade, school choice, and especially immigration", in addition to his penchant for unusual interpretations of the constitution, and his past association with racists

Writing earlier this month in The Daily, Shika Dalmia nicely captures the contrast:

Like Paul, [Johnson] is anti-war, anti-big government and pro-civil liberties. But unlike Paul, he is pro-choice (except for late-term abortions), pro-immigration, pro-trade and untainted by bizarre conspiracy theories that NAFTA is a prelude to the dissolution of North American borders. Nor does he have Paul's racist newsletter baggage. His signature issue is not abolishing the Fed or returning to the gold standard. Rather, it is avoiding the impending financial collapse by cutting government spending on everything by 43 percent—Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and defense—a plan bolder than any that either party has proffered.

Moreover, unlike Mr Paul, Mr Johnson has racked up executive experience and a sterling record as governor of the Land of Enchantment. As Ms Dalmia relates:

Johnson cut in half the 10 percent annual growth his state budget had been experiencing. He vetoed 750 bills, a third of them Republican, privatized government services and trimmed public-sector employee rosters. He lowered taxes and still exited with a tidy budget surplus.

That sounds pretty good, if you ask me. So here's my question about Mr Johnson. If he's such a great libertarian-leaning Republican candidate, why isn't the allegedly libertarian-leaning tea-party movement crazy about him? I think Ms Dalmia inadvertently hit on the answer:

Johnson is no populist. His strategy is to make pragmatic arguments for liberty. Thus he defends his embrace of immigration and opposition to the war on drugs, not on first principles but on fiscal grounds. He doesn't give lectures on the importance of open borders to individual liberty. Or offer discourses on “your life, your choice” to defend drug use. Rather, he appeals to voters' common sense. As governor, he tackled the illegal immigration issue by demonstrating that illegals pay more in state taxes than they consume in services. Likewise, he emphasizes how the drug war sucks up massive law enforcement dollars without reducing use.

Ms Dalmia goes on to say, "This is a savvy approach because it allows him to be more pro-liberty on more issues and reach more people, especially independents for whom putting America's fiscal house in order is a top priority." Similarly, Mr Somin maintains that Mr Johnson is more politically viable than Mr Paul. I disagree with both of them. I think Mr Johnson's gentle pragmatism, far from giving him a clear shot at independent voters, leaves him without a natural core of highly-motivated supporters.

As governor, Mr Johnson showed that a non-ideological, pragmatic libertarianism can work as a governing philosophy. But neither full-blooded libertarians nor allegedly liberty-loving tea-party enthusiasts really care much about governing. Libertarians, accustomed to dwelling on the margins of American politics, participate in elections without hope of electoral success, if they participate at all. For them, presidential campaigns offer at best an occasion to preach the libertarian gospel to the wary public, and the more table-pounding the better. As for the tea partiers, they seem less interested in practical policy solutions to America's problems and rather more interested in fighting a culture war over what it means to be authentically American. Unless ostensibly liberty-loving conservative voters become convinced that the sensible liberalisation of drug and immigration policy is implied by the inspired language of the Constitution of Independence, the eagle will not soar for Mr Johnson.

The elements of Mr Paul's past and creed that Mr Somin, Ms Dalmia, and I find objectionable are not really liabilities. They are an important part of what makes "Dr No" a candidate capable of generating surprising amounts of enthusiasm and campaign cash, if not votes. Mr Paul and the tea-party movement are each in their separate ways creatures of Cold War-era conservative-libertarian "fusionism", which remains a powerful ideological and institutional force on the right. In contrast, Mr Johnson comes off as a post-fusionist, libertarian-leaning fiscal conservative. The very existence of such a creature heartens me, but it remains that there exists in our culture no popular, pre-packaged political identity that celebrates and defines itself in terms of these laudable tendencies. "Liberaltarian" pragmatism has no electoral future in the absence of support from social movements and institutions dedicated to promoting it. Mr Johnson's main contribution during the race for the Republican nomination may be simply to show voters that the lonely ground on which he stands is there to stand on. And that's quite worthwhile. But I don't think the MSM has been out of line in treating him as even more of a long-shot than, say, Tim Pawlenty, a similarly uncharismatic but recognisably conservative ex-governor.

(Photo credit: NOSN via wikipedia)