On Monday I provided a few quick ruminations on what a John McCain victory this November would mean for the libertarian movement, of both partisan varieties. I argued that a President McCain was bad for libertarianism, both by providing a four or eight year nesting ground for big government conservatives to continue to dominate the GOP and by providing another example for the more populist wing of the Democratic Party to argue that capitulation on social issues and an economic policy from the 1930s is the best way to win in 21st Century America.

I promised more thoughts, and here they are. There are a number of various blog posts and news stories in the last week or so that touch on the idea of libertarianism within the Democratic Party in one way or another that I want to bring up in the context of the choice facing America in less than sixty days. And I can't help but touch on the issue of Sarah Palin and her appeal to libertarians, or lack of appeal depending on who you ask.

First, I want to bring attention to Lane Startin's excellent diary over at Daily Kos about Libertarian Democrats. Daily Kos can swing back and forth between being a hospitable blog for libertarian Democrats to a hostile one. Kudos to Lane for braving the Big Orange blog and receiving, on the whole, a positive reception.

Second, our libertarian Democratic friend Terry Michael has new thoughts on the state of the election. If you recall, last time he was swearing off Barack Obama because of his pick of Joe Biden as Vice-President. Now he's back writing about Sarah Palin, calling her a slap in the face to the few Goldwater conservatives left in the party.

Terry Michael brings up the issue of Sarah Palin from the perspective of a libertarian, although a libertarian Democrat. It's an interesting contrast, watching the reaction to Palin from both the left and right of the libertarian movement. I cannot accept her hard-line social conservatism, with its opposition to reproductive choice even in the case of rape or incest. But I can see how more paleo-leaning libertarians like Ron Paul could embrace her. A Club for Growth style opponent of earmarks, once they move past the rhetoric of the McCain campaign, would find a lot to dislike in her pork-filled Alaskan past. But we all know how Ron Paul has attempted to defend his embrace of the earmark system in Congress.

If some libertarians can continue to make excuses for Ron Paul, there's a good chance that some will manage to make excuses for Sarah Palin. Cue Reason's Radley Balko:

But what I like about Palin should bother McCain. Palin actually has staked out unorthodox positions on a number of interesting issues, and they're issues that McCain and the Republican base that has embraced her would probably find troubling. Palin's taken a lot of heat, for example, for her (relatively loose) ties with the Alaska Independence Party, an organization that favors a vote on whether the state should secede from the union. Palin has also been friendly with the state's Libertarian Party. Palin's willingness to engage pro-liberty, deeply anti-federal political organizations—even fringe ones—is refreshing. But it's wholly at odds with John McCain's "country first" nationalist fervor.

Palin was also one of just three governors in the country to issue a proclamation in support of "Jurors' Rights" day, an event sponsored by the Fully Informed Jury Association, which encourages the doctrine of jury nullification. Nullification is an idea abhorred by tough-on-crime conservatives.

Palin also comes from a state whose constitution has one of the strongest privacy provisions in the country. Alaska's traditional reverence for privacy and personal autonomy is reflected in a number of issues that would likely be at odds with the national Republican Party—or at least the Bush administration—including a rejection of the Real ID Act, and the de facto decriminalization of marijuana.

Palin's loose association with the Alaska Independence Party is based largely on the third party's political clout in Alaska--the party arguably is responsible for splitting the conservative vote in two Gubernatorial elections and giving Democrat Tony Knowles two terms as Governor. It's ultimately political opportunism, an issue that few people first understood when the story of her association came out. I don't give her much credit on the issue.

It's wonderful to hear that Governor Palin supports "Jurors' Rights" but it's worrisome that she's displayed such a blatant disregard for the constitutional framework that ensures that people have a right to even see a trial by jury, as opposed to spending indefinite periods of time in jail without any charges. There were worse picks out there than Sarah Palin, but that's a testament to how awesome the GOP has become, not how wonderful Sarah Palin is. When you look at the big picture of her record on social freedoms, foreign policy, and fiscal responsibility, she pales in comparison to other candidates out there, such as Congressman Tom Allen of Maine, a Democrat with a strong appeal to libertarians.

Which brings me back to the issue at hand, those libertarian Democrats. Sometimes it feels like Lane, Terry, the rest of the gang here and I are just blogging in the wind. Fighting the good fight, yes, but ultimately a fight that cannot be won.

But there are reasons not to despair.

Patrick Ottenhoff's Electoral Map blog pointed out a column about the new politics of the West by New Yorker columnist Ryan Lizza that had escaped my notice.

There is an irony in the party of the downtrodden becoming the party of America’s economic winners, but in fact Democrats are doing better among voters in places that are prospering, like Colorado and New Mexico, and losing ground among voters in regions that are experiencing hard times, such as West Virginia or parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio. A Democratic turn toward the West would accelerate this trend. A party of the Western megapolitans and resort communities would be a party less and less like the party of F.D.R., Truman, and Lyndon Johnson. It would be more oriented to the haves than to the have-nots. It would rely more on educated voters. Its approach to social issues would be more matter-of-fact, and candidates would be less fearful of alienating the most reactionary evangelicals. It would be more oriented toward small businesses and thus more skeptical of workplace regulations. It might become a party that puts more emphasis on achieving energy independence and combatting global warming than on providing universal health care and social justice. “It’s a party that becomes more Hispanic, and less African-American,” Kenneth Baer, the co-founder of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, said. “More oriented toward high-tech workers and less towards labor. It’s the end of the New Deal coalition.”

Talking about the influence of the West and Western Democrats in making the Democratic Party more libertarian may well be beating a dead horse here at Freedom Democrats. But it's an idea that's not yet spent and may still come to fruition.