Good post. I agree with nearly all the points you make about the Congressional GOP losing its conservative values.

I'm a bit skeptical that abandoning those values had as much direct impact on the election as you imply, however. I think that dissatisfaction with the Iraq war and the "six-year itch" had more to do with it. I don't think many voters said to themselves "The GOP isn't conservative enough" and then voted for Democrats or libertarians.

In IN-9 in 2004, the Libertarian candidate also received more votes than the difference between Hill and Sodrel. True, the district went 4% L this year as opposed to only 2% L in 2004. Were the additional 2% disenchanted conservatives? Hard to say for sure.

While on the subject of LP spoilers...

The Constitution Party grabbed a state house seat in Montana. The LP grabbed one in Alaska. The LP also grabbed between 20 and 25 percent of the vote in quite a few state house and senate races throughout the country. Additionally, they pulled up to 25 percent of the vote in a couple congressional races. Finally, they won a handful of minor county-level offices. See a breakdown here - http://www.lp.org/ ...

I don't have many expectations of the Constitution Party, but the LP did fairly well and if they ever get REALLY smart and focus on more state house and senate races, they could actually make some inroads.

I agree Eric that the war and other issues were the main factors, but I think this disenchantment was really significant. It doesn't just manifest itself in terms of people voting libertarian instead of Republican. It also manifests itself in subtle ways such as less energy and volunteers. I may still vote Republican, but I'm not going to go knock on doors, hand out flyers, or convince my friends to vote a particular way. I think those are the types of ways in which disenchantment had an effect on the GOP.

Josh: I agree. Also, I do think some of the unconservativeness of the Congressional GOP contributed to the general sense of dissatisfaction in voters because the party wasn't coming across as having core principles.

Pieter: What would really give third parties a boost in American politics would be something like instant runoff voting. I don't expect to see that implemented anytime soon, though, because it would add an extra element of complexity to an already chaotic system of voting.

As someone who espouses quite a few libertarian principles I'm confused by your conflation of conservatism and libertarian voting trends. While there are many conservatives who might, out of protest, vote libertarian, there are a large number of libertarians who would not normally vote for either of the two major parties.

We're all smart enough here to not have to list out the various differences between conservatives and libertarians, and a great summative quote:

"Let me return, however, to the main point, which is the characteristic complacency of the conservative toward the action of established authority and his prime concern that this authority be not weakened rather than that its power be kept within bounds. This is difficult to reconcile with the preservation of liberty"

can be found in Hayek's "Why I'm not a conservative."

I would hazard to say that the number of libertarians who vote for the Republicans on issues of economic freedom is matched by the number that refuse to vote for the Republicans due to issues of personal freedom.

Maybe I'm crazy...

I think it had more to do with the perception that the Republicans needed a comeuppance.

Elected Republican Party members have behaved like a bunch of frat boys on spring break instead of taking care of business, and they have done more of the "big government" types of things with their power than I think anyone expected.

As for why Democrats ended up in control of the House and Senate, I think it was just a lack of legitimate options. People can't really effect their true voting choices, so they settle for the lesser of two evils.

The two parties are pretty much the same except for their positions on abortion rights, national defense strategy and taxes, and I'm not even sure about the Republican Party's position on taxes anymore.

The less elected government officials do that is actually for the good of their constituency, the less people believe that their government really cares about them, so they vote for whoever promises to give them the most of what they want.

Sure, there are principled people who care about whether there is a dramatic moral erosion that ultimately will lead to the destruction of this country. But faced with what seems to be such an inevitable consequence, voters supported those who seem most motivated to do something different. If you believe things can't get a great deal worse than they are now, you don't have anything to lose.

"Sure, there are principled people who care about whether there is a dramatic moral erosion that ultimately will lead to the destruction of this country."

An example of why many libertarians refuse to vote with a conservative party. If you think that the government can arbiter the morality of our country then I sincerely doubt you really want a limited government. It is the choice between a socially socialistic social party (Republicans) and an economically socialistic party (Democrats). It's a very tough choice, but I think that many libertarians are fairly prosperous, and due to seeing that prosperity only being marginally affected by Democratic policies are instead choosing to focus on their social libertarian interests.