The future is inescapably libertarian

Among the political observers excited by anti-establishment pols such as Rand Paul is Joe Trippi, the legendary Democratic campaign strategist best-known for engineering the internet-fueled insurgency of Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.) during the Democratic 2004 primary. “The younger generation is probably the most libertarian and sort of tolerant, and has more libertarian values, I’d say, than any generation in American history,” Trippi recently told my Reason colleague Todd Krainin. Paul and others like him are engaging issues – drone strikes, drug legalization – that terrify old-line establishmentarians but energize disaffected voters that might include everyone from Glenn Beck to Occupy Wall Streeters. At the same time, argues Trippi, the traditional party establishments are growing weaker and weaker as direct appeals via Facebook, Twitter, and other social media make $5,000-a-plate fundraisers obsolete.

When it comes to the new breed of politicians who will force a change in politics as usual, Trippi says Rand Paul “is so far the likely embodiment of who’s going to raise the flag and take the hill.” That may be in 2016 (Trippi says that a strong Paul candidacy will likely create a “fight of titans” between insurgent and establishment candidates last seen in the 1980 struggle between Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy) or it might come later. But the willingness of Rand Paul to roam far beyond his party’s stamping grounds and decentralize political campaigns, says Trippi, underscores the inevitability of an independent, libertarian candidate who ultimately ends up in the White House.