Anti-Climacus

WELL: It seems like a whole lot of people are getting worked up over a pretty standard outcome for our political system.

I'm not a libertarian, so maybe that's why I don't see this as a problem; even if it is a problem, it seems obvious that this is a structural flaw built into our political system, and nothing is likely to change it. Parties get elected into power on the basis of receiving votes from people, many of whom are affiliated with certain groups (or work for certain companies) that have an economic interest in seeing certain changes in law go their way. The party that is in a position to do so always tries to pay off it's supporters, and expand their base of support, especially when there's minimal risk involved.

And what's the risk here, really, for the Republicans? There are essentially only two bad things that even possibly could happen:

1. Democrats will try and accuse them of selling out to interest groups-- at which point Republicans need only assert that their "sell-out" created the much sought-after prescription-drug benefit (or, at worst, they can say that the Democrats would only do something similar if they were in power...which is true, as Pejman's post demonstrates)

2. Libertarians like Dan, Andrew, Pejman and Tyler Cowen will all decide not to vote for Republican candidates... except this will never happen. At worst, they'll stay home (but given their dedication to politics, that outcome is unlikely); if a particular Republican candidate is running close to a Democrat, they will probably go out and vote for said candidate, even if they have to find other reasons to do so.

So, you know, good show Republican Party!