Cato Institute’s David Boaz e-mailed me with this:

Jonah says consistent libertarians are rare. Sure. So are consistent conservatives who would affirm every tenet of the Sharon Statement, or an updated Ten Principles of Conservatism for today, complete with policy specifics. What we are saying, and what I think no one has actually countered, is that there are some millions of voters — maybe our 14 percent, maybe Gallup’s 23 percent, maybe even Zogby’s 44/59 percent — who don’t line up either red or blue. They don’t buy the whole package from Rush or Keith, McCain or Obama, NR or TNR. They have real libertarian tendencies on both economic and personal issues.
Does that mean they want to abolish public education and legalize drugs? Of course not. But they do oppose both health care “reform” and restrictions on abortion, or they like both lower taxes and gay marriage or civil unions. According to the 2004 exit polls, 28 million Bush voters supported either marriage or civil unions. And neither party typically offers that program. Which means that some of those people — like eight Seattle entrepreneurs who visited Cato today — are uncomfortable with both parties and don’t vote consistently for either.
Jonah says, “most of the talk about ‘libertarians’ switching sides has been exactly that, talk.” Maybe he should read the study, or at least read Table 2 on page 8. A group of people who are identifiably outside the red/blue boxes did swing toward the Democrats in 2004 and 2006, and then swung back against Obama.

Finally, if interested, check this post by George Mason University’s Ilya Somin over at the Volokh Conspiracy:

Obviously, most libertarian voters in the general population are not as radical in rejecting government intervention as many libertarian intellectuals are. But they do seem to favor substantial reductions in the size and scope of government relative to current levels. We intellectuals should not be too troubled by this. Conservative and liberal voters aren’t as ideologically consistent as their intellectual counterparts either. . . . It is true, of course, that most of them voters may not think of themselves as “libertarian” and many of them probably don’t even know the word. They are like the proverbial man who has been speaking prose all his life without knowing it. Several decades of studies going back to Converse’s classic work also show that most voters don’t have a good understanding of the meaning of “liberal” and “conservative” either.

(H/T to David Kirby).

Jonah, know that with this post, I do feel like a little girl who needs her big brothers to protect her.