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An IP has recently deleted material supported by www.ontheissues.org/ & other sources. Discussion is invited as to whether these sources are WP:RS. (The material is now restored.) – S. Rich (talk) 22:16, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm trying to be objective but this is objective: He's Mr. drone strikes, gun control, and NSA spying. What he supports is the opposite of what anyone with libertarian leanings would support. Andrew Cuomo for one, Patrick, and Richardson also don't fit the criteria to belong here. Wyden would have a much more legit case. J390 (talk) 06:52, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What you say is quite true. But the article starts off with "libertarian-leaning" in its definition. Next, OnTheIssues does its grid and comes up with the various L-leaning classifications for different people. (Perhaps OTI is using data from earlier campaigns?) If OTI is accepted as RS, then we've got to live with it. Another question: Is there a libertarian caucus within the Democratic Party? I see the "Democratic Freedom Caucus" listed as a source, but they self-describe themselves as "Progressive" (whatever that means). Moreover, their website/activity is extremely limited in terms of data or names. (Three endorsements (all old) are listed. One is regarding a city council election.) So, the question remains: What is a libertarian Democrat? – S. Rich (talk) 16:22, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with J390: Barack Obama is not a libertarian Democrat. Barack Obama is about as close to being a libertarian Democrat as G. W. Bush is to being a libertarian Republican. In order to be a libertarian Democrat, one must logically satisfy two requirements, viz., (1) be a registered member of the Democratic Party, and (2) be a libertarian. Barack Obama only satisfies the first of these two requirements.
Not only is Obama not a libertarian Democrat, I'd argue that he's not even a libertarian-leaning Democrat. In addition to being violently pro-war, he's anti-gay marriage (as he made it abundantly clear during both campaigns), he's anti-gun rights, he's in favour of repealing tax cuts, he's in favour of increasing government intervention into healthcare, he's opposed to government transparency and in favour of warrantless wiretaps and data mining, he voted for the USA Patriot Act, he's deported mass numbers of immigrants, he's opposed to people having the freedom to even opt out of social security, he's opposed to repealing the war on drugs, he's against the separation of school and state, he's not concerned about the ballooning national debt or Fed-induced monetary inflation, he has yet to keep his promise to nobly close Guantanamo Bay, and he continued the big-government bailout/stimulus ideas of Bush.
I think that he is about the farthest possible from being libertarian leaning on both of the major metrics/axises. On the size-of-government/taxes/spending axis, he is on the opposite end from libertarians, being firmly established as such from both his Senator and President records. And on the freedom/privacy vs. safety axis, he is also mostly at the opposite end of the spectrum from libertarians, also some of that inevitably comes from being "in the chair". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:16, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Resolving the "Obama as a libertarian-leaning" debate
This article is going to suffer repeated EW as long as we have the "libertarian-leaning" terminology for the description. It leaves the door open inclusion of Obama (and others) simply because OTI's grid shows the particular Democrats as supporting positions in the libertarian grid. I propose that the "libertarian-leaning" parameter be replaced with "who are described as libertarian or who have been endorsed by Libertarian parties." (This parameter can be applied to the other parties, in which case Senator Paul gets a libertarian leaning description because there is RS which says so.) Comments? – S. Rich (talk) 19:51, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Awaiting comments. In the meantime, I'll propose to change the parameter to say "who are described as libertarian or libertarian-leaning by commentators, or who have been endorsed by Libertarian political parties." (And I'm going to post a comment on the Libertarianism Project talk page.) – S. Rich (talk) 05:43, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. The fact that we someone who is about as far as you can get (by all metrics) from being libertarian-leaning being listed here as such shows that we need a more objective and sourced-based standard. North8000 (talk) 14:18, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, it would probably be even better to delete the entire list. It seems to be a source of information-free drama and POV. North8000 (talk) 14:21, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
