“This morning, while driving, I heard some excerpts from the Obama/Clinton debate. Judging by those, Obama is the more libertarian of the two. Both want large scale government involvement in health insurance, but Obama is willing to permit people to choose not to be insured if they really don’t want to be insured and actually sounds uncomfortable with the idea of forcing people to do things. He also has made statements in favor of decriminalization of marijuana, although they suggest a pretty watered down version and it isn’t a position he has emphasized in the campaign.” — David Friedman
Obama I think would also be most in favor of school choice, having himself being the product of a highly rated prep high school (Punahou School) in HI and enrolling his daughters in the U. of Chicago Labratory school. He has made noises on merit pay for (public) teachers, so he has created distance from and owes no quid to this lobby. The crux of Michelle Obama’s gig with the U. of Chicago Hospitals was to develop patient options that short-circuited their potential visit to the ER (community clinics, preventative care ops). So I think he has a good skepticicsm of public institutions and since he draws his electoral strength from less-government dependent types of people (younger, self-employed, private sector types) than does HRC, he is probably as much if not more libertarian than McCain.
Good points!