Could “progressive conservative” work in the US?

David Kirby
August 30th, 2010
Politics

Thinking about liberalism in Europe, Tim Lee writes:

The [recent] British and German experiences also provide support for the Boaz/Kirby argument about the libertarian vote in the US. The FDP and Lib Dems have historically gotten around 10 percent of the vote, on par with Boaz and Kirby’s estimates of the size of the libertarian vote in the United States. Boaz and Kirby also argued that the political effectiveness of libertarians is maximized when libertarians aren’t too closely tied to either end of the political spectrum. A credible threat to walk away from the Republican Party and support Democrats will give both major parties an incentive to take libertarian voters. That certainly seems to be confirmed by recent developments in the UK, where the Liberal Democrats were able to push their coalition government in a direction more friendly to civil liberties.

It occurs to me that there’s another way libertarians in the US could learn from the British example. In the US, the libertarian movement has been tarnished by the confusion over the word “libertarian,” and its many negative connotations. In Britain, David Cameron described his vision for liberalism as “progressive conservatives.” While libertarians wouldn’t agree with everything on Cameron’s agenda, could this be a better label for the libertarian brand in the US?