Yet the Great Society was merely a more organized extension of New Deal programs begun by Roosevelt. Republicans also tend to overlook the fact that Richard Nixon extended the reach of the Great Society. The ultimate gambit of Nixon the domestic liberal was his scheme to tame inflation through wage and price controls. But the zeal for downsizing isn't shared by all Republicans. He admires their ideological clarity but not much else.
Libertarians often come across with a directness that their rivals lack.
Ask most politicians, from Gingrich to Clinton, what the role of the federal government is and you'll get a stream of mush. Ayn Rand's philosophy of 'objectivism,' hyperindividualism tinged with Nietzschean power worship, attracts a number of bookish adolescents after they tire of Hermann Hesse. To call yourself a libertarian thus implies that you were a bright teenager but that you suffer from a stunted intellectual development. It's also not clear why a person's views, inspiration, or lack of philosophical nuance as an adolescent suggests anything at all about the validity of the same person's political philosophy and positions as an adult. Authoritarians can actually bond with libertarians in such areas as restoring welfare, education, and crime control as state and local responsibilities.