Libertarianism Missing Its Moment?

Asks Freedom Democrats, a blog for libertarian Democrats, about libertarianism in America: "From the Cato At Liberty blog:

Combining the responses to those two questions, Gallup found the ideological breakdown of the public shown below. With these two broad questions, Gallup consistently finds about 20 percent of respondents to be libertarian.

Freedom Democrats continues its commentary: "Gallup finds no increase in the percentage of those surveyed with libertarian-leaning views from last year, despite the clear increase in anti-government rhetoric from the Tea Party movement, Glenn Beck, and the talking heads at Fox News. What gives? One possibility is that the real surge took place in the second Bush Administration as libertarians jumped from 17 to 23 percent of those surveyed. The recent Tea Party movement doesn't reflect new libertarians, just the existing libertarians free to speak out now that Bush is gone. Or...maybe Gallup picks up on another trend?

The propensity to want the government to 'promote traditional values' -- as opposed to 'not favor any particular set of values' -- rose from 48% in 2008 to 53% in 2009. Current support for promoting traditional values is the highest seen in five years.

That's the trend for Gallup's 'promote traditional values' trend. The country is moving in a more socially conservative direction. But economic conservatism is also up:

Perceptions that there is too much government regulation of business and industry jumped from 38% in September 2008 to 45% in September 2009.

So doesn't this just argue that conservatism, on the whole, is up? And libertarianism is flat-lining? If that is so, opposition to Obama cannot be viewed as simply economic in nature but must contain some type of cultural angst at Democratic liberalism. And the failure for libertarianism to grow in this environment is a missed moment for the movement."