It seems I can't go anywhere on the internet recently without hearing about Bob Barr, who is running for the Libertarian Party nomination. Everywhere you look, from left to right, everyone has something to say about Bob Barr.
While Barr himself has done very little since his announcement, mostly some nagging at now-irrelevant Gov. Huckabee, everyone is scrambling to figure out what effect he will have on the general election. The Weekly Standard's bloggers think he "seems likely to siphon votes from Obama, not McCain". Over at the Daily Kos, blogger Steven R. makes a strong case for "Obamaniacs" to donate to Barr's campaign, in order to defeat McCain, after all, it's what some Republicans did with Nader.
So who's right? Well polls seem to agree with the Barr-for-Obama camp. The Rasmussen Reports, which has daily poll results on the Presidential election, finds that if the election were held today with only Obama and McCain on the ballot, McCain would win by 45% to 44%. However, when you toss in Bob Barr (and Ralph Nader, since he's become inevitable it seems), the results look much different:
In a four-way race, Obama earns 42% of the vote, McCain 38%, Bob Barr 6% and Ralph Nader 4%. Given those options, 11% were undecided.
While this is all likely to change, and I'd be surprised if any third party got more than 3% of the vote or so, it does show an interesting trend. Obama voters will probably vote for Obama regardless of what the other options are, where McCain loses quite a few votes to Bob Barr.
The effect of Bob Barr is likely to diminish in the coming months as more people get to know him and the specifics of what a vote for Bob Barr stands for. Rasmussen Reports states that "Most voters don’t know enough about Barr to have an opinion of him", and I feel this is more likely to benefit Barr than hurt him. What I think it does show is that the Republicans have alienated a lot of voters that would usually not even consider voting for any other party, either through their dislike of the Bush Presidency, or because, as in my case, it seems difficult to see any evidence that they're actually the same organization that gave us Reagan, Goldwater, and even Newt Gingrich. The question is, will McCain be willing to make concessions to this voting bloc in an effort to stop Barr from being a spoiler, or will he continue with the de-facto policy of dismissing "third-party voters" as lunatics that should be ignored?
6 comments:
I'm sure its more of an "anyone but the Democrats/McCain" sort of thing.
Perhaps the only thing worse for America than a Nader spoiler giving us Bush would be a Barr spoiler giving us Obama...
...Why can't there be a mainstream libertarian that doesn't remind me of one of my crazy uncles.
while ill likely be in the minority on this one, i dont think libertarian ideals appeal to a wide enough range of people for them to ever produce a mainstream candidate IN THIS CLIMATE. thats not to discount libertarianism, but is more a comment on the current state of politics.
as for barr's impact on THIS election. i see him being a much bigger thorn in mccains side. mccain is already separated from the crucial evangelical right wing of the party. and any movement on his behalf to pick up libertarian leaning voters would seem to be at odds with the evangelical rights ideas. he'll have to make a choice, and its clear that hes chosen the blocks that got bush elected twice.
I think it would have to be 4 parties, not just a third, if we are going to move away from the two party system. The siphoning of votes in the curent climate seems to only happen from the party that is in control, which is now happening with george bush as it did with his dad and Gore. You would have to have two parties that would esentially split the larger parties in half to ever get anywhere.
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