Even as the national polls remain tight, Radley Balko senses a potential Electoral College blowout, and credits it to Bob Barr:
Barr isn’t yet mentioned in many of the national polls. But in state polls, he’s consistently pulling in five percent or more, and it seems to be coming mostly from McCain. My colleague Dave Weigel–who follows this stuff more closely than I do– thinks it’s too early to give Barr that much credit. He may be right. But for the moment, Barr’s hurting McCain. If McCain’s spending money in Texas or North Carolina after Labor Day, this is going to be a bloodbath. Of course, that kind of showing from Barr would also force the GOP to pay more heed to its neglected limited government wing, and less to its David Brooks faction. So that would in general be a pretty good thing.
An understatement, to say the least. I can think of no better (possible) outcome of this election than a sizable McCain loss, powered by widespread (small-l) libertarian defection, that leads the GOP at least to think about getting its act together on small government, war, civil liberties, etc.
I last talked about Barr’s national polling here, and several months ago I reviewed some of the potential state-by-state numbers here. As for Radley’s post, make sure to read the whole thing.
Filed under: politics
This promising. As much as I tend slightly more toward the CP than the LP (although Barr seems to be more conservative, of course, than many LP partisans), I’m supporting the former GA Congressman. What I really feel is necessary — what would be swell — is for the Baldwin and, yes, Nader, crowds to get behind Barr. Opening the GOP’s eyes is good, but the Democrats are no less out of touch with Bill Kauffman’s American (http://wwwcounterpunch.org/kauffman06252003.html), and votes for Barr, rather than Nader, might alert the Dems to the fact that they can’t rally behind a war-hawk who votes to gut the Constitution.
I know, I’m dreaming, but it’s okay to dream, isn’t it?
Yes, it’s quite the dream, and a big part of the problem is that Barr is viewed as too much of a conservative to attract those liberal and left-libertarian votes. My own support from him arises largely from the conviction that he’s the closest thing we have to a common denominator who can build a broad coalition of protest votes – but it goes without saying that he can’t please everyone who’s dissatisfied with the Consensus. As for the CP, I’ll confess that I haven’t given them a lot of consideration, but my quick take is that (1) Baldwin is obviously a less likely candidate to bring non-conservative supporters on board, (2) I’m not really a hard-liner (that is to say: I don’t have strong convictions either way) about trade and immigration, and (3) I’m more than a bit uncomfortable with what Sullivan would call – rightly, I think, in this case – the CP’s “Christianism”. If a coalition is going to be built – and I know, I know, all this coalition stuff is a bunch of crazy daydreaming – it’s going to have to aim for wider and less sectarian appeal than that.