Political Diary
May 15, 2008
Barr Sinister?
Could Bob Barr become this year's Ralph Nader, helping to "spoil" the White House ambitions of John McCain.
The former Georgia Republican congressman announced he was seeking the Libertarian nomination for president this week, and immediately disputed that he is spoiling things for anyone. "The American voters deserve better than simply the lesser of two evils," he said as he outlined his platform to freeze discretionary spending and withdraw from Iraq.
Mr. Barr first has to win the nomination of the fractious Libertarians in Denver later this month. He faces opposition from 13 candidates, including former Democratic Senator Mike Gravel, an amusing oddity in this year's Democratic presidential contest.
If Mr. Barr wins the LP nomination, he would likely appear on some 45 state ballots and could tip some close races to the Democrats. "Barr obviously is dangerous. At least he negates any possible Nader benefit," says David Norcross, chairman of the Rules Committee at the GOP convention. Mr. Nader, widely credited with hurting Al Gore in the 2000 election, is running again as a liberal independent.
Still, Republicans claim they aren't concerned by Mr. Barr's possible appearance on all those state ballots. But they should be. You can bet cable TV producers who are backing Barack Obama will book the quotable Mr. Barr dozens of times. Don't be surprised if he even teams up with Mr. Nader for tag-team appearances, with the consumer advocate primarily blasting Democrats and Mr. Barr eviscerating Republicans.
So how should Republicans limit the potential damage Mr. Barr could cause them? For starters, John McCain should avoid giving unfortunate speeches such as the one he gave Monday endorsing the discredited cap-and-trade approach to limiting global warming -- a system that has flopped in Europe. Mr. McCain went so far as to say: "If the efforts to negotiate an international solution that includes China and India do not succeed, we still have an obligation to act" against global warming. Given the growth in carbon emissions of those two countries, that is a preposterous statement.
Mr. McCain may believe he can attract the votes of young people with his green street cred, but he would be advised not to go too far in alienating his conservative base. Mr. Barr will likely be there every step of the way exploiting conservative discontent with the GOP nominee.
-- John Fund
Poster Comment:
The Rs never fail to amuse me with concerns like this. Since Perot in '92, they've felt any 3rd party candidate, who isn't out on the loony left, takes votes out of their candidates hide. Helloooo....the reason that there are 3rd parties in existence is because the Rs no longer hold the values they believe in. If all holds true, Barr and the Ls will receive between 1-3% of the vote, and it appears even if those votes went to McKooK, O would be far ahead. Which all leads me to the question, WTF did Ron Paul leave the battlefield?