Orange County Register

I’m a bit surprised and quite fascinated that the Wall Street Journal gave Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr a spot on its oped page to make the argument that worrying about Supreme Court justices is not a good reason to vote for John McCain. He actually makes a case that McCain is no judicial conservative, that Republicans have put some of the most liberal justices on the court (Souter, Stevens, Warren) and that McCain would have a vested interest in a justice who wouldn’t invalidate his campaign “reform” legislation which Roberts/Alito think is unconstitutional. Furthermore, the three justices most likely to die or retire are all liberals, which means having Obama appoint their successors wouldn’t change the balance of the court.

This kind of play, combined with news that at least at this stage Barr is polling better than any LP previous candidate in a variety of states, suggests that it was a good idea to nominate a well-known politician, even if some LP members had concerns about his record and his sincerity. Of course it’s a long time until November, and in close races the actual votes cast for third-party candidates tends to decline.

It’s early in the game yet, but I don’t think any Libertarian Party candidate has polled as strongly as Bob Barr is doing at this point or any point in the election cycle. As reported on Lew Rockwell’s blog, here are some of his numbers in individual states:

New Hampshire: 10%; California: 5%; New Mexico (swing state): 9%; Georgia: 8%; Ohio (big swing state): 7%; Massachusetts(!): 5%; Nevada: 9%; Michigan: 6%.

The GOP should be worried, but apparently it isn’t.

If the official Republican Party is worried about Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr siphoning off enough votes in key states to deny John McCain the presidency, it’s not acting like it. When questioned about whether the party plans to challenge LP ballot access in key states, party officals expressed no particular interest. This is in contrast to 2004, when the Democrats worked hard to keep that rascal Ralph Nader off as many state ballots as it could. It’s possible thre GOP may be underestimating the potential danger Bob Barr poses, but at this point they don’t seem especially worried. Right now the LP is on the ballot in 31 states and expects to be on 48 state ballots by November.

The Libertarian Party obviously chose former Georgia Republican Rep. Bob Barr as its presidential candidate based on the hope that as somebody who already had a certain amount of political name recognition (in contrast to most LP candidates), he might pull enough votes to make the LP a spoiler or a deciding factor in some states.  Given that McCain still has some troubles with the conservative “base,” this could be significant this year.

I’ve heard from LP members who are disgruntled by the choice and believe Barr isn’t a true-enough libertarian to represent the party, but for whatever reasons it’s decided to try a little more ostensibly pragmatic route than in the past. (I also heard about one quite young libertarian whose attendance at the LP convention was his first immersion into the libertarian movement at the national level who called a friend and said, “I hate our side; they’re all creeps.”)

Anyway, there’s some early evidence that Barr could play a spoiler role. Surveys in North Carolina and Georgia, generally safe Republican states, show Barr pulling 6 percent and 8 percent respectively. In neither state does that give Obama a majority or plurality, but it puts him within striking distance. Together North Carolina and Georgia have more electoral votes than Florida, Pennsylvania or Ohio.

However, it’s still a long time ’til November, and in close elections at the national level — even when their state is lopsided one way or another — voters tend to stay away from third parties.