Could Bob Barr’s Run as Libertarian Doom McCain?
Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr is seen as the Libertarian Party’s most likely presidential candidate — and he could wind up torpedoing John McCain’s White House hopes.
“Given the recent fundraising prowess of a kindred spirit — Ron Paul's campaign for the Republican nomination siphoned up $35 million, mostly off the Internet — libertarians are feeling their oats,” political analyst George F. Will writes in Newsweek.
“Come November, Barr conceivably could be to John McCain what Ralph Nader was to Al Gore in 2000 — ruinous.”
Nader was a weak third-party candidate and won only 2,882,955 popular votes nationwide, but 97,488 of them were in Florida — where, because of Nader, George W. Bush won by 537 votes, Will notes.
Shane Cory, the Libertarian Party's executive director, “thinks his party is upwardly mobile,” Will writes.
“In 2004, its presidential candidate received just 397,265 votes, a mere .32 percent of the national popular vote…
“But in no state was the Libertarian vote larger than the winning candidate's margin of victory. This year, however, Cory thinks the party can far surpass its best national performance — 921,299 votes in 1980.”
Cory and Barr say the party almost certainly will be on the ballot in at least 48 states.
Republican consultant Craig Shirley recently wrote: “This Libertarian thing may be bigger than anyone is foreseeing right now.”
Barr left the GOP in 2006 over what he called bloated spending and civil liberties intrusions by the Bush administration.
A former U.S. attorney in Atlanta, Barr served eight years as a Republican congressman from Georgia before losing his seat in 2002 after a redistricting.
A Barr run for the White House would be handicapped by “John McCain's handiwork,” Will added.
“One wealthy libertarian would give $1 million if the McCain-Feingold law regulating political participation did not ban contributions of more than $28,500 to national parties.
But Will concludes: “If libertarian voters cost McCain the presidency, that will be condign punishment.”