Hadn’t considered that. But didn’t the Dems just pick up a Congressional seat in a special election, or am I making that up out of whole cloth?
Pretty sure that was in Mississippi.
If elected, this would make Barr the second president to have been married to a woman prominently featured in HUSTLER. (The first was JFK [telephoto shots of Jackie sunbathing nude when married to Onassis were what really launched the publication]- Barr’s ex wife wasn’t nude but definitely pulled his panties down during MonicaGate.)
My absolute dream, one that would make me have to be straightjacketed for the glee, would be to see the Republicans
1- gain the popular vote but lose due to electoral votes
2- live with the knowledge that had a few not voted for Barr it would have been clear victory
3- have a disputed election due to one southern state (if Clinton’s the nominee, then Arkansas, and if Obama’s the nominee, Hawaii)
Those “SORE LOSERMAN” bumper stickers in the GORE LIEBERMAN fonts from 7 years ago still piss me off when you knew that that positions reversed the Bush supporters would have been slashing themselves in the town square and crying “Howl! Howl! Howl!” with Limbaugh and O’Reilly and every other conservative pundit demanding the end of the Electoral college.
Thinking about it, you could well be right. And the Dems sure as hell ain’t winning Mississippi…
Ahh, a president who knows how to lick whipped cream!
It was in Louisiana…LA-6. A Democrat won in a Republican district.
Didn’t Barr and Dick Armey both ally with the ACLU over privacy issues & concerns over the Patriot Act after they left Congress?
The first time I ever heard of Bob Barr was when he was just appalled that Wicca could be a recognized faith by the U.S. military. I’ve had no use for him ever since.
Anyway, if Ron Paul wants the LP nomination, he’ll probably get it.
A Barr LP candidacy will be less a threat to McCain than a Nader one will be to Obama.
There was a special election in Louisiana for a U.S. House seat, which a Dem won.
There was another, which the Pub won.
There will be a special election in Mississippi in November to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Trent Lott.
And tomorrow, 5/13/08, there will be a special election in Mississippi to fill the U.S. House seat vacated by Roger Wicker, who resigned to take Lott’s Senate seat.
All clear now?
What you are failing to consider is that Obama’s candidacy will turn out black voters in huge numbers. He had that effect here in Georgia during the Democratic primary.
That, combined with Barr drawing off a few Republican votes, could well do the trick.
Look at even a reliably Republican state like Mississippi. Black voters are a third of its electorate. Assuming (safely) that they turn out in large numbers and go better than 95% for Obama, it would take only a little more than one-fourth of white voters going for Obama to turn Mississippi blue. (Or an even smaller percentage if Republican voters who don’t like McCain just stay home – or more to the point of this thread, vote for Barr.)
He will? I had never heard of him. Why will he have press coverage? Unless he polls high (or his name is Nader) he won’t get any significant press coverage. And he won’t poll high.
You guys crack me up. It’s so funny to watch the triumph of hope over reason.
He’s certainly known in these parts. And this is where he could affect the election.
According to Wiki:
Affect how? Make McCain win by a smaller margin than he otherwise would? What’s the highest % of the vote a Libertarian has ever gotten in GA for president?
I disagree. There’s an [i[awful* lot of unrest among the yuppie suburbanites and the “Jessecrats” (raised Democratic, but out of ideological reasons have come to support strongly conservative Republicans like Jesse Helms more often than not). To quote Frank Daniels (retired publisher and former owner of the Raleigh News and Observer, “North Carolina’s been a red state, but it’s starting to pick up a purplish tinge.” I think that’s true to varying degrees for quite a lot of the South.
We’ve never seen someone with this much name recognition running at the same time as a Republican who is unloved by his party.
Barr could potentially draw off enough Republican votes that (when combined with what will surely be a record turnout for black voters) it would be enough to swing Georgia.
Which could be enough to swing the election.
So, how much of the vote is he going to get, and would you like to place a wager on it?
I respect Bob Barr (any hardcore Republican who stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the ACLU gets a pat on the back from me.) He doesn’t have a snowball’s chance of winning, but he could glean some scraps from a GOP laid waste by hurricane GeorgeDick.
In Georgia, or nationwide?
And aren’t you the same guy who wanted to bet me that Giuliani would get more delegates than Huckabee? Might want to reevaluate your prognostication skills.
What I don’t get is, aren’t capital L Libertarians generally “laissez faire” when it comes to a person’s lifestyle choices? Don’t they generally believe that governments are there for defense and building bridges and such and not to legislate morality or to promote religion? If so, why would they choose Barr?
Barr is [militantly] anti-gay marriage (one of the sponsors of DOMA), anti gays in the military, anti gays in general, as well as anti-abortion (except for the one that his ex-wife had and that he paid for with a check but swears he had no knowledge of), pro school prayer, the stereotypical womanizing/multiply divorced/deadbeat dad/abortions are evil except in my case/do as I say not as I do Fundie Religious Reich asshole. His ACLU anti-wiretapping lobbying was big news at the time but seen as a political expedience “a stopped clock is right twice a day” thing, but as a “live and let liver” this guy is pretty cirrhosified, so I don’t understand why Libertarians (as I understand them, and I could be wrong) would hand their banners to him.
Barr’s effect, I predict, will not be in the votes he gets. It will be in exposing the contempt the Bushies have for the Bill of Rights. It won’t be hard to figure out that McCain has been part and parcel of all that.
Eh, maybe not. We’ll see. :shrugs: