The Evans-Novak Political Report has its first state-by-state rundown of the electoral vote map. The outlook has John McCain with 270 electoral votes and Barack Obama with 268, with other candidates having little impact.
However, writers Robert Novak and Timothy Carney say of the District of Columbia: “If you live in D.C. and you’re not black, you’re probably a rich liberal lawyer or lobbyist. This could be a blowout of unprecedented proportions. Libertarian nominee Bob Barr could challenge McCain for second place with about 4% each.” (The last four Democratic tickets each received at least 85% in D.C.; John Kerry took 90% in 2004.)
The only other state where Barr is predicted to possibly have an impact is Michigan, where the authors say he “could draw on enough gun-rights single-issue voters here to tip the scale” to Obama, to whom they currently award the state. Ralph Nader is not predicted to have significant impact in any state.
Andy is right about the Mountain West, Alaska, and Northern New England. Ron Paul’s showing in Idaho this week should be instructive to the Barr campaign. If you look at Paul’s strength and the strengths of Perot I think you can get a good idea of where Barr has a shot at getting votes. Aside from the aforementioned states, I think Minnesota and Hawaii are worth serious efforts from Barr/Root.
I wouldn’t focus much on GA at all. Third party candidates do disproportionately poor in the South since the Wallace campaigns. Barr will likely do better there then most, but it’s not as if he is going to win the state. I actually think he could win a MW state under the right circumstances.
Citing Robert Novak is no different than citing CNN or something, except somewhat better because Novak really is a good reporter.
Now if Novak was trying to buy this site and control it’s content, then yeah, I’d hollering as loudly as anyone.
Well, the “avoiding swing states” thing might be a problem.
Given a plausible scenario for a close Obama/McCain race- map the same as 2004 except Obama takes Ohio and McCain takes New Hampshire- all Barr would have to do is win any one Bush 2004 state (which would realistically be a Mountain West state, Nevada, or Alaska) to cost McCain the Presidency by sending the election the the House.
But in reality I think Obama will be farther ahead of McCain than this. And if Barr does well enough in the Mountain West to win one state, chances are he’ll also have swung a couple others (Nevada? Colorado?) to Obama.
Robert Novak? Come on. This is just some mainstream political BS. We should be beyond this on a site like IPR.
I think he’ll run hard in Georgia because the LP is fairly strong there. It was Badnarik’s 5th best showing in 2004 and Harry Browne’s best state (and only one with over 1%) in 2000.
They’ve also routinely topped 3-4% for statewide races lately. Plus, the Georgia media has been very happy to give him coverage… reporting on his campaign since the start.
But I agree… they should focus on safe states… and in particular the West and Northern New England. Avoid swing states like the plague… the possible spoiler role makes votes in those states about 5 times harder to win over due to “wasted vote” syndrome.
If Barr is smart he’ll focus on the Mountain West, Northern New England (VT, ME, and particularly NH), and Alaska. Those are the states that have the strongest libertarian streaks, by far, and the states where third party candidates do best. Those are his best chances to actually win EC votes.
I’m less than impressed with all this talk about Georgia. While he does have some “favorite son” advantage there, most of that is from his days as a hard-charging conservative Republican in Congress. Which raises the million dollar question- does Barr run as a conservative libertarian or a libertarian conservative? I think the more libertarian appeal to the broader, quasi-centrist libertarian of the states listed above has much more potential than trying to peel away social conservatives from McCain in the Deep South.
McKinney would be the obvious second choice in DC… I would think.
In 200 Nader took 5.2 %. Bush 9,0 %.
The Beltwayites will probably vote for Obama or McCain nonetheless, so they can fit in with their cool friends in D.C.
The beltway libertarian vote alone is perhaps worth 1%, although I’m totally ignorant of that scene and those people might live in VA for all I know.
There’s no possible way McCain beats Obama unless the election is rigged. McCain is the least electable candidate in major-party history.
“Baldwin has been the nominee of his party a lot longer than Barr has been the nominee of the LP.”
Alot? Like…a month?
I dont see how it matters. Baldwin didnt even launch his website until a week ago…
Fred,
Obama is the presumptive democratic party nominee.
If Hillary pulls off a (vile) miracle, that will change everything, and McKinney will become much more important in every state with a large black population (except SC, where Obama has already gotten on the ballot as the Patriot Party’s candidate) than she otherwise would be.
Nothing on Georgia?
If you were looking for fair Trent, I’ve written about some parties that might interest you 😉
But seriously, wouldn’t McKinney be the favorite for second in DC?
Baldwin has been the nominee of his party a lot longer than Barr has been the nominee of the LP.
Not really fair is it? Nader, Barr, McKinney, and Baldwin havent done any of their campaigning yet…