Josh Marshall: "Bob Barr, who we first met as one of the nuttiest of the mid-1990s Republican Revolution nutbars, has over the last decade refashioned himself as a fairly consistent supporter of embattled civil liberties and opponent of unbridled executive power. And today he announced his bid to be the presidential nominee of the Libertarian party, which will choose its standard-bearer at its national convention starting on May 22nd. (Libertarian muckety-mucks consider Barr the frontrunner for the nod.) Normally these third party candidacies don't amount to anything. And I don't expect this one to either. But on this one ... maybe.
"Barr is enough of a media darling that if he runs he'll get a lot of free media. And there's enough weirdness going on in the Republican party right now that I could imagine a few scenarios where he'd draw non-trivial numbers away from McCain. As always in these cases the place to look isn't in aggregate national numbers but in particular states where a drawing off a few points in one direction could make a state competitive where it otherwise wouldn't be."
"2008 pres"
6:28:34 AM 
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