Writing in Newsweek, columnist George Will speculates on the effects of a Bob Barr candidacy in 2008:
Shane Cory, the Libertarian Party’s executive director, knows that directing libertarians is like herding cats—almost a contradiction in terms. But he thinks his party is upwardly mobile. In 2004, its presidential candidate received just 397,265 votes, a mere .32 percent of the national popular vote. The party did best in Indiana (18,058 votes, .73 percent). 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 (1.1 percent of the total) in 1980. It has recruited 600 down-ballot candidates around the nation (including Michael Munger, chairman of the political-science department at Duke, who is running for governor of North Carolina) and expects to have 1,500 by Election Day.
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Barr’s new party (he joined in 2006) also is handicapped by John McCain’s handiwork. 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. Another wealthy libertarian—he is dead, so he has none of the supposedly corrupt purposes that make McCain so cross—bequeathed more than $200,000 to the party. That would fund the ballot access struggles, but it is in escrow because of McCain-Feingold. If libertarian voters cost McCain the presidency, that will be condign punishment.
I know D.J. McGuire has strong feelings that a Barr ticket helps (not hurts) McCain… but as Will explains, the elements are there for the LP to bring some heat. If certain Libertarians disenchanted with the straightjacket of McCain-Feingold decide to turn those millions into 527 money, this becomes a whole new ballgame…