How about a five-way race in November?

April 16, 2008

It’s pretty safe to assume that John McCain will be on the presidential ballot in November. It’s also safe to assume he’ll be up against Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. In most states, Ralph Nader will probably be there, too, though his influence is likely to be limited.

The next question, though, is who else might appear on the ballot.

One need not look too hard to find Democrats unhappy about the prospect of Nader splitting the left and helping McCain, but it’s worth keeping in mind that Republicans may have a couple of challenges of their own.

For example, the always amusing Alan Keyes — who, rumor has it, kinda sorta ran for the Republican nomination this year — is moving closer to another campaign outside the confines of the GOP.

Former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes announced Tuesday night that he has left the GOP and is considering joining the Constitution Party.

Keyes, who also ran as a Republican to challenge Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate bid in Illinois in 2004, says he is talking with leaders and rank-and-file members of the Constitution Party. “They’re considering me, I’m considering them,” Keyes said in a conference call late Tuesday night. “We have so much in common that I find it hard to believe we won’t be able to work out a common basis for working together.”

Realistically, I know it’s easy to laugh at Keyes, and it’s equally easy to dismiss the Constitution Party — they tend to make far-right Republicans look moderate — but the party does have a spot on the presidential ballot in 41 states, and as recently as 2004, Karl Rove and other Bush-Cheney staffers were admittedly concerned about the ultra-conservative party shaving a few points off the president’s total, throwing competitive states to John Kerry.

I don’t really expect Keyes, if he runs, to have a significant impact, but in light of far-right discontent with McCain, it might be worth keeping an eye on.

For that matter, if Nader makes it a three-way race, and Keyes makes it a four-way race, there’s also the prospect of Bob Barr making it a five-way race.

Barr, of course, was a former Republican House member from Georgia, perhaps best known for being one of the leading Clinton impeachment managers. In recent years, however, after he left Congress, Barr became disillusioned with the GOP. He was nearly apoplectic about Bush’s conduct in the NSA warrantless search scandal, suggesting the president “deliberately order[ed] that federal law be violated,” and “ignored” the Constitution. Shortly thereafter, Barr agreed to introduce Al Gore at an event in which Gore blasted the president’s “excessive power grabs.” He was highly critical of the Bush administration in the prosecutor purge scandal.

About a year ago, Barr left the Republican Party altogether and began talking to the Libertarian Party, calling for a “multidecade effort” to build a movement to make the party nationally competitive. He added that many “real conservatives” have become disillusioned with Republicans. “They are eager for a philosophical home,” Barr said. “There are enough of them out there that a significant number can be weaned away” from the GOP.

And now Barr seems to be poised to run for president.

“Some say it is not now expedient or politically pragmatic to do the right thing, for the right reason,” Mr. Barr said at the Heartland Libertarian Conference today in Kansas City, Mo., according to a release. “When has there been a better time? When has the risk of inaction carried more serious consequences? When will it be appropriate to take extraordinary steps? What must happen to our Constitution before we set aside our complacency and expediency in favor of principle?”

He said he would focus on cutting the size of federal government, securing the borders, reforming the tax code and enhancing civil liberties.

Again, third parties rarely matter at the presidential level, and I suspect the McCain campaign isn’t especially worried about Keyes or Barr. It’s not even clear if either would be able to qualify for the ballot in every state.

But in a close contest, a percentage point here or there might matter. At a minimum, it’s something to keep an eye on.

Keyes is as much of a joke as Nader is these days, but Bob Barr has significant cred with the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, and he could do some damage in a few key states.

  • Didn’t Keyes already lose to Obama once? Guess he likes punishment. Darth Nader is a joke. Only potheads and angry Clintonistas will even consider him a viable choice.

  • BuzzMon, if Ron Paul hooked up with Bob Barr, that would definitely make a nice little block, and could easily spook the GOopers into swinging wider to the right, and thus screwing themselves out of the moderate voters.

    Time for all good progressives to go write some letters recommending this hookup!!!

  • I’m all for splinter parties sucking the kooks out of the mainstream. The more the merrier from Obama’s point of view, since all the kooks seem to be outside the Democratic Party for once.

  • It’s nice that you think all these other candidates are coming from the right, but I assure you that if Monsieur Tres Exclusif gets the Democratic nomination, the Peace and Freedom Party is going to attract many, many Clinton voters.

  • It might be more than a five-way race. Considering how many in the religious right don’t like McCain, the theocratic Constitution Party might also attract some votes from the right this year. Obviously they won’t pick up enough to be a factor on their own, but added to the votes from other conservative third party candidates the cumulative number might tip the balance in a close state.

  • If the Republicans were worried about Barr, they would send Pat Buchanan to disolve it like he did the Reform Party. If they need someone to challenge Keyes, I nominate IFP. Bring on the debates.

  • You say that third parties don’t matter on the Presidential level, and granted historically they usually haven’t. But in two of the last four Pres elections, a third party has in fact had a substantial influence (Perot in ’92 by grabbing nearly a fifth of the vote, and Nader in ’00 by shaving off a little of the vote in a tied election). Of course each of these guys tried it again next time (and Nader, trying it AGAIN), to much less impact.

    I don’t have much to add on the Barr thing itself, but just wanted to address that one point.

  • As long as you are talking about who will be on the presidential ballot. What do you think about a scenerio where Obama looses the Democratic nomination, and then decides to run as an independant.

  • The more the better – if we could split the idiot vote that enabled the criminal cabal behind dur chimpfurher to steal and cover-up 2 elections, America will be that much stronger.

  • Anyone is welcome to take shillary’s voters – they are not real democrats anyhow. The more ways we split the stoooooooooopid vote, the better for the intellegent candidate (hint: not senile mclame).

  • I’ve always thought Bob Barr looked just like Heinrich Himmler, with the moustache and little round glasses.

  • babbling, drivellous goo@5

    Compared to Madame Tromperie, professeur? Better enjoy that free cake while your “kitchen-sink antoinette” still has the chance to give it to you….

  • Lest we forget…
    Barr will go head to head with Mike Gravel for the Libertarian nod.

    Republican versus Dem for the Libertarian plastic crown.
    Okay, maybe it’s only me that find that race entertaining.

  • Ralph, More power to your ideas. Keep working to end this insane war and bring our people home. You’ve been out there making speeches, doing interviews and writing articles and have written at least three books in the last 6 years. And you’ve been writing weekly commentary on the things that really matter, at http://www.nader.org .The question is where has the Press been on these important matters you discuss? where have the “Talking Heads” been on corporate crime and the profiteers of this war? The population is too busy being entertained and watching Sporting events to get involved, they take the easy route and don’t bother to think, settling instead for snippets and quick slogans. Knowing what’s going on in a Corporate controlled State takes WORK. Thank you Ralph, for all the good things you’ve done to protect the Ppeople of this Country. Amazing how quickly they forget, or perhaps they just don’t know. Almost everyone’s lives, or that of friends and relatives of theirs, have been improved and made safer because of you, Some wouldn’t be alive today, if not for Ralph Nader! Their minds have been intentionally bombarded with with Corporate propaganda and the Democrat Party scapegoating machine. Obama and Clinton, and that phony Terry McAuliffe should be ashamed of their comments regarding you. They continue the DNC scapegoating myth. thank you for your great service to this Country. More power to your ideas. http://www.votenader.org….All the rest of you out there, buckle-up! ….

  • You’re completely forgetting another former Georgia congressperson. Cynthia McKinney has been running for the Green Party’s nomination for months. She will most likely be the Green candidate, which currently has more ballot lines than the Constitution or Nader. McKinney has more experience at the federal level than Clinton, Obama, Barr, Nader, or Keyes. In a campaign cycle focused on a woman and black candidate, McKinney embodies both. Why does the media continue to ignore her candidacy?

  • What do you think about a scenerio where Obama looses the Democratic nomination, and then decides to run as an independant.

    Put Bloomberg on that ticket and it would make for a very interesting November. I put the odds of that happening at right about the same as my being a walk-on QB starter for the New England Patriots while simultenously being signed as a designated hitter for the Boston Red Sox all within a week of my winning a Fields Medal.

    Full disclosure: while I am under 40 (barely) I am not nor have I ever been in the field of mathematics; I can barely hit a slow pitch softball in a bad rec league, and live on the West (best!) coast.

  • It sounds kooky now, but think of all the bitter people with nothing to do but spend their unemployment checks on pork rinds and bowling…

    We do need a third, fourth, and/or fifth party. Unfortunately, most of the “non-traditional” candidates don’t do any serious party building work between quixotic runs for the White House every four years.

    I have no statistics to back it up, but my gut feeling is that a bipartisan, libertarian party would do quite well…at least here in the Midwest. I’ve also come to the conclusion that the “independents” are mostly libertarians; some lean left and some lean right. But they probably have more in common with each other than they do with the parties that they end up voting for.

    Unfortunately, our election system isn’t really set up to handle third parties. And i highly doubt that the Dems and the Reps will use their power to reorganize our process to give another party any chance of operating.

  • McKinney punched a cop. She’s a racist and a loon. That’s why she doesn’t get media attention.

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