Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Barrwatch -- Barr polls at 6% in NC Tracking poll finds Barr eroding McCain's Democratic and independent support.by George Dance
(libertarian)
Monday, June 2, 2008
On June 2, 2008, Public Policy Polling (PPP) of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, released its first tracking poll of the presidential race in NC to include Libertarian Party nominee Bob Barr.
Barr polled 6% in hypothetical three-way races both against John McCain and Barack Obama, and against McCain and Hillary Clinton.
The Libertarian Party is on the ballot in NC, having submitted almost 100,000 signatures (just under 70,000 were required). Comments independent site Ballot Access News: "It isn’t likely that anyone other than the mentioned candidates will appear on the North Carolina ballot, although North Carolina permits write-ins."
"The most interesting story here," adds PPP, "is the effect that Bob Barr has on the race."
PPP notes that Barr is eroding support among Democratic and independent McCain voters -- two groups whose support was crucial in gaining McCain the Republican nomination, and whose support he needs to keep in order to win in November.
"For instance in our last poll, John McCain received 25% of the Democratic vote against Obama and 17% against Clinton. In this survey, McCain is at just 16% and 14% with Democrats in those two matches. So it appears the Democrats Barr is gaining the support of may just be those who weren't intending to vote for the party's nominee in the first place -- he's eroding McCain's Democrats more than Clinton's or Obama's."
Barr is having a similar effect on McCain's independent support:
"Barr also appears to be pulling a lot of support from conservative leaning independents. Last month McCain led Obama by 15 points among independents. Now Barr is pulling 9% with those voters and McCain's lead over Obama is down to 3."
The views expressed in this
article are those of George Dance only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. George Dance is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
If you think about it, McCain is really a spoiler for the democratic candidate, whoever that will invariably be. So it's interesting to see Barr take away from his left-leaning independent base rather than his limited pool of "true conservatives". Here, Barr is the spoiler's spoiler, but I'd be more interested in seeing how he does in the bellweather state so we know what demographics to target.
Those "Bob Barr" columns should be moved to the conservative section of the nolanchart.com website. Bob Barr's strategy is to go after the conservatives upset at McCain and the Republican party. Bob Barr is not running to defend the libertarian agenda, unless libertarianism has been watered down to "smaller government ideas that can take John McCain down". Bob Barr is more a Libertarian conservative than a conservative Libertarian. Actually, "conservative Libertarian" does not sound right.
JCR: "Those "Bob Barr" columns should be moved to the conservative section of the nolanchart.com website."
Nolan Chart categorizes its columns not by subject but by author. It uses the answers to a short survey, which every columnist is asked to fill out. My answers placed me as a "top-diamond" libertarian, as above.
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