The continuing rEVOLution
columnist: George Dance

Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Barrwatch -- Barr takes 6% in GA poll

On June 20, 2008, independent media site 411mania led off its report on the latest presidential polls with this news: "The headliner is out of Georgia where InsiderAdvantage has McCain clinging to a 1% lead over Obama, 44% to 43%, with third party candidate Bob Barr getting 6% (he is from Georgia). This is a state that nobody thought would be in play this year. When news came that the Obama camp planned to compete in the state, many questioned the decision, but it's clear now what Obama's internal polls were showing -- Georgia is a swing state this year." (1)

The IA poll has a 5% margin of error, meaning that McCain's 1% lead is a statistical tie -- a remarkable change. The Republicans won Georgia with 55% of the vote in 2000, and 58% -- for a 17-point advantage -- in 2004. State polls routinely give them a double-digit lead. "The last time a presidential race was competitive in Georgia," exclaimed the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "the Atlanta Braves were defending world champions and gasoline cost about $1 a gallon. " (2)

Newsweek political blogger Stumper (Andrew Romano) attributed the difference to "the two B's: Bob Barr and black voters." Barr, Romano notes, has "been a known quantity in Georgia for two decades; now, as the Libertarian Party's nominee for president, he's guaranteed to sap a sizable number of votes from McCain, who lost the state's February primary to Mike Huckabee and inspires little enthusiasm among its largely Evangelical Republican base."

Romano points out that IA has been the only Georgia survey to include Barr to date. "The Barr-less polls peg McCain's support at 53 or 54 percent -- an insurmountable edge. But as soon as you add Barr to the equation, McCain's numbers plunge eight to 10 points. Released on May 21, the first Insider Advantage poll show Barr swiping eight percent of the vote and McCain slipping to 45; in the second, it's Barr with six and McCain with a mere 44. The moral of the story: if Barr's on the ballot in November -- and he will be -- McCain is vulnerable."

He also explains that the last IA survey (the only other one to include Barr) underrepresented African-American voters.

In 2004, 25 percent of the Georgia electorate was black, and 88 percent of Georgia blacks voted for John Kerry.... But in May's Insider Advantage poll -- which showed Obama trailing McCain by 10 points overall -- blacks only made up 21.9 percent of the pool, and only 79 percent said they supported Obama. Factor in how the poll also wildly underepresented 18-29-year-olds -- another key Obama demographic, they made up 19 percent Georgia's 2004 electorate but only 4.9 percent of May's sample group -- and that pretty much explains Obama's 10-point deficit.

Romano concludes that "Insider Advantage's latest survey -- the only one to include Barr and realistically estimate Obama's black backing -- is probably the most accurate sounding we've seen." (3)

As Barr predicted to Time magazine last weekend, "Georgia would be very much in play, even if I weren't in the race, and it will be even more so now that I am.' (4)

The Obama campaign agrees, including Georgia in its first $4 million, multi-state commercial buy (a piece of apple pie called "The Country I Love," which makes me think of a black remake of The Andy Griffith Show).

McCain now has to decide how and whether to respond, the same dilemma he faces in North Carolina (another state which "the two B's" have put into the 'swing' column). As 411mania sums it up: "Like North Carolina, [Georgia] is a lose-lose for McCain. He either has to ignore it and risk losing it, or spend money and resources in it and be that much weaker elsewhere." (1)

Barr advises against the first option, telling Time that McCain "does not really have a natural constituency in Georgia. Certainly, he'll appeal to die-hard Republicans and certainly the military folks, but it's not a state, if I were advising his campaign, that I would focus on." (4)

However, Channel 11 Atlanta reports that "The presidential campaign of John McCain is expected to join the advertising battle in Georgia very soon," adding that "Both sides [sic] expect the Georgia campaign to get tough." (5)

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©2008 George Dance, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Sunday, June 22, 2008
Last modified: Tuesday, June 24, 2008

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