Bob Barr’s approaching entry into the presidential race should be at least slightly exciting, but for some reason I have not been encouraged by the prospect of the Barr run.  First, let me state the potential good news.  In many state polls, there has been resistance to both Obama and McCain, such that 7-10% regularly say that they will vote third party.  (To take a new example, 9% of Maine voters prefer “some other candidate” rather than a major candidate in the two possible match-ups.)  Not all of that will go to Barr, but if he can get even 5% consistently around the country that will be the best showing ever for a Libertarian candidate on the national level.  I should also say at the outset that a Barr Libertarian candidacy now provides some reason to vote where few or none existed before, and many traditional antiwar conservatives will no longer face the prospect of engaging in acrobatics and contortions to explain their voting preferences.  We will be able to vote for someone who actually believes what we believe, and given how depressing things were looking during the last six weeks that is an accomplishment all by itself.  However, I would not be a curmudgeon if I didn’t outline some of the potential problems with this Barr candidacy. 

Despite what the polling says about the potential for some limited third party success, this election doesn’t pit two almost indistinguishable “centrists” that can be easily portrayed as two sides of the same coin.  Despite the fact that both nominees are broadly committed to maintaining much of the status quo, there are enough real differences on policy that third party critiques that focus on the “duopoly” will be much less effective this time.  Disgruntled progressives don’t want a repeat of 2000, and disaffected conservatives have to bear in the mind that any strong showing for a third party candidate backed by them will be used as a scapegoat for any McCain defeat.  The paradox for the antiwar right challenger remains: win enough votes, and you may actually pull antiwar support from the Democrat, thus electing the Republican against whom you are rebelling; win just enough votes that make the difference and throws the election to Obama, and McCain’s defeat will be pinned on the antiwar right rather than his own militarism and pro-amnesty views.  The latter will serve two purposes: it allows the interventionists to save face and fight another day (another reason why the 2008 outcome will probably not affect the strength of interventionists in the GOP), and it frees mainstream conservatives of any blame for their previous intransigence against McCain.  If the purpose of the protest candidacy is simply to provide an alternative and a voice for disaffected conservatives and libertarians, none of that matters.  IHowever, if it is supposed to accomplish something more significant, I am not sure how it does that.

The Democrats’ question to antiwar conservatives will be: “Don’t you want to vote for the candidate who could actually win and possibly end the war?”  The Republican attack on pro-life conservatives will be: “Do you want to throw away the chance at overturning Roe?”  Framed this way, antiwar conservatives are going to feel pressure to rally around a major party candidate one way or the other.  These objections to antiwar conservative backing for Barr both turn on single issues, so neither one should be persuasive, since it is the single-issue voters more than anyone who “throw away” their votes.  By refusing to use even what miniscule leverage they have, these voters all but guarantee that they are not going to get what they want. 

In fact, I think giving in to this pressure will be a mistake, because before there will ever be any chance of building additional competitive national parties it is imperative to reject the assumptions that support the two-party system.  That is why it is important to back third party candidates especially when a successful showing could lead to the election of an undesirable candidate (and this year any remotely strong showing is going to be deemed the “spoiler” in what will probably end up being a reasonably close race between two undesirable candidates).  We already know that there is essentially nothing to be gained within either of the two parties over the long term, as years and years of experience have taught us, so this is not a question of gradualism vs. a desire for more rapid change.  This will be a matter of backing someone who actually represents us, and refusing to be unrepresented.  To persist in backing a major party candidate when neither one represents your interests is to ensure your continuing lack of representation.

So why am I not more enthused at the prospect of a conservative running as the Libertarian nominee?  Because I have the sneaking suspicion that enough disaffected conservatives will fall for one or the other of the objections mentioned above and they will opt to back candidates who will probably not do much at all on the very single issues that were the reason for supporting them in the first place.  The fear of “irrelevance” or playing a “spoiler” role may overwhelm the desire for real representation, but that fear needs to be resisted.  The way to make the antiwar right irrelevant is if we back a candidate that is either pro-war or not on the right. 

Update: Jim Antle makes the important point that people who are likely to vote for Barr were probably not going to vote for McCain otherwise, so the actual “spoiler” effect will be minimal. However, what worries me is the perception and the spin of the outcome that will blame any McCain defeat on Barr rather than on the appalling policies of this administration and McCain’s embrace of them.

Dan McCarthy makes some similar arguments on the main blog.