DCRepublican.com

I’m sure that I wasn’t the only person surprised by seeing former Congressman Bob Barr’s latest resurgence – this time running for President under the Libertarian Party.

While the likelihood of Bob Barr winning is quite slim, I do believe that he could bring an interesting dynamic to the race that could have a significant impact on the outcome of the election this November.

On a few occasions, I have discussed the need for the Republican Party to find a way to harness some of the energy of the loyal Ron Paul base. However, with Bob Barr entering this race, it’s going to be much easier for those supporters to find common ground with Barr as opposed to Senator McCain, spelling out problems for the GOP.

Furthermore, when Ron Paul actually decides to exit this race, if he throws his support behind Bob Barr, it’s safe to assume that the majority of the Ron Paul army will also follow.

Now in terms of percentage of the overall electorate, I don’t think that Ron Paul’s loyalists would have much muscle if this was your typical election. However, with the likelihood of Barack Obama being the Democratic nominee becoming more likely every day, this Ron Paul army now finds itself in a position of power.

Under normal circumstances, it would be assumed that this army of conservative/libertarian voters would usually support the next best thing when their candidate leaves the race. For the last few weeks, that next best thing has been John McCain (by a long shot for some, I know), but now with Bob Barr throwing his hat in, the McCain campaign is going to have to find a way to get to some of these voters, or find a new group of ‘independents’ to go after.

If Hillary Clinton was the nominee for the Demcorats, this wouldn’t be a big deal, simply because the independents would naturally gravitate more towards McCain. But Barack Obama does very well independents, which pulls away more potential non-traditional voters from the McCain campaign.

When you throw in the potential of a ‘Bob Barr’ effect, the results could pose significant problems for the McCain campaign.

Even with Bob Barr entering this race, I still believe that McCain has a good chance of winning in November. However, it’s going to be more difficult than once assumed and the McCain camp is going to have to make some strategy decisions that put them in a position to reach out beyond the identified supporters and ‘likely independents’.

You can already see the McCain campaign doing this with their latest pitches on global warming, supporting proposals like cap-and-trade.

While these definitely have appeal to the non-traditional-Republican voters, they are fighting words in some free-market, libertarian-Republican circles, who cringe at the idea of more government intervention.

If at any point it appears that this race is going to be a lost cause for the Republican Party, I don’t see any reason why libertarian-Republicans wouldn’t throw their support behind Bob Barr just to make a point to the Republican National Committee.

I personally think that John McCain is making some smart moves by addressing the environment issues early on in his campaign. As you know, there are many Republicans who doubt the credibility of global warming claims and believe that the government shouldn’t impose new regulations based on those claims.

By putting these issues on table now, there is a good chance that once the debates start rolling around, people will begin to look at more contrasting issues, such as national defense, immigration, health care, social security and other tax policies where Obama and McCain see things much differently.

But, at the same time, this also gives Bob Barr an opportunity to reach out to those people (mainly libertarian leaning Republicans) who are opposed to McCain’s views and raise money to go on the attack.

If Bob Barr has the ability to harness even one-half of the energy that surrounds Ron Paul’s campaign, he’ll definitely have the ability to play spoiler in November.

Now all Bob Barr needs is an endorsement from Paul, and we’ll have one hell of a race.

Like I said, I think McCain can still win this and I’m not all that worried… yet. I mean, he does still have to compete with Mike Gravel first, right?

On a side note, I did see that the Ron Paul headquarters in Arlington, VA has been vacated…