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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…

I’m working on some things this weekend, but in the meantime, here are two new blogs that I think have a great deal of potential (they’re new, so you’ll have to check back frequently for updates):

TheNextRight.com - the latest creation of Soren Dayton, John Henke and Patrick Ruffini.

DearRepublicanParty.com - A friend of mine who is just getting things rolling; definitely excited to see this blog grow.

Despite the fact that the 2008 presidential primaries have been anything but uneventful, in terms of other campaigns across the country, it seems as if everyone else is off to an incredibly slow start.

Even though it’s already May, there are still many hot-races that haven’t even come close to moving into full swing.

While I find this extremely troubling for both parties, I find it to be most problematic for Republicans, simply because they are already heading into this election as the underdogs.

Awhile back, Time Magazine published what they thought were the top 10 Senate races in the 2008 election: Virginia, Colorado and New Hampshire. I completely agree with this assessment and if the GOP wants to at least have some voting muscle in the Senate, they need to win these races.

This isn’t new information, but for some reason it seems that these top three campaigns haven’t even moved into full gear yet, even though there is only a little more than 6 months until the November election.

To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here is just a glimpse into some of the things (primarily problems) I’ve noticed amongst the ‘top 3’ campaigns, focusing primarily on the Republican side.

Virginia – Jim Gilmore:

Problem: It wasn’t until about two weeks ago that I actually started receiving frequent updates from the campaign letting me know what was happening. However, even though I signed up to be a volunteer on multiple occasions, I have yet to receive any communications from the campaign providing me with opportunities to get involved.

Bigger Problem: Someone from Mark Warner’s campaign got back to me quite quickly with a variety of things that I can do to get involved with the campaign.

Side note: this is almost the exact same problem I’ve had with the McCain campaign; however the McCain campaign at least sends updates for volunteer opportunities.

This was a race that was once considered ‘too close to call,’ however many are now saying it’s leaning favorably towards a Democratic win. I think this can be changed, but not at the pace they’re currently moving.

Colorado – Bob Schaffer

Problem: Despite the fact of knowing that this is going to be an extremely tough race for a Republican to win, it appears that this campaign has done very little (almost nothing) in terms of marketing themselves on the internet.

Even though their race will be expensive, they don’t seem to understand that one of the first places people go to get information on their candidate is the candidate’s website.

This is usually a good thing, unless you’re Bob Schaffer.

Please click here to see Bob Schaffer’s website.

Now, click here to see his opponent, Mark Udall’s website.

To Bob Schaffer, or anyone else on his campaign: set up a meeting with David All, Joe Mansour and Patrick Ruffini… fast. Marketing and web-overhaul, priority #1.

Just to give you an idea of how the two candidate’s sites perform against each other, check out this chart.

Side note, here is a great blog in Colorado evaluating many of the details of this race. 

New Hampshire: John Sununu

Problem: Exactly the same problem that Bob Schaffer is having. Even though his site isn’t as bad, in comparison to his opponents, it’s lagging severely.

Please click here to view John Sununu’s site.

Now, click here to view his opponent, Jeanne Shaheen’s site.

If you looked at both of those sites, I’m sure that this graph doesn’t really surprise you.

While this is obviously pessimistic, I think that if they made some simple adjustments and paid attention to what was working for the left (particularly Barack Obama) and implemented that into their strategy, both the candidates and the party as a whole would be in a much better position heading into November.

Yes, the fact that Democrat Don Cazayoux beat Republican Woody Jenkins in an expensive race to replace Richard Baker in Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District isn’t news that the Republican Party is looking for.

However, is this something that we (Republicans) should be worried about?

I know that for many, this race was going to be seen as an early indicator of how things might play out in November, however I don’t think that this race is one that can be seen as representative of the national electorate.

The one thing that people seem to overlook in this race is the fact that Woody Jenkins was by no means a lifelong Republican.

A simple Google search will show anyone that Woody Jenkins was first a Republican in his early years, then switched to being a Democrat for 22 years, and then when he got the ambition to run for Senate, he switched back to the Republican Party.

While there is no doubt that Woody Jenkins is a strong conservative, who has pushed conservative reforms for both parties, these switches can often times make people uncomfortable and even resentful when they seek higher offices.

An example of this would be with Norm Coleman in Minnesota, who ran for Mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota and won as a Democrat, later to switch to the Republican Party. There are many who would argue that had Paul Wellstone not died in that plane crash in October (less than 2 weeks before the election), that Norm Coleman would have lost.

Be it no surprise that it’s Norm Coleman’s race against Al Franken in Minnesota that is being labeled as one of the top Senate races of the 2008 election.

The fact of the matter is that the 6th district race in Louisiana, as well as the Minnesota Senate Race cannot be looked at as determining factors in the upcoming elections.

You can’t take life-long Democrats, match them up against inconsistent Republicans (though sometimes consistent conservatives) and expect there to be an outcome that represents the national electorate.

The 2008 Presidential Election is going to have a life-long Republican, who is also a solid conservative (John McCain) and whoever the Democratic nominee is will be a stark contrast to Senator McCain.

It’s impossible to determine any race as the one that sets the tone for the 2008 election when there isn’t even a nominee for the Democrats. Even amongst Senators Clinton and Obama, there are stark differences that could yield certain blocks of undecided voters going towards a certain candidate.

We won’t be able to make any educated guesses until we at least know who the nominee is.

For Republicans, that makes it tough for us to fundraise with, but I would imagine that it will be even tougher for the Democrats once they choose their nominee.

As it stands now, I’m sure both candidates are tapping out some of their regular donors and bringing many more close to the federal campaign contribution limits.

Either way, this definitely shows that 2008 will be an unorthodox and exciting election year.

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As the summer draws near and the Democratic Primaries slowly wind down, campaign season is going to quickly roll into overdrive.

Soon enough, your mailbox is going to be flooded with fundraising pieces, your phone will be ringing off the hook with robo-calls and you’ll probably have a new series of commercials taunting you as you watch your favorite TV shows, all from candidates you can’t stand.

Yes, the season nerds like me love more than any other quickly approaching.

However, as this “full swing” campaign time draws near, I’ve been noticing that there are many people questioning whether or not the GOP will have enough muscle to successfully challenge the Democrats this fall.

Today’s questioning comes from the Cafferty File Blog, where Jack Cafferty points to new research showing that amongst people under 30, Democrats are going to have a much larger advantage over Republicans than they did in 2004. Citing Pew Research Data, Cafferty asks why the GOP can’t attract more young voters:

The Pew research Center did a survey of young people between October of last year and March of this year. What they found was that the current generation of young voters who came of age during the George W. Bush years is giving the Democrats a wide advantage in party identification.

58% of voters under the age of 30 surveyed during that time identified or leaned toward the democratic party-compared with just 33% who identified or leaned toward the Republican party. In fact, the Democratic party’s current lead in party identification among young voters has more than doubled since the 2004 campaign — from 11 points then to 25 points now.

Should this be a cause of concern for Republicans? Sure, especially with the article being released today showing President Bush’s approval ratings as the lowest of any President ever. But it shouldn’t appear to be the end of the world.

The fact of the matter is that there is plenty of time for the GOP to brand itself in such a way that it has some appeal to younger voters.

I would argue that the GOP is currently doing many things that would be appealing to young people, however there has been very little marketing in terms of reaching beyond those who are identified and registered Republicans.

Without this marketing and outreach, the GOP carries the stereotype of being a party of old, rich, white men.

When you look at the issues that are really going to effect those who are under the age of 30, the biggest issue seems to be the most silent.

It’s not Iraq, its not Darfur, it’s Social Security.

I know that this was an issue that President Bush campaigned hard on in 2004, but courtesy of the Congress, he couldn’t get much done with it in 2005.

I also know that this was an issue that some would argue wasted a lot of ‘political capital’ for the administration, but I truly believe that if the GOP can bring this issue back, market it well and show young people why they need to demand change on this, we will win more young voters. We just need to be more creative.

As it stands now, neither of the Democrats will support any form of comprehensive Social Security reform, so it isn’t going to be hard to make a distinction, showing who is really looking to protect their future.

Another way that the GOP can attract more young voters is by returning to the roots of the early Republican Party, where decision and platforms were made on ideas, not polling trends and electability studies.

If the GOP can show themselves as the true party for limited government and personal responsibility, I don’t see any reason that they wouldn’t be able to attract some of the undecided voters, but more importantly tap into some of the Ron Paul base, which still seems to be strong.

Even something as simple as looking at issues from a different angle (like stopping bills that would make renters pay for the mistakes of some homeowners) will help people realize that the GOP isn’t what the stereotype suggests, and that we can actually create positive change both domestically and abroad.

There are a lot of things that the GOP can and will do to attract young voters to support the Republican candidates in November.

It’s going to take a lot of work, money and creativity, but these steps aren’t taken, the outcome of the November elections can be predicted now: we’ll lose.