July 17, 2008
Digging the Spoiler Role
Good Libertarian Party campaigns put a likeable gadfly into the race to remind voters about our vanishing freedoms. It also provides a nice safety valve to disgruntled voters who are disappointed with the major party candidates.
Rep. Barr is hell bent on throwing the race to Senator Obama. This will vindicate his candidacy: "See, we matter, we drew enough votes to change the race."
You may accuse me of practicing pop psychology but I think this is the real game plan. I offer two recent articles to back my theory. The first is Matt Welch's introductory/masthead piece in this month's Reason. It's not online yet, but Welch spends a good bit of the article bragging that if the planets align just right and the weather is nice that the LP might be credited this year with throwing the race to the Democrats. Aim for the stars boys!
Today, the candidate himself takes to the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. The thesis of his piece is that Senator McCain cannot be trusted to make "Conservative" judicial nominations. With Senator McCain being a cosponsor of the McCain-Feingold Act to Repeal the First Amendment, this is what our British friends would call "a fair cop."
But, you’re thinking, what about Senator Obama's judicial picks? Might those be worse? Bob? Rep, Barr has anticipated your question and includes this howler:
Nor is it obvious that Barack Obama would attempt to pack the court with left-wing ideologues. He shocked some of his supporters by endorsing the ruling that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own firearms, and criticizing the recent decision overturning the death penalty for a child rapist. With the three members most likely to leave the Supreme Court in the near future occupying the more liberal side of the bench, the next appointments probably won't much change the Court's balance.But even if a President McCain were to influence the court, it would not likely be in a genuinely conservative direction. His jurisprudence is not conservative.
Because Senator Obama's most deeply held convictions change with what he had for breakfast this morning, maybe he'll have a bran muffin and renominate Robert Bork. McCain's "jurisprudence is not conservative" but Obama's will likely be fine. Justice Duvall Patrick will be the next Clarence Thomas.
I have no objection to an LP candidate saying "I don't care if I take votes from the GOP, that's not my concern." I do wonder about a candidate who doesn’t want to throw punches at the Democrats as well.