Voters want Barr in debates

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By Ralph Z. Hallow The WASHINGTON TIMES

A majority of voters say Libertarian Bob Barr, a potential spoiler for Republican John McCain's presidential hopes, should be included in the three presidential debates scheduled in the fall between Barack Obama and Mr. McCain, a recent Zogby poll says.

"Anywhere Barr is on the ballot - and he will be in almost every state - he has the potential to hurt McCain," John Zogby said.

"Virginia right now is tied between McCain and Obama within one-tenth of a percent. Colorado is razor thin. Really, in any of the battleground states, even 1 percent looms very large."

The online poll of 3,339 likely voters found that 55 percent of voters nationwide - including 50 percent of Republicans and 69 percent of independents and 52 percent of Democrats - want Mr. Barr, a Republican turned Libertarian, to participate in presidential debates, and 46 percent think perennial third-party candidate Ralph Nader should also be included.

The McCain campaign privately has dismissed Mr. Barr, a House manager of the 1999 Clinton impeachment proceedings, as less than a blip on the electoral screen, predicting ultimately he would win less than a percentage point of the total vote nationally.

McCain loyalists generally regard Mr. Barr as an unwitting tool of the Democrats because of his potential to siphon off the more conservative voters who normally vote for the Republican candidate, including those who say the United States should limit its foreign military interventions and reject government intrusions into the privacy of Americans at home.

Mr. Barr, in a breakfast with reporters on Friday, criticized Mr. McCain for having said, "We are all Georgians." Mr. Barr called the statement meaningless and simplistic. He said the Russian-Georgian territorial dispute has no bearing on vital interests to the United States. He said Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama are far too "interventionist" and "equally bad" on foreign policy.

Mr. Barr is sensitive to allegations that he is playing the same spoiler role for Republicans that Mr. Nader has been accused of playing for Democrats in the past.

"I view myself as a true and viable alternative to the other two parties," Mr. Barr said.

But Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat who favors gun rights, sees an opening and recently held a telephone press conference organized by the Obama campaign to say that both major party candidates fall short in the eyes of gun-rights advocates.

"If guns are your primary issue, you're probably not going to like either of these guys," Mr. Schweitzer said, adding that in that case the best alternative was Mr. Barr - who won an A+ rating from the gun-rights lobby - "if you're absolutely not going to vote for McCain or Obama on guns."

Asked if Mr. Schweitzer, in suggesting Second Amendment defenders pull the lever for Mr. Barr, had done a "smart thing," Mr. Barr smiled and said, "They're very smart people in Montana. They have a very smart governor."

One criterion for inclusion in the presidential debates is that a candidate must be posting at least 15 percent support in national polls before the debates.

An Aug. 7-10 Gallup Poll had Mr. Barr, who served in the Reagan administration Justice Department, with 1 percent, the same percentage the poll showed for Mr. Nader, the consumer advocate running as an independent, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a New York Democrat who lost the Democratic primary race.

Green Party nominee Cynthia McKinney, the former liberal Democratic congresswoman, registered as an asterisk in the Gallup Poll, meaning she garnered less than 1 percent.