Barr eyes bailout as opening to promote Libertarian Party

Private markets fail, politicians from both parties jump to their rescue, and taxpayers get stuck with the bill. Libertarian candidate Bob Barr couldn’t have scripted a better story line to argue that Republicans and Democrats are interchangeable - with a helpless addiction to spending.

Can Mr. Barr capitalize on it during the closing weeks of the presidential campaign?

Polls so far aren’t registering a shift to the Libertarian candidate in spite of widespread outrage over the $700 billion rescue package. The former Republican congressman from Georgia is languishing with about the same 1 percent share of support he has had for months.

But Mr. Barr is sharpening his attacks on Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, hoping that fiscal conservatives frustrated over Mr. McCain’s support for the bailout will join his anti-government campaign. Mr. Barr says traffic on his Web site is spiking, donations are picking up, and the campaign is getting angry calls from Republicans who feel betrayed.

“McCain just seems to make it worse and worse,” Mr. Barr said in an interview this week. “In the debate, he gave this muddled answer about increasing government purchases of troubled mortgages. This is a self-described conservative Republican urging the Department of the Treasury to buy people’s mortgages.

“This illustrates just how far the Republican Party in particular has slid,” Mr. Barr said. “One would expect it from the Democrats, but for Republicans to be championing this massive government intervention down to the level of purchasing individual mortgages is unbelievable.”

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said the campaign is not concerned because McCain has a consistent record of fighting wasteful spending and supporting what is in the national interest, not “what’s politically expedient.”

“We feel very strong about the McCain-Palin ticket’s support among fiscal conservatives and Republicans at large,” Mr. Rogers said. “There’s a big choice in November, and they recognize that he’s the better choice.”

Mr. Barr doesn’t mind criticizing the Arizona senator in personal terms. On Thursday, he issued a statement saying, “Senator McCain claims he can act in a bipartisan manner, but his actions on the Wall Street bailout bill shows he acts in a bipolar manner.”

Since he won the Libertarian nomination in May, Mr. Barr has worried Republicans about his impact on the race because his fiscal positions align more closely with Mr. McCain’s.

Yet Mr. Barr, who built a national following in the 1990s for relentlessly pursuing President Clinton’s impeachment, has been overshadowed by unusually competitive party primaries and a historic general election featuring the first black nominee from a major party and the first Republican woman nominated for vice president.

A national Associated Press-GfK poll taken Sept. 27-30 found Mr. Barr with just 1 percent support. In recent polls in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, he has less than that.

But even tiny percentages for third-party candidates could have an impact. In Florida, a CNN poll released Oct. 1 showed Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois at 51 percent to Mr. McCain’s 47 percent in a head-to-head matchup. Mr. McCain’s support fell to 43 percent when Mr. Barr was listed along with independent candidate Ralph Nader and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney.

Not even Mr. Nader can make sense of why he would appeal to potential McCain voters rather than Obama supporters.

“I have no idea,” Mr. Nader said. “You have to ask the pollsters. It really is counterintuitive.”