Libertarian votes cost McCain the election in many states. Look at how many votes Barr took away from McCain and I think you’ll see where our victory went. Barr was nothing more than Ross Perot for the 2008 election.
If you are right then it would have been a much better idea to embrace the Libertarians and make them a part of the Republican coalition instead of chasing them away. It is more logical and likely to build a winning coalition with them, than for example, union members, or one of the other groups that didn't vote for the Republican candidates.
McCain just proved that trying to get "moderates" to vote for you is a losing plan - "moderates" are just liberals pretending not to be.
That's a crock. Complete B.S. Nader got more votes than Barr did.
In Virginia, a close-fought state, Obama got 1,791,154, while McCain got 1,635,292. Barr got 10,542, Baldwin, 7168, while Nader won 10,802 and the Green Party won 2298.
If you add Barr and Baldwin’s numbers to McCain’s, you still have less than the 1.7 million that Obama won.
Maybe they did significantly better in other states, but in this case, they were not the factor that caused Obama to win.
—tkoed
Please demonstrate with numbers how if every Barr vote went for McCain, that he still would have won. If you can't do that, shall I assume you have character enough to admit that your above statement is incorrect?
You are insane and absolutely delusional if you think McCain ever had a chance. This election was nothing but a referendum on the Bush presidency. The Dems could have run a wet paper bag against McCain and won.
Libertarians are NOT "republicans who smoke pot." There is about an even mix between solid fiscal guys who would be republicans if they weren't paranoid about personal liberties.., and wack job fringe loons who would be voting Democrats "if they weren't so conservative."
There is no way you can pin this on libertarians (I voted McCain, btw).
Till you guys can come up with a platform that is something besides "we suck less" you will continue to get your heads handed to you on a platter, and you can continue to whine that the mean ole libertarians did it to you.
Vandalized any keyword lists lately?
Who owns a citizen's vote? Does the citizen own his/her own vote? Or are citizens' votes owned by the government agents, and lent to citizens on election day with the expectation that citizens will use them as the government "owner" wishes?
If a citizen owns his/her own vote, then it's correct to rephrase your comment thusly: "McCain cost himself the election by failing to earn Libertarian votes in many states."
“Libertarian votes cost McCain the election in many states. “
Libertarians are never going to vote for a big spending socialist Republican like McCain. Get a fiscal conservative Republican candidate if you want to attract libertarian voters.
McCain votes cost libertarians the election in all of the states.
So what?