Bob Barr was a spoiler in North Carolina after all.

Though the Libertarian presidential candidate made only token appearances in the state and received a miniscule number of votes in November, he still got more votes than the margin of difference.

Barr's 25,722 votes were more than one and a half times the 14,192 margin that made Barack Obama winner of the state over John McCain. Put another way, Barr had about 0.6 percent of the vote, while the margin was about 0.3 percent.

That puts Barr into elite company in North Carolina.

As previously noted, there have been five third-party candidates who earned enough votes to affect the race between the Republican and Democrat in North Carolina since 1908.

They are: George Wallace in 1968, Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, Ross Perot in 1992 and in 1996 and John Anderson in 1980. (Technically, Roosevelt did not earn more than the margin of Woodrow Wilson's win, but he came in second so we count him.)

However, Barr earned the smallest percentage of any of the other spoilers, and the number of write-in votes was close enough to the margin this year to almost qualify on its own.

Update: Greensboro blogger Ed Cone called it in mid-May.

Some interesting names from U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole's donor list:

* Kirk Kerkorian, of Bevery Hills, billionaire resort developer, gave $4,600 on July 2, 2007.

* H. Ross Perot, of Texas, former presidential candidate and billionaire, gave $4,600 on April 9, 2007.

* Phil Gramm, of Texas, former senator and erstwhile economic advisor to John McCain, gave $2,300 on May 21, 2007.

* Richard Petty, of Randleman, racecar driver and former Secretary of State candidate, gave $1,000 on May 12, 2008.

There have been five presidential spoilers in N.C. in the last century.

Since 1908, third-party candidates in the presidential race have earned enough votes to affect the race between the Republican and the Democrat on the ballot in 1912, 1968, 1980, 1992 and 1996.

In the first two cases, the third-party candidate came in second.

George Wallace was the most successful, earning 31.3 percent of the state vote in the 1968 race as the nominee of the segregationist American Independent Party. The winner, Republican Richard Nixon, won 39.5 percent, while Democrat Hubert Humphrey came in third with 29.2 percent.

The next most successful was former president Teddy Roosevelt, who ran on the Progressive or "Bull Moose" Party in 1912, earning 28.4 percent. Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the state with 59.2 percent, while Republican incumbent William Howard Taft came in third with 12 percent.

In the other races, the third-party candidates came in third, but got more votes than the margin of difference between the Democratic and Republican candidates.

In 1992, Texas businessman Ross Perot earned 13.7 percent of the vote, far more than the 0.79 percent margin that incumbent George H.W. Bush beat Bill Clinton by in North Carolina, despite losing the national race.

Four years later, Perot was roughly half as popular — picking up just 6.7 percent — but he still drew more votes than the 4.7 percent difference between winner Bob Dole and Clinton.

And in 1980, Independent candidate John Anderson won 2.9 percent, slightly more than the 2.1 percent difference between winner Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.

Over the past century, North Carolina has rarely been a battleground.

Since 1908, the average margin of victory in the presidential race here has been 18 percentage points, and the median has been 12.4 points.

The closest race out of those 25 elections was Bill Clinton's challenge to incumbent President George H.W. Bush in 1992. As a Southern governor running on the economy, Clinton campaigned heavily in the state, but he was helped by a strong third-party showing by Ross Perot.

Bush only won by 0.79 percentage points, beating Clinton 43.4 to 42.7 percent. (Perot got 13.9 percent of the vote, the third-best showing for a third-party candidate in North Carolina after George Wallace in 1968 and Teddy Roosevelt in 1912.)

The next closest race was 1956, when Democrat Adlai Stevenson edged Dwight Eisenhower by 1.32 percentage points despite losing the national election.

In third place was Ronald Reagan's 2.12 point win over Jimmy Carter in 1980. In fourth place, John Kennedy's 4.22 point win over Richard Nixon in 1960. And in fifth place, Bob Dole's 4.69 point win over Clinton in 1996 despite losing the national election.

Otherwise, North Carolina was reliably Democratic from 1908 to 1964, and reliably Republican from 1968 to 2004 (with the exception of Carter's post-Watergate win in 1976.)

Matt Towery says Bob Barr could hurt John McCain in North Carolina.

In an interview with the Washington Times, the Atlanta-based pollster and one-time adviser to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich noted a recent poll showing the Libertarian presidential nominee drawing 6 percent here.

"Barr does throw a monkey wrench in Republican plans in states people otherwise take for granted as Republican states," said Matt Towery, chief executive officer of InsiderAdvantage, an Atlanta-based polling and political analysis firm that conducted the Georgia poll, and one-time political adviser to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Mr. Towery said North Carolina and Georgia have large black populations that Mr. Obama can tap to boost his turnout numbers, and both have conservative-leaning voters whose dissatisfaction with President Bush could lead them to a third-party candidate.

The paper also quotes N.C. Republican Party spokesman Brent Woodcox saying "it's too early to tell" whether Barr will be a spoiler like Ross Perot or more like previous Libertarian candidates, who didn't crack 1 percent here.

Will the Libertarian Party help make North Carolina a swing state?

Earlier this month, Greensboro blogger Ed Cone speculated that a potential run by former Congressman Bob Barr could draw votes away from Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

"Given the blue tide we saw in NC last week, the prospect of a relatively strong Libertarian in the race can't be comforting to McCain, who got less than 75% of the primary vote here, while Ron Paul and No Preference combined for more than 10%," he wrote.

Now that the Libertarians are officially a party, its presidential nominee will be on the ballot.

Brian Irving, a spokesman for the state party, said the state party is more focused on helping gubernatorial nominee Mike Munger get 2 percent of the vote so that it can continue to remain a political party.

In the past two elections, the Libertarian candidate has been the strongest third-party candidate in North Carolina's presidential race, though nowhere near enough to influence a race. In 2004, Michael Badnarik got 11,731 votes, or 0.3 percent. In 2000, Harry Browne got 12,307, or 0.4 percent.

In 1996, Reform Party candidate Ross Perot got 168,059 votes or 6.7 percent, while Browne got 8,740 votes, or 0.3 percent, and Natural Law Party candidate John Hagelin got 2,771, or 0.1 percent.

In a tight race, Barr wouldn't need Perot-like numbers to make a difference, but he would need to do better than the usual three-tenths of one percent.

An adviser to Barack Obama says North Carolina was a swing state in 1992.

In a conference call this afternoon, N.C. State grad Robert Gibbs pointed out that Bill Clinton came within a percentage point of winning the state that year.

According to the State Board of Elections, George H.W. Bush won 43.4 percent, while Clinton won 42.7 percent that year. That's a difference of eight-tenths of one percent.

Of course, Clinton was helped by the fact that independent candidate Ross Perot won 13.7 percent. (Another third-party candidate, Andre Marrou, picked up a negligible two-tenths of one percent.)

The Clinton campaign heavily targeted North Carolina that year, campaigning in Charlotte, Kinston, Greensboro, Raleigh and Chapel Hill and spending substantial money here. Afterward, advisers said North Carolina was one of their biggest disappointments.

In 1996, the state did not swing, however. Republican Bob Dole won 48.7 percent, while Clinton trailed at 44 percent, and Perot picked up just 6.7 percent.