Barr was a spoiler after all

Submitted by ryanteaguebeckwith on November 20, 2008 - 10:38am.
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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.

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Re: Barr was a spoiler after all

Submitted by dahedgehog on November 21, 2008 - 1:11am.

The facts, while interesting....

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Re: Barr was a spoiler after all

Submitted by ryanteaguebeckwith on November 20, 2008 - 1:34pm.

Thanks for the thoughtful comment, but I'm sticking with my definition of a spoiler.

— RTB 

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Re: Barr was a spoiler after all

Submitted by dahedgehog on November 20, 2008 - 1:32pm.

RTB, you should change the post. "Barr was possibly a spoiler" or "If you make some unrealistic assumptions on the behavior of Barr voters, then Barr was maybe a spoiler". Either are better than the declarative statement "Barr was a spoiler after all."

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Re: Barr was a spoiler after all

Submitted by ryanteaguebeckwith on November 20, 2008 - 12:10pm.

True. It's impossible to know how people would have voted, but it's worth pointing out when the third-party candidate gets more votes than the margin.

— RTB 

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Re: Barr was a spoiler after all

Submitted by dwcatty on November 20, 2008 - 12:08pm.

It's just math.

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Re: Barr was a spoiler after all

Submitted by dahedgehog on November 20, 2008 - 12:04pm.

The only way that Barr was the deciding factor would be if (1) all Barr voters cast a vote for president, and (2) those Barr voters favored McCain by at least 19,957 (78%) to 5,765 (22%).

Those are two big "if's". Particularly, there's no reason to think Barr voters would favor McCain by such a large margin.

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Barr didn't spoil anything except the Libertarian Party

Submitted by ConMax on November 20, 2008 - 12:00pm.

"That puts Barr into elite company in North Carolina."

It sure did! It proves that Barr is no voter getter period! My dog would have got 25 thousand votes by simply having his bone on the ballot! Where did you political training at? The Ed Cone reverse school of new age establishment math!

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