Maybe If You Actually Talked To One...

Political reporter Eric Black had a piece in yesterday's Star Tribune on the prospects of third party candidates impacting the 2004 election. The story was fueled by a study conducted by Lawrence Jacobs, director of the 2004 Election Project at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute. Jacobs has concluded that third party candidates would likely harm Bush more than a Democrat in 2004, and his analysis has sparked a debate on the matter.

He published an article in the Washington Post on the subject (available only in their archives which are not free) and also appeared on Saturday's Jesse Ventura's America on MSNBC to discuss it. Jesse was clearly interested in the potential prospects of third party presidential candidates and revealed that he had declined an offer from the Green Party to run as their candidate. At this point I don't believe that this has been confirmed or denied by a representative of the Greens (insert your own joke about what they were too busy doing).

And in fact Black's Strib piece mentions Ventura as a possibility in 2004:

But the pundits also agree that to have much impact in 2004, the third-party candidate would have to have personal wealth, like Perot, preexisting name recognition, like Jesse Ventura, or a position of credibility and respect, like Sen. John McCain, R.-Ariz., or former Sen. Warren Rudman, R.-N.H., who co-chairs the anti-deficit Concord Coalition.

Of course on his show, Jesse downplayed the odds of his entering the race, saying the he was too busy making his show a success to have to consider it. However, if the show's paltry ratings continue much longer, he might find himself with plenty of free time on his hands. How the show fares in November could well determine its future. We'll soon find out if the public is ready for four weeks of nothing but paranoid conspiracy theories to mark the fortieth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, as Jesse seems to believe we are.

Back to Black for a moment. His article examines the three political spheres from which third party candidates could emerge. The left with the Greens, where he includes a quote from the Minnesota Green Party chair. The center with the Independence Party, where he includes a quote from the chair of the Minnesota Independence Party. And the right with the libertarians, a group Black apparently believes he doesn't need to actually speak to since he understands them so well:

Libertarians have a philosophy centered on their goal of maximizing liberty and minimizing government. That gives them many clear differences with Bush-style Republicanism, including unequivocal opposition to the Iraq war, opposition to the Patriot Act as an assault on civil liberties and an unrelenting opposition to new government expenditures, including the proposed expansion of the Medicare drug benefit, which Bush supports.

I am not a libertarian but I know a number of folks who either outright describe themselves as libertarians or tend to embrace libertarian views. Does Eric Black? I ask the question mainly because of his claim that libertarians are "unequivocally opposed to the Iraq war". While I'm sure that there are some libertarians who oppose the war, most that I know or whose opinions I have read tend to support it. And while libertarians have been skeptical about the Patriot Act (some like Grover Norquist have vocally opposed it), I think that to say that they view it as "an assault on civil liberties" is grossly overstating their concerns. As to the new government expenditures, including the expansion of Medicare, most conservatives are (or should be) just as riled up about this as are libertarians.

When next November rolls around I'm sure that there are plenty of libertarians who will "vote their conscience" and go for their national candidate instead of Bush. But I believe that Black and Jacobs are engaging in wishful thinking if they believe the differences will be enough to convince much more than die hard libertarians to abandon Bush. Especially if the issue which determines the outcome of the election is the war. Which it should be.