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Badnarik!

Filed under: Imported

Is it possible that Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik, and not Ralph Nader, might end up playing a decisive role in this year's election?

I was struck a week or so back by a presidential survey of various writers, professors, and other public figures put together by Reason magazine.

Now granted it's a group of iconoclasts and cage rattlers, quite a few of whom profess that they won't even be bothering to vote. But even so I found it somewhat astounding that fully a dozen out of the 47 folks polled expressed either an intention or a desire to vote for Badnarik. By contrast, not one person conveyed any interest whatsoever in voting for Nader (even though a few did so in 2000).

Then in yesterday's Times, John Tierney pointed out (second item) that in the most recent Zogby poll Badnarik and Nader are both attracting 1 percent of the vote nationwide. Tierney further notes that the Libertarian party standard-bearer is on the ballot in all but one of the remaining battleground states whereas Nader is likely to be out of the picture in two crucial states--Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Badnarik is certainly more likely to draw votes from Bush than Kerry. He could hold particular appeal for folks in the isolationist and anti-immigration wings of the GOP (a la Pat Buchanan and Tom Tancredo) who are pissed off about the war in Iraq and Bush's unwillingness to crack down on illegal aliens.

Badnarik makes an explicit pitch for these disaffected Republicans in his most recent TV ad.

Posted by Paul Demko at October 25, 2004 5:47 PM

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