An e-mail from Texas

A retired Army colonel in Texas sent me the following e-mail:

I strongly disagree with Bob Barr running for President. A third party candidate has NEVER won the White House. Every third party candidate in history has simply become the SPOILER, putting the other party in the White House. Barr could make his points better by working closely with the Republicans to ensure at least some of his points are included in the platform.
I can only assume that Bob Barr’s ultimate intent is to ensure a Democrat sits in the White House for that will be the outcome of his candidacy.

I responded:

Thank you for writing, sir. I've heard Barr address the "spoiler" question at length several times. He has said that voters who vote for him probably wouldn't vote for McCain or Obama anyway, and if it weren't for his candidacy, these disaffected voters would just stay home.
The problems facing the Republicans in the coming election -- as indicated by the party's lackluster fundraising and polls showing strong disapproval of the Bush administration -- are, after all, the Republicans' problem. That Bob Barr could take advantage of those problems may be worrisome to Republicans, but they should have thought of that possibility when they were nominating the co-author the Kennedy-McCain immigration bill.
In point of fact, a third-party candidate has won a presidential election. His name was Abraham Lincoln, a former Whig congressman.

I have many friends who, like my Texas correspondent, are inclined to support Crazy Cousin John because of fear that a Democrat will win the White House. Their essential argument -- that conservatives must automatically vote for any Republican candidate -- gives license to the Beltway GOP Establishment types who think they can pursue unconservative policies without electoral consequences. Conservative voters have got "nowhere else to go," the Beltway cynics say.

For six years, I lived in a Maryland district represented by Connie Morella, a liberal Republican. I voted for Morella because I understood that (a) this was a liberal district, and it would be difficult or perhaps impossible for a conservative Republican to be elected there, and (b) as Newt Gingrich once said, the only vote of Morella's that really mattered was her vote to caucus with the Republicans, thus to establish their power as the majority.

Eventually, of course, Morella was defeated by a liberal Democrat -- the inevitable fate of all liberal Republicans.

If John McCain were a conservative running as a conservative, he would have no concern about a third-party challenge from the right. However, as his American Conservative Union ratings clearly demonstrate, McCain has spent the past 12 years distancing himself from conservatives.

As recently as 1996, McCain scored 95 from the ACU; since then, however, his ACU rating has never been higher than 81, and has three times fallen below 70 -- 68 in 1998 and 2001, 65 in 2006.

That McCain's ACU ratings are much higher than Barack Obama's or Hillary Clinton's, there can be no doubt. But those who urge conservatives to vote to elect one of the most liberal Republicans in Congress to the White House are in effect endorsing a leftward drift of the GOP.

BTW, Barr's lifetime ACU rating: 98.