Last week the Nashua Telegraph poked fun at the fact that the LP might have two separate candidates on the ballot. This morning, the Concord Monitor mentions the same, and quotes the US Senate candidate Ken Blevins who is backing Phillies.

Regardless, this is not a good situation for the regular New Hampshire voter. Phillies insistance to remain on the ballot as a renegade candidate
causes great confusion for regular NH residents.

The Barr team has assembled some of the best petitioners in the county to come here. I’d place my confidence in the pros.

...LOL!..how about a requirement that some 300 or so phony, hand-placed, goddamned fool republicunts/conservatives masquerading as “Libertarians” can’t nominate for pres. AN OBVIOUS REPUBLICUNT/CONSERVATIVE BARFBAG..

GREEN DUD POPS OFF: “why would a so called serious candidate for the Libertarian nomination for President such as George Phillies spend his time posting in these blog pages filled with kids.” (END)

...as stoooooooooooopid as many of the green dud republicrats here appear, this is the BEST blog i can find…(i hear there is, unlike most/all other blogs of which i’m aware, at least one guy here who can explain/understands the origin, nature, etc. of ‘a dollar’ too!)

...PLEASE POINT OUT A BETTER BLOG, green dud..or stfu.. ;o)

George may be 130 signatures short to qualify for NH. Now is it in the best interest of the LP to collect those couple of hundred signatures or just gamble on Barr getting enough? To me the idea is to have a name on the ballot so that voters in NH can cast a vote that 1) elects a libertarian president or 2) makes it easier to get libertarians elected to state office or 3) makes the libertarian philosophy and hopefully its party more viable. So wtf, if it were your call would you get those couple of hundred signatures or just bet all your dimes on getting Barr on the ballot?

I do love game theory questions.

Now, Green Dad, Diamond Dave and Tennessee Mike (could you all be one person?) I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and presume you are ignorant rather then malicious. If you were gracious Barr supporters you would be thanking George for all the time and effort and money that he has put in and is ineffect transfer the benefit to the Barr campeign.

George is a funny guy still cleverly or so he thinks, posting his nomination and website. If the Barr campaign believes you will do the right thing ,boy they got a thing coming. They should read some of your posts filled with sour grapes.

If you want to go vote for Nader or Mckinney, or somebody, that’s cool, I can even see you coming out for Obama!

And I speak as some one whom tolerates you and is not a fan!———Don Lake

I’m also a Nader supporter now (was formerly for Gravel). I have had no intention of voting for Obama during this entire campaign. Obama is as much a progressive as Barr is a Libertarian. The Democrats are only maintaining a presence at this point because people are scared out of their minds of a McCain presidency. I refuse to buy into that. Nader most closely represents my views of all candidates currently running.

Oh, and George, you were in my short-list of Libertarian candidates I liked behind Gravel!

The issue of being a “spoiler” is even more problematic, involving, as it does, counterfactual reasoning of a very tricky sort. For example when people blame Nader for spoiling the Florida election in 2000, they assume that if Nader had not run (the counterfactual), then Gore would have won.

Here are some simpler considerations. The blog post cited above says that Barr is doing better than Nader and bases this on an unsystematic perusal of Pollster.com’s data for individual states. But notice this data, also available on Pollster.com:

http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/08-us-pres-ge-mvoand3s.php

According to it, Nader is doing better than Barr nationally.

Dr. Phillies might also regard this as wishful thinking, or “fantasy-based politics” (and he might be right). And he might regard it as advancing a political objective on the basis of a falsehood; though in this case I am not the one asserting the falsehood—in fact I’m arguing against it every chance I get. But here is what I hope is the effect of all the “spoiler” talk: I hope the Democrats put Barr into the debates and that this leads the Republicans to insist on including Nader, too. It would be poetic justice, in my view, for the spoiler arguments to have the effect of getting the so called “spoilers” more attention and votes!

(For the record, I am a Nader supporter, a Phillies admirer, and an advocate for third party candidates in general—this includes Barr.)