Some Lady in a Pantsuit Calls Barr "Nutty"

The other Dee Dee, not the Ramone

Eric Dondero directs our attention to Dee Dee Myers at Vanity Fair, who pens an article called "Could Nutty Bob Barr Be Obama's Secret Weapon?" The images that third parties conjure are generally of weirdos at the edge of town prattling on about the U.N coming to steal their mail, and bloggers like crazy Lew declaring "Ron Paul as Prophet" certainly doesn't help gussy up the image. However, she brings up a commonly held misconception about third party politics:

Take Georgia, a state the Obama campaign has added to its target list. Even though no Democratic presidential candidate has won there in eons, they think the Obamakins can drive up Democratic turnout there, particularly in the African-American community, and make the race competitive. A recent Insider Advantage poll had McCain at 44 percent, Obama at 43 percent—and Barr at a potentially outcome-altering 6 percent. Barr’s candidacy might also affect the outcome in Indiana and North Carolina, two other traditionally Republican states that the Obama campaign has targeted.

This only assumes that Barr would take votes from Republican voters, but he is more in-line with the American left on opposition to FISA, which is a huge issue with the netroots. He also is opposed to war with Iran. Modern politics is too complex to categorize everything into a bi-partisan struggle between cowboy-hat wearin' conservatives and urban liberals, and the press seems to be stuck into this mode of thinking since it's easy to characterize in their articles.