What happened to the Whigs - and how we can help the GOP go there too

[SPC]

A more viable scenario would be if there were a major 3rd party spoiler that could take a few million (or more) votes. I give this scenario a 40% chance of happening with Bob Barr. If Barr changes his mind, or he doesn't get any media attention, I give this scenario a 5% chance of happening.

Not going to happen.  The Libertarian Party has been a fringe party for so long its no longer credible.  It might someday do as the Free Soil Party did and inspire a new party that could displace one of the existing two, but the existing Libertarian Party is as meaningful politically as the Prohibition Party.

Well, you forget too easily that Ron Paul proved that there are at least 900,000 libertarians and libertarian-leaners in the Republican Party. If most of them cast their votes for the Libertarian nominee en masse, in addition to the traditional 200,000 LP voters. That leaves a floor of 1.1 million for the Libertarian nominee. If Barr is the nominee, there will likely be more anti-McCain conservatives voting Libertarian, leaving Barr with around 1.5-2 million votes. While this is not as big as Nader's 2000 numbers, it will no doubt be influential in a close election like this. This will probably be more than enough votes to take away Republican leads in Nevada, Florida, Colorado, New Mexico, etc.

[SPC]

Well, you forget too easily that Ron Paul proved that there are at least 900,000 libertarians and libertarian-leaners in the Republican Party. If most of them cast their votes for the Libertarian nominee en masse, in addition to the traditional 200,000 LP voters. That leaves a floor of 1.1 million for the Libertarian nominee. If Barr is the nominee, there will likely be more anti-McCain conservatives voting Libertarian, leaving Barr with around 1.5-2 million votes. While this is not as big as Nader's 2000 numbers, it will no doubt be influential in a close election like this. This will probably be more than enough votes to take away Republican leads in Nevada, Florida, Colorado, New Mexico, etc.

I doubt that many of those 900,000 will throw away their vote on a third party candidate.

The best that the Libertarian Party has ever done is 1980, when they were still a fairly new party and got 921,128 votes for 1.06% of PV tally.  Since then the best they did was in 1996 when they came in fifth in the popular vote and got 485,798 votes for 0.50% of the PV.  The Libertarian Party is not going to be a major force.  That isn't to say that a libertarian party might not become a major force, it just won't be the Libertarian Party.  For good or ill, they are doomed to eternal fringe status.  Perhaps if Bush had managed to win the Republican nomination in 1980, the LP might have been able to vault into major party status, but that didn't happen.

In short, I'd say that the upper limit on the Libertarian Party in 2008 is 500,000.  Any more than that will only come if the McCain campaign is so far down by October that voters will have every reason to believe that a vote for the Republican Party would be just as wasted as one for the Libertarian Party.  In that case, there will be voters trying to send a message by voting for a third party.

Based on your impression of we Paulites on the internet, do you really think that most of us would vote Republican in the general election? Paul himself has even admitted that most of his supporters will not vote for McCain. They will either vote Libertarian, write-in Ron Paul, or not vote at all.

[SPC]

I expect that of the 850K votes he's gotten so far, about 300K will vote Republican, 200K Libertarian, 50K Constitution, and 300K will stay home.

You seriously think that that many Ron Paul supporters will vote for McCain?! You've seen how Paulites have reacted to the field of Republican candidates excluding Paul, right?

[SPC]

Hell, I considered voting for Paul, but decided that I didn't want to waste my vote as I saw a difference between the people who actually had a shot at the nomination.  While I agree that way fewer than 1 in 3 of the people who sent the Paul campaign money or otherwise did more than simply putting a check mark beside his name on the ballot will be voting for McCain, that 1 in 3 of the people overall (as opposed to the hardcore Paulistas) who voted for Paul will end up voting for McCain is a conservative estimate in my opinion.

So, since you live in South Carolina, I'm guessing you voted for McCain? While I agree that the more moderate Paulites may vote for McCain, I see it as being about 10-20%. But, Barr could compensate for this by bringing on board some former conservative friends. He is currently the leading candidate to support the FairTax (much to my resentment), so he will likely get a significant number of those people aboard.

[SPC]

My main concern on primary day was how best to hurt Mitt Romney's chances of getting the nomination.  I ending up voting for McCain, as I saw him as having the better chance to bury the flopster.  It was a very last minute decision in the voting booth for me between him and Huckabee.  I also gave some consideration to making a tactical vote for Fred Thompson in hopes of helping Romney to come in fourth, but decided against it.

Funny. My parents (much to my resentment) voted for Romney to stop McCain's chances at the nomination.