techPresident - Can Bob Barr Tap Into Ron Paul's Movement? - Comments

He may not win the nomination

jchristophm — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:47:54 -0400

"... and as the only candidate for his party’s nomination who has actually won a significant election, will likely be the Libertarian candidate this fall."

First, Mike Gravel is also seeking the LP nomination. It may have been like a billion years ago, but he did win a couple of Senate races.

Second, you obviously don't hang around with many Libertarians. Win/loss records, ability to raise funds, and national prominence have historically been only VERY small factors in LP nominating races. Trust me, the LP is worse than the Democrats with respect to factional in-fighting. Like academics, third-party politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.

Email issue

Luigi Montanez — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:30:01 -0400

This issue has now been clarified for me by Terra Eclipse, and the correction is posted above.

Email came from Barr campaign's service

Luigi Montanez — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:51:29 -0400

The email didn't come from a simple tell-a-friend form -- it came from a pay-to-send email marketing service. As you'll see in the Reply-To and Mailed By fields, the email originated from cmpgnr.com, which is the domain the email marketing service Campaigner.com uses. All other Bob Barr emails have also come from this service. This makes sense, as the Ron Paul campaign used the more premium, high volume service (CampaignerPro), and both campaigns have the same technology consultants.

So it may be a case of someone messing up and putting an @ronpaul2008.com email address in a Bob Barr blast. But, (and this is a big but), if it were a regular Bob Barr email blast, why the need to put "A Message from former Congressman Bob Barr" in the subject line? Presumably if I'm on Barr's list (which I was at the time), I know who the guy is. Repeating the sender's name in the subject line is standard practice when sending an email to an audience that will be unfamiliar with the sender.

The Ron Paul e-mail

Tom Readmond — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:36:05 -0400

The e-mail on behalf of Barr may not be legit. I had this happen on a campaign earlier this year, when an e-mail from ron@ronpaul2008.com went out claiming to endorse our candidate. Finding this hard to believe, I contacted a friend in the Paul campaign, and after some digging with the IT folks, it turned out someone had used the campaign website's Tell A Friend function to send an e-mail, and had entered the Ron Paul address as their own. In the end, it didn't have much effect. Paul's supporters aren't dumb.

Can Bob Barr Tap Into Ron Paul's Movement?

Luigi Montanez — Mon, 12 May 2008 11:24:33 -0400

Bob Barr, who served in Congress as a Republican but is now registered with the Libertarian Party, today formally announced his entry into the Presidential race, and as the only candidate for his party’s nomination who has actually won a significant election, will likely be the Libertarian candidate this fall. Can Barr harness the energy from the libertarian-minded Ron Paul campaign and mount a disruptive third-party run? Or is he doomed to receiving a miniscule portion of the popular vote, as has been the case with past Libertarian presidential candidates?

Update: This post has been changed to clarify the paragraphs speculating on the acquisition of the Ron Paul list.