THE GUN TOTING LIBERAL™

Conservatives And Independents Are Flocking To Bob Barr (LP) And Barack Obama — “Obamacan” Ranks Growing Rapidly

It’s not looking too bright right now for the ONLY United States Senator who was born in the nation of Panama only later to migrate to the Great State of Arizona, Señor “Panama John” McCain. According to Zoghby, not only is Señor McCain losing miserably in the national polls to Barry Obama by a 44-38 percent margin; Barry is currently swaying 273 members of the Electoral College his way as well. Of course, one only needs 270 Electoral votes to claim the Royal Throne of This Oligarchical Monarchy’s President “Surge” W. Bush King George II. Not so good news for “Panama John” but hey — the actual election isn’t being held today — and that’s great news for the rapidly-aging Senator from Arizona…

First, from Zogby International:

Zogby Poll: Building Mo-bama! Democrat Leads McCain in Electoral College Tally, 273-160

The Democrat also leads 44% to 38% in the nationwide horserace test as Libertarian Bob Barr wins 6%

UTICA, New York – As the race for President passes the Independence Day holiday and heads toward the dog days of summer, Sen. Barack Obama holds a 44% to 38% lead over Sen. John McCain in the horserace contest, but also leads by a substantial margin in a state-by-state Electoral College tally, a new Zogby Interactive poll shows.

The extensive national poll of of 46,274 likely voters also shows Libertarian candidate and former Congressman Bob Barr wins 6% support, eating into McCain’s needed conservative base of support. …”

(Snip!)

“… Bob Barr receives the support of 7% of voters who identify themselves as conservative or very conservative voters. Barr gets 43% of libertarians and 11% of independents. McCain’s support among conservatives is 74%. On the left, Ralph Nader gets less than 2% nationally.

Obama has the support of 83% of Democrats, while McCain gets 75% of Republicans.

Independents break 39% for Obama, compared with 31% who support McCain. …”

First point is this — Bob Barr, like him or not, IS a factor in this race; IS a legitimate candidate and SHOULD be included in any and all nationally-televised debates. This two-party system CARTEL is mentioned absolutely nowhere in our Constitution. THINK about that one for a moment. That said, although I would readily describe myself as a “libertarian-ish Liberal” somewhere along the a somewhat similar mindset of the “David Letterman” and “Bill Maher” types, Bob Barr just ain’t my “guy”.

So, the next question is — Who are all of these torqued off Republicans who seem to be trending toward Barry Obama these days? Carolyn Lochhead of The San Francisco Chronicle brings us the answer to this question this morning in her “must-read” article — they’re called the “Obamacans” and they’re a growing force to be reconed with, too:

Why some conservatives are backing Obama

(07-07) 04:00 PDT Washington – The “Obamacans” that Sen. Barack Obama used to joke about – Republican apostates who whispered their support for his candidacy – have morphed into a new phenomenon, or syndrome, as detractors like to call it: the Obamacons.

These are conservatives who have publicly endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee, dissidents from the brain trust of think tanks, ex-officials and policy magazines that have fueled the Republican Party since the 1960s. Scratch the surface of this elite, and one finds a profound dismay that is far more damaging to the GOP than the usual 10 percent of registered Republicans expected to switch sides during a presidential election.

“The untold story of the Bush administration is the deliberate annihilation of the Reaganite, small-government wing of the Republican Party,” said Michael Greve, director of the Federalism Project at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “A lot of people are very bitter about it.”

Many conservatives and their brethren, the free-market, socially liberal libertarians, are deeply skeptical of Obama’s rhetorical flirtations with free-market ideas and view his policies as orthodox liberalism. Yet one measure of their rupture with the GOP is their open disregard for Republican nominee John McCain and their now almost-wistful view of a president the Republicans tried to impeach. …”

(Snip!)

“… Many conservatives are aghast at the rise in spending and debt under the Bush administration, its expansion of executive power, and what they see as a trampling of civil liberties and a taste for empire. …”

(Snip!)

“… Libertarians are tired of Christian evangelicals, who they believe captured the GOP under President Bush. Evangelicals, for their part, are skeptical of McCain, who in 2000 called Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson “agents of intolerance.” …

(Snip!)

“… David Friedman, the son of late conservative icon and Nobel economist Milton Friedman, has also endorsed Obama. Calling McCain a “nationalist,” Friedman, an economist at Santa Clara University, thinks Obama could turn out like the liberals who deregulated New Zealand’s economy.

“Of the two, Obama is less bad and at least has a chance in some ways of being good,” said Friedman. Friedman likes Obama’s University of Chicago advisers such as Austan Goolsbee and Cass Sunstein, who he believes are trying to forge a new leftism that incorporates free-market views. “I don’t expect to agree in general with them,” Friedman said, “but I certainly would be happy if the left became more libertarian, since the right seems to be less libertarian than it used to be.” …

(Snip!)

… “People don’t understand that there has always been a small but very significant element of conservatives who have been against the war from day one and who, like me, also hate George Bush and think he’s the most incompetent president in American history,” said Bruce Bartlett, a supply-side economist who coined the term Obamacons. “The few people who are slavishly pro-Republican, live or die, slavishly pro-Bush like the Weekly Standard crowd, have gotten lot more publicity than they deserve.” …

(Snip!)

“… Matt Welch, editor in chief of the libertarian Reason Magazine and author of “McCain, the Myth of a Maverick,” thinks Obama’s conservative support “comes as much anything else from people being exhausted with the Republican coalition, who are mad at one wing or another, and they just think it’s time for them to lose. It’s just, ‘Look, we’re out of ideas, we’re exhausted, it’s not working, we don’t know what our principles are anymore, let’s take one for the team and have a black guy be the president for a while.’ ”

Obama is actively trying to switch one prominent Republican to an Obamacan: former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who met with both candidates last month. …”

Gosh, oh gee — these folks sound a lot like MOI in many ways. If only the Democratic Party would once again become the party of Liberals again versus the party of “Nanny-ism”, I might have to change the name of this blog to “The Gun Toting Democrat” but I’ll not be holding my breath on that one. Civil Liberties include the Right To Keep And Bear Arms (RTKBA), too, folks. Get your act together, Dems, and I’ll start sending money your way but not before.

In addition to the above-mentioned (but within the unqoted portions of the Lochhead article), an almost perfect example of an Obamacan is conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish (The Atlantic). For example, here is just one of his comments this morning on the war in Iraq and the “semi-contrasts” between Obama and McCain:

“… McCain’s and Obama’s two positions may well be closer than some debaters would like, especially in the short term. But the long term will be deeply affected by each man’s long-term vision. McCain is still trying to make the original concept work; Obama isn’t. He’s about damage control. In this respect, Obama is more of a realist and conservative than McCain. And the possibility Obama uniquely offers is a way out that brings America’s soft power more to the fore, and makes America’s internal divisions less profound. …” – Andrew Sullivan

Yep, Mr. Sullivan is one of those “Obamacans” alright and who can blame the man? Should Barry elect to choose Colin Powell as his running mate, and should Mr. Obama re-think his position on taking a common sense, environmentally-friendly, seventies and eighties (pre-Clinton, of course) Democratic approach to drilling in the wasteland called “ANWR”, the proverbial “party” is over for Señor McCain. Of course, AGAIN — I won’t be holding my breath on either of those events taking place anytime soon.

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See also: Drudge Retort; The Moderate Voice (another one of those “must reads” from our close friend Joe Gandelman); The Swamp

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