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One of the toughest decisions for a minor party Presidential candidate like Mr. Barr is where to spend his time.  For the major party candidates, it’s easy; you want to spend your time in battleground states because you have a chance to win and the close, battleground states hold the balance of power.

However, minor party candidates have the deck stacked against them; they aren’t going to win.  It’s a good idea therefore, to take a step back and have a defined goal.  For some libertarians, it’s been about the message and educating voters.  For others it’s about being the spoiler and tilting the election.  Still others are looking for as many votes as they can get.

For lower offices it make sense to run message-centric campaigns in an effort to educate voters.  However, minor party Presidential candidates often do not get a bully pulpit from which to preach.  In a local race you can achieve education through talking to voters door to door.  However, that sort of strategy just doesn’t work for a Presidential candidate.

Therefore, the real way to get noticed is by raw vote totals.  If you can show millions upon millions of votes, it will move the LP in the right direction.  A couple million votes won’t get us major party status, but it will help us move closer to our goals.

So then, what is the most effective strategy for winning votes?  To many it seems important to target battleground states.  This is one of the most ineffective strategies out there.  Because the general public often sees voting for a third party as a “wasted vote”, they are more likely to hold their nose and vote major party the closer the election is.  The closer the race is, the more likely a voter is to think that their vote for McCain means something.  They may not like McCain, but they think he’s better than Obama, so they’d forgo voting for their closest ideological candidate, Bob Barr, and vote for McCain in an attempt to keep out the greater of two evils.

The more lopsided a race is among the major party candidates the more likely a voter will consider voting for a third party candidate.  If one major party candidate has an extremely large lead, the more it seems like voting for the losing major candidate is ALSO a “wasted vote”.  If Obama is seen as a lock for a certain state, a vote for McCain is a waste.  Therefore, among the two “wasted vote” candidates of McCain and Barr, they will often choose the more ideologically sincere candidate, Mr. Barr.

Case in point:  If you look at Ralph Nader’s vote totals from 2000, he received over 6% of the vote in seven different states.  In those seven states, the average difference between Bush and Gore’s vote totals is around 20%.  In other words, Nader’s best showings came in states in which either Bush or Gore had a commanding lead.

Enter Illinois.  Illinois may be the safest state for the Democrats in 2008.  With the favorite son as the Democratic nominee, there is absolutely no chance McCain could win the state of Illinois.  Therefore, to many of the non-liberals in Illinois, a vote for McCain is a “wasted vote.”  Illinois is one of the only states in the country where Barr and McCain are playing on a nearly even playing field.

Because both Barr and McCain are not seen as in contention to win Illinois, we can compete with McCain on the issues.  On that battle, we can win.  Illinois is the key to a large vote total in November.  Do not let it pass by.