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Opinion: No debate about it, Bob Barr wants in on the debates

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Big Bob Barr’s backers who, of course, have no chance of electing their Libertarian candidate to the White House, are launching a guerrilla war to at least get their guy into the presidential debates this fall.

Last week a campaign e-mail appeal asked Barr supporters to deluge the Commission on Presidential Debates with ‘polite’ phone calls demanding that Barr be included along with the Arizona and Illinois guys.

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They pointed out that back in 1992 Ross Perot, that little yappy guy with the charts from Texas, got included even though he was only drawing 7% in the polls. The reason: President George H.W. Bush wanted him there.

And what Republican presidential candidate wouldn’t want to make that dumb mistake again, to give publicity to a third-party candidate so he could pull a Perot or a Nader and draw off enough votes to let the other guy win?

The result: two terms of Democrat William Jefferson Clinton.

So this week the Barr folks have come up with a new angle. Who would benefit most from a Libertarian candidate getting a couple hours of free national TV time? Besides B.B. himself.

How about B.O.? So Barr’s people are urging his supporters to call Barack Obama’s offices and politely request that he request that the former Georgia Republican congressman be admitted to the presidential debates.

Not only that, but the Barr people are coordinating with Ralph Nader’s supporters, so they can both get into the verbal confrontations coming up.

Coming out of that lily-livered Chicago school of politics, no doubt the Obama camp will cave instantly.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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