Skip to main content

Georgia commentator predicts Allen Buckley could go as high as 9% in his Senate race

Senateguru, in crafting an endorsement for Democrat Jim Martin in the Georgia Senate race, tries to explain why Martin (currently 13-16 points behind Saxby Chambliss in head-to-head polling) could actually beat the incumbent Republican.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, however, the only chance of defeating Chambliss keeps coming back to ... Allen Buckley:

Second, third Party candidates will play a big role in Georgia on Election Day. The Libertarian nominee for President this year is former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr. While Barr obviously can't shave votes directly from Chambliss, the Georgia Libertarian Party is also running a Senate candidate, attorney Allen Buckley. Buckley was the Libertarian nominee for Lieutenant Governor in the same 2006 election in which Jim Martin ran. Buckley scored 3.6% of the vote. With Bob Barr creating a higher profile reason for disenchanted Republicans nationwide (and in Georgia particularly) to leave the GOP for the Libertarian ballot line, Buckley can expect to do even better in 2008. And, of course, it's very reasonable to expect that voters for the Libertarian Buckley would more likely have voted for Chambliss than for the Democratic nominee. Buckley could shave four or five or, heck, maybe eight or nine points off of Chambliss' right wing.


This does have a certain whistling past the graveyard sound, when you are expecting another candidate to carry you past a strong incumbent--but it does speak volumes for the potential growing support for Buckley.

More germane for Allen's chances, however, is the continuing coverage he's receiving in Georgia media, including yesterday's story about the Democratic challengers in the Macon Telegraph, which asked Buckley for his take:

Whoever wins the Aug. 5 runoff, which any registered voter who did not vote in the Republican primary this past Tuesday can participate in, will face Chambliss in the November general election. Libertarian Allen Buckley also is in the race, and he said this week that he's not impressed with either of the Democrats still standing, or with Chambliss.

"I'm certain I would make a better senator than them," said Buckley, who called himself "a real conservative" who vows to stay out of people's business and espouse conservative fiscal and foreign policies.

"I will have solutions to problems," Buckley said. "They will involve sacrifice."


With the Telegraph how having carried stories that reference the Libertarian candidate for several days running, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (which includes him in the weekly question for candidates), it might even be possible to see Buckley's name included in the polls one day soon.

Most current polls are showing 10-14% of the voters unwilling to accept either Chambliss or one of the Democrats as a preference; I suspect that with Buckley's name in the mix he would pick up at least 4% right now.

Of course, hell will have to freeze over before that happens....

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here:  chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society  [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”   The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point:  Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo:  Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1.       Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...