Alaska will be competitive

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday May 15, 2008 · 1:55 PM PDT

2008/05/15 · 13:55

In 2004, George W. Bush beat John Kerry 61-36 in Alaska. Now, the latest R2K poll for Daily Kos shows that McCain leads Obama only 49-42 in the 49th state.

So Obama is actually competitive for the state's three electoral votes, trailing only by seven.

But it's even better than that for Obama, as Reason's Dave Weigel notes.

Alaskan voters, all 470,000-odd of them, are unusually amenable to third parties. In 2000, Ralph Nader crested 10 percent of the vote here. In 1992, Ross Perot got 28 percent. The Libertarian Party's best ever state result was Ed Clark's 12 percent haul in 1980—I'm pretty sure he knocked Jimmy Carter into third place in some precincts.

So a lot of the scaffolding is there that could make this state a Libertarian target. Bob Barr, for example, voted for drilling in ANWR, and could lace into McCain on the issue. A higher-than-normal number of Alaskans will be voting Democratic down the ballot, and might want to split it... and hey, there'll be another conservative candidate they can vote for if they can't stomach Obama. (The Constitution Party's Chuck Baldwin will be on the ballot, too.) If the LP shot for a 1980-sized 10 percent of the vote—around 30,000 ballots--it's possible to see Obama winning the state with 45 percent.

Alaska Republicans hate McCain, in large part because of his votes against ANWR. And sure, while Obama also opposes drilling in ANWR, that's expected from Democrats. For a Republican to oppose it is heresy.

That position has so damaged McCain in the state that he came in -- check it -- FOURTH place in Alaska's caucuses (out of four candidates):

Romney 44
Huckabee 22
Paul 17
McCain 15

Yup, McCain couldn't even cross the "Paul Line".

So you mix in McCain's unpopularity in the state, Alaska's affinity for third party candidates, a credible Libertarian like Bob Barr, the GOP's endemic corruption, and top it all off with a resurgent Democratic Party with top-tier candidates in the Senate and House races, and you've got yourself quite a potent cocktail.

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