Barr Appears at Netroots Nation

The Presidential campaign of Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr is picking up steam. In light of recent polling that shows Barr on the radar in important swing states like Florida, Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado and North Carolina, the blogs, if not the mainstream media, are slowly beginning to take Barr's upstart campaign more seriously.

On Saturday, Barr parachuted into Netroots Nation, the left wing's blog convention currently underway in Texas, a state where Zogby has McCain leading Obama by only 3% with Barr drawing 6%. Barr was one of several high profile political stars such as Al Gore, Harold Ford, Nancy Pelosi, and Gavin Newsom, that showed up at the conference in Austin.

But what was the former Republican Representative that helped lead the impeachment of Bill Clinton doing at Netroots Nation?FiveThirtyEight blogger Nate Silver breaks it down:

The conventional wisdom is that he might be trying to draw out some fundraising support. This is one place where you'll find quite a few maxed out ($2,300) Obama donors, and those people could plausibly contribute to Barr if they think his candidacy would help the Democrat. Barr is also attending the competing Right Online Summit, which is also in Austin tonight, and where interestingly enough he was invited to deliver a keynote speech.

I think it's equally likely, however, that Barr is here simply to get a sense for what makes the netroots tick. Whereas the Ron Paul campaign very much played off the netroots model of highly networked, online-based fundraising and activism, Barr has had less success in getting his candidacy to go viral.

Barr recently took a shot at one of the most popular rational for voting for or against any presidential candidate, how that candidate would affect the Supreme Court. Barr argues that voting for McCain simply because he says he'll appoint conservative judges is not a good enough reason, citing McCain's centrism, Obama's centrism, and the unreliability of conservative Presidents' Supreme Court appointees remaining conservative after ascending to the bench.

Barr is also in the process of suing his way onto the ballot in Oklahoma.

Blogger Robert Stacy McCain doesn't buy into the idea that Barr has to hurt McCain.