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I can't say whether or not he is doing this intentionally, but I think you could actually make the counterintuitive argument that Barr can steal more votes from McCain by attacking Obama. The way I see it, Barr is a threat because there are still conservatives out there who have a hard time stomaching McCain, but would vote for him as the lesser of two evils. Barr could peel away these voters by convincing them that they have another anti-Obama option. By attacking Obama (especially as he did the other day on the Second Ammendment) Barr reinforces that he is a conservative more than he does if he's always quoted going after McCain. Furthermore, one of the concerns conservatives have in this election is that McCain's committment to running a "respectful" campaign will translate into him going soft on Obama, and provide further evidence that he's much nicer to Democrats than his fellow Republicans. If Barr is willing to take his gloves off in going after Obama, it could make McCain look like Democrat lite.