Speculative Hypothesis

If I were a political scientist or had access to a database of journal articles, I would research the following:

The share of the vote that a third party candidate gets is inversely proportional to enthusiasm for a main party candidate.

There may not be enough data for this one, but I would like to see a plot of "enthusiasm for candidate" against the share of the vote that base-attracting third party candidates got.

Why do I think this is important? I'll assert that Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader, between the two, do not get more than .4% of the popular vote. That would be even less than left-wing third party candidates got in 2004, four years after Nader voters were berated for costing Gore the presidency in 2000 (that year, Nader pulled 2.7%).

On the other side, I think that Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin may pull a larger total, perhaps 1-2% or higher, even. McCain isn't that popular with the Republican base, and there might be some anti-bailout protest votes, or some reemerging neo-isolationist sentiment (I'll spitball at 2%). It's yet another hill to climb for McCain.