Bob Barr will be the 2008 Libertarian presidential nominee. Ballot-Access News has reported full vote totals for each round of voting, with the final decisive vote being:
Bob Barr: 324
Mary Ruwart: 276
NOTA: 26
The order of elimination was:
1st Round: Jingozian eliminated (endorsing Gravel), Smith eliminated (opposing Barr)
2nd Round: Kubby eliminated (endorsing Ruwart)
3rd Round: Phillies eliminated (no endorsement)
4th Round: Gravel eliminated (according to a comment on BAN, endorsing Barr over Ruwart if Root eliminated
5th Round: Root eliminated (endorsing Barr, going for VP)
6th Round: Barr wins nomination
The VP selection process is currently ongoing. According to Colorado Independent (which is liveblogging the VP contest), Steve Kubby and Wayne Root are contending for the VP nomination, along with Daniel Williams, Gail Lightfoot, and Jim Libertarian Burns. Leonard Schwartz has withdrawn his candidacy. Bob Barr has endorsed Root for the VP slot.
Has he taken the Barr exam?
If so, did he pass?
I hope Barr isn’t expecting a lot of support from Ron Paul voters. It’s not going to materialize.
This is beltway libertarianism’s finest hour. Reason and CATO will be much kinder to Barr than they were to Paul, because he’s less threatening to them.
Barr epitomizes the “safe” wing of the libertarian movement. Too bad it’s big government and corporate-libertarian think tanks that are made to feel safe, not the common citizen.
Im not sure that the “purists” are paniced–just the Libertarians. Bob Barr couldn’t even commit to ending the War on Drugs–only to legalizing Medical Marijuana. Prettyy weak.
the “purists” … ? Hell everyone has to be in a panic, ‘cept maybe the folks who truly buy the delusion that a libertarian political party can become a part of the system; it cannot, it can only function on behalf of “telling truth to power” as the “progressives” would put it.
There has always been a need for a new party, that truly challenges the empire of the duopoly Reprocrats. It might have been the (original) Constitution Party, or the Reforms … That need is still there, but the LP should nbot have had to take the role. Now there will NOBODY keeping watch over liberty’s flame; they’ll be too busy explaining away Barr’s background … or worsxe still ignoring it
Barr/Root? The “purists” must be in a panic. Perhaps now the LP will either get going as a real political party or get destroyed like the Reform Party. Time will tell.