Anyone arguing that Browne was unable to accumulate personal wealth knew nothing about the man. I didn’t like the corruption and scandal that accompanied Browne, and the “don’t worry about it, you don’t matter” attitude of the LP headquarters and national committee. But he clearly knew how to accumulate wealth.

It seems to me that Barr is not exceptionally qualified to run the USA government either. His managerial experience involved running a few analysts at CIA, running a small prosecutor’s office pursuing non-violent drug crimes in Georgia, and running a Congress critter’s office. He also runs a small political action committee which he uses to donate to Republicans – talk about not being a good candidate.

A really good libertarian candidate would do a great deal to raise funds for libertarian candidates, not their GOP opponents. Barr was a lousy candidate. I call shenanigans on the whole Barr-Root campaign. Scum.

Damn him! He told the truth, that SOB!

All but one previous LP candidates have been terrible candidates for the presidency of the United States. President of the United States is first and foremost chief executive of the most powerful bureaucracy on earth.

So, what does the LP generally do? Nominate people with resumes like: college professor, engineer, writer, computer progreammer… NON MANAGERIAL roles. Many of these candidates had no personal funds. Badnarik lived cheap. Browne sold books on the side. Inability to accumulate personal wealth is a poor indicator of competence to run a trillion-dollar organization.”

The goal of Libertarians is NOT to “run a trillion dollar organization” (as in the federal government), it is to SHUT DOWN as much of that organization as possible.

The only qualifications to be President are as follows.

1) Be born in the USA.

2) Be at least 35 years old.

3) Have the ablitity to read and understand what the Constitution says, and to actually abide by it once elected.

Very well then, let the record show that by Bob Barr’s own standard, he was not a good candidate.

And then he should read Mary Ruwart’s “Healing our World: The other piece of the puzzle” AVAILIBLE FREE DOWNLOAD @ http://www.ruwart.com/Healing/

And of course the updated version should also be read. “Healing Our World in an Age of Aggression” http://ruwart.com/Pages/Healing/

“All but one previous LP candidates have been terrible candidates for the presidency of the United States. President of the United States is first and foremost chief executive of the most powerful bureaucracy on earth.”
“Inability to accumulate personal wealth is a poor indicator of competence to run a trillion-dollar organization.” Carl M.

Hmm… Maybe having a Kochtopusian president would have had a net benefit, then.

This is appealing to a small number of voters. Most people who vote do so to affect the outcome of the race, to choose the next president. Barr is claiming to be appealing to this much larger pool of voters.

BTW, Ed Crane said in Liberty that that he (Crane) would leave the country if Ed Clark actually won the election. The distinction between sending a message and actually running for office goes up to the highest levels in the LP.

David Nolan has repeatedly said that the LP candidates for president have no chance of winning so electability should not be a factor in considering whom to nominate.

—
I think third parties make a huge mistake with such thinking. Running message-only candidates sends a message that the party does not take the office in quesion seriously. Even if the odds of winning are small, a serious party should be happy to win, and serve the country well if they do win. Nominating incompetent ideologues for top executive positions violates this principle, and the American people (and the media) react accordingly.

All but one previous LP candidates have been terrible candidates for the presidency of the United States. President of the United States is first and foremost chief executive of the most powerful bureaucracy on earth.

So, what does the LP generally do? Nominate people with resumes like: college professor, engineer, writer, computer progreammer… NON MANAGERIAL roles. Many of these candidates had no personal funds. Badnarik lived cheap. Browne sold books on the side. Inability to accumulate personal wealth is a poor indicator of competence to run a trillion-dollar organization.

Bob Barr was at least a Congressman. As a former CIA spook, he has some knowledge of the inner workings of the civil service/defense establishment he is offering to run. As a prosecutor, he knows something of law enforcement, a core government service.

Ron Paul was also a congressman, and thus had some credentials. And he also had some military experience, albeit as a doctor. I don’t know what size practice he had so I don’t know how much managerial experience it conferred. His side business of spewing out paranoid newsletters wasn’t anything to brag about.
–

Ideology is all well and good for legislative positions. It is not for POTUS.

However, “good candidate” is not the same as
“good man.” And, “good candidate” isn’t the same thing as “would make a good President if
elected.”

I supported Paul for President in 1988 and for
the Republican nomination in 2008. The
1988 campaign _was_ weak. (Though Paul
didn’t need to constantly explain so many anti-libertarian votes in Congress.) Paul gave
over-all ideological control of the message to
Murray Rothbard. With the LP being the
“open center” of Rothbard’s neo-leninist strategy based upon libertarian front groups pushing single issues, building significant support for the LP Presidential ticket wasn’t in the cards.

But… this was in response to a question that was something like “Why don’t Libertarians vote for Libertarian candidates”? So saying they lost because they were losers is illogical, and I don’t think thats what Barr meant.

Barr could have talked about the barriers for third parties, or pointed out that Libertarians *do* vote for Libertarian candidates. But instead, he simply said that Libertarians haven’t had a good candidate to vote for until he came along.

More importantly, I think the best way to convince the majority of Americans who support the War on Drugs to change their position is to emphasize the point that the war on drugs “doesn’t work.”