New Insights:
- Barr says a GOP senator recently asked him to drop out of the presidential race.
- The Barr campaign hopes to raise $40-45 million.
Preston on Politics: Barr says he’s no Nader
Bob Barr was once a loyal soldier in the Republican Party –Â a lawmaker GOP leaders could count on to return home each weekend and echo their talking points at local political events, town hall meetings and civic lunches.
Libertarian candidate Bob Barr abandoned the Republican Party in 2006.
Libertarian candidate Bob Barr abandoned the Republican Party in 2006.
As a young political reporter in Marietta, Georgia, I often heard Barr serve up generous helpings of Republican doctrine over buffet lunches and chicken dinners.
For Republican leaders such as House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who represented a neighboring district, ÂBarr was a dedicated warrior. And he remained so even after he lost a primary fight in 1992 [2002 -- typo by CNN] to colleague John Linder, a battle set up by redistricting.
But a few years later, Barr went AWOL from the Republican Party — or, as he tells it, the GOP abandoned him.
He is now the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee and is crisscrossing the country promoting its principles and hunting for votes.
So why did Barr abandon the Republican Party in 2006?
“It probably wasn’t any one thing,” he said during our conversation last week outside the White House.
“But perhaps listening to the attorney general of the United States, in a purportedly conservative Republican administration of George W. Bush, justify to the American people that the writ of habeas corpus, the great writ, the foundation of civilized society as we know it, is no longer important. Watching a president and his attorney general try and torture the language of the law and the language of the Fourth Amendment to justify warrantless spying on American citizens in their own country in the name of being a commander in chief.
“Those are so dramatically inconsistent with any notions of legitimate, constitutional, conservative government, that I certainly could not be party to, or remain in a party that advocated those procedures.”
His former colleagues now view him as a traitor at worst, misguided at best.
Barr could be the Ralph Nader of 2008 — taking away enough support from presumptive Republican nominee John McCain to hand presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama a victory in November.
Even Obama’s campaign has said it is eyeing Georgia and Alaska in large part because of Barr’s presence in the race. Barr is likely to draw support in his home state as well as the frontier state of Alaska, which is known for its Libertarian streak.
Barr said a GOP senator recently approached him to ask that he drop his White House bid, a request that has come from more than one Republican since he received the Libertarian Party nomination in May. The senator’s plea fell on deaf ears. (ÂBarr would not reveal the lawmaker’s identity).
“What they say is, ‘It’s not that we disagree with what you’re doing, Barr. It’s not that we don’t understand. We do understand, and we actually agree with what you’re saying, but we don’t want to vote against a Republican because that might help the Democrat,’ ” Barr said of the talks he has had with those who want him to quit.
“It’s all about partisan politics. It’s not about substance. It’s not about principles, which is what I and the Libertarian Party stand for. It’s all about partisan politics. That’s what has to change and that’s one of the reasons I’m running.”
If elected president, Barr said he would “substantively” cut the size of government, including a 10 percent slash in the budget for the “executive office of the president;” refuse “to sign legislation that ratchets up the ceiling of the national debt;” and make sure that taxpayer dollars are spent on improving education back home instead sending the money to Iraq.
So, does Barr think he will be to McCain what Nader was to Al Gore in 2000?
“I’m not in this as a spoiler,” he emphatically stated during the interview.
“I am 59 years old. I have better things to do with my time than worry about spoiling it. If Sen. McCain is not successful on November 4th, it will be because John McCain and the Republican Party did not present a vision, an agenda, a platform and a candidate to the American people that a plurality of the voters of this country could embrace and buy into.”
To achieve any success in this election, Barr is going to have to tap into the “Ron Paul Revolution” — a grassroots movement that rallied around Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s longshot bid for the presidency.
Barr said he has been in touch with Paul to talk strategy but added he has not asked for the Texas Republican’s endorsement. Paul, himself, ran for president as the Libertarian Party’s nominee in 1988.
So, with a proposed budget of $40 to $45 million (less than half of what McCain will have and eight times less than what Obama is expected to raise), a political party whose infrastructure is nowhere near that of the Democratic nor Republican parties, and lots of other hurdles, what does he think of his chances?
“I intend to be in the White House in January 2009,” he said without hesitation. “I know it’s a long shot, I’m not unrealistic about this. It is a long shot. The major two parties stacked the deck tremendously against a third party candidacy such as mine, but the dynamics this election cycle make the possibility of winning as the third party candidate much more realistic, much more doable than any time in the past.”
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So will he win?
No. But you have to give him credit for trying.
8 responses so far ↓
1 TheOriginalAndy // Jun 30, 2008 at 12:05 pm
“The Barr campaign hopes to raise $40-45 million.”
I find it hard to believe that the Barr campaign will raise anywhere close to this much money.
2 Nexus // Jun 30, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Anyone want to hazzard a guess as to h0w much the money bomb will raise for Barr Wednesday?
I’m guessing $48K.
3 Arthur Torrey // Jun 30, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I would hope there aren’t THAT many suckers left in the LP, especially after Barr’s recent attempt to present DOMA as a “Libertarian” ideal….
ART
4 G.E. // Jun 30, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Give to Barr, but then consider giving to Scotty Boman (and other quality down-ballot tickets, inside and outside of your state).
Boman is opposed to DOMA and says so on his Web site. He has taken some heat for this from the socially conservative types in the Ron Paul crowd.
5 RetroCon // Jun 30, 2008 at 8:27 pm
“make sure that taxpayer dollars are spent on improving education back home instead sending the money to Iraq.”
I’m assuming/hoping CNN is misquoting Barr on that. I think it’s pretty “unibertarian” to take money wasted on foreign intervention and spend it on domestic intervention. Besides, I don’t know the numbers, but I would assume much of the money being spent in Iraq isn’t really ours, it’s being borrowed from countries like communist China.
6 rdupuy // Jul 1, 2008 at 12:20 am
Ron Paul’s 6 million dollar payday, had about 58,000 contributors. No disrespect to the BarrBomb, it just hasn’t had enought time to take hold. Only just now has the Barr campaign released a viral video, and frankly it could be better.
I got caught up with some high estimations on the Barr Bomb, but realistically….according to their website they are nearing 300 pledges. Thats about 1/2 of 1 percent of the Ron Paul day. Assuming the same average donation, it would be about 30K day.
The Barr campaign, on a bad day does 2k anyway, 10k on a good day. Add that in, looking about a 40k day.
But…the average donation won’t be more, it will be less. Thats just a hunch. On the other hand, a lot of people who donate, never bothered to pledge.
All in all, I like a nice round guess of a 50K day, which, isn’t going to disappoint the Barr campaign, I don’t think.
I look forward to continued momentum, and some bigger days in August, though.
7 darren // Jul 1, 2008 at 12:47 am
Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty has given his supporters an alternative focus for the summer. Short of Paul endorsing Barr (perhaps at the Sept 2 rally?) it’s hard to see a massive shift in support to give Barr $45 million, and it would be too late to be spent effectively. But Barr can ramp up fundraising over the next 4 months on his own and raise perhaps $4-5 million, which should be enough to keep him traveling and earning media. If it translated into 2% it would still be a great success by third-party standards.
8 pdsa // Jul 1, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Bob Barr has astounding impudence and a very strong faith in Americans’ Short-Attention Span, playing in this fictional role as defender of habeas corpus.. When Barr arrived in D.C. as Georgia Representative with the rest of the New-Righty wise guys, who had taken a Contract Out On America, one of his GOP Family duties was to immediately begin to press an attack on habeas corpus’ use by those who are incarcerated in the United States. Barr was a primary enabler of habeas corpus reform that turned habeas appeals of criminal convictions into a brutal game of beat the clock, while clearing out a minefield.
In 1995, Barr effectively worked to block the Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention Act of 1995 in the House of Representatives, while at the same time, the Senate’s Grand Equivocator, and Poster-boy for Term Limits, Orrin Hatch, was doing his best to block any and all initiatives/amendments to this bill, which were promulgated by the Clinton Admin or Democratic legislators, unless they were intended to directly curtail access to the Federal Courthouse via habeas corpus.. The Republican politicians managed to get a different proposed Terror Prevention bill in 1996. They also significant;ly broadened its scope, and beefed up its title to: “The Antiterrorism Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996″. Both Barr and Hatch were far too willing to work into a frothing frenzy for tawdry political gains, those whose fashion sense in outer wear was to be Reynolds Wrapped.Barr was able to get his big Amendment 2 incorporated into the final bill and then enacted as Public Law No: 104-132.
Anyone who believes that fast tracking those convicted of capital offenses to the executioner is an effective terror preventative, should have their head examined by getting it screened for Acute Logic Deficit Disorder. Terrorists are not likely to be dissuaded from committing an act out of concerns for punishment’s severity and timeliness, should they both survive the attack, and manage to get captured.
Now fast forward to the present manifestation of Barr as libertarian, and read from his recent authorship an op/ed reprint served on his campaign website:
Bob Barr, “Troy Davis’ ‘day in court’ brought travesty of justice“, August 8, 2007
It does indeed look as if Troy Davis got railroaded and screwed; looks as if the real perpetrators the capital crime Davis was convicted of, had manged to weasel themselves onto the prosecutor’s witness list, allowing them to hurl accusations of guilt at him. It is laudable for Mr. Barr to point out this travesty of justice. However it is also despicable of him to have simply glossed over the appeals “procedural flaws”, and this exposes Barr as a Contemporary Conservative, who only pretends that accepting responsibility for the cause that flows from past acts is a foundational tenet of his political beliefs. Barr just tells people it is, because it provides him with extra turns on the soapbox, from which he can then hurl pontificating derogations at two guys who want to get hitched, and then go play stable the pony in the back 40 corral:
Indeed, and I add, where is Mr. Barr’s shouldering of responsibility?
Or maybe I should instead just muse:
This is the Rectaltude of Bob Barr’s Intents…
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