The most widely read libertarian Web site in the world was harshly criticial of Bob Barr today.
Chris Brunner said Bob Barr Showed His True Colors:
Bob Barr has been slamming Dr. Paul publicly since he won the formerly-libertarian party nomination, but this seems to have offended more Ron Paul supporters than anything he has done so far.
For those who don’t know, Barr spent much of his life jailing people on behalf of the federal government for possessing substances that the state disapproves of, before recently “seeing the light”. Even since his supposed revelation, he has praised the troop surge, argued for intervention in Iran and South America, advocated a national sales tax, and voted for the PATRIOT Act twice. This just scratches the surface, of course.
With that said, it’s probably for the best that he didn’t show up today.
Lew Rockwell himself said he got Lots of Emails Like This:
Dear LP,
Mr. Barr’s refusal to join Rep. Ron Paul and other Third Party presidential candidates at the Campaign for Liberty press conference today is most unfortunate and, frankly, a deal-breaker for me.
I was prepared to hold my nose and vote for Mr. Barr in Novermber (though I find him a “stretch” as a legitimate libertarian).
No longer. If it is true that he bailed out of the Campaign for Liberty press conference saying “It’s just not worth it …” then Mr. Barr and the LP are “not worth it,” either.
Sincerely,
B. Keith Brumley
(former LP member/activist)
Thomas Woods sarcastically remarked, “Here’s how Bob Barr Can Appeal to Ron Paul Supporters — Insult Him,” in reference to the Barr 2008 National Field Director’s MySpace blog — since deleted but preserved by IPR — assertion that Ron Paul was in it for the money. Woods later referred to it as a “Doltish, Vote-Losing Post,” and said:
If Bob Barr were trying to lose, or trying to hurt the Libertarian Party, I wonder how he could have played this whole thing any worse. If for some reason he actually is trying to hurt the party, he probably shouldn’t be so obvious about it.
Ryan W. McKaken in reference to the deleted MySpace blog said the blunder amounted to Bob Barr Campaign: RIP:
Barr’s Field Director, Mike Ferguson, is living proof that one need not have an IQ above 50 to get high-ranking work on a major Libertarian Party campaign.
What I found most glaringly dumb about it was the whole “leadership” issue Ferguson keeps bringing up. You know a politico has nothing substantive to say when he talks about “leadership.” Here’s a working definition of leadership for candidates:
Leadership: What my candidate is doing
Lack of Leadership: What the other guy is doing.“Leadership” in political discource has no other definition, and Ferguson brings it in a weak pathetic attempt to make his candidate look like something other than a foot note in this election.
Come November, after Barr gets .5% of the vote and is forgotten, will we still hear about how Barr is the serious change agent, while Paul, the sitting Congressman who publicly excoriates people like Bernanke on national television and controls a massive fund-raising machine, is irrelevant?
Antony Gregory, , in speaking of Ron Paul’s Libertarian Platform, said:
[T]he Libertarian Party has continued to distance itself from radicalism, from libertarian principle, from a comprehensive platform of fundamental change. It has moved rightward and stateward, while Ron Paul has moved many conservatives, liberals, independents and others toward the libertarian plumbline.
Stephan Kinsella even posted the following “cat macro.”
Not to worry: The LP says you can’t trust blogs for news.
See also:
- Barr ‘embarrasses LP’ by no-show at Ron Paul press event
- Libertarians left out of third-party consensus: Anti-war, pro-privacy, anti-debt, anti-Fed
- Shane Cory to Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty: ‘Go F**k Yourself’
- Barr says he shows ‘leadership’ in dissing Ron Paul
- Barr didn’t want to be on stage ‘with people like McKinney’
- Nader and Paul to appear together on CNN later today
- Bob Barr’s national field director attacks Ron Paul on MySpace blog
- Campaign for Liberty official says he’s ‘never seen Dr. Paul so angry’ over Barr’s back-out
- Charles Jay endorses Campaign for Liberty’s four-point platform
- LP blog asks supporters to ‘consider the facts and not rely on blogs for your news’
- Ron Paul press conference on Nader’s YouTube channel
21 responses so far ↓
1 Peter Orvetti // Sep 11, 2008 at 2:19 am
NPR stories on Paul/Barr issue:
NPR’s All Things Considered (9/10, Shapiro) reported, “In the presidential primaries, Paul raised millions of dollars on the Web. He mobilized legions of young voters to his cause. But Paul is now running for re-election to his seat in Congress unopposed as a Republican. He said no to supporters who wanted him to keep running for president and he refused a last-minute appeal from the Republicans. … Paul did not endorse anyone candidate specifically today. Instead, he endorsed outside candidates generally. Three of them sat next to him. A fourth who was expected to show up did not. … That empty chair…was set for Bob Barr, former Republican congressman from Georgia. He’s the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee. Ron Paul said he was expecting Barr to show up. … Barr did show up, but only to hold his own separate press conference.†Barr: “I’m not interested in third parties getting the most possible votes. I’m interested in Bob Barr as the nominee for the Libertarian Party getting the most possible votes and a sufficient number of votes in order to dramatically, positively and substantively influence public policy in this country in the years ahead.†Shapiro: “Barr also announced that he’d invited Ron Paul to be his running mate. Paul was a libertarian nominee in 1988. He declined an invitation to run for the party’s nomination this year. Barr said he expect that Paul will decline this invitation, too.â€
On NPR’s Day To Day (9/10), Shapiro said, “It was an odd mix of folks sitting on the same stage. You had Cynthia McKinney, who is a former Democratic congresswoman, the Reve. Chuck Baldwin, who used to be very active in the Moral Majority with Jerry Falwell. You had Ralph Nader, who has been a third-party candidate a few times before. And then, of course, Ron Paul was, kind of, the emcee, the master of ceremonies, organizing this motley crew.â€
2 Fred Church Ortiz // Sep 11, 2008 at 2:22 am
The cat macro’s my favorite.
3 Peter Orvetti // Sep 11, 2008 at 2:26 am
Audio links for NPR stories:
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=94481300&m=94486424
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=94463570&m=94463556
4 Sivarticus // Sep 11, 2008 at 3:21 am
I’m still just saddened and disgusted with how things played out today. Barr is gonna lose A LOT of support. So, how can the liberty movement even make a dent in this election now? We really only have Baldwin, who isn’t even on in 40 states. I can’t see him breaking half a percent. I can’t see Barr breaking 1% after today either.
Nader…he may get several percent, more with some Ron Paul supporters. But there are drastic differences on economics and regulations Ralph has supported. I voted for him in 2004 since he was the main anti-war choice and I couldn’t stomach Bush or Kerry. I also didn’t know much about the LP or CP then. I’m not sure I can vote for him again this time after being forced awake on so much more by Dr. Paul. Besides, won’t a lot of Nader votes just say there’s a lot of disgruntled Democrats and liberals out there?
Barr really threw things to the wind today with his little stunt. This is going to take a long time to sort out, personally and in the large scale political realm. What’s a Ron Paul supporter to do this November?
5 darolew // Sep 11, 2008 at 3:58 am
“What’s a Ron Paul supporter to do this November?”
I share that sentiment.
There are no candidates on my ballot who I feel represent me, even a little bit.
6 Peter Orvetti // Sep 11, 2008 at 6:36 am
I will probably write in either Charles Jay, Ron Paul, George Phillies, or Mary Ruwart. I live in D.C., so my three electoral votes are a Dem lock anyway, and the LP ticket is not on the ballot.
7 johncjackson // Sep 11, 2008 at 9:13 am
Principled non-voter here.
8 amyb31416 // Sep 11, 2008 at 9:47 am
Barr lost my vote yesterday, I’ll now vote against Barr, McCain and Obama–unless the LP replaces Barr/Root, hopefully with Ruwart/Kubby?
Barr single-handedly destroyed the best chance the LP had to get future ballot access, for that reason, I started a petition to have him removed: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/RemoveBobBar/
Please sign and promote if you agree. Thanks.
9 richardwinger // Sep 11, 2008 at 9:47 am
Bob Barr will be a declared write-in candidate for president in D.C., but Charles Jay, Ron Paul, and George Phillies probably won’t be. Although DC has a bad habit of refusing to tally the votes even for declared write-in candidates, which is in violation of a court order from 1975 from a DC superior court (the Kamins case). I expect the Barr campaign to force DC to count his write-in votes. So, DC voters, if you want your vote to be tallied, Barr is the choice.
10 tonywall // Sep 11, 2008 at 10:00 am
It’s too bad Mr. Barr didn’t do the same for the medical marijuana ballot initiative in D.C. in the late 90’s.
11 richardwinger // Sep 11, 2008 at 11:08 am
Ironically, the Turner federal court decision (saying the US Constitution requires that valid votes be counted), which said that congress could not cut off funds to count votes for the marijuana initiative, is a useful precedent for getting valid write-ins counted. So Barr, by his amendment in the 1990’s, inadvertently helped election law!
12 G.E. // Sep 11, 2008 at 12:58 pm
People with integrity do not want to vote for your candidate, Richard.
13 mscrib // Sep 11, 2008 at 2:17 pm
From the reports I have read and heard from people in attendance, the Ron Paul staff/supporters displayed some of the most amatuerish political behavior in recent memory at his press conference (like harassing LP staffers and disrupting Barr’s press conference). Bob Barr and the LP are correct that RP and the joke that refers to itself as “Campaign for Liberty” are splintering the libertarian movement by refusing to take a stand in the election, other than vaguely urging supporters to vote third party. The LP is a political party. The LP supports Libertarians on the ballot, not “anyone but the Big Two.” Ron Paul and his creepy personality cult deserve to be taken to task for their general ineptness.
This is not to say that I wouldn’t have handled the Bob Barr competing press conference differently, but Ron Paul and his worshipers are more in the wrong on this issue than Barr and the LP.
People with a pragmatic, incrementalist, real-world view on libertarian politics need to vote for libertarian-ish Barr in November (not socialist Cynthia or Moral Majority Chuck or [insert here] Nader). 2008 could be the best year an LP presidential candidate has ever seen, which could, long-run, benefit LP down-ticket candidates, the party and the movement long after Barr is out of the picture. While I certainly have major disagreements with the Barr campaign (although fewer than I have with RP and his supporters), I still plan to write in Barr on my D.C. ballot.
14 Trent Hill // Sep 11, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Trust me, after today–Barr will not be breaking any records.
15 Peter Orvetti // Sep 11, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I almost always end up writing in a candidate for something in D.C., and I don’t really expect them to count it. After their Florida 2000-like handling of this week’s local primaries, I’m not sure they really count votes here at all.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/10/AR2008091000716.html
16 mscrib // Sep 12, 2008 at 12:23 am
I still think he can beat Ed Clark’s percentage. However, this may cost Barr real votes (not just nerdy activist types). I can’t vote for Baldwin or any of these other guys because I still am “pro-choice on everything” (women’s privacy and reproductive rights included). I think a lot of people are in the same boat.
****
I’m not expecting much out of the DCBEE either. I was hoping to be able to at least vote for one winning candidate–Carol–this time around, but that probably won’t even happen.
17 mscrib // Sep 12, 2008 at 12:29 am
By the way, is it just me or is Campaign for Liberty starting to seem like a bigger, better funded Downsize D.C.-like scam/money pit/amateur hour?
Man, libertarians can be a bunch of gullible rubes when you start talking about abolishing departments of government overnight and bringing back the gold standard (oh, and hating Mexicans, apparently)…
18 Doob // Sep 12, 2008 at 2:22 am
mscrib, are you a Republican mole just trying to incite even more anger here?
You’re an idiot.
19 Peter Orvetti // Sep 12, 2008 at 3:16 am
While Patrick Mara, who defeated Carol Schwartz in the D.C. GOP city council primary, is in many ways a traditional pro-biz Republican, he is also a homeschooling parent. I will be happy to vote for him. But he’ll probably lose.
20 Peter Orvetti // Sep 12, 2008 at 3:27 am
I am predicting right now that Bob Barr will not get 1%, nor 1,000,000 votes (about 0.8% of the likely turnout). When the election gets closer, I’ll predict vote totals for all the bigger names we discuss here, but as of today I’d peg Barr at about 600,000, if that.
The Barr campaign should not be compared to past LP campaigns. What it most resembles is the Buchanan 2000 Reform Party campaign. It started off strong, got a lot of attention, but then divided the party. The strategy was to reach 15% in polls and get into debates, where the candidate expected to be able to outshine the major party nominees. Instead, the poll numbers got worse and worse, media interest dried up, and the ticket got 448,895 votes, or 0.43%.
21 JimDavidson // Sep 13, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Richard Winger continues to be ballot access for LP and hard cheese for anyone else. Charles Jay is going to be a registered write-in in many states, and DC as well. And if the DC people don’t count our votes, we’re prepared to take action, too. But probably not with Ballot Access News on our side, huh?
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