Raising the Barr
Mustang Bobby notes that Bob Barr is running and uses Josh Marshall for some insight, but Lambert isn’t so sanguine about Barr running as libertarian. As Jerome Doolittle says: Why Settle for Pale Imitations?
May as well look at Barr’s Wikipedia entry and his official campaign site, where you can find Barr’s blog. People are running around thinking that this is bad for the GOP, not understanding who Bob Barr is.
Barr was a Congresscritter from Georgia, but he was born and raised in Iowa, then attended USC and Georgetown. Barr doesn’t sound or act like Zell Miller. He is a member in good standing of the NRA, and a card-carrying member of the ACLU. The time limits on the PATRIOT Act were added by Bob Barr, and he wants the US out of Iraq yesterday. He uses the classic definition of “liberal” and considers himself one. He shares more positions with Dennis Kucinich than the Shrubbery or McCain. Truth be told his views are closer to Kucinich than Clinton or Obama in many ways.
He is a privacy and civil liberties advocate in the first tier, and the closest thing to a true libertarian you are ever likely to meet.
A three-way debate featuring McCain, Obama, and Barr would not be a comfortable show for supporters of the the major party candidates – Barr would slice and dice them with ease.
Clinton supporters would never consider voting for Barr because of his ties to the impeachment of President Clinton, but he has the ability to attract a lot of people whose first priority is the restoration of the Constitution and civil liberties.
The electoral college will magnify Barr’s potential impact; there are states he is quite capable of winning. If the election is decided in Congress there is a definite possibility of the President and Vice President being from different parties, because the House selects the President and the Senate selects the Vice President. Joe LIEberman and Dick Cheney would probably be the deciding votes.
People might want to hold off on the celebration of this news.
21 comments
I don’t think there’s states that Barr is capable of winning, he doesn’t have the organization or the funding to do that. On the other hand, he is likely to pull the entire West out of the McCain column, with the exception of Arizona and perhaps Utah (there are close connections between McCain and the Mormon community, due to the large Mormon population in Arizona, and the Utah Mormons tend to vote the way their church elders tell them to vote). The West is the home of the “small government conservative”, a.k.a. libertarian-registered-as-Republican. A lot of those folks are likely to vote for Barr rather than McCain, though some will hold their nose and vote McCain anyhow. Meaning that the Democratic minority has a chance of pulling off a “win” in those states where normally a Back East “liberal” like Obama wouldn’t have a chance in Wyoming. (Yes, Chicago is considered “Back East” in Wyoming — hey, look, geography just ain’t their thing, okay?!).
In short, it is likely that Barr will pull more “small government” conservatives than “civil rights” liberals to his camp, since the “civil rights” liberals are likely to just vote for Obam, and thus Barr will hurt McCain more than Obama. And I suspect Barr is relishing his role as the right’s Ralph Nader, because he hates, hates, HATES him some Big Government Republicans.
BTW, while Barr and Kucinich probably have similar views on rights and privacy, I seriously doubt they have any overlap elsewhere. Kucinich, for example, proposed Medicare For All as the solution to the healthcare crisis. Barr basically takes the libertarian view that it’s not government’s problem to solve and that if people are dying due to lack of health insurance, well, it’s just tough luck for them, isn’t it, and wouldn’t it be nice if folks contributed to charities that could help the uninsured? You can extrapolate this to pretty much any other social programs — Kucinich be for’em, Barr be agin’em. Barr may claim he’s a “classic liberal”, but he’s a “classic liberal” in the Australian sense of the word (the Liberal party in Australia is a conservative party), not in the FDR sense of the word.
He’s a liberal in the 19th century sense of the word, which is conservative and/or libertarian.
The parties are swimming in the mush that is the moderate right.
The reasons are totally different but Barr and Kucinich agree on the war and civil liberties, and there is convergence on foreign policy, but again, for almost opposite reasons.
I don’t think the GOP can be assured of party loyalty this time around, and there are a lot of people “wandering in the wilderness” looking for something else.
If the Democratic Congress had done something, this wouldn’t be a problem, but nothing has changed since the 2006 election and people are pissed off about it.
I don’t think it’s just Clinton supporters that won’t come out for Barr. Not only does the bogus impeachment still rankle with most Democrats, what does Barr have that an Obama supporter might want to get behind? Not much, from where I sit. And if I remember rightly, Barr is a libertarian only where the Republican Party says it’s OK to be a libertarian–i.e., anything not having to do with a woman’s body or what any gay people do in their bedrooms (or anywhere else).
Badtux: I was going to say the same thing about Barr’s *Liberal values* 😀 Yes… very much like our deceptive Australian Liberal Party (who are currently going insane trying to reinvent themselves after being solidly torpedoed in the election. The have a new name they are proposing: National Liberal Party. Wow… How original and different is that?) LOL The Australian Liberal Party is as conservative as the US Republican party! Not at all when it comes to themselves or *friends*.
Nice summation, thanks! 🙂
I don’t know a lot about Barr other than some press over the years. So all the above is helpful. He’s sounding like he may just be ‘the spanner in the works’, hopefully more for McCain than anyone else. 🙂
Cheers!
Aw, the heck with it. The more I think about it the more I like it, to be honest. Let Barr lance the Republicans and draw the true believers out.
I want to see the Republican party ended, this seems helpful.
Michael, after leaving the Republican party behind, he altered course on “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll” to the ever useful “let the states decide” non-stand on the issues.
If someone is an actual supporter, he won’t be a threat, and he’s less of a threat to Obama than Clinton, because of impeachment, but there are a lot of people who don’t like any of the current crew, and the “none of the above” vote is significant.
If the Paulistas get behind him as well as the Libertarians, he will have some presence. Discounting him is done at their own risk by both parties. There really should be some threat assessments, because the media likes him, and he can do some damage in a debate.
eek
michael’s right, he’s one of those republican-approved libertarians — abortion bad. gays bad. tough on crime good. war on drugs good. some of the paulistaas will approve, but the interesting thing will be what ron paul himself thinks.
Those were his positions when he was a Republican, but he as changed to say those are state issues and the Federal government should stay out of them to bring himself in line with the Libertarian Party platform.
I’m not sure how much control Ron Paul has over his movement, but Barr is showing up approvingly on Paul web sites.
Hell, if he can “monkey-wrench” the system and send it into chaos, I’m all for it. You won’t find me voting for McCain, Obama or Clinton (all corporate lackeys), but a vote for Barr might be entertaining (if I vote at all-still haven’t decided).
ron paul probably has zero control over his -istas, and probably doesn’t even particularly care about controlling them. i’m just curious about how much of a libertarian-party libertarian he is [having once headed their ticket], or if he’s going to stay completely in character with his present republican-party libertarian role. not that this matters one whit in the scheme of things.
hipparchia, he’s already made a very carefully worded non-endorsement of John McCain, and all but endorsed Barack Obama. So I see no reason he could not be at least as approving of Bob Barr who is ideologically closer to him. I am now seeing this as a developing good thing which may replace the Republican party with the Libertarians.
Fortunately, the Libertarians will not have any possibility of winning the presidency in the near future. We will have a Democratic majority and presidency for the foreseeable future. And Bryan, every delegate is going to be counted and there will be peace in the Democratic party I am sure of it.
I also think that the Democratic ticket is going to be Obama-Clinton, like it or not.
Well, CG, if you don’t depend on the government to do anything for you, he is definitely against most of the Stalinist features of the Hedgemony. He doesn’t approve of government regulation or foreign involvement, so if you can grow and inspect your own food, and don’t care if you have any government services, Barr could be for you.
I sort of appreciate the fire and police services, so I’ll pass, but there are plenty of people in Florida who will vote for him.
Paul turned down a call to run for President on the Libertarian ticket. I think the GOP startled him with the primary challenge for his seat; the same way the Dems made Kucinich drop out. Paul needs to be a Republican to stay in Congress.
He is more of a Libertarian than Barr, declining to accept his Congressional pension, but Barr is an attorney and much stronger civil liberties advocate.
Michael, I couldn’t care less what the Democrats do at this point, they have already lost me forever for aiding and abetting the Republican destruction of Florida schools and local governments.
that would be clinton-obama. 😉
much as i’d like to have a woman vp, i’d hate for her to settle for second place like that. otoh, incumbent vice presidents do sem to have an advantage when they run for president, so that could possibly catapult her into the presidency in 2012.
i also think it would be interesting if hillary were to run as an independent if obama is the dem nominee, but she has already said she’ll support obama if he gets the nomination. i don’t see her leaving the party.
i’d dearly love to see a good chunk of the republican party split off, and i agree that the libertarians are no-hopers for awhile longer, thank goodness for small favors.
Obama has the nomination mathematically, so there’s no “settling for second place” involved. Plus she’d have the whole fourth branch to herself, and the secret undisclosed location, and all the power that entails.
[/irony]
oh, well, if you’re offering a secret undisclosed location… 😛
math schmath.
if the pledged delegate count is close, the superdelegates can swing it either way they choose. that was basically the whole point of having supers, to keep pure populism from ‘ruining’ the party or nominating an unelectable candidate.
hipparchia, the supers are supporting Obama too. And if they flipped the ticket that way, they could very well keep those DFH’s out, and we will then abstain in November. So that won’t happen.