Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Unreality At The Barr Campaign Ron Paul supporters aren't flocking to Bob Barr, and neither is America, while the Barr campaign continues to avoid directly addressing troubling questions about his political past and while the Libertarian Party's leadership seems to have lost touch with reality in this election.by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Friday, August 15, 2008
The wheels are just beginning to fall off the Barr campaign. The latest email sent out yesterday by the Libertarian Party on behalf of the Barr campaign demonstrates this fact beyond any doubt. In that email Andrew Davis, National Media Coordinator for the LP, states the following:
As the days roll on, things are getting worse for Barack Obama and John McCain. The love-fest following a heated primary is wearing off, exposing the two candidates for the empty suits that they are.
This is why it is so important that we get Bob Barr into the national debates, opening up the door for a Libertarian Party victory in 2008.
We saw what happened to Ron Paul's campaign after the first national debate, and the same could be possible for Barr if he is allowed to participate!
So, how do we get him into the debates?
First, we must get him up to 15 percent in the polls. With Barr polling already at 6 percent nationally, we have a great foundation to begin the drive to 15 percent.
How do we get Bob to 15 percent?
Getting him on the ballot, which paves the way for Bob and all the other Libertarians to have a banner year in 2008, is a great way to build his numbers!
To help get Bob to 15 percent, we're asking for $15. Your generous donation will help launch Bob into the debates, showing America there is another choice in 2008.
The email message goes on to mention that this will help the LP as a whole and that if party members give just a little more money, their dreams might come true. The only problem is that the analysis is divorced from reality.
The truth is that Barr is nowhere near 6%. He did hit 6% nationally in one poll in June, but now he is polling in the 1-2% range in national polls...or at least, in those polls that are willing to include his name in the polling. By election day, if we use history as our guide, he likely won't even be at 0.3%.
USA Election Polls tracks all the polling it can get its hands on for the Presidential campaign. They have an entire page devoted to Bob Barr in the polling. The polls reported on that page show that while Barr was indeed in the 5-7% range in various polls taken in June, he has since plummeted into the 1-2% range in every poll taken in August where his name has been included in the polling questions.
Nationally, Gallup has Barr at 1%, Ipsos has him at 2%, and Zogby also has him at 2%. Regionally, he is in the 1.0% to 1.6% range, with his highest 1.6% number coming in Red States. Among individual state polls, he is at 2% in Florida (down from 3% in June), at 1% in Massachusetts (down from 5% in June), and at 1% in Alabama (down from 4% in June). No other state polling numbers are available for Barr at the USA Election Polls website for August.
The simple fact of the matter is that Barr is not catching on among libertarian-leaning Americans outside of the LP, and he doesn't even have solid support within the LP. He is losing ground rapidly (as any neutral observer of third party politics could have predicted) and is in clear danger of becoming an asterisk in the campaign.
Another clear indicator that Barr is not catching on with American supporters of liberty, particularly Ron Paul supporters, is that his FEC filings show absolutely meager amounts of fundraising. Reported fundraising through June 30, 2008 shows that only 334 individuals had given a grand total of $181,082. While that averages out to a respectable $542 and change per donor, the 334 figure is pitiful in contrast to the literally hundreds of thousands who have given to the Ron Paul campaign this same year. What's particularly weird about all this is that the home page of the LP's website shows that the campaign has only raised $153,202 as of August 15, 2008 at 7:35 AM EDT. Why so little? Perhaps this just represents how much money the LP has raised on behalf of the Barr campaign, not all funds raised by Barr himself. The party's website is unclear on this point.
Overall, this is an unimportant mystery. The much bigger mystery is: why is Barr failing in fundraising so utterly and completely? By contrast, the LP's 1996 candidate, Harry Browne (one of those "purist" candidates whom libertarian pragmatists have long railed against, a man who had absolutely no political experience of any kind) raised over $3 million that year and over $1.5 million in 2000. Ron Paul raised over $30 million this year. Barr can't even seem to raise $1 million.
Or can he? Party co-founder David Nolan, in an article published yesterday on this website, reports that the campaign raised $500,000 in June and July. If that's true, and if the FEC reports from the Barr campaign through June 30th are also true, then it means that the Barr campaign raised roughly $350,000 in July. But that doesn't make any sense either, because as Nolan acknowledges (and as the Barr website confirms) Barr's campaign has raised a mere $50,000 in August. Was July a blip? A statistical anomaly? Nolan says that Barr is still on track to raise between $1 million and $1.5 million, but given the actual numbers reported to the FEC by the Barr campaign through June 30th, I'd say there is serious reason to doubt that will happen.
UPDATE AND REVISION
After "Steve" left his comments under this article, I used the search information he provided and found two reports (actually two reports and one amended report) that I hadn't seen before at the FEC website. They are as follows:
The total amount collected for that period is $393,559, or just under $400,000. So Steve may be correct that the total amount raised through July is $600,000. But even if Barr does raise $1 million for the election cycle, how can this be characterized as anything but sub-par? Again, it falls far short of what Browne raised in 1996, and it isn't even close to what Paul raised this year. Surely, it was reasonable to expect much better than this given all the hype and promises from his supporters.
With the support of VP candidate Wayne Allyn Root, Barr nailed down the LP nomination at last May's convention, nudging out LP stalwart Dr. Mary Ruwart for the nomination. This was supposed to mean a new era of growth and prosperity for the party. The pragmatists had finally gotten their way, and a candidate who wasn't "purist," who didn't espouse all those embarrassingly pure positions all the time finally had been nominated, backed by another pragmatist who held similar political views as his VP running mate. This was supposed to bring hordes of more moderate conservatives, more pragamatic voters into the LP camp. Finally, the LP would be able to shed the label of being a political afterthought. Now that a candidate with real political experience had been nominated who knew how to win an election, who knew how to not say anything "stupid," the tide would finally turn for the LP. Ron Paul supporters would gratefully turn to Barr as being the next-best alternative to Paul himself, since Congressman Paul had withdrawn from active campaigning for the presidency in 2008.
So what went wrong? Well, actually two things went wrong.
First, the pragmatists have always been 100% wrong about why the LP wasn't (and isn't) getting anywhere. It has nothing to do with being too "purist." It has nothing to do with its prior candidates saying something "stupid" or "embarrassing." It has nothing to do with whether they have presented themselves in a "professional" manner. Rather, the LP's long string of failures has been due to two key facts: (1) it is a third party, and third parties have every aspect of election laws written against them, including the Constitution itself, and (2) the party has never learned how to build from the ground up. Instead, it has always insisted on growing from the top down.
The other thing that went wrong with the Barr campaign is that he failed to win over the party faithful. Unlike the realities that all third parties suffer under which are beyond their control, this situation was completely within the control of Bob Barr himself. Many, many LP activists have bemoaned (both on this website and in other forums) Barr's political record while he was in Congress. Barr has never satisfactorily addressed that record. Dr. Ruwart pointed out in a conversation overheard on C-SPAN toward the end of the LP's convention that Barr had received nothing but "softball" tosses under questioning during the party's presidential candidate debate. He did apologize for the harm that was caused by his opposition to gay marriage, and he and his supporters have struggled earnestly to show that he was really an opponent of the War in Iraq, of Real ID, of FISA, and of a whole host of other unconstitutional indiscretions which he supported while in Congress. Thus, he never had the support of thousands of long-time LP members who didn't trust him when he claimed that he had "changed" his views. And worse, he did nothing about it.
Nolan threw in a third point. He pointed out that the campaign is being mismanaged. He wrote:
Which brings us to the final measure of the Barr campaign: its management. And from the reports I've been getting from the grassroots, most Libertarians are monumentally unimpressed with the team running the campaign. There seems to be little or no strategic vision, response to requests from the grassroots is sluggish, and the campaign has made some bad choices in key personnel. Longtime, well-known Libertarians are conspicuous by their absence. Aside from a snazzy-looking website, the Barr campaign effort seems adrift.
And who is managing the Barr juggernaut? None other than Russ Verney, who was campaign manager for Ross Perot. This was supposed to be yet another reason why pragmatists wanted to believe that the LP was finally growing up. They were bringing in people who knew how to win. I wonder what excuses they're preparing to utter now?
For a politically savvy former Congressman, Barr has demonstrated very little understanding as to how to garner support and snowball it. His decisions regarding campaign staff have proven to be disastrous, and his failure to satisfactorily address questions regarding his libertarian principles has been conspicuous. One of the most important rules that any "pragmatic' politician follows is that once he vanquishes the other candidates in the party's nomination process, he makes peace with them and reaches out to their supporters. Failure to do so is always catastrophic. Yet, that is a mistake that Barr has clearly made. He has done absolutely nothing to satisfy those party members who simply don't trust his supposed conversion to libertarian principles. Instead, he has assumed that they'd all rally behind him from the day he won the party's nomination. The utter stupidity of this failure in calculation is almost beyond reckoning.
I've said in comments I've left under other columnists' articles on this site that I'm convinced Barr is going to perform dismally in November. Now I want to state my prediction clearly in this article. Because of Barr's totally incompetent campaign in 2008, not only will he fail to gain 1,000,000 votes, not only will he fall far short of breaking the 1% barrier, not only will he fall short of Harry Browne's 465,000 votes in 1996, he'll even fall short of Michael Badnarik's 397,000 votes in 2004. Barr's campaign will likely end up as one of the least productive and most embarrassing campaigns in LP history.
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article are those of Walt Thiessen only and do not represent
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I have searched the FEC site but cannot find any reports of the Barr presidential campaign's disbursements. Do you have a link for them? Is it possible he hasn't filed them? Thanks.
I'm a Barr supporter, and a campaign donor, but the truth is the truth. Thank you so much for a well written and researched article.
One thing that has always puzzled me is Barr's touting of Russ Verney, and that Verney's inclusion in the campaign is because 'he knows how to win'. I would hardly think that running Ross Perot's campaign is a sterling advertisement for 'winning', unless there was a President Perot term and I missed it. Or perhaps they are using a different definition of "winning" than I am.
I'll vote for him, but I totally agree that unless something amazing happens, like a Ron Paul endorsement, he's going to do very poorly.
Posted By: Kevin Houston
Date: 2008-08-15 08:37:47
Walt,
I agree 100% with your assesment. Let me add one further comment so that this isn't a "me too" post. After much scrutiny of Bob Barr's current campaign positions, I no longer believe his "conversion" is genuine. I think that if, by some miracle, he were elected POTUS, that he would go right back to being a pro drug war, pro morality police, neocon piece of garbage.
As the old saying goes, how can you tell a politician (as opposed to a statesman like Ron Paul) is lying? His lips are moving.
Hopefully the LP will learn it's lesson from the failure of the Barr campaign, and the pragmatist wing will be discredited completely. It's not that there is anything wrong with being pragmatic, it's that pragmatism has no place in a 3rd party.
The place for pragmatism is when a candidate like Ron Paul comes along. Then, the prgamatic thing to do is support that candidate (even though they aren't in the LP) with everything you have. Hopefully, libertarians everywhere will learn from the success of Ron Paul, and begin infiltrating both major parties.
The trick is to keep your head down and appear to be a loyal foot-soldier for the first run into the office, and then build up a long track record of supporting liberty, freedom, and the Constitution.
It seems if you have a good track record, many libertarians will support a major party candidate.
I couldn't agree more, Walt. Bob Barr is no Ron Paul and failure to acknowledge that most certainly hurt his standing with the grassroots.
Ron Paul was not running to win an election. He ran to save a nation from tyranny. And that is the difference. Barr has been a contributing member of the tryannical regime and expects us to believe he turned on a dime. Not today.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-08-15 09:04:14
lgoldman: if you'll look back in the article, you'll see that I provided a link to the page I found for Bob Barr's contributors from the FEC. I haven't been able to find any specific filing summary from Barr himself on the FEC website. I'm not sure if that's just FEC bureaucratic inefficiency, some failure by the Barr campaign, or what.
I am not a Barr fan but this reads as another hatchet job. Havn't you all got better things to do like support local candidates for office if you can't stomach Bob Barr?
The Barr 08 Campeign has raised acording to FEC reports.
from 3/27/08 to 5/31/08 $197,159.23
from 6/1/08 to 6/30/08 $196,400.25
The reports for the month of July are not available yet.
but for april through the end of june they raised almost 400,000. For them to have raised another 100K to 200K seems likely. Which would put the total raised to around 600,000.00
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-08-15 09:31:56
Thanks for the searching tip, Steve. I must have entered Bob Barr rather than Barr when I was looking, which is why nothing came up that way for me.
As for my article being a "hatchet job"...well, I suppose a negative critique qualifies as a hatchet job. Of course, if the term "hatchet job" is meant to imply that we should never negatively critique anyone who is harming the cause of liberty, then the liberty movement is in serious trouble. So is America, for that matter.
Cute arguments and comments folks, but what does all of this accomplish? So Bob Barr might not be the best or purest libertarian out there. He's no Ron Paul obviously. But is Ron Paul running? Who are you going to vote for instead? Obama? Some other third party candidate so that all third party candidates add up to a neat 4%? Why don't you guys devote these considerable energies to helping Barr at least reach the 5% mark so that next time whoever is nominated doesn't have to waste so much energy trying to get ballot access? Voting for a libertarian candidate is a vote for the principles, the philosophy, not the man. If you want to be moved or swayed by the gravitas of a particular candidate, you're better off sticking with the Democrats and their hopes of some kind of messianic second-coming of JFK.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-08-15 10:05:17
Matt: the reason I'm not working to help get 5% for Barr is because I believe that Barr would be just as harmful as McBama. Voting for an LP candidate regardless of who that candidate is cannot be honestly represented as voting for principles. For instance, if John McCain or Barrack Obama ran as the LP candidate, I couldn't support either one. Could you?
As a life long Republican who voted for Bush twice (what a mistake) I now call myself a Conservative Constitutionalists. I feel the only choice I have, is Baldwin with the Constitution Party, or Barr with the Libertarian Party. Both have their failings. Baldwin can't get on all state ballots. Barr has a better chance in that regard but is also called the party of the gays and druggies. If either one of these candidates would have asked Ron Paul to be their Vice President after he dropped out of the Republican race, and he accepted, there would be no doubt in my mind that they would have been taken more seriously. With what we have left, I would recommend, buy gold and silver, store food and water, and by all means have a way to protect your family and keep your powder dry.
Well, anyone can critisize and should provide POSITIVE criticism so as to how to improve, but if it is mostly negative criticism? At the time of the LP convention Barr, had the most raised of all, and Dr. Mary Ruwart ended with a negative (in debt).
One wonders why the past tense has been used constantly in the article, as if it is written in November, after the election. I would say of course the Barr campaign has not raised nearly as much as planned at this stage, but that can change in the following weeks and months. I have been following comments by Barr supporters for a while. The fact is that there is a substantial number of them that have joined the Barr campaign, and others are split with the Baldwin campaign and some are perhaps looking into Nader etc. I would say a large amount or the majority of Paul supporters are in waiting and active with the Paul campaign and the leadup to the RNC and may/will only really become active in the Barr (to a lesser extent Baldwin etc.) campaigns after the RNC, in the next few weeks. They first focus on the outcome of the RNC and the Rally for the Republic.
Take into account that not all Paul supporters are necessarily LP supporters. The new Barr's positions are mostly the same as Paul's platform. Paul also did not had the ideal people in their campaign. Russ Varney has two years experience as a national campaign for a third party and I do think that was a good decision by Barr, some of the other campaign may not be the best, I would not know. Maybe if more Libertarians would be open-minded and give Barr the benefit of the doubt and develop trust, there will definitely be openings ffor them... It is logical that the polling of Barr will fluctuate in the beginning, till it can take off in September?
One should also keep into account that people do not have as much money and are more saving. Paul only managed to get attention in the debates, and he has the advantage of the GOP base. Barr, on the other hand, is subject to the smaller GOP base. The media gave him some attention in the beginning, but lately not very much.
I also think one should see what happens witht he DNC and RNC and which VP candidates the respective candidates choses. Based on that, there may be huge or substantial potential for Barr to make inroads. McCain has recently mentioned that he would be looking into a pro-abortion VP candidate as well. If he would choose Joe Lieberman (or IMHO also Tom Ridge etc.) as VP, there could be a major defection from conservatives in the GOP to Barr. Next Gingrich has declared that if McCain would chose Lieberman, Barr would get 15%.
One should also take into account that in the beginning the whole struggle for third parties is to get onto the ballot. About half of the money is spent on that, as Paul has claimed in 1988 and he certainly does not want to go in the same struggle again.
The McCain campaign is also performing dismally, look at how many gaffe's there has been and how many advisers had to be booted out already. There is no real excitement. The poll number will likely change in September. If it is not going to look like a close election, e.g. the respective presumptive nominees Obama outpolls McCain considerably, look for a lot more conservative, libertarian minded ones within the GOP and D jumping ship to Barr/LP. Indications are that Paul woud receive much more support if the primaries were held now AND that Barr in managing to attract support from outside the Paul "camp", e.g. voters that did not vote for Paul (perhaps for another candidate like Romney, Huckabee, Thompson or none at all).
Barr is campaigning now (outside GA) which is good and a good decision to be in Denver during the DNC, he could make some impact on D supporters dissatisfied with the support for the Patriot Act, FISA etc. etc.
Posted By: George Phillies
Date: 2008-08-15 11:23:38
Stefan's numbers on fundraising are not accurate. At the time of the convention, receipts were (per FEC filings)
Jingozian -- $288,000
Phillies -- $219,910
Barr -- $184,857
Root -- $74,292
Also, Mike Gravel was over $500,000. Net result: Barr for spending was in fourth place, not first.
I also have no idea where the alleged Harry Browne 1996 number is coming from. Browne in 1996, the FEC year end report -- if it's real, you can read the treasurer's signature at the bottom -- shows a total of $900,000 for the year.
In reading the FEC donor lists, recall that donors of under $200 are neither listed by name nor counted. Also, note that the two dollar counting clocks are not the same. The one at bobbarr2008.org counts electronic donations to Barrr, while the one at LP.ORG counts electronic donations to LNC, Inc. The LP.ORG clock is not counting Barr donations. Neither clock registers donations by check or phone.
I believe in Ron Paul. I believe Ron Paul means what he says because he has been saying it for 30 years against the political tide. I believed in Ron Paul so much I was willing to send him some of my hard earned money so I could lend my voice to his. I had never sent anyone a campaign contribution before.
In my mind Bob Barr is just another politician and I have had enough of them telling us what they think we want to hear. I hope Mr. Barr's conversion to libertarianism is sincere and he will continue to fight for liberty but he won't be receiving my vote or my money.
Sure you are allowed to critize any one you like. And the rest of us are free to critize you aswell. You wrote a very slanted anti Barr piece and That is why I called it a hatchet job. I also think that such energy could be put to better uses such as working for your regional and local candidates. I am still not sure who I am going to vote for myself. But I see no need to run down Bar's efforts at this time.
"For a politically savvy former Congressman, Barr has demonstrated very little understanding as to how to garner support and snowball it. His decisions regarding campaign staff have proven to be disastrous, and his failure to satisfactorily address questions regarding his libertarian principles has been conspicuous. One of the most important rules that any "pragmatic' politician follows is that once he vanquishes the other candidates in the party's nomination process, he makes peace with them and reaches out to their supporters. Failure to do so is always catastrophic. Yet, that is a mistake that Barr has clearly made. He has done absolutely nothing to satisfy those party members who simply don't trust his supposed conversion to libertarian principles. Instead, he has assumed that they'd all rally behind him from the day he won the party's nomination. The utter stupidity of this failure in calculation is almost beyond reckoning."
That paragraph really does tell the whole story. His campaign has treated the long time party regulars with contempt by not talking with them. It took two months of badgering him about the religoius equality question before he finally answered, and even then his answer was completely disingenuous. Other questioners with other issues received the same treatment.
His supporters have been even worse. I have been told that it is wrong for me to even ask the tough questions in the first place. When I suggested that he should make amends with the other side by having one of the "purists" as a running mate, the response was "what does he have to make amends for? He's the winner, he shouldn't apologize to a bunch of sore losers."
Really, the Barr supporters are the worst aspect of the Barr campaign, and they do more to turn off any "purist" trying to find redeeming value in the Barr campiagn.
Then there's the whole issue of the war. True, the candidate claims to be in favor of ending the Iraq war. His running mate used to be in favor of continuing the war (even using his initials to forward his campaign) until he found out which direction the wind was blowing and changed course accordingly. Yet all those who favor continued military aggression still support the two of them. One would think they'd have cause to reconsider, but instead I have a disgruntled republican tell me that he couldn't support Paul because Paul was against the war but he could support Barr.
This had the potential to be one of the LP's most successful campaigns, but it looks like it may turn out to be the least successful unless you get all of your political news exclusively through TPW.
Walt-- You can't seriously think Barr would be as bad as McBama. What has he said that doesn't align with traditional libertarian values? Is it just his past voting record? We can all admit that it's less than stellar. You'll have to take him at his word that he's changed. And you can't call that flip-flopping, because flip-flopping is what you do for expediency, and since when is taking the less popular, but principled, position the expedient thing to do for an election?
I know Barr is not the best candidate. I wish Ron Paul was running. And part of me wants to be the uncompromising hard core libertarian who will accept nothing less than the ideal libertarian candidate. But we will never get that candidate, and if we do, he/she will most likely be entirely ignored. What good does it do to be the perpetual minority screaming into the wind? I'd rather take steps to support the candidate that the LP has and try to inject libertarian ideas into the mainstream consciousness. Then worry about finding a more perfect libertarian candidate.
If you're hung up on the question of whether or not he has really changed, you better get past that, because to realize any kind of reform in this country, a whole lot of people are going to have to change...
Posted By: Andrew Panken
Date: 2008-08-15 13:31:06
Ooh, I'm so scared that Bob Barr might win and be an Obama or McCain, that's my excuse for casting an uncounted write-in vote for Ron Paul, voting for Baldwin or voting for McCain/Obama. Get real with your lame excuses for being against Barr. Next thing you know, you're going to be telling us Barr is a CIA plant. You need a reality check. I will vote for Barr because a vote for him will make the loudest statement of my views against the establishment. It's 10,000 to 1 chance, that he will actually win. If he did win, Ron Paul would be his first pick to help him straighten out the mess. We already know that McCain/Obama are neo-cons, so it's guaranteed a neo-con will win. Unless, you stay awake at night worrying about the evils of 10,000-1 longshots?
I switched registration from LP to Rep in 07 just to vote for Ron Paul, I am not alone.
The only way the LP can have any effect in nov or even survive as a party is to have every member sign up for Pauls campaign for liberty http://campaignforliberty.com/ and get Barr a slot to speak at the Rally Sept 2
Barr can make his point or take his licks either way will advance the cause for Liberty and could help wiyh getting votes for Libertarian candidates any where there is not a Paul Republican.
We had ONE chance at a great, and I do mean GREAT man to vote for, as the leader of this country. One who not only understood and followed the constitution by the strictest of means the way any member of of Washington is supposed to do, but he was also an expert economist. People just couldn't see that.
As long as they (the members of govt) continue on this path of tyranny , the louder the complaints from the people will be. Because our liberty and our freedom are being treaded upon.
I don't in my own opinion see Bob Barr as being the man that Ron Paul is. He is in fact not. Ron Paul saw and heard things in Washington and he was man enough to put that information out there to US. He was man enough to tell us that we were being and are being stolen from.
We will not again see any one man who will do this for the people and the country.
Because people really don't understand that the laws that are passed in washington, in congress, which affect each and every one of our lives, are rarely read but passed on a whim, there are things in them there bills which become law that hurt Americans terribly. And they keep doing it because people do not get on their representatives. I for one am no chicken when it comes to digging into their faults.
If you want see another article that will tell you just what your up against when it comes to John McCain you can read it here:
http://www.newswithviews.com/Stang/alan61.htm
This article shows you the kind of thing that govt hides from you. and how they do it. I bet very few people new about this.
As far as Barr goes, He just doesn't measure up. But then neither do McCain nor Obama. There just is no one to fill the shoes that Ron Paul walks in.
Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: 2008-08-15 14:47:49
Hi Walt,
Nice piece. I think your observations are right on, I see much the same thing. We just disagree on the reason. I contend the candidate and the campaign and the grassroots and everything the LP can bring to the game are irrelevant. It isn't a matter of "growing up" it is a matter of using the wrong tool to acheive your desired results.
The LP could do as well with no effort at all.
The folks who have managed to successfully hijack the GOP (from the INSIDE, of course) were clever enough to encourage the libertarian-leaning republicans to leave the party. Fortunately not all of them did. Also fortunately, Ron Paul brought a fresh wave of them INTO the party, many for the first time. Those who stayed and who understand Dr. Paul's determination to wrest control of the GOP from the liberals who now run it are far more numerous than I expected. Congratulations to all of them for daring to confront the beast instead of preaching to the choir.
Bob Barr or Mickey Mouse, the LP candidate has my vote this year.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-08-15 15:18:02
Matt: Yeah, I do think that Barr could be as bad as McBama. Do I know 100% for certain that he would be? No. Do I know that he's not as bad? No. Is his track record against him? Absolutely yes!
If you think that a track record doesn't count more than what someone says, then you and I have different ideas about what one should trust. It's easy to talk the talk, particularly for someone who is an expert at playing political games. Walking the walk is so much harder. That's what makes Ron Paul so admirable. It's also what makes Bob Barr so questionable. Barr has a large track record that he needs to overcome within his own party. Why isn't he treating it like the priority it should be?
It's not like Barr is Mr. Joe Shmoe who used to vote Republican but never really knew much about politics and didn't realize what his Republican buddies were really doing once they got into office. And once he figured it out, he had a change of heart and realized that he was backing the wrong value system, and his change led to a change in party.
Barr was in the middle of the mess, and he contributed to it directly. He knew exactly what was going on, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he adopted those highly questionable positions he took. Surely that deserves some serious attention by the candidate himself directly to his own intended supporters!
The really, truly sad part about all this is that Barr could do something about it. He could make a sincere effort to win over his own potential supporters. He could directly and cleanly address LP members on each of the issues under contention. A video cast of the kind RP has done in the past would be great step forward, particularly if Barr was directly questioned and challenged in that video by, say, Dr. Ruwart or a critic with some in-party heft.
You know what I'd like to see in such a video? I'd like to see Barr talking about WHY he converted. What changed his mind? What went through his mind as he was thinking things through? He could tell us the full story of his conversion...how his thought processes changed...why they changed...what he would do differently if he were back in Congress, point by point, issue by issue, compared to what he did in the past if he had the chance to do it all over again.
Why has Barr not even attempted to rally the support of his fellow LP candidates for the nomination he won? Are they unimportant to him? It's what the Dems and Reps do. They actively seek the support of the candidates they defeated, the activists who were against them. Why can't Barr? Why doesn't he even try? I strongly suspect it's because he knows he'd be found out for what he really believes deep down, and he doesn't dare let the LP rank-and-file know it. I suspect that his conversion is not genuine.
He's not doing what needs to be done. To me, that says he's not really serious about gaining the support of his own party members.
Walt, Zogby released a poll *today* (Friday, 8/15) showing Barr currently running at 6% nationally. How does this square with your belief that he's fizzled out?
Ron Paul is great. Ron Paul is the best potential president I can think of. Ron Paul is not running.
So what do you propose I do? Vote for McCain? Vote for Obama? Vote for Nader? McKinney? Write in Ron Paul? All of the other candidates are pathetic and a write in for Ron Paul will get circular filed in most cases. Who would you say is the better alternative to Barr?
And I've seen quite a few videos and articles from him that address the questions you pose. Short of sitting down for a cup of coffee with each LP member individually to discuss his reasons for running, how can he allay your suspicions?
Walt: David Nolan in his article seems to be (relatively) satisfied with Barr's handling of questions why he changed his mind. I have seen countless videos and interviews where he explains what lead him to change his mind: in short: the growth of govt. power, the Gonzalez statement that the Bill of Rights and habeus corpus are antiquated etc. etc. Obviously he could not go into detail. He has said the Patriot Act was his worst vote, and there are quite a few others as well. Look at one of the first videos before he officially ran for the nomination: you will see several pictures of laws he would be against now, like no child left behind etc.
If his conversion is not genuine, why did he not only supported and rooted, but also voted for Badnarik in 2004 when he was still a member of the GOP??? Certainly his vote for the LP candidate is also part of his track record one can take to the bank.
I think it would be best if you and others in the LP hold a conference call, perhaps video conference call, with Barr to discuss issue and deliver constructive criticism and ideas. One does need a certain amount of trust for a conversation. I am afraid if there is no basic trust in Barr, nothing he does, says or believes is going to count as reaching out and it will be counterproductive.
Obviously one would not point Barr in the upper top of the Nolan chart, but on can surely point him in the green libertarian block.
McBama is for the Patriot Act etc., if Barr would be "just as worse as McBama", why would be actively work AGAINST the Patriot Act ever since 2003/2004???
I had made the decision to support Bob Barr but rally around the LP candidate no matter who it was. Now, I see these purists, these hardcore Libertarians who spend all their time trying to prove themselves more libertarian than the next person, unwilling to accept the results of Denver, spending all of this time and energy trying to tear down the Barr campaign just to be able to say that they were right. It's crazy. And at this point, I couldn't care what any of these people think they know.
I'm a Ron Paul Repbulican, a Jackson-Jeffersonian Democrat, and card-carrying Libertarian who is supporting a good man who truly believes in Freedom & Liberty--Bob Barr. And rather than waste my time fighting this online war that is completely pointless, I'll be out raising money, getting out yard signs, flyers, and mailers, and actually trying to make a difference with people...the good and decent people of America who like the idea of less government, less taxes, and more freedom.
Will Barr's campaign be a disaster? I don't think so. I feel good about it and I'll fight, just like several other folks I know, to help his campaign in every way I can. Don't we all want the same thing? Less government and more Freedom?
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-08-16 05:26:32
Matt: Unless I feel confident about Bob Barr (and so far I do not), I would rather "waste" my vote by writing in Ron Paul than vote for a guy who I believe could be harming the movement toward liberty. Even if my vote gets thrown out, at least I won't be voting to harm the country. I refuse to vote for a lesser of three or four evils. I will only vote for someone if I believe he's the real deal. The lesser of evils argument is how we ended up with eight years of George W. Bush.
Tully: I hadn't seen that poll. I just looked it up, and I admit that's the first poll I've seen like that this month. It certainly shows better than the other polls that have been done this month. However, it's still not completely convincing. After all, what changed all of a sudden? Why is it that Zogby's own polling results suddenly changed? His article on the subject gives us no indication. Is this latest number just a margin-of-error aberration, or does it represent a real move back up? Were all the other polls done this month wrong, and only this one is right? Frankly, it doesn't make sense. We'll know better in another 2-4 weeks whether it's real or just a blip.
Stefan: I'm on my way out of the LP (not because of Barr...there are a lot of reasons that have been brewing for quite some time). Besides, a conference call isn't up to me. My only role has been as a local chair, and I'm moving toward giving that up too because of my dissatisfaction with the party overall. The videos I saw of Barr before the convention admitted mistakes, but they gave very little insight into what has gone into his change of position. They were cursory at best. They basically said, "I changed my mind, and that's all I'm going to say about that." If you've seen a video that is more in-depth than that, please provide a URL.
Posted By: Pablo Escobar
Date: 2008-08-16 08:37:15
Well, whatever. Real change won't come through Bob Barr or Ron Paul. It'll come through setting up a thousand more libertarian think-tanks and educational institutions, infiltrating the universities of America and opening people's minds to the ideas through videos, books, conferences.
Politics is all short-term, and fizzles out quickly. Ronald Reagan could not have succeeded in his presidential bid without the ideas of Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. Ron Paul could not have tapped into America's potent libertarian vein without the cumulative efforts of many libertarian thinkers.
If you want to make a difference, quit the LP and get involved in the Cato Institute, the Independent Institute or the Mises institute (or another libertarian think-tank). Then one of the major party candidates will automatically start parroting libertarian ideas. You think John McCain or barack Obama actually know anything about policy? They are airheads who rely on their advisors. Libertarians should aim to be those advisors.
But in the meantime, I agree everyone should vote LP in November to send a message to the establishment. And the author of this article is kidding himself if he thinks there's any incentive for Bob Barr to lie about changing his mind. Yeah, the LP is a really successful party and is great for building influential political connections (NOT)...
Gee Walt you must have missed the latest poll in July where Barr is at 6% nationally and in double digits in a number of states.
Walt is a total idiot, anybody who knows anything about politics knows that for Bob Barr to get to the next level he has to be in the debats. Barr has raised more money in his first three months than Ron Paul did, thats a fact. How did Ron Paul's campaign explode (hint: It wasn't his campaign staff) it was because he was in a Nationally Televised Debate. After that he caught fire.
So Walt, you are a fool, please show me an example of how Ron Paul's campaign was so productive and in the lead before he was aired on the national debate.
Walt we know you are a Chuck Baldwin supporter, so go ahead and see how well he will do on 29 state ballots.
Posted By: Mike Linksvayer
Date: 2008-08-16 18:35:42
Traders (ie the market, something libertarians ought to pay attention to) currently give Barr a 35% chance of getting 1% or more of the popular vote (ie the best LP showing since 1980).
I don't know what the people at USA Today are smoking. One one page they say the latest Zogby poll has Bob Barr at 2%. On another page they say 4%. In reality, the latest Zogby poll has Bob Barr at 6%:
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1538
Walt does not appear to be an idiot to me. His opinion is that Barr will likely not gather enough support to make it into the debates. Also, I know what you mean about Ron Paul's campaign "catching fire" but what was the actual result? He suspended his campaign.
Dear Walt: thank you for your response. I think I understand what you mean. Some in the LP were also not happy with a few issues in the LP and when Ron Paul "came along", they enthusiastically jumped on board, and I agree with them and understand their sentiment. Basically it has to do with the Ayan Rand radical individualist (as opposed to rugged individualist) philosophy where any "group", country etc. relative (not absolute) loyalty and authority is denounced (wrongly IMHO) as authoritarianism. I am not sure if you feel the same. There should be a balance between the individual and the corporate decision/reality, or local govt, a group, family etc. e.g. soem social cohesion. Perhaps one can describe it in short as positive freedom (freedom to), and not the negative freedom (freedom from... any authority but the reason). Some "purists" (not the right word) want to reach out to minorities (very important), but I think they fail to understand that the group does play a relative important role with such commonities. You should be positive about the "local group"', identity, family etc. where the individual find his/her role and fulfillment (also by accepting authority) and then the local/small group vs. the big group (the state), where rights are taken away, rather than the individual vs. any group, be that the state, family etc..
With regard to Barr's change, I have listened to a few radio interviews. In the 40 minute interview with Glenn Beck he touched on the issue of the war and the Patriot Act and his reasons for decision and what he will change in more detail.
Also, you will remember on the first day/night of the Denver convention, there was a memo published online of a letter of Russ Verney, where he mentioned their fundraising goal, the positive influence of Ron Paul's book and the influence of Neal Boortz and his radio. We all know Neal Boortz is a "neolibertarian (e.g. something like a fusion between an interventionist neoconservative with an obsession with the 'war on terror" and the libertarian (domestic) philosophy...but this does not work). There was also a radio interview after Barr's announcement of a presidential exploratory committee with Boortz where Boortz explained himself positive towards Barr.
Well, with Barr's strong insistence of the "occupation of Iraq" he has effectively LOST the support of Neal Boortz. Boortz was earlier also in good communication with Ron Paul, but during the 2008 campaign not at all, because of the foreign policy disagreement.
Here is the url to an interview with pollster, Arab-American (and independent Democratic superdelegate) James Zogby, who has recently also released a poll where 55% said they want Barr int he debates. I personally think Zogby might be interested in Nader but also Barr, especially on the FISA issue, Patriot Act and Obama's capitulation before AIPAC. Take a listen:
To Matt and anyone who may share his same questions:
"So what do you propose I do? Vote for McCain? Vote for Obama? Vote for Nader? McKinney? Write in Ron Paul? All of the other candidates are pathetic and a write in for Ron Paul will get circular filed in most cases. Who would you say is the better alternative to Barr?"
We, the Responsible Majority will not vote for Barr nor any other 2008 presidential candidate!
For those who call themselves Ron Paul Republicans and to those Harry Browne Libertarians, if you are like most Americans who do not agree with the choices for president:
“It is commonly said, If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain about the outcome. The opposite is true. By playing the game, voters agree to the rules. Only those who don’t play and withhold their consent have a right to complain about the outcome, especially since the winner will have his hand in the non-voter’s pocket. Voting is not an act of political freedom. It is an act of political conformity. Those who refuse to vote are not expressing silence. They are screaming in the politician’s ear: You do not represent me. This is not a process in which my voice matters. I do not believe you." Wendy McElroy
"Viewing the nation as divided into two camps ignores the largest single group of Americans, namely, those who don't vote at all. In the 2000 election only about 54 percent of eligible voters actually turned out to vote. In 2004, despite expensive get-out-the-vote campaigns by both ideological camps, the percentage who voted rose only a few points from the previous election. In fact, in 2004, an all-time record was set when more than 80 million eligible voters failed to vote; this number was far greater than the votes secured by either Bush or Kerry, by a substantial margin. In fact, no Republican or Democratic nominee has attracted as much as 30 percent of eligible voters since Ronald Reagan in 1984." [link edited for length]
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-08-18 06:01:16
Joe Lawson: I won't bother responding to most of your rant because for the most part you engage more in name calling than in actual argumentation. However, I will respond to two points.
First I have no intention or desire of supporting or voting for Chuck Baldwin. I believe that the Moral Majority is a highly questionable training ground for a presidential candidate, and I strongly believe in a separation of church and state. I also feel that most of Baldwin's top issues are the wrong issues for America.
Second, you're comparing apples to oranges regarding debates. Ron Paul was in the Republican Party debates. Bob Barr was in the Libertarian Party debates. So to suggest that Bob Barr hasn't been included in his party's debates simply isn't true. Ron Paul chose to run as a Republican, which is what gave him more opportunity than Bob Barr has running as a Libertarian. Personally, I'd love to see Ron Paul in the national election debates, but that won't happen. Neither will Bob Barr be there. I'm opposed to the two major parties controlling who gets into the national debates, so your inference that I'm somehow glad that Bob Barr won't be included is totally disingenuous.
Jake: interesting article. I think the Ron Paul / Bob Barr question really comes down to this. Which one represents the liberty movement better? You believe that Paul is the better leader. I'm not sure about his leadership, but I agree that he is definitely the more desirable spokesman for liberty, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to follow Bob Barr anywhere.
Stefan: I don't really look at the LP dynamics as Ayn Rand individualist vs rugged individualist at all. I'm a little confused about what you were trying to say in that paragraph, so I'll just respond with this. I think balance is very important in life, and I don't think it has anything to do with "purism" or "pragmatism." Balance is balance.
I took a look at the video you cited. Barr shows me again why I can't trust his conversion or his judgment. He says he voted for the war resolution "based on the information we had at hand," which means that he didn't actually read the full intelligence report which was made available to every member of Congress (and which only six bothered to read, according to what I've heard), a report which made clear that there was tremendous doubt as to whether Saddam had WMDs. Instead, Barr apparently read only the abbreviated summary that the Bush administration was pushing (if he read anything at all). I don't know about you, but I can't trust a presidential candidate who can't be bothered to read an entire intelligence report in order to make his own judgment on something as important as declaring (or even unconstitutionally authorizing) war on another country. And if he did know what the full intelligence report said, then his vote was unjustified.
Which raises another point: why is and was Barr not speaking out against Congress authorizing the President to go to war? He claims to be a strict Constitutionalist, but to the best of my knowledge Congress has no authority to grant war powers to the President under the Constitution. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about when I suggest that Barr's explanations and apologies on many key issues have been unconvincing at best.
I have donated to the Barr campaign several times. While I don't like Barr's questionable past, people always have the right to change. I hope Barr does well.
Mr. Barr is just another typical power seeking politician. I wouldn't buy a used car from him and I won't send him or the LPN any $.
Trust, once abused, is almost impossible to restore. The LPN was only relevent when it was solidly based on its "Statement of Principles," without exception.
Personalities without principles may be disasterous to any organization. I suspect that Mr. Barr will do the LPN far more harm than good.
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