Liberty for America
columnist: George Phillies

Topic: Bob Barr
Where Your Money Went--Barr June 2008

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I analyze how the Barr 2008 Presidential campaign spent its money, including your own money if you were a Barr donor.

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by George Phillies
(libertarian)
Sunday, May 17, 2009

Last Summer, I followed the Barr Presidential campaign expenses in the pages of Liberty for America magazine. At that time, we had the numbers on how Barr 2008 was spending its money, but not an indication of where the campaign was going. Reporting those numbers still put ahead of members of the National Party. The National Party newsletter reporting the results of the late-May convention did not appear until August. In this series of columns, I am going to take the facts that I uncovered last summer, and put them into a context based on 20-20 hindsight. The dollar figures are all from the FEC.gov web site.

In June 2008, income to the Barr campaign was $196,400, while spending came to $68,774. The campaign had cash on hand at the start of the month of $53,145, and ended the month with $68,774. Barr's personal investment in his own campaign was $1,000, in the form of a loan.

Disbursements to particular places produced some noteworthy results:

The Barr 2008 website for June cost more than $31,000, almost all to Terra Eclipse, the company that also did the Ron Paul campaign. Soon thereafter, Terra Eclipse was brought on board as the web designer for the Libertarian National Committee, also at impressive fees.

Over $35,000 was paid to consulting firms.

You'll be seeing more of these names in future articles. Note the first one, Liberty Strategies. I do not have to tell you much about them in my own words, because they have a web site that says of them

Capabilities Statement
Liberty Strategies LLC is a consulting firm headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The firm was founded in 2004 by former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, who served in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. The firm maintains relationships with several individuals and outside firms with which it has worked, and which are well-known to Congressman Barr.

That's right, Barr is paying his firm of which he or family members are apparently principals out of his campaign.

Office space rent for the Barr campaign went all over the place, starting with $28,000 to the Paces Foundation in Georgia. Barr 2008 also paid nearly $2,700 to Post Corporate Apartments, and more than $3,700 in rent to Liza Franzman, who resides in Kailua, Hawaii. That's almost $400,000 a year, annualized rate, for offices. The Paces Foundation in Georgia specializes in "Providing affordable housing and services for our low-income neighbors ". The Paces Foundatio web site unfortunately appears not to have be updated since 2005.

Then there are consultants. Doug Bandow received more than $12,000. James Bovard was paid more $5,000. Robert Zinzell received $3,750. David Beiler was given $2,399. Steve Gordon received more than $2,000. Russ Verney received $1,900. Mike Ferguson received $1,250. Ashley Petty received $1,100. John Seewoester received $560. Robert Benedict received $312.

James Bovard is an extremely prominent and effective libertarian author. He was apparently the campaign's staff book writer. At the end of the campaign, Bovard was still to be owed a very substantial sum for authoring fees. Mike Ferguson is a prominent midwestern libertarian activist, widely reported to be someone who can be counted on for effective work. Russ Verney managed a third-party Presidential campaign for Ross Perot.

Steve Gordon was one of the people Barr brought to the stage after winning the nomination, in order to thank Gordon for helping gain him the nomination. Gordon had managed Third Party Watch, which was one of the few web sites that effectively covered third party political campaigns. Gordon apparently sold the site to right-wing fund raiser Richard Viguerrie and his organization, which let the site fade. Third Party News coverage, in 2008 meaning largely of parties that might have competed with Republican conservatives, suffered. Third Party Watch as of this writing had its last post in February 2009. Gordon also managed Libertarian Lists, which was to have been a major fund raising and informational tool for libertarian campaigns across the country. Soon after my Libertarian campaign used it for the first time, Libertarian Lists ceased to be available for libertarian political campaigns.

Doug Bandow is a right-wing political writer. Bandow had worked for Copley News Service, had worked for the conservative Cato Institute for a while, and recently returned to Cato as a senior fellow. Wikipedia says of his first departure from Cato: "Bandow resigned from Cato on December 15, 2005, after admitting he accepted payments from Abramoff in return for publishing articles favorable to Abramoff's clients over a period of approximately ten years." This is the Abramoff who was involved with Congressman Delay's political efforts. More details are found in news coverage in Business Week [link edited for length]

Interestingly, the only staff member listed is Andrew McPherson, who received slightly under $2,000.

CORRECTION IN FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH: Andrew McPherson is not to be confused with Andrew Davis, who was also the LNC's media director, but spent this period working in Georgia with the Barr campaign, leaving other LP candidates without a full-time National Party press officer. Appropriate disclaimers are found in the FEC reports of Libertarian National Committee, Inc. for this period.

Shane Cory received $2,296 for reasons not specified in the electronic report, potentially as reimbursement for expenses. Cory had been Executive Director -- the senior-most paid staff member -- of the Libertarian National Committee. He resigned his position a month before the 2008 Libertarian National Convention after issuing an official LNC press release that some Libertarians interpreted as an attack on the political positions of one of Barr's leading opponents for the nomination. At the convention, Barr brought to the stage the people who had won Barr the Presidential nomination, and Cory was one of those called to the stage.

Ballot access fees came to slightly over $4,000.

What about a political campaign? Admission to the right-wing Freedom Fest event was $750. Fliers and buttons came to less than $1,200. Two meetings at the Old Vinings Inn and the DC University Club were more than $1,500. There were $23,000 and then some in travel expenses. Note the $380 to Thrifty Rental Car for car rental; very soon the word "thrifty" is going to disappear.

Note what else is not there, namely any sign of a direct mail effort to raise money from current or former Libertarian Party members. Historically, the party faithful have been a major source of startup cash for Libertarian Presidential campaigns, but they need to be asked.

Note what else is not there, namely the millions and millions of dollars that party faithful were confident had been promised would be raised by the campaign.

Here is a more complete list of disbursements, stripped from the FEC filings for June. These numbers are all buried in Federal Election Commission reports located on the web at FEC.GOV, but I have put them into order.

Consultants:

Staff

Communication AT&T Mobility $89.00

Computer issues:
Terra Eclipse $10,223.00 + $10,249.00 + $10,856.00
RackSpace $16.00

Real Estate

Office Supplies $180.17

Ballot Access

Campaigning

Cardmember Service $11,257.85
PayPal Merchant Services $5,790.57
Bank Fees $74.60

Clubs

Travel

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©2009 George Phillies, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Sunday, May 17, 2009
Last modified: Monday, May 18, 2009

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