Barr is and has always been a guy who will say whatever it takes to get into the spotlight.
Georgia.
Ah, but I never made that bet, so my betting skills are just fine. That’s all that matters. 
While it’s a canard to say Obama’s support comes mainly from the “left wing” of the Democratic Party, somehow I don’t think those LW voters who supported Nader in his past two or three runs would find him an appealing choice compared to Obama this time around.
Let’s see if Barr gets the LP nomination, and then we’ll talk. (I believe the convention is Memorial Day weekend.)
While we’re at it, maybe we can do an over-and-under on the margin between McCain and Obama in Georgia (if you’re so sure of a McCain blowout). electoral-vote.com has McCain ahead by 14 points. I’ll take the under on that. What do you say?
OK. I read up on this guy’s politics a bit today, and I can’t see him getting the nod.
No thanks. I never said McCain would be a blow-out. I just don’t think a Libertarian candidate, even in his home state, is going to get many votes. So McCain doesn’t have to blow Obama away for the Libertarian candidate to have no effect on who actually wins.
[obligatory black joke]
Well, with Barr now running, the odds that America will see its first black president has gone up.
[/obj]
On a serious note, I agree with spoke. There’s probably not an insignificant number of Republicans who dislike McCain but can’t get with the Obama train. Rather than stay home, they’ll may vote for Barr and feel good about themselves. I’m glad he’s running.
I think you guys are nuts, or, as John Mace put it, a “triumph of hope over reason”. Barr is a nobody. While ideological voters might say that they’ll vote for him rather than McCain today, 6 months before the election, and while Barr MAY (I’m not convinced) line up closer to their ideology than McCain, in November, when they are in that little booth with the decision at hand, I don’t believe that many of them will pull the Libertarian lever. Nobody sane thinks that Barr has any chance of being elected, outside of that, when the choice comes down to the nightmare of a Leftist Obama with a Democratic Congress set to spend us into a depression versus McCain who is way off base (in their eyes) WRT things like immigration, free speech (McCain-Feingold) and his despicable support of tort lawyer’s wet dreams (the so-called "Patient’s Bill of Rights”), they will hold their nose and vote for McCain, knowing that by doing so they will at least get someone who (supposedly) wants to cut federal spending, not raise taxes, who will be hampered by an unfriendly Congress from doing too much and who will appoint constructionist judges for the two spots likely to come available on the SCOUS. I kinda feel the same way about all of the Hillary supporters who say they are going to defect to McCain in November when Obama gets the nod, but in their case I think they are more likely to do so (Dear God I hope so) because the Democratic primary has become so acrimonious, for them it’s personal. Most of them won’t do it, but I think enough will to get McCain elected, which is a good thing.
If he finally gives up.
The problem is that of all Ron Paul supporters I’ve met, roughly half of them prefer Obama over McCain. It’s not a huge sample, I know, but Paul has some positions that are quite attractive to liberals, like his Iraq stance.
CNN just stated that Barr has picked up someone from the Ross Perot’s 1992 campaign to be run his campaign.
That beign said, having a Libertarian candidate in the news for 2 days in a row is a first of some sort, I’m sure.
This, in my opinion, is part of the problem with the Libertarian Parties problem. They are so focused on being independant that the party itself is unable to get behind one candidate.
Wasn’t it the 2004 campaign where they had 2 presidential candidates?
That’s even assuming they can. There’s still that little ballot-access problem. The Lib nominee won’t be on the ballot in every state.
Obama is no leftist. The only important difference between him and Clinton in that regard is that Obama has never had anything to do with the DLC.
Hm. Thought you wuz a Democrat.
Observe Sampiro’s post. Note that it’s not “a Leftist rant against Barr” so much as it is, “Given my impression of Barr’s stance, which is this, how in the world is there any fit between him and the Libertarian Party? I’m mystified.”
Insofar as I ever think of Bob Barr, Sampiro has encapsulated my impressions too, albeit a bit more dramatically than I’d have put it. So the basic question here is, is or has he been misrepresented? Has he “pulled a George Wallace” … a serious conversion to a near-antithetical point of view? Are Libertarians holding Barr-for-President signs with one hand and their nose with the other, thrilled to get someone with name recognition? Can one of the resident Libertarian Dopers (or someone who has kept tabs on Barr) clarify this?
I left the LP years ago, precisely because it was becoming infested with minarchists, statists, recidivists, and Constitutionalists. There is precious little that is libertarian about it anymore.
I am. That doesn’t mean that I will lockstep vote for whomever the Democrats run, however. This year, for the first time ever, I intend to vote for a Republican for president.
And you can kid yourself and say 'Obama’s not a Leftist!" all you want, but if you look at his proposed policies, well, yes, in fact he is. I like the man personally, I think he’s a brilliant orator and possibly the most honest presidential candidate we’ve had in a long while, but his politics would be a disaster for the United States.
I wish! (But, then, I’m comparing him to, say, Kucinich, or Sanders, or the Democratic Socialists of America.) Which of his platform positions strike you as leftist?
More importantly, which are any more leftist than Clinton’s?
Minarchists are small-statists. How are they un-Libertarian? And what exactly do you mean by “recidivists”? (A term with which I am familiar only in connection with criminology.)
What exactly is your verson of libertarianism? Anti-statist? Anarchism is purely anti-statist but its heritage is more Marxist than anything else; American Libertarianism is a very different phenomenon.
It seems he’s getting close to it. Here’s an article that talks about his changing views of the drug war and his teaming up with the Marijuana Policy Project.
Well, some Libertarians are thrilled, some are not. This blog post should give you a good idea about some of the reactions to Barr, although it was written when Barr was still exploring the idea of whether he’d run (bonus: it has a video interview with Barr that discusses his libertarian drift in recent years).
The LP is filled with people who desire ideological purity above all. If Barr is nominated it is likely a lot of these people will be upset. But Barr is basically libertarian and he has a good shot at capturing mainstream media attention. He will almost certainly win a far larger share of the vote than any other LP candidate. So will the LP choose an ideologically-pure candidate who will not make an impact in the debate or a libertarian who is about 85% pure who will certainly make a splash? Being a former Libertarian, I can’t really say. It wouldn’t surprise me if those who favor ideology-above-all triumph, however.
As a libertarian Republican, I welcome Barr in the race. McCain is a horrible candidate. Barr may force McCain to try and co-opt some libertarian issues to peel off votes from Barr. Or Barr may deny the White House to McCain, which would be absolutely fine with me. I think Barr will attract a decent number of protest votes, especially in states like Maryland, where Obama will certainly win the state’s electoral votes. I know many Republicans I know either despise or dislike McCain. Since the would be “wasting their vote” on McCain in Maryland, they might as well “waste their vote” on a candidate with whom they actually agree. At least that’s what I’ll be telling people.
Ron Paul should switch to Libertarian. He could probably do a lot for the party, though I think he’s aware he’d do a lot of damage to the Republican party.
Paul used to be LP. Why did he switch to the Pubs?
Probably because he could get elected to Congress as a Republican.
Ron Paul was the LP candidate for President in 1988.
Relative to the two major-party nominees, certainly. Relative to the usual Libertarian Party nominee, though, he’s a star.
So if the question is, “will Barr get more than the usual 1/3 of 1% that the Libertarian candidate typically pulls down?” there’s good reason to suspect that he will, because he starts off with far more name recognition than their candidates usually do. It’s unlikely that people will vote for you if they don’t even notice you’re running.
I agree with you here. Strongly ideological GOP voters aren’t likely to swing to Barr this fall. They aren’t the underserved market here, even if many of them have fooled themselves into believing that McCain is some sort of maverick.
The underserved market that Barr can pick votes up from are disaffected, formerly mainstream (by 1980s and 1990s standards) Republicans who feel that the party has left them during the past few years.
That’s not a huge market, but it doesn’t have to be. If Barr gets 2% of the vote in November, that’ll be a huge success, both by the standards of how the Libertarians have historically done, and by what’s necessary to make a difference in a Presidential election in a closely-divided country.
People rarely vote for third-party candidates on the expectation that they’ll get elected. But they’ll still frequently vote for third-party candidates who have some name recognition - e.g. Nader in 2000, Perot in 1992 and 1996, Anderson in 1980, Wallace in 1968.