Barr None
Before the Gravelanche, word began to circulate that another more promising major-party defector might seek the Libertarian presidential nomination: former Republican Congressman Bob Barr. Gravel may be a better showman and rapper but Barr stands a better chance of giving the grassroots movement started by Ron Paul a second act.
In an interview with Antiwar Radio, Barr acknowledged there was a “great deal of dissatisfaction with the current candidates and the current two-party system.” “Ron Paul tapped into a great deal of that dissatisfaction and that awareness,” he continued. “Unfortunately, working through the Republican Party structure, it became impossible for him to really move forward with his movement. But we have to have a rallying point out there to harness that energy, that freedom in this election cycle.”
Can Barr be that rallying point? He opposes the Iraq war. He has criticized the Orwellian doublespeak of “enhanced interrogation.” He has been good on issues like the Patriot Act, without degenerating into Daily Kos-style hyperbole. We’ll soon find out if he is still sound on immigration and the life issues. The Barr for president boomlet ought to give paleoconservatives some hope.
When Paul more or less wrapped up his presidential campaign, I defended his decision to stay in the Republican Party. I still think he will have more influence, limited though it may be, as a Republican member of the House than he will as the candidate who breaks Ed Clarke’s record as the Libertarian Party’s top presidential vote-getter (or the man who beat Alan Keyes for the Constitution Party nomination). Working within the GOP becomes even more difficult if he is also moonlighting as the presidential candidate of another party.
Furthermore, I remain deeply skeptical of third parties. The electoral system is designed to stack the deck against them. They become debate societies for lunatics. Most third parties are either tied to the fortunes of a single candidate or labor in obscurity for decades. Yet they can act as a safety valve when the major parties give us such dreadful choices as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John McCain. And if the Republican Party rejects the new blood Paul pumped into it, the Good Doctor’s supporters are entitled to someone to vote for in November. Barr is already gone from both Congress and the GOP, so we have little to lose from his protest candidacy.
Granted, Barr is no Ron Paul. He voted for the Patriot Act he now rails against. In Congress, he was a leading drug warrior. But he is a throwback to an era when the GOP opposed Bill Clinton’s military adventures and made at least some attempt to rein in federal spending (well, during 1995-96, at least).
Since leaving Congress, Barr has spent a considerable amount of time trying to remind conservatives of their past support for civil liberties. This led him to unlikely affiliations with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Libertarian Party. It also caused him to rethink some things. If he runs for president, Barr could end up being a good choice for conservatives who oppose the Iraq War but aren’t ready to become Obamacons.
In fact, Barr might be able to draw more votes from McCain’s conservative critics than Ron Paul. Best known for his work in passing the Defense of Marriage Act and trying to impeach Bill Clinton, he has credibility among the more conventional Republicans on the right that Paul lacked. Paul has taken some 800,000 votes in the GOP primaries so far, about double what a typical Libertarian Party nominee gets in a general election. Barr might be able to top this number.
Of course, there is no guarantee that Barr will even run much less dominate the Libertarian Party’s crowded presidential field. Prominent conservative figures have gone the third party route and then gone down in flames at the ballot box before. In 1988, Ron Paul found himself abandoned by George H.W. Bush’s conservative critics and the more libertine Libertarians, something that could easily happen to Barr as well. And if Barr does throw his hat into the ring, expect his imperfections to be rehashed endlessly.
But in a depressing election year where there are few good choices for traditional conservatives and libertarians, a Bob Barr presidential bid may be the best available option. Bar none.
W. James Antle III is associate editor of The American Spectator.
Comments
“Furthermore, I remain deeply skeptical of third parties.”
Skeptical of what? Their sincerity?
“The electoral system is designed to stack the deck against them.”
How so? I think there are many obstacles for third-party candidates to overcome, but none of them are constitutionally imposed so far as I know.
“They become debate societies for lunatics.”
Maybe so, but I’d rather be a sane man called a lunatic than a lunatic called a sane man. I vote for the man who best represents me, period, regardless of party. Then I let the chips fall where they may. You schemers and calculators are the ones causing your own misery. You play the devil’s game and then whine when he bites you.
That said, Barr’s certainly in the running for my vote (if he in fact runs).
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He’ll need to prove that the bridges have been burned and show some ruthlessness that Paul was unwilling to show.
Some general ideas might be:
-calling for a full investigation of those who authored the Patriot Act and put them in prison.
-The Treason of Doug Feith, Richard Perle, Larry Franklin etc.; just using that word Treason would be a good start.
-Talk about foreign lobbies controlling US Foreign policy, investigating, and throwing out the offending parties--permanent banishment--that would tie nicely with an anti-immigration stance.
...
If it sounds over the top, well, then the reader is a happy loser.
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Good piece, Jim. (By the way, I had a very nice dinner with your friend Brian K. and his lovely wife Donika Saturday night.)
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I don’t think Barr has the wealth, charisma, skills, credibility, or standing that third
party candidates have historically needed. A boycott would be more effective. Or maybe
a vote for Nader.
If Obama can wage a genuine anti-war campaign, and get some credible military people to
endorse him, why not? War is the only issue that matters. Raimondo may have a point
here. Does anyone on the Right have contact with Obama? It can be the simple choice
of war or peace. Divide the Right and conquer.
We’ll also need more senators to describe what a nut-job McCain is. His Mom is fantastic,
though. Real women aren’t yet extinct.
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The keys for Barr’s success are: 1) harnessing the fundraising and activism prowess of the Ron Paul rEVOLution movement for the campaign (which Ron Paul himself will probably assist in by endorsing and campaigning with Barr); 2) taking full advantage of rightwing discontentment with GOP candidate McCain; and 3) making a play for the huge voting bloc of independent voters who are completely fed up with the two major parties and want a real alternative.
Moreover, with the economy looking bad, the Iraq war looking hopeless, and everybody and their grandmother crying for change (thank you, Barack Obama!), it is quite Barr could reach Ross Perot-like--double digit--levels of support in the polls and this in turn would give Barr a claim to a reserved spot in the network televised debates. And, if he really does well (or McCain’s melts down and Obama stumbles) , Barr could actually have a shot at winning it all. It really helps Barr’s cause that many people look at McCain as another incarnation Bush. Bush has an approval rating in the low 30’s. Others see McCain in an even worse light as a sort of a Cheney on steroids. Cheney has an approval rating below 20%. Obama, on the other hand, is reputed to be the most liberal senator in Congress and has, of course, his Rev. Wright problems. The keys for Barr’s success are: 1) harnessing the fundraising and activism prowess of the Ron Paul rEVOLution movement for the campaign (which Ron Paul himself will probably assist in by endorsing and campaigning with Barr); 2) taking full advantage of rightwing discontentment with GOP candidate McCain; and 3) making a play for the huge voting bloc of independent voters who are completely fed up with the two major parties and want a real alternative.
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They become debate societies for lunatics.
Which makes me wonder why one of them isn’t elected. Judging by the three candidates left lunacy seems to be the first requirement.
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Mr. Newman,
I’m deeply skeptical that any of the existing third parties will ever be at all effective. I also think the electoral demand, on both the left and the right, for a third party is overstated by disenchanted liberals and conservatives alike. If I’m wrong about this second point, than that means I’m doubly right about my first point, given their pathetic vote totals.
Constitutionally, we don’t have proportional representation or a parliamentary system of government. We have a race by race winner-take-all system. That doesn’t require two major parties, and the larger minor parties still occasionally manage to win elections, but it tends to help entrench the two major parties. Secondly, state ballot access laws discriminate against third parties. These smaller parties end up spending most of their time and money trying to get on the ballot rather than campaigning. A few, like the Libertarian Party, tend to do quite well with ballot access, but they also don’t wage anything close to competitive national general election campaigns
As for the question of lunatics, I don’t disagree that third parties are often filled with sane, even sensible people. But I’ve also encountered quite a few who resemble the commenters Richard is trying to get rid of at this website.
Having said all that, I vote for third parties all the time. If I don’t like the Republican or Democrat, I just vote for somebody else or blank. Third parties can occasionally move a major party in their direction. In the case of the Republican Party, one actually became a major party. So if the Republicans ever go the way of the Whigs…
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None to worry really, with this current necrotic junkie of a G.O.P., the party is set to self-destruct after a good ass-whuppin this fall. Not to be abusive but, we shall then watch as the Pusillanimous Democrats attempt to stomp out the steaming bag of burning doggy scat left on the White House Portico by El Deciderwingnut and this shall take at least four years. By the end of this time, Democrats shall be part of the tag team of “What Not To Do Lessons to be Remembered” founded by the stunato amnesiacs Bush and Cheney.
So, Barr should get out there and make noise regardless, along with Dr. Paul and whoever else might be so bold as to talk a little sense during this period of gran mal idiocy in order that some intelligent political party emerges out of the hard lesson. It should really build from the bottom up anyway. Then again , we could simply wait for Newt to ride to the rescue on his Flaming Turkey Buzzard so that we can return to Go, not collect a hundred bucks and continue the farrago.
The people need the education their beloved public schools, leadership and media failed to teach them: You Caint Get Sumpthin Fer Nuthin. Aside from the instructional benefits of the coming clusterhoohaw, we’ll need a few libertarian stalwarts to frame the ideas that are the only route out of this bomb crater of bloody debt we jumped into with a grin and a fulsome thumbs up.
It really would appear that the Depression’s lesson by FDR will not be an option this time because:
1. The current generation will likely refuse to dig ditches for the CCC, preferring instead to play computer games. Labor, after all, is a pejorative.
2. We have surrendered our industrial capacity to others whilst singing the I’m a Sunbeam For the New Global Order Anthem.
3. We have trained any and all comers in all kinds of nefarious deeds and have poked them in the eye with a large thumb , inviting unremitting scorn and revenge, particularly amongst those with nothing to lose. They shall pop up with regularity, making the Killer Bees or perhaps the Comanche Indians look like a band of sweetly singing castratos.
4. The FEDs “liquidity tools”, otherwise known as printing presses will soon be discovered behind Greenspan’s and Benny’s Oz Screen and.....
5. We have leveraged ourselves to the hilt to the country that invented fiat currency back when Genghis Kahn was rolling troublemakers like Kristol, Perle, Chalabi, Frum, Feith, AIPAC ,AEI, Wolfie, Cheney, The Poddy’s, etc etc etc up in carpets and stuffing them in the Yellow River with a mouth full of rocks.
Run Barr run.
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“"The electoral system is designed to stack the deck against them.”
How so? I think there are many obstacles for third-party candidates to overcome, but none of them are constitutionally imposed so far as I know.”
That’s true. There’s nothing about political parties - or taxpayer-funded primaries - or minimum levels of support - or petition requirements - or any of the rest of it in the Constitution. That doesn’t change the reality of the law as enforced, and the SCOTUS hasn’t been anxious to change things (they swallowed McCain-Feingold, for crying out loud!)
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The possibility that a pro-war, pro-intervention, Straussian, neocon, Lincoln Cultist like Alan Keyes could get the nomination of the Constitution Party just horrifies me. If, Heaven forbid, Keyes is the CP nominee and Barr is the LP nominee then this is one paleo who will cast a vote for Bob Barr. (Assuming he is still good on immigration and life.)
What in the heck are some CP members thinking? (I know Howard Phillips opposes him.) Keyes will split and possibly destroy the CP.
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