Bob Barr, a Libertarian Threat to Big Government Republicans

A September 15th mailing from the Barr camp stated that "A recent Zogby poll indicated that we [Bob Barr's Campaign] had won 6% of the electorate's vote." Bob Barr is the Libertarian Party candidate for the presidency.

Apparently, the McCain campaign took this threat seriously enough to file suit in Pennsylvania, in a failed attempt to keep Bob Barr's name off the November ballot.

Bob Barr, a recent defector from the Republican Party, has questionable credentials as a libertarian. However Barr's conservative credentials are impeccable and his strong stand on issues such as privacy, gun control, and civil liberties distinguish him from the "conservaliberal" mainstream of the Republican and Democratic parties.

The Libertarian Party could have nominated a better candidate from a strictly ideological perspective; I personally would have preferred Mike Gravel. However, Bob Barr was probably the best choice in terms of posing a credible threat to the powers that be.

When it became apparent that John McCain was going to win the GOP nomination, the Libertarian Party sent a funeral wreath to the Republicans. The Libertarians' intent was to lament the death of small-government conservatism within the Republican Party with this symbolic gesture. Bob Barr's defection to the libertarian party came shortly thereafter.

My own affiliation with the Libertarian Party continues to be skeptical and reluctant in nature. The center-right clique that seems to dominate the party now, in all likelihood due to the efforts of the highly suspect "Libertarian Reform Caucus," has little use for low-income libertarians with some leftist sympathies, referring to us derisively as "povertarians." But I remain loyal to the party on the basis of "everyone else sucks worse," and I can't help but imagine that the nomination of the quintessentially libertarian-conservative Bob Barr was designed to drive more nails into the coffin of the neocon movement, even if it helps Barack Obama win in November.