Liberty Maven

The New York Times published an article about Bob Barr’s campaign and its potential spoiler role in the November election. The piece certainly has a negative slant to it. It suggests that Ron Paul supporters resent Bob Barr’s campaign. Certainly some of them do, but Barr’s official campaign is made up of Ron Paul supporters. The article, naturally doesn’t mention that though.

Some of the money problems might be solved if Mr. Paul’s libertarian supporters coalesce behind Mr. Barr. But Mr. Paul’s followers, many of whom were inspired by his passionate opposition to the war, might not be so quick to transfer their allegiance to a candidate who initially supported it.

Mr. Paul has pointedly declined to endorse his former Congressional colleague. Some of Mr. Paul’s former campaign staff members and other supporters have said privately that they resent Mr. Barr’s efforts to co-opt their constituency. Near the top of their list of complaints is Mr. Barr’s campaign Web site, BobBarr2008.com, which bears a strong resemblance to RonPaul2008.com, complete with bouncy graphics and a money clock at the top of the home page.

Like the Paul campaign, Mr. Barr is trying to build support on the Web. “Meetup, the Facebook, the YouTube,” said Mr. Verney, ticking off the Web sites where the campaign has established itself. “We have more Meetups than Hillary and McCain combined.”

Read the full article at the NYT.