Liberty Maven

Don’t get me wrong, I’m voting for the guy, and I think every other liberty-seeking individual should do so as well. However, by just about every measure the Bob Barr campaign has not lived up to expectations. I suppose it’s not over quite yet, but with only a week left before election day it is difficult not to admit that the campaign is a failure. The cause of the failure is not entirely the Barr campaign’s fault, but some of it certainly is.

Prior to the Libertarian Convention I was very excited at the prospect of Bob Barr being the party’s nominee. I figured he would be the heir apparent to Ron Paul. I figured he would garner all of Paul’s whole-hearted activist support while bringing in high numbers of voters unhappy with Barry O’Messiah and John McChameleon. As I watched Barr win the nomination at the Libertarian Convention on CSPAN I was energized anew after the deflated feeling I felt when it was obvious Ron Paul would not get the GOP nomination (not that I ever truly thought that would happen, I had hope though).

Little did I know that would be the high point of my energy for the Barr campaign. In the days and weeks since, I’ve grown more and more despondent. Many circumstances out of Barr’s control mounted against him.

First, he never had the support of purist Libertarians. Some of them chose to give him a chance. Others felt they could never support him and were quite vocal about it. Such is the nature of the Libertarian Party. Barr kept making the point in interviews that his party was not a “debating society”, but a “legitimate political party” worthy of serious consideration. The radical wing revolt against Barr demonstrated otherwise. The battle between Libertarian reformers (like Barr) and radicals will continue to the detriment of the party. There is no end in sight.

The nomination of Chuck Baldwin by the Constitution Party also hurt Barr. If the Constitution Party had nominated someone like Alan Keyes instead of Baldwin, Barr would have been the likely recipient of Ron Paul’s endorsement. Baldwin’s nomination ensured that Paul’s devotees would be split. The arguments between the Baldwin-ites and Barr-ians was predictable and sad. Likewise, if someone like Mike Gravel or Wayne Root were nominated, Baldwin would have likely earned Paul’s endorsement. I won’t venture to guess what would have occurred had Mary Ruwart been the Libertarian nominee other than to say the purists would have certainly backed her. Unfortunately, the success of Barr’s campaign was directly dependent on winning over Ron Paul supporters and a Ron Paul endorsement. That, or Ron Paul agreeing to be the VP on the Libertarian ticket with Barr, which was an obvious non-starter for the Republican Paul.

Instead the Barr campaign alienated both Ron Paul and his supporters in an effort to “show” how principled he was for the libertarian way by not showing up for a “vote third party” endorsement press conference from Ron Paul. This decision eventually caused Paul to announce his support for Baldwin. One wonders now if Bob Barr and Ron Paul still consider each other friends.

In my view both Barr and Paul are to blame for this squabble at the expense of presenting a unifying liberty message. Barr was right that Paul advocating splitting the vote four ways was no way to show leadership for liberty, especially since two of the candidates could be considered more socialist than Obama. But, Barr was quite wrong in choosing to not appear at Paul’s press conference after promising he would be there. Barr could have attended and then clarified his own position during his own press conference. Admittedly, for a candidate being hammered for not being a “real” libertarian, Barr was doomed no matter what his decision was. It may be hard for some Paul supporters to accept, but with the press conference fiasco, it was the egos of both Barr and Paul that obstructed a clear view of the liberty message.

John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin also took a bite out of Bob Barr’s potential for support. Barr moderates his libertarian message with conservatism in order to appeal to disgruntled Republicans with a love of limited government. McCain’s selection of a perceived “libertarian-leaning” conservative like Palin (however misguided that perception is) tempered the potential for Barr to win over those wavering Republicans.

Finally, the economic “crisis” is another element hurting the Barr campaign. Sure, Barr was one of the only candidates denouncing bailouts. Unfortunately, his voice was drowned out by the magnitude of the news itself. The media’s only interest seemed to be what Obama and McCain thought about the crisis rather than some “minor” party candidate with no chance of winning. Instead of the media narrative being  “Bob The Spoiler”, which could have been a major story if it ever got off the ground, we get “Joe The Plumber” fooling everyone into believing that Obama is a socialist and McCain is not. Barr, to his credit, tackled this topic directly in his most recent column at Townhall.com. At least he is still fighting.

As I’ve said, I’m quite happily voting for Bob Barr on November 4th and I hope you do too. But I’m not so blind to realize that the campaign for which I once had such high hopes never came close to meeting those hopes. I expect Bob Barr privately feels the same way right now.

Once election day 2008 is history we liberty seekers may be forced to accept the Barr campaign as a failure. The measure of success at this point is whether Barr beats the record number of votes by any Libertarian presidential candidate in history. At this point in the campaign that should not be in question.

Indeed, the Bob Barr campaign of 2008 could have done and been so much more.