Liberty Maven

There is a particularly good Bob Barr endorsement article from Andrew B. Lohse in The Dartmouth Review. Lohse happens to be in a family of conservative Republicans and worries what reactions his family members will have to his choice of Bob Barr. His piece reads like an endorsement for Barr from a conservative Republican perspective… because… well that’s exactly what it is.

This is a fine example of how Bob Barr can win the votes of those disgruntled lifetime GOP’ers.

I have a problem. I’m voting for a third party candidate—Bob Barr. Barr is the Libertarian presidential candidate. My parents, glaring speechlessly and wondering what happened to the young Republican who cried when Bob Dole lost in ‘96, tell me I’m throwing my vote away. I haven’t even made this confession yet to my grandfather, a lifelong “common sense” Republican, but I shudder to think what he’ll say. My other grandfather also cried when Clinton won in ‘96, so he might understand why I’m voting for the man who tried to send “42” back to Arkansas.

This election season, Obamamania is feverishly hot; news stories of women fainting at rallies, pious displays of Obama as the Messiah, and even Obama’s own claims to “stop the sea’s rise” allude to the fact that the Democratic party is obsessively consumed by the cult of personality erected around “The One.” “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” he tells crowds of supporters.

For the GOP, a party I no longer identify with, there is much less excitement. McCain’s not exactly electrifying, and the hype around Sarah Palin has fizzled out. But what’s worse is that the Republican ticket is confirming what the Bush II presidency already established: that to be a Republican these days is to be something different than a conservative.

So to other disaffected conservatives disgusted by the bailout, the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, excessive spending, and the Federal Government running roughshod over the states, I offer you an impractical alternative: vote for Bob Barr.

Somewhat ironically (because it comes from a “conservative”) Lohse covers one of Barr’s painful negatives in the eyes of many libertarian voters: His votes for the Patriot Act and for the Iraq War authorization.

However, even the rare principled politician like Barr can be deceived. In the first Bush term he voted for both the Patriot Act and the Iraq War, two votes he describes as his biggest regrets. In his own words, “My vote to authorize the war was a mistake, and I realize it now. The administration gave inaccurate, unsound intelligence. I voted to depose Saddam Hussein—the Bush administration used that resolution for a multi-year occupation of Iraq. Unlike McCain, I don’t appreciate the fact that the administration did a bait and switch; but that bait and switch doesn’t seem to bother him.”

If you know someone weighing a vote for either John McCain or Bob Barr this article could sway them to the Barr side.