Liberty MavenRon Paul Criticism In Bob Barr’s Final Hours
November 4th, 2008 4:32 pm | by Marc Gallagher | Published in Activism, Bob Barr, Election, Libertarianism, Liberty, Maven Commentary, Politics, Ron Paul | 9 Responses
Dave Wiegel of Reason magazine is spending some of the final hours of Bob Barr’s campaign at their headquarters in Atlanta. He reports that staffers are working the phones trying to find last minute votes for Barr in Georgia.
One interesting point is made by Shane Cory (Barr Communications Director). He has some parting words of blame for Ron Paul.
As the campaign wound to a close, it was clear that Barr wouldn’t get close to the $30 million fundraising goal campaign manager Russ Verney set in May, a disappointment that staffers blame in part on former Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). “Paul set the liberty movement back a decade by encouraging people to stay in the GOP,” Cory says. “Not that the Republicans planned it, but if they did they couldn’t have planned it any better.”
While I’ve been quite critical of the Barr campaign I’ve also said that there were many things that went wrong that were not under their control. I have no praise for Shane Cory other than to say that in this case I tend to agree with him.
I firmly believe that if Ron Paul chose to run as a Libertarian after losing the GOP nomination as Bob Barr and the Libertarian National Committee wanted back in December of 2007 we’d be looking at a very different electoral map on CNN and other news outlets today. Ron Paul was a great unique unifying figure. His supporters are a wire mesh of far left, far right, and in between. The decisions he made after losing the GOP nomination caused that wire mesh to rip apart.
However, the unity he once fostered is not gone for good. It is just gone for now. I have hope that a new unifying candidate emerges within the next few years to carry the torch of liberty toward the future and all of this divisiveness will be merely history.
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November 4th, 2008 at 5:24 pm (#)
Bob Barr had the potential to capture all the Ron Paul vote and add to it. After all, as a member of Congress, he was always taken more seriously than was Ron Paul. And Ron Paul did nothing to discourage his followers from contributing to and supporting Bob Barr’s campaign. He simply declined to make a third party run himself, and, after Bob Barr decided to stiff Ron Paul’s initiatives to coordinate the campaigns of the third parties to break the two party monolith, Paul gave his endorsement to Chuck Baldwin. Even then, he never said a word to discourage support for Barr.
There is no possibility for a third party to rise to compete in the American electoral system until the Libertarian and Constitution Party leaders and followers decide to work together to present a united, combined face to the U.S. electorate. Ron Paul was has been seeking to move these two parties in a common direction. They failed to follow, and Bob Barr was largely responsible.
Bob Barr will make a great Attorney General, or, God willing, Justice on the Supreme Court. But he failed as a Presidential candidate and as a political strategician.
November 4th, 2008 at 6:15 pm (#)
Ron Paul didn’t set the libertarian movement back at all. He brought it one giant step forward. All Barr had to do was capitalize on it, and he failed. Barr needed to show up at the four-party press conference, say he regretted the Patriot Act, and say he supported the Constitution (which as an attorney he understands more than most).
As a result, he would have gotten the lion’s share of the people who voted for Ron Paul in the primaries (1 million) and their money (potentially tens of millions $$). Is that so hard to figure out for Shane Cory?
If the RNC had a plant they couldn’t have had a better one than Shane Cory.
Still, the seeds have been planted, and maybe the LP and Wayne Allyn Root will be the one to reap the harvest in 2012.
November 4th, 2008 at 7:03 pm (#)
Did you really want Ron Paul to lose his house seat? He couldn’t change parties.
Moreover, not one of you would have heard of him if he had been running as a lib from the start.
Finally, the Libertarian Party had the momentum of the world handed to them on a silver platter and if they had bothered to pick a libertarian they would have had the year of the century. Instead, the beltway boobs attacked Ron Paul at every turn, Reason came out and just blasted him to kingdom come along with Lew Rockwell. Cato was just as bad. Then, these folks turn around and blame Ron Paul for it all.
I have voted libertarian for decades and I couldn’t stomach Bob Barr. He is a liar, a shyster, a fox, a snake and he is NOT a libertarian. He talks about making compromises. If you compromise on liberty you lose. Period. You can’t say we need to have more comfortable chains for slaves and think you are fighting for liberty.
A good libertarian candidate could have carried the momentum. Instead, they gave us a guy who voted for the Patriot Act and I don’t care why he voted for it. It is nonsense.
Hopefully, Mary Ruwart will gain ground. She is wonderful. But the libs acted like slighted teenagers and were rude as could be to all the Ron Paul supporters. So what did they expect?
I am kind of hoping for a new party altogether. I don’t want those beltway libs ruining it for the rest of us again. Maybe we can be the Sons and Daughters of Liberty?
I was betrayed by the libertarian party, not the other way around.
November 4th, 2008 at 8:08 pm (#)
Oh yes, Ron Paul’s holy House seat! Yes, let us count all the legislation Ron Paul has inspired and all the govt departments that have been eliminated, blah, blah, blah, his holy house seat! Preposterous! The fact of the matter is, Ron Paul could have run 3rd party presidential after his participation in the Republican party primary, and continued the momentum he and his supporters had built, AND maintaining his house seat.
Ron Paul simply did not heed the warnings of the founders pertaining to the dangers of allegiance to party over country. Instead of extending and continuing the revolution in the context of a presidential race and all the mass media that would have been generated by Paul/Barr or Paul/Goldwater Jr or Paul/Napolitano, Paul made the huge strategic error of opting for the warm womb of the back bench of a dwindling republican party, where he will have even less of a voice.
Paul had everything needed to push the revolution forward, 50,000 volunteers, proven fund-raising ability by the grass-roots, and of course he had the message. Everything was aligned for the Ron Paul Revolution to make huge inroads in educating large sectors of the electorate. The media would have loved to exploit the battles within and without the Republican Party as two Congressman, Paul/Barr or Goldwater, challenged the corrupt neo-Republican Party. The Paul ticket would of become the ‘conservative’ ticket. Paul would have made his way into the debates, just as Perot had sixteen-years ago. But Paul just did not have it in him to take on the socialist John McCain.
So, Paul walks with $5million of the hopes of so many supporters and opted for collegealism over the strategic leap forward in popularizing libertarian ideals and Constitutional government and all the benefits that accured thereof.
I hope Ron Paul stays healthy. He could still be a player in 2012, say on a Napolitano/Paul ticket, if there’s anything left of this country worth fighting for.
November 4th, 2008 at 8:47 pm (#)
As noted above, the thing that people don’t take note of is that RP would give up his status on the committees in Congress if he went with the LP. Also the GOP would likely have forced him off the ballot in Texas, making him run as a Libertarian, and likely would lose the seat.
I really feel like it is Barr and Company who have squandered a great year for libertarianism and they have done it in the name of party politics.
That being said, we all need to find some way to reunite ourselves and get going for the next round in the battle.
November 5th, 2008 at 8:43 am (#)
Mr. Gallagher,
Please learn election law before you post something as ignorant as this:
“…Ron Paul chose to run as a Libertarian after losing the GOP nomination…”
Many states have “Sore Loser” laws which prevent candidates who lost a partisan primary from running in the general election as a third-party or independent candidate.
November 5th, 2008 at 8:52 am (#)
musicmax,
I was not aware of them and apparently many people aren’t (judging by the comments here). I certainly wish Ron Paul himself would mention such laws whenever he is asked about running third party by the media. That would have cleared so much up. Anyway, thanks for your comment and the information.
I was sent a very cordial email from Ron Paul’s spokesman Jesse Benton notifying me of such rules.
Look for a new article later this morning discussing this, in which I detract my comments on the Ron Paul third party option.
Enjoy,
Marc
November 5th, 2008 at 9:49 am (#)
[...] recently published my criticism of Ron Paul’s decision to not run as a Third Party or Independent candidate for President once he lost his bid for the GOP nomination. I suggested [...]
November 5th, 2008 at 10:47 am (#)
Yall are missing the forest for the trees.
Even with the sore loser laws, a Ron Paul 3rd Party ticket would have been able to appear on well over 40 state presidential ballots. In Texas, for instance, Paul could have his wife’s name appear on the presidential ballot. Search for Anthony Gregory’s fine article on all the specifics at Lewrockwell’s site.
To hell with the “GOP Forbade It” stuff, it would have been worth litigating it after the election anyway. Isnt the revolution trying to save the damn country? Not save some damn back bench, back biting position and some CSpan 3 televised committee that included Ron Paul that hasnt amounted to a hill of BEANS. Ya’ll sound like Major Houlihan in the movie MASH, who cried and shrieked “My Commission….My Commission…My Commission”, as Hawk Eye put her in her place, as she flew into a tizzy about her position in the hierarchy.
One more time, Paul galvanized a movement from a wide spectrum of the electorate. He should have extended that effort in a mass campaign where the winds were blowing in liberties favor, in hopes of smashing the neocon-GOP and asserting the rightful place of liberty and Constitutional governance in a duopolic-party system wacked out of control.
Now, with time hardly an ally, what gains did we make with the $5million that had been donated to a presidential run, and now used to fund the Campaign for Liberty?