Bob Barr did what I believe to be the best interview of the campaign thus far for Franklin Pierce University on October 21st. The interview was extremely substantive and revealed a few insights I’ve always been curious about such as Barr’s true position on opening up another investigation of 9/11 and how he ended up being tricked into doing that interview for the Borat movie.
The interview is typically amateurish as it is for the campus television station, but it is well worth your time. This is the interview that should be on NBC Nightly News or some other main stream media outlet. It’s probably too long for the soundbite culture those outlets live in though.
The interview is in three parts. Watch them below.
There are Four Official Write-In Candidates on the ballot in California: Chuck Baldwin (Constitution Party), James Harris (Socialist Workers Party), Frank Moore (independent), and, NOW, RON PAUL! If you write in EITHER of these Candidates, your votes WILL be counted, and the public and the politicians WILL see those numbers.
However, the fact that it is the very state of California has even greater significance. There are 55 electors in California. There are 3 electors in Montana, and 9 in Louisiana, the two states for which Ron Paul is on the ballot. That is a total of 68 total electoral votes which he could potentially win. In a close election, he could actually throw the election to the House of Representatives.
For anyone who has been dissatisfied with the two current choices, or who has been wanting to vote for a 3rd party candidate, but unable, LET EVERYONE YOU KNOW in those three states about their choices. Let your vote count this election!
It appears that even though the Libertarian Party had met the requirements for ballot access in the state of Connecticut, a federal judge ruled today that “elections officials cannot be forced to add the Libertarian Party’s presidential ticket to the Nov. 4 state ballot.” According to the Associated Press:
U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall said the Connecticut Libertarians waited too long to file their challenge, in which they said the candidates were denied a place on the ballot over questions about petition signatures.
Forcing elections officials to change Connecticut’s ballot less than two weeks before the vote would cause confusion and unreasonable expense, Hall said in her ruling Thursday.
And in a letter from the Barr campaign, Russ Verney wrote, in part:
As of this afternoon, we finally know the results of our ballot access efforts throughout this campaign.
A Connecticut judge allowed the state to keep us off of the ballot even though we had met the requirement.
The state employees in Connecticut not only improperly struck signatures that we had collected, but also miscounted our signatures.
After hearing from a technical expert on electronic voting machines, the judge decided that it would be too big of a burden to add Bob to the ballot even though the state was at fault.
I cannot express to you how much this upsets me.
Our republic managed to survive while using paper ballots for 100-plus years. The state could have printed paper ballots in a matter of days and thrown the electronic voting machines in the river if they are so difficult to deal with!
While an emergency appeal can be filed, our party who was funding the case has decided against it and honestly, after looking at our finances, we cannot afford an appeal.
I pledge to you that we will work together to correct this injustice after the election – and the many others like it in other states. I’m sure that many of Bob’s supporters will join us in our efforts.
While this last disappointment is our greatest, we have been successful. Bob’s name will appear before 95% of voters across America – more than any other third party candidate in 2008!
I am very thankful for this and expect that, given the failure of John McCain’s campaign, we will garner many more votes than expected.
Voters across America who were uncomfortable voting for McCain but were still willing to do so just for the sake of winning no longer enjoy that option. Now they can exit the voting booth with their heads held high knowing that they cast a vote for principle by voting for Bob Barr.
With Ron Paul on the ballot in Montana he is apparently receiving precisely the number of votes John McCain needs to tie Barack Obama in the state. That is if you believe the recent poll done by Montana State University-Billings.
If this year’s presidential election were being held today, for whom do you think you would vote?
Barack Obama 44.4%
John McCain 40.2%
Ron Paul 4.2%
Ralph Nader .7%
Bob Barr 1%
Undecided 9.5%
Of course, the undecideds are in third place, which means McCain could still come out on top if they pick McCain. It is telling that Ron Paul requested he be removed from the ballot in Montana too late for it to be done and he’s now running in third place amongst named candidates in the state.
There is a decent article in the October 20th print edition of The American Conservative magazine by Daniel Larison that sums up the now splintered Ron Paul Revoluton. Much of the reason is attributed to Paul’s own original quasi-endorsement of third party candidates and Bob Barr’s own stubbornness in not participating in the endorsement press conference.
The gyst of the article suggests that Chuck Baldwin is now the most likely vote choice for Paul supporters. It could be construed as a bit of an attack piece on Barr. In the end the author arrives at the same lament I have had regarding the horribly missed opportunity at actually having Ron Paul’s movement be more than a fringe element easily dismissed, especially now that many of his economic predictions are coming to pass.
Larison ends his article with the following:
As all of this unfolded, the financial crisis revealed the prescience and importance of Paul’s warnings about the Federal Reserve’s inflationary monetary policy. This issue, which Paul stressed repeatedly during his primary campaign—much to the eye-rolling amusement of supposedly serious journalists and pundits—has proved far more relevant in this election cycle than anyone could have guessed. It is particularly unfortunate for the country that there will not be a unified, coherent movement to give voice to this critique at a time when we need it most.
While I may disagree with a portion of the article I am in complete agreement with Larison’s conclusion. There isn’t a readily available online version of this article so if you’d like to read the entire thing your going to have to purchase a copy of American Conservative magazine or sign up for it online. It really is a great read most of the time. It’s not Neo-conservative BS. It’s true conservative BS.
Be sure to tune into NBC Nightly News this evening. Shane Cory, Deputy Campaign Manager for the Bob Barr campaign wrote today:
Last evening it was an appearance on PBS’ Lehrer News Hour that got the phones ringing and the internet buzzing.
Tonight it is an appearance on NBC Nightly News. I hope you’ll take a moment to forward my email to your friends to encourage them to tune in for this chance to get to know Bob Barr better.
Media attention has grown, and the campaign is on a roll. . . and in fact we are looking to buy even more TV spots!
UPDATE: The campaign has sent out a follow-up email saying that Barr’s appearance for tonight has been postponed until next Monday because they wanted to do a more “in depth” piece and they need more time to collect footage.
After yesterday’s big media day I think it is an appropriate time to announce my own “official” endorsement of Bob Barr for President. Considering all of the pro-Barr sentiments made by me over the course of the past several months this will not come as a shock to anyone who reads Liberty Maven regularly.
I lobbied for Bob Barr to get in the race once Ron Paul officially dropped out. I’ve been critical of both Paul and Barr where I felt criticism was due. Clearing away all of the minutiae and focusing on the two all encompassing campaign questions I consider for each candidate, Bob Barr is the last one eliminated.
Those questions are: Do you have a mathematical chance of winning? Do you support individual liberty? The first weeds out the riff-raff and the second usually weeds out the rest. The last candidate to be eliminated wins my vote, therefore I fully and officially endorse Bob Barr for President of the United States.
Bob Barr is not perfect. No candidate is. For my money Harry Browne came pretty close back in 1996 and 2000. But this is 2008 and Barr is the best of the better candidates on liberty. He is better than McCain and Obama on civil liberties, foreign policy, and a whole host of other issues. He is better than Chuck Baldwin because he is not a protectionist on trade. He is better than Ralph Nader because he is not anti-business.
That which makes Bob Barr imperfect for some makes him perfect for others. The fact is that Barr has an anti-libertarian voting record and that eliminates him in the eyes of some. I view his voting record as a scarlet letter. He can’t hide his record, but he can repudiate it and express regret and remorse as he has done.
It is high time my fellow liberty seekers join me in saying the following to Bob Barr:
I forgive you Bob Barr. I believe in redemption. There is no better man to kill the beast than the man who has lived in the beast’s belly. I will vote for you on November 4th and support you for as long as we both fight for maximizing individual liberty and minimizing government control in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.
[NOTE: This is my individual endorsement and may not reflect the views of other authors at Liberty Maven]
Barr saved the best for last. Rounding out his big media Monday he caps it off with a discussion of libertarianism as viewed by Bob Barr. Much like last year’s Ron Paul interview on the same program the candidate was given time to answer the questions completely and candidly. Check out the video below.
Bob Barr’s appearance on CSPAN’s Washington Journal is now available on the CSPAN.org site. The segment includes some of the more “colorful” callers we have come to expect from the show. Barr continues to do a great job getting the liberty message out to voters through his media blitz of a day today.
Tonight catch Barr on PBS with Jim Lehrer between 6pm and 7pm Eastern.
It seems to be Bob Barr day today thanks in part to his several media appearances. Bob Barr went into the liberal mass of confusion known as Air America today when he was interviewed by Thom Hartmann. The majority of the interview was quite contentious as you might expect. In the end they run out of time in the middle (or end) of a discussion on the “general welfare” clause in the Constitution. Hartmann seems to think that it allows for policies such as nationalized health care while Barr tells Hartmann that he is misinterpreting it. The audio lasts about 15 minutes. Listen below.
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