Liberty Maven

This interview with Bob Barr was taped during the Republican National Convention. The tone of the interview is a bit like a couple of friends sitting down for a conversation with attempts at humor, neither quite successful. Barr does certainly seemed very focused on getting in to the debates, which is music to my ears. There was little in the way of issues discussed in the interview, but Barr defends against the spoiler role yet again. He’s getting good at it.

A few months ago we at Liberty Maven created The Paul-O-Meter where we rate the Presidential candidates on how closely they are to Ron Paul on the issues. We then opened up the rating system to readers. Since then we have added all sitting Senators and Congressmen to the system. Also, an option to submit candidates was added so that candidates currently running for office can be added. Now there are some new features that we are ready to unveil.

The Paul-O-Meter has moved to its own domain: Paul-O-Meter.com. A great new search feature was added to make finding candidates in the system extremely easy. Also each candidate now has his/her own Paul-O-Meter page for easy linking from other sites. For example here is Bob Barr’s Paul-O-Meter page.

What started as a humble little idea of rating the Presidential candidates in relation to Ron Paul became a full fledged rating system for any and all representatives and candidates for offices across America.

We aren’t finished with it yet. We have more features planned such as allowing each rater to give a reasoning for how each criterion is rated. We hope to make the Paul-O-Meter into something like OnTheIssues.org. In fact even if you despise Ron Paul the candidate ratings will give you great insight into each of the candidates positions. This will certainly be the case once we add the description feature.

We are also going to pick up with our own ratings again soon. In the meantime, check out the Paul-O-Meter for yourself. If you’d like a detailed description of the rating methodology please see this article.

If you have any other suggestions drop us a line at: paul-o-meter@libertymaven.com

This is quite a shot in the dark, and I’m sure the Barr campaign discussed this internally, although one never knows. They can use the Texas ballot access fight to their advantage in an attempt to get Bob Barr into the debates.

They should continue spreading the word about Obama and McCain missing the ballot access deadline in Texas. Also, they should add a new tactic to their press releases on the matter. The Barr campaign should make it clear (and public) that if both the Obama and McCain campaigns are truly interested in “change” as they claim then they should be for what the majority of the American people want and that is for Bob Barr to be in the debates (according the the recent Zogby poll saying 55% of those polled said he should be included). This alone is already being pursued to a degree, but it must be made more public using all media opportunities. The key is to continue to use the “change” rhetoric of the anti-change Parties against them.

The final and most convincing argument can be found with the Texas ballot fight where both Obama and McCain missed the filing deadline (supposedly). It seems that threatening a lawsuit could be used as a negotiating tactic. The Barr campaign’s lawyers can offer to drop the lawsuit if both Obama and McCain agree to allow Barr into the debates. Pointing out the amount of money and time both campaigns will have to spend on defending the lawsuit instead of their own campaigns should be a key point.

It is unlikely either Obama or McCain will fold to such “offers”, but it is worth a shot, especially since the law is being relaxed to their benefit. For Bob Barr, fighting for debate access is more important than fighting for ballot access at this point.

If Obama and McCain are truly for “change” and putting the “country first” then they should not suppress Bob Barr’s inclusion in the debates. Unfortunately, unless the main stream media makes this Texas ballot fight and hypocrisy widely known most voters will never get to hear the true message of change in this election.

Yesterday the FOX 5 affiliate in Atlanta covered Bob Barr’s recent good polling numbers in a handful of states. The ultimate question in the story is “has Barr’s campaign already reached its high water mark?” For the sake of the liberty message I certainly hope not.

The story and link to video report is here.

The Paul-O-Meter is designed to rate candidates and office holders on how closely they measure up to Ron Paul on 20 criteria. We at Liberty Maven have rated the six main Presidential candidates and have recently added all Senators and members of Congress to the application. For a detailed description of the Paul-O-Meter check out the methodology.

We’ve added a new feature to the Paul-O-Meter. It occurred to us that we may not know about some wonderful candidates running for office around the nation. So now anyone can request a candidate be added to the Paul-O-Meter system. Once approved that candidate can be rated by anyone along with the existing candidates. This new feature will hopefully help draw attention to other liberty minded candidates running for office across the nation.

Check out the Paul-O-Meter here and submit your favorite freedom loving candidate for review.

We introduced the Ron Paul Paul-O-Meter a few months ago. Since then the Presidential candidates have been rated more than 300 times on how close they are to Ron Paul on 20 predetermined criteria.

We have expanded the Paul-O-Meter to include current Senators and Congress persons. While we cannot rate 535 lawmakers maybe some of you can. Do you know how closely your own representative resembles Ron Paul on the issues? In the future we may also add the ability to submit for review current candidates for public office at all levels.

We will likely pick and choose a subset of current Senators and Congressional Representatives to rate ourselves. In the meantime feel free to rate your own lawmaker so others can see how far they have fallen from the liberty tree.

For a description of the Paul-O-Meter see this article.

Rate the current Presidential Candidates, Senators, and Congress persons here.

Bob Barr appeared on FOX News yesterday with Neil Cavuto and discussed the Georgian conflict, his spoiler role (of course), and debate access. Once again Barr gets the libertarian message out there. It is a bit of wishful thinking on his part about getting access to the debates, but it is something that must be pursued no matter how unlikely it is to happen. Watch the interview below.

Newt Gingrich appeared on Fox News’Hannity and Colms last night and speculated that if John McCain chooses Senator Lieberman for his running mate it would allow Bob Barr to pull away much of his conservative support and Bob Barr could end up with 15% of the vote.

GINGRICH: Well, I like Senator Lieberman a great deal. I admire him a lot. I think he’d be a great secretary of state. I think he would be terrific as an attorney general, but I think the idea of him being the Republican vice presidential nominee would split the convention, would probably mean that Bob Barr would get about 15 percent of the vote.

HANNITY: Wow.

GINGRICH: Because I think — I think that traditional values, right-to- life conservatives would walk. I mean I think they literally.

HANNITY: Yes.

GINGRICH: [They] would walk out of the convention in a way that would be unmanageable by the McCain people.

If, for some reason, you’d like to see what else Newt had to say, you can see the full transcript on his web site.

Over at NolanChart.com, Walt Thiessen has written a critical article on Bob Barr’s Libertarian campaign for President.  It is a negative article that I, unfortunately, mostly agree with.  Thiessen makes three major points:

1. Although some polls put Bob Barr in the 6% range in June, all polls now put him in the 1-2% range.
2. Measuring up to Ron Paul’s, Barr’s fundraising is comparatively non-existent.
3. Barr has “failed to win over the party faithful”, and has failed to adequately explain his support of unconstitutional bills in his past.

I agree with him on the first 2½ points, but when he and other people continue to say that Bob Barr has done nothing to alleviate the concerns of those who question his part, I strongly disagree.  In every interview I’ve seen where people question his past support for the Patriot Act, the Drug War, etc., he has admitted his mistake, and explained how he seen the light and actually worked hard to reverse these things.  What else can the man do?  Only time will tell whether or not he is sincere or just being political expedient, but that’s not part of this argument.  Bob has worked tirelessly for the past 5 years against the Patriot Act and it’s successors, FISA, and has even joined up with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Marijuana Policy Project in support of medicinal drug use.  What else can the man do to alleviate concerns? If you simply choose not to trust him, that’s one thing.  But to say that he’s done nothing is simply ludicrous.

Thiessen concludes by predicting Barr will get less votes in November than Badnarik’s 397,000 in 2004, which I feel is quite astonishing.  I certainly hope this won’t be the case.

Read the article at NolanChart.com here.

Another innovative method to raise money and get the word out about freedom minded Congressional candidates has arrived. The Liberty Straw Poll has been introduced by the people who run Ron Paul Forums. They’ve enlisted the assistance of forum members and great organizations like freeople.com and breakthematrix.com. From the event site:

Our purpose is to raise awareness and funding for liberty minded political candidates through the use of straw polls within the online community.

Our straw polls are centered around an internet broadcast where select candidates each get an equal turn to speak in order to compete for straw poll votes from those who made a donation to our sponsor PAC in exchange for a straw poll voting ticket. Voting takes place online and will conclude after all the candidates had their turn to speak, then the results are published. The winner(s) of the straw poll will then receive the value of the straw poll ticket revenue in campaign support. The broadcast will be available from any one of our media partners.

We at Liberty Maven have always said one of the most important actions we can take to help spread Ron Paul’s message of liberty is to do as much as possible to help like minded candidates get elected to office. Raising money these days is a difficult thing unless your last name is Obama. The Liberty Straw Poll is a wonderful idea becoming a reality thanks to the still active grassroots supporters of Ron Paul.

No matter if you are a Republican, Libertarian, Democrat, Green, or Independent, above all you are an American. America was built on the foundation of liberty. Help keep it alive by participating in events like these. Get your tickets now.