How Big a Threat is Bob Barr?

[Herb Schaffler]

From Real Clear Politics:

May 12, 2008
[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link.
Posted by KYLE TRYGSTAD | [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. | [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. | [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link.
Former Georgia Rep. Bob Barr [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. today his intentions to represent the Libertarian Party in a run for the presidency. He will first have to win the nomination at the party convention, being held next weekend. His competition is former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, who was previously a candidate for the Democratic nomination.
Assuming Barr wins the nomination, how much could this harm John McCain's campaign? The campaign for Barack Obama, the likely Democratic nominee, feels their candidate can put states in play that Democrats haven't been able to score in recent elections. States like Virginia, North Carolina and Colorado have voted for a Democrat a grand total of two times in the last 10 presidential elections (Virginia hasn't gone Democratic since 1964, when all but six states voted for Lyndon Johnson).
Barr's entrance to the race could clearly take away crucial conservative votes that McCain needs to keep these potential swing states in the Republican fold. According to the [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. , several Republicans have asked Barr not to run, but told him they understood his reasoning for doing so.

Most Republicans who asked him not to run "also said they understand why I'd run and why John McCain is not conservative and will not seriously tackle the growth in government power and spending," he said. "Some said they would vote for me if I ran, but for the sake of the Republican Party, they would prefer I didn't."

More from the Times article:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told The Times yesterday that "Bob Barr will make it marginally easier for Barack Obama to become president. That outcome threatens every libertarian value Barr professes to champion." Russ Verney, an adviser to the 1992 Ross Perot presidential campaign and his 1996 campaign manager, has been working with the Mr. Barr's exploratory committee "to help put together the infrastructure for his presidential run," Libertarian Party spokesman Andrew Davis said.

Conservatives tend to disagree with McCain on a number of issues. Could a former leader of President Clinton's impeachment be attractive enough of a candidate to lure them from the Republican Party's nominee? If so, it could spell doom for McCain in states Democrats haven't won for decades.

[Herb Schaffler]

H2L, Barr's past voting record doesn't matter. He has changed his views on some issues. That's why he left the Republican Party and switched to the Libertarian Party. He also left the Republican Party for the reason he stated in his interview with "The American Conservative": "...it became clear to me the Republican Party was not going to change, and I decided that whatever years the Lord leaves me on this earth, I was not going to waste them remaining involved with a party that had no interest in individual liberty.

[Herb Schaffler]

Can Bob Barr Become a 'Ralph Nader'?


Monday, May 19, 2008 10:45 AM

By: Newsmax Staff

Former Congressman Bob Barr is expected to win the Libertarian Party’s nomination for president at the party’s convention beginning on Thursday, and he could prove to be John McCain’s “Ralph Nader” in November.
Nader siphoned votes from Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 election and is generally blamed by Democrats for handing Florida — and perhaps other states as well — to George Bush, securing the Republican’s win.
Now some Republicans fear Barr could do the same for McCain and cost the GOP one or more swing states.
A recent Zogby poll showed likely Democratic nominee Barack Obama with 45 percent of the vote, McCain with 42 percent — and Barr with 3 percent. Nader, who is running again this year, drew only 1 percent, with the rest undecided.
The fear is that Barr could attract not only libertarian voters, but conservatives who are dissatisfied with McCain as the GOP nominee.
The American Spectator opined in April that “conservatives see the choice of McCain or the Democrats as analogous to picking between being punched in the stomach or kneed in the groin.”
And Newsweek columnist George Will wrote that a run by Barr could be to McCain “what Ralph Nader was to Al Gore — ruinous.”
Barr, who represented a Georgia district in the House from 1995 to 2003 before leaving the GOP, told the Washington Times that a number of Republicans have been trying to persuade him not to run for president.
Most of them “also said they understand why I’d run and why John McCain is not conservative and will not seriously tackle the growth in government power and spending,” Barr said.
“Some said they would vote for me if I ran, but for the sake of the Republican Party, they would prefer I didn’t.”
Barr told the Philadelphia Inquirer: “The notion that Republicans see a third-party candidate as spoiling their chances simply illustrates the arrogance of the two-party system.”
Barr has been associated with the American Conservative Union, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the National Rifle Association. Since losing his House seat in 2002, he has renounced the war on drugs and criticized the Patriot Act.

[Syz]

If Bob Barr and Ron Paul don't run, then we have no more Constitution to concern ourselves with. Allowing these two parties to play anti-American games against us all these years is why we're in this position. It's called cowardice and I'm not checking out as one. Let the rats come to the surface and do what rats do, they destroy each other like they're doing now.
This isn't an election, this is moving the inner-city slums to every household in America.

To all those elderly foolish women who are buying Hillary's snake oil, for God Sake, read a book on despots and try to connect the dots. I wish I had time to tell you about all the women of strength and courage I know and am aware of. You could start with Doris Buffet, Warren's sister. She gives $100,000.00 away annually to women in serious financial circumstances, not to those who can't pay their charge cards. Next to Doris, my own 84 yr old sister who runs a business flat on her back, paralyzed from the waist down, the 93 yr old Russian woman who made night bombing runs over Germany, the Germans called them "the night witches". The effort of my best friend to become a corporate pilot, then a publisher under tough struggles to put out a Woman Pilot Magazine whose first copy is held in the Smithsonian. My friend Phyllis, who went to law school at age 64, graduated, then went back and threw the judge off the bench who had tried to destroy her life. This became a TV movie. Read the story of "Three Came Home" about a woman in a Japanese prison camp.

These are women of tremendous courage and inner strength, then we have one-eyed drooling Hillary, doing everyone out of money and beggin for more. This is what so called Hardball Skippy calls "strength".

I explain to my art students that it takes two people to paint a picture. One to paint it and the other to shoot you when you're done. That's a life lesson Hillary will never grasp.

Needless to say I'm really on a mad regarding Hillary today and why of all the gin joints she had to stop in did it have to be Washington, D.C.

[WiseOne]

I am all for Bob Barr running! I think it will, however, give the Republican's a HUGE wake-up call come November as it WILL hurt John McCain without a doubt in my mind. I think it will hurt him enough to lose in 2008 personally. SOOO, if Hillary gets the nomination (she still can, make no mistake), Bob Barr will give it to her and we'll all be doomed.

[Herb Schaffler]

For Hillary to get the nomination, she has to make her case with the super delegates. So far, she hasn't had much success. Since her West Virginia landslide, Obama has picked up 22 super delegates to her 4.

[Syz]

Wise: We have been in the horrifying doom of these two parties for so many years we don't realize we have actually lost all our freedoms. Savage mentioned that only about 1,000 people govern us and think what damage this small group has done. They have reduced themselves down to discussing their parties only. Their duties to our country have long been ignored. There are no lessons for me to teach these self serving financial leaches who go from one host to another every four years and the Nation has been the monumental loser. It is my obligation to never cast a vote again for either party.

I have finally seen the inexperience of not only Obama, but Hillary and 75 of the thousand controllers who just voted in a G.I. Bill for our military. This group doesn't even know the difference between a volunteer military and a drafted military.

The volunteer military gave up their rights to an education by personal judgment and choice. The draftee was forced to give up his young years of educational rights and therefore should have been afforded the G.I. Bill. The volunteer is further compensated by a lifetime career which affords them a pensioned early retirement with all the perks of government retirement allowing them a new career with more pensions down the road at a very young age. I have known many whose courageous effort and gamble on our behalf has turned out very well. Those who lost their lives in that gamble are forever in our debt.

It is by showing my determination for them never to have to make this decision again that I refuse to vote for the path of despot rule in this country. Not to send a message, they won't get it, but to begin a great Revolution for history to record that I honored my duty as a citizen by the request of my Constitution to do so.

[Herb Schaffler]

Bob Barr got the nomination on the Libertarian ticket for President of the US. The race narrowed down to him and Mary Ruwart who believed Bob Barr was not libertarian enough to represent the ticket. Those of us who support Barr realize that, but we're tired of the Libertarian Party getting less than 1% of the vote in the race for President. Some polls show that Barr can get as much as 4% of the vote and I suspect it may end up being more as more people learn about his candidacy. I also believe that Barr will honor the Libertarian platform as Ron Paul did in 1988. Ron Paul wasn't 100% libertarian either, but he kept his non-libertarian views to himself when he ran on the Libertarian ticket. I believe it will be the same with Barr.

[Syz]

You just made me understand the problem we are having with women running for office. THEY ARE NOT READY, not one of them. I was stunned when Barr didn't win immediately figuring they would understand there was no chance without him at the top, yet Mary Ruwart, having been Vice President last year determined she was entitled to be President this year, as Hillary has determined that as a President's wife, she is entitled to the Presidency now. And like Hillary, Mary refused to dignify her loss by honoring Barr's win with a "Congratulations".

I never considered that women would bring 'THE GIRLIE SNIT FACTOR" into play. I never saw so many women want to pick up the marbles they don't have and go home. They are determined to live by The Marquis of Queensbury Rules as they see fit. Just loaded baggage, I'm sick of them.

[Herb Schaffler]

That was really something when Mary Ruwart in her speech after losing the nomination in referring to Barr's win said, "we'll see how that goes." Very catty! I'm wondering if Hillary will make the same kind of comments when she's finally eliminated.