Barr to announce Libertarian White House bid

AP via SFGate ^ | 5/12/8 | BEN EVANS, Associated Press Writer

[SmithL]

Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr is expected to announce that he's running for president as a Libertarian.

His candidacy would be a wild card in the White House race that many believe would hurt Republican Sen. John McCain.

Barr had scheduled a news conference Monday. He first must win the Libertarian nomination at the party's national convention that begins May 22. Party officials consider him a front-runner

[moose2004]

“the same way we would if the dork Nader got into the election.”

Nader already announced he’s running.

[rlmorel]

Actually, giving speeches to La Raza has done nowhere near the damage to the fabric of our society that the ACLU has done.

Just my opinion.

[rlmorel]

OTOH, I am in agreement with the outright damage and potential (or 2x4 in the forehead actual) slippery slope that McCain-Feingold presents.

[EagleandLiberty]

Glad I officially have someone I can vote for. Go Bob!

Thank you for Voting for Barak. I used to be a LP member -- that party is as CRAZY as the Greens. I'll vote for McCain - and pray the AMERICANS will WISE UP and see SOCIALISM!!

[rlmorel]

Right. But Barr would almost certainly get more on his side of the equation, given what we see on FR alone.

It would be a net negative for the GOP no matter how you cut it.

[ksen]

That "stupid prick's" speech at the March For Justice helped establish FR as the premier political site on the web. It's perfectly valid to have issues with him, but freepers should show him at least a modicum of respect.

Oh yeah!? Well, McCain's speech at the March of Justice just blew Barr's out . . of . . the . . . water . . .

(Huh? McCain didn't address the March of Justice?)

. . .

Nevermind . . .

;^p

[SUSSA]

If you can’t vote for the conservative when the other two options are this bad, you will never get a conservative nominated on the Republican ticket.

Lincoln said, ‘I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.’

The Republicans are going to have to give me someone to vote for instead of someone to vote against if they want my vote. They’ve played that game too many times for it to work on me again.

[EagleandLiberty]

Under no circumstances can I support McCain or Hillary. I supported Fred Thompson.

***I am so frustrated with McCain that I am giving serious consideration to voting for Barr (assuming he is nominated.)***

And you’ll be HELPING the USA down the path to SOCIALISM!! THE LP is a branch of the Democrats!! (I was a member of the LP, but I wised up.)

[ksen]

I have a real problem with a party that opposes a candidate with whom they agree 80-90% to elect a candidate with whom they disagree 80-90%.

If you're talking about McCain and you agree with him 80%-90% of the time then you need to recheck your conservative credentials. Note that the ACU doesn't agree with McCain 80%-90% of the time.

[EagleandLiberty]

You refer to the party as if it has nothing to do with conservatives. That is the point... the republican party of today has utterly abandoned its conservative ideals. Sure, it will always be pro-life and pro-God, but those issues are not the duty of goverance. Energy policy? The republicans are weak. Border control? Weak. US sovereignty? Weak. Fiscal policy? Weak. Trade and industry? Weak. The republicans in the US House and Senate, and our president, have become big government cheerleaders who practically salivate every time they have a chance to pander to illegals, China, unions, liberals, or any other enemy of the United States and American citizens. The party has been in decline since the day that Bush took office, and has apparently decided that they would rather keep their jobs than to roll their sleeves up, get dirty, and obey and defend the Constitution and the principles that this nation was founded upon. I know nothing about Bob Barr save his work on the Clinton impeachment proceedings and his stance on China. I do know that McInsane is going to be another Bush... and that winning the war in Iraq doesn't matter one damn bit if amnesty is passed, LOST is signed, or any other of the ten dozen anti-American things that globalist loony supports come to fruition.

The LP will help elect the SOCIALIST BARAK HUSSIEN OBAMA to the PRESIDENCY. Thank you, you so-called CONSERVATIVES, you make me sick.

[moose2004]

“But Barr would almost certainly get more on his side of the equation, given what we see on FR alone.”

I doubt it. There are a lot of members of FR who hate McCain and love any opportunity to bash him. In the end Barr will “hurt” McCain as much as Buchanan “hurt” Bush in 2000. Once McCain taps a true conservative as his running mate then Barr will vanish like Pat did 8 years ago.

[verity]

I admire your candid remarks.

[longtermmemmory]

I think McCain is a welded on stupid but this is just a transparent vote splitting that will hurt OTHER REPUBLICANS in congress.

Perhaps he will just suck votes from kookpaul.

[rlmorel]

As I said, all that you say is true.

But one of the tenets of conservatism is realism. Liberals dwell in the La-La land of rainbows, unicorns and cotton candy, but one of the reasons conservatism does work is that it deals in the best way possible (hopefully) with the reality of a given situation.

We are conservatives, and while it IS apparently true that we don’t have direct control over the dummies at the RNC, we DO have indirect control over the money they get, and they are acutely aware that conservatives are unhappy.

The reality is, though, that the RNC and GOP IS a bureaucracy, by definition slow moving and sluggish. Plus, votes have been cast. We may not like it, but this is what we have to work with.

This is our “Sh*t Sandwich”, and being successful in life involves the eating of them on occasion. Over time, the ingestion of the aforesaid sandwich pays off because of the incremental gains made from making unpalatable or unpopular choices will offset the much larger losses incurred by simply ignoring a situation or cutting off a nose to spite a face.

Liberals will always be content to go home and cut off their noses. As conservatives, we deal with the best we have and make do. This looks like what it will be for the next four years if we are lucky. Again, this is not fact but my opinion.

[BlackElk]

Would that be because of the deft way that Bob Barr dragged his girlfriend by the ear to the abortion mill to avoid child support or his magnificent service to the American Communist Libertine Union???

EEE: It must be hard to find a candidate now that both of yours (Giuliani and paleoPaulie) are gone. Have you thought of voting Vegetarian or Jupiterian, maybe the Greenbackers or the Know Nothings?

[BlackElk]

Would that be because of the deft way that Bob Barr dragged his girlfriend by the ear to the abortion mill to avoid child support or his magnificent service to the American Communist Libertine Union???

EEE: It must be hard to find a candidate now that both of yours (Giuliani and paleoPaulie) are gone. Have you thought of voting Vegetarian or Jupiterian, maybe the Greenbackers or the Know Nothings?

[SUSSA]

I guess you think Dick Armey (ACU record 97%) isn’t a conservative either since he also works for the ACLU on the same project as Bob Barr. I also assume you don’t consider the American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform, the Free Congress Foundation, the Second Amendment Foundation, the Christian Coalition, the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Family Research Council, the Southeastern Legal Foundation, the Business-Industry Political Action Committee, the National Right to Life Committee, to name just a few, aren’t conservative because they have also worked with the ACLU to protect a Constitutional right.

How about telling us where you stand on the McCain-Feingold attack on free speech. Do you support it?

If you oppose it by your own standard you must not be “a conservative and probably not much of an American” because the ACLU was one of the groups working the hardest to overturn that attack on our liberties.

So let’s see. Bob Barr, Dick Armey, American Conservative Union, the Free Congress Foundation, the Second Amendment Foundation, the Christian Coalition, the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Family Research Council, the Southeastern Legal Foundation, the Business-Industry Political Action Committee, and the National Right to Life Committee, aren’t conservative.

Who is conservative then? Is McCain a conservative in your opinion? How about Bob Dole? I can’t find where either of them worked with the ACLU to protect our rights.

I think Barr and I are in pretty conservative company siding with the ACLU now and then.

[jmc813]

Wow. You went an entire post without typing “paleo”. Well done.

[longtermmemmory]

which means you become irrelevant and 100% disposable.

you would be far more effective writing in “ronald w reagan” and voting for down ticket republicans than voting for the pot head libertarians.

[Iscool]

Bob Barr is a kook and a joke, he won’t hurt McCain any more than Buchanan “hurt” Bush in 2000. Not going to happen.

I don't know...I and the Buchanan supporters I know voted for Bush, to keep the Democrats out...

I don't see that happening again...