Former Republican [Bob Barr] to seek Libertarian presidential nomination

CNN ^ | 5-8-2008 | CNN

[jmc813]

Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr will announce Monday that he will run for president as a Libertarian, a source close to the Georgian told CNN.

Barr will officially declare his candidacy at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington. The four-term congressman left the GOP in 2006, saying that Republicans had "lost their core principles."

Barr made a name for himself in Congress for his ardent conservative philosophy and his role in President Clinton's impeachment. He lost a primary election in 2002.

Last month, Barr formed a presidential exploratory committee as he weighed a run for the White House. The source said that Barr had been considering a presidential bid "for several months. He currently runs Liberty Strategies, a consulting firm in Atlanta and Washington.

Barr joins a handful of other candidates seeking the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination including former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination this year. Libertarians meet in Denver on May 22 for a four day convention where members will choose the party's presidential nominee.

[Ron Jeremy]

It’s not your job to vote for a person you “want” to win-—as if your feelings are all that matter in this enterprise.

Well, I think it is.

It’s your job to do what’s right for the country and that requires stopping the greater of two evils by voting for the lesser of the two evils.

Unless of course the two evils realize that they know 90% of the voters behave like you, and thus adjust their tactics knowing that in the end the suckers like you will never stray. It's not just the GOP screwing over conservatives... if you go to DU or KOS you will see that they, too, feel betrayed by their leaders. The two parties are running a suckers game. You are a willing participant, I am not.

[Tribune7]

Good point.

And choosing the lesser of two evils is not evil

Failure to alleviate evil, however, is.

[tueffelhunden]

“Those of us in red and purple states regrettably need to act like adults and vote for McCain.”

Yep insulting your allies is a sure fire way of convincing people to vote for your Candidate of choice.

Worked for me

not

[jmc813]

Since we heard endlessly last time about how Gore “really” won the election simply because he won the popular vote

I kinda enjoyed that whole episode. I got to laugh at and taunt my liberal friends even extra as a result of that.

[Ron Jeremy]

You think Barr is “sort of nuts”? So is someone who would vote for someone they think is nuts. Seems pretty obvious.

Well, if you believe in big government and having the President make decisions about the minutiae of everyones life, then you are correct. Who would want someone who is nuts doing that? But, if you think its simply governments job to get the hell out of the way and leave us alone, then it doesn't really matter all that much.

Another way to look at it: Jimmy Carter is sane, yet I would never vote for him. Ann Coulter is nuts, yet I would gladly vote for her.

[SoCalPol]

1992

Clinton 43%
GHWBush 37%
Perot 19%

also how we got Carter.

With Obama, there won’t be a next time.

[Ron Jeremy]

1992 Clinton 43% GHWBush 37% Perot 19%

. I don't get your point.. Perot ran as a true conservative candidate, so conservatives voted for him instead of Bush?

also how we got Carter.

What are you talking about? Ford lost by 2.1%. Eugene McCarthy took .9%, Roger McBride the Libertarian took .2%.

It's amazing what RINO's will make up to try to get conservatives to vote for them.

With Obama, there won’t be a next time.

It's too bad we have such a bad candidate.

[SoCalPol]

Who ever the third party candidate, Obama wins.
When you split the Republican vote in half you have already
lost the election. It doesn’t take a PhD in Math to figure that out..

McCain not my first choice in the primary and am far from a RINO especially having worked in Reagan’s first campaign for Gov.

My original candidate for ‘08 was the only adult conservative running.

[theFIRMbss]

>The two parties are running a suckers game. You are a willing participant, I am not

You off to Paris?
Gonna sit in a cafe
sipping ex-pat tea

mumbling in your day
a vote counted for something . . .
Get real. The country

has two parties and
people who vote one of them
aren't the suckers.

They're the normal folk.
People lost in fantasies--
all kinds!-- are suckers.

[Ron Jeremy]

Maybe the real lesson of the 1992 and 1976 elections is that when Republicans nominate RINO’s, they lose. But I suppose you could blame the tiny number of conservatives who complain when the party nominates RINOs if it makes you feel better.

[Ron Jeremy]

When you split the Republican vote in half you have already lost the election.

Well sure, but take a look at 1992. That wasn't the fault of ANYBODY except the RINO president. It certainly wasn't the fault of conservatives agitating against him. It was the fault of a recession coupled with Bush having broken his tax pledge.

[Ron Jeremy]

A conservative who every year buys the line about why he/she should vote for a liberal is a sucker.

[jmc813]

My original candidate for ‘08 was the only adult conservative running.

I'm a big Hunter fan, but in all fairness, Thompson and Tancredo were both "adult conservatives".

[jmc813]

Get real. The country

has two parties and people who vote one of them aren't the suckers.

They're the normal folk. People lost in fantasies-- all kinds!-- are suckers.

Normalcy is the
playground of the unimag-
initive. Respect.

[theFIRMbss]

>A conservative who every year buys the line about why he/she should vote for a liberal is a sucker

Someone who expects
the whole world to operate
with his point of view,

his definitions,
his interpretations, is
like a twelve year old.

[Crawdad]

Great for the diversity police. Another African-American in the race.

[politicalwit]

When you split the Republican vote in half you have already lost the election.

If you have one conservative independent candidate running and it takes away one half of your party's vote then it's obvious that the party has nominated a very weak candidate.

[Ron Jeremy]

Someone who expects the whole world to operate with his point of view, his definitions, his interpretations, is like a twelve year old.

True, which is why I don't do that. I simply vote for candidates who believe in at least a small part of the great american traditions and values that have made this country great. You don't. You vote for liberals.

[alicewonders]

I now oppose actions in Iraq and Afghanistan but at the time of the initial advances into those countries had a “wait-and-see” attitude to find out if they were going to do it right. They didn’t do it right. Had it been done right then the “Islamic uprising” would already be dead as well as all of the participants.

I absolutely agree with you. They didn't do it right - and I noticed that it took an "election year" for them to conduct the "surge" strategy, which they should have been doing all along.

I have no stomach for this country to stay in a Vietnam-like situation that we could have won a long time ago. In other words, I don't want us staying in Iraq for "a hundred years". I am coming around to a different point of view than I've had in the past. I fail to see where our interference in other countries has worked out that well for us.

I'm not promoting an isolationist view, I'm strongly for us maintaining a very strong military defense - but I think we need to do a lot more to protect our border & I KNOW that John McCain will not do this.

I voted for a liberal Republican twice when I voted for George W. Bush - I can see now that it just got us a more liberal candidate now. It has to stop somewhere. It has got to stop now, before it's too late. I honestly cannot say that I think McCain is actually the lesser of the evils - I think he is just as evil as the others. I really, really do.

[theFIRMbss]

>Normalcy is the / playground of the unimag- / initive. Respect.

Yes, very good, but if I simply pretended I was going out with Kournikova because 'normal' girls bored me, that wouldn't make me cool, happening, hip. I would be delusional. Vote for real choices.