Russ Verney, the campaign manager of the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee says that President George W. Bush showed “incredible leadership as he stood atop a fire truck amidst the rubble of the twin towers to rally America.”
Verney then compares Bush’s “incredible leadership” to the “leadership” exhibited by Libertarian VP nominee Wayne Allyn Root in offering to illegally step down as Bob Barr’s running mate in deference to Ron Paul.
Yesterday, our vice presidential candidate, Wayne Allyn Root, offered to step aside to allow Congressman Ron Paul an opportunity to serve on the presidential ticket of the Libertarian Party and move the agenda of Liberty forward.
On the surface, a simple offer was extended. In fact it was principled leadership at its finest.
Then Verney goes on to criticize Ron Paul, saying the Campagin for Liberty’s historic announcement yesterday was not about “promoting the liberty agenda; it was about promoting a man.
It became evident to me after meeting with Ron Paul’s staff that this media event was not about promoting the liberty agenda; it was about promoting a man. That’s not what we’re in this for.
After rumors were spread in advance of the news conference that Bob Barr was dropping from the race – just to hype the event – I became even more hesitant to attend. Those tactics were unacceptable and when asked about it, Ron Paul’s staff simply smiled and said it would attract the press.
When I was provided a copy of Ron Paul’s prepared remarks just hours before the start of the planned news conference it became clear to me that the message Ron Paul intended to deliver was essentially to scatter the votes for the liberty agenda to the four winds.
His remarks not only encouraged anyone listening to support any one of four candidates, he also applauded ‘non-voters’. To me encouraging people not to vote is not principled leadership for the Liberty agenda.
I made the decision that attending that news conference was not consistent with Bob Barr’s principled leadership for the Liberty agenda.
Once I informed Ron Paul’s staff of my decision I was rudely informed that my decision would have permanent ramifications, I was personally threatened and Bob Barr was politically threatened. That’s a far cry from principled leadership.
Now, the battle lines have been drawn, says Verney, and those who stand with Paul are “cultists.”
One thing that did occur as a result of yesterday’s events is a clear separation of certain factions. Up until now, we have been dealing with two groups, those who want to advance the issues of liberty and those who have been drawn into a cult of personality.
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The full text of the message is included below:
Dear Friend,
Before I move forward with an important report for today, I would like to recognize and remember the 2,819 men and women who lost their lives seven years ago. As a result of the attacks of September 11th, Americans came together, setting aside differences in order mourn our shared losses and assist our neighbors in need.
May we never forget . . .
In times of crisis, strength in leadership requires boldness of character, clear direction and firm resolve. As we witnessed after the attacks of September 11th, President George W. Bush showed incredible leadership as he stood atop a fire truck amidst the rubble of the twin towers to rally America.
While the quality of leadership is rare enough, principled leaders are few and far between. Those who do appear to posses the traits necessary to lead, for reasons only known to themselves, frequently choose not to stand on principle.
Yesterday, our vice presidential candidate, Wayne Allyn Root, offered to step aside to allow Congressman Ron Paul an opportunity to serve on the presidential ticket of the Libertarian Party and move the agenda of Liberty forward.
On the surface, a simple offer was extended. In fact it was principled leadership at its finest.
Wayne Allyn Root showed his deep commitment to the principles of our cause. Without hesitation or regard to the effort, time and personal funds he has committed to the issues of freedom, smaller government, less taxes and the Libertarian ticket, Wayne offered to step aside to allow another leader to step up.
I could not be more proud of his actions and selflessness.
As America is hurling towards crisis on many fronts, we need principled leaders like Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root. We have no time to waste on anything other than spreading the message of smaller government, less taxes, and more personal freedom issues across this nation.
That brings me to my next point.
Today our campaign is being criticized by a few people for my decision to not attend a press conference sponsored by Ron Paul’s political action committee. I thought I would take a minute to explain to you why I made that decision.
It became evident to me after meeting with Ron Paul’s staff that this media event was not about promoting the liberty agenda; it was about promoting a man. That’s not what we’re in this for.
After rumors were spread in advance of the news conference that Bob Barr was dropping from the race – just to hype the event – I became even more hesitant to attend. Those tactics were unacceptable and when asked about it, Ron Paul’s staff simply smiled and said it would attract the press.
When I was provided a copy of Ron Paul’s prepared remarks just hours before the start of the planned news conference it became clear to me that the message Ron Paul intended to deliver was essentially to scatter the votes for the liberty agenda to the four winds.
His remarks not only encouraged anyone listening to support any one of four candidates, he also applauded ‘non-voters’. To me encouraging people not to vote is not principled leadership for the Liberty agenda.
I made the decision that attending that news conference was not consistent with Bob Barr’s principled leadership for the Liberty agenda.
Once I informed Ron Paul’s staff of my decision I was rudely informed that my decision would have permanent ramifications, I was personally threatened and Bob Barr was politically threatened. That’s a far cry from principled leadership.
One thing that did occur as a result of yesterday’s events is a clear separation of certain factions. Up until now, we have been dealing with two groups, those who want to advance the issues of liberty and those who have been drawn into a cult of personality.
There are those who support a specific politician and then there are those who support the liberty agenda regardless of standard-bearer.
Bob Barr, Wayne Allyn Root and the Libertarian Party stand for the issues of personal freedom and responsible government. As they have proven, both Bob and Wayne are willing to lead or follow for the advancement of our issues.
Now is their time to lead.
As we move into the final 50 days of the campaign we are in place to make a strong impact on the future of our country.
At the end of the day, the number of votes cast in support of the Liberty agenda in the General Election will influence the national political agenda of the next four years.
If we do our jobs, work hard and give us much as possible until Election Day, our voices will be heard and our agenda of smaller government, lower taxes, more personal freedom and government accountability will be on the table for years to come.
I appreciate your commitment and dedication.
Sincerely,
Russ signature
Russell Verney
Campaign Manager
For those of you that don’t like any of the choices this year, but still want to participate, read this:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/hamilton4.html
Great article. It really moved me. I hope you like it too.
“Mad about all of this?
Don’t complain…. do something:
Free State Project”
I’m thinking about it Ridley. 😉
Mad about all of this?
Don’t complain…. do something:
Free State Project
G.E. said: “#
Amy B: My twin sister separated at birth?
Or Meg in disguise?”
I don’t know about the twin sister thing, but my mom denies it. And my name is really Amy, so I’m not Meg either. 🙂
We are NEVER going to get out of the two-party stranglehold…freaking IDIOTS!
I’m so sick about this.
I’m about 95% certain I’ll vote for Nader. The irony is I have a liberal friend who always thought I was crazy to vote third party, and would (in jest) accuse me of planning to vote for Nader. I always responded “Lol, no.” Now here I am, actually planning to vote for Nader.
(Speaking of which, I need to fill out my voter registration paperwork…)
Well ya, but I need to support something.
Someone asked me today, completely outright: “Obama or McCain?”.
I was at a loss of words. I had nothing to say.
I mumbled neither and he walked away, writing me off as either apathetic or ignorant of politics.
Mike – Nader won’t win. Have no fear. Vote for what you like and ignore the rest. Oh wait, you can’t vote anyway. No worries.
I’m thinking of supporting Nader, but not against Barr completely.
I want to go behind a candidate with principles again, and Nader is at the top of that soapbox.
Things wouldn’t be that great under President Nader, but damn, it’d be something.
Dude…
Wow….
Yes. I started writing about that for LFV. The idea that I’d vote for Nader … I thought there would be no possible way 3 years ago, 2 years ago, 1 year ago — really, even 1 month ago I thought it was an extremely remote possibility. But now that vote has purpose — in ensuring Barr’s defeat for third. If I could wholeheartedly (or even largely) support Baldwin, I would — and those that can, I encourage them to vote for him — but his pro-tariff, anti-immigration, pro-national abortion ban, etc., leave me less than 100% confident. So I’ll vote Nader to vote AGAINST Barr.
G.E., isn’t it ironic that it four years, you’ve gone through an ideological 180, yet are backing the same candidate as in 2004 for completely different reasons?
I assure you, Dondero sleeps with a big smile on his mustachioed face now.
If McKinney and Nader are socialists, then so is Barr.
They’re all economic interventionists.
None of them support government ownership of the means of production and distribution.
So either they’re all socialists, or none of them are.
After all this, I think that I should revise my prediction for vote totals for the Barr/W.A.R. ticket.
I’ve been saying 700,000 to 1,200,000, and I’ve also said 800,000 to 1,200,000 with a very slight possibility of getting 1,300,000.
Unless Barr pulls this campaign out of the toilet, I now predict that this LP ticket gets 400,000 to 800,000. That’s still better than Badnarik’s 399,000, but for Barr, a former congressman? It will be truly pitiful. The pity is that the LP delegates didn’t see the phony face Barr was putting on. If Barr was genuine, he would have been at Ron Paul’s press conference. And it would have been a net positive for him, regardless of whether or not McKinney and Nader are socialists (they are, or are at least close).
“Verney is nowhere near working for the Baldwin campaign. Please. That’s not even a funny joke!”
I was saying that Verney has probably done more to improve Baldwin’s vote total in the past three days than anyone else has.
Or Meg in disguise?
Amy B: My twin sister separated at birth?
Verney can kiss my ass. If he really thinks that RP supporters are part of a “cult of personality” rather than, perhaps a “cult of people who follow the only fucking honest politician that exists for the love of christ”, well, of course, he wouldn’t know how to address us, we are alien to him.
Piss off Verney. Piss of Fergusen. Piss off Barr. You are all slime.
So, sign my petition and help get the LP back? http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/RemoveBobBar/index.html
This whole thing demonstrates why no one with a functioning brain takes the Libertarian Party seriously any more.
Any more…?
Honestly, I thought Ron Paul’s campaign team was incompetent. But Barr’s? WOW. Fucking idiots.
Verney is a piece of shit. He is one to talk about any personality cults. His only “successes” were due to the personality cult of his previous candidates. He just happened to be there and could forever parlay that into “Go-to 3rd Party/Independent Campaign Manager.”
But when he gets stuck with a guy with ZERO personality and no credibility like Barr- see how that works for him.
Verney is going to make Allen Hacker look like Karl Rove.
This whole thing demonstrates why no one with a functioning brain takes the Libertarian Party seriously any more.
Verney’s shout-out to W on 9/11 is a major fuckup, I give you that. So was the Jesse Helms press release.
What are you gonna do. Lots of us managed to stick with Ron Paul despite Newslettergate and that silly “Keep Christ in Christmas” Congressional statement too.
Verney is nowhere near working for the Baldwin campaign. Please. That’s not even a funny joke!
The hypocrisy of Verney’s statement is INSANE!
Based on this, it looks like Verney is secretly working for the Baldwin campaign.
“As we witnessed after the attacks of September 11th, President George W. Bush showed incredible leadership as he stood atop a fire truck amidst the rubble of the twin towers to rally America.”
Ugh. I can’t believe this. This guy is supposed to be a competent campaign manager?
Sports Tout and Disingenuous are redundant terms.
Everything Libertarian about Root was “just for show”.
Try talking to the man for a few minutes.
“Root’s “offer†to step down was disingenuous.
His offer could not be accepted, and I’m sure he knew it. It was all for show.
That’s the impression I got, too.
Bush is not stupid, you’ve been duped by the mass media.
I think if Root tries to run in 2012 we should get pitchforks and torches.
Galileo/Rolf , GW Bush was too stupid to have planned the 9/11 attacks. Your buddy/hero Steve Jones, however, helped design some of the exotic weaponry that was used to disintegrate the towers.
Root’s “offer” to step down was disingenuous.
His offer could not be accepted, and I’m sure he knew it. It was all for show.
Look at how hard it is to substitute Barr for Phillies just in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Root was merely trying to appear like a “principled” libertarian so as to create a “principled” paper trail for his 2012 run.
All his talk about his love of liberty, it’s all BOILERPLATE. He sounds like someone who’s trying to get the boilerplate down pat. Like he’s getting better at it with practice, and behind-the-scenes advice, and ghost-writing.
There’s no individuality to Root’s statements. It’s all rote libertarian talking points. Not from the heart, but something that’s being fed to him by advisers.
(Offhand, I can think of three LP officers who may be ghost-writing for Root. I also have a fourth in mind, but am less certain about him.)
“AnthonyD // Sep 11, 2008 at 2:26 pm
If you are prepared to support a Republican or a theocratic fascist, then you were never a Libertarian to begin with. Good riddance, my only hope is that you take the rest of the malecontents with you, so LP’ers do not have to waste so much time telling you to take a shower and dress like a normal person before you go out in public.”
Woah nelly. You make comments like that and try to chide us for supporting a Republican? That whole comment sounded like something a snobby Republican would say. Good job.
What craziness. As I see it, the LP should bite the bullet for now (okay, you don’t have to vote for Barr, but keep your ballot access for God’s sake!) and forget about Barr once the election’s over.
But I do have to say…
We told you they were neocons! We told you!
This is a double whammy today…I’m seriously sitting here just brimming with rage. Wow…just wow…
What Bob Barr did took guts. Was it the right thing to do? We’ll have to wait and see what the political fallout is and vote totals, whatever they turn out to be, could be higher or lower as a result and we’ll never know which.
But Ron Paul’s supporters need to step back and look at his campaign fundraising and then the actual spending. A lot of money was paid to a few people. Huge questionable payments.
Ron Paul’s campaign hit the wall and died when his “ghostwriter” problem came up, followed by the unanswered questions about where his campaign money went. Why no nationwide TV campaign of any kind on $36,ooo,ooo. Where did the money go?
His campaign was dead by the middle of January, before the voting really got going.
The liberty movement has never been able to get itself restarted after the Crane machine pulled out of the LP. These were honest, principled, effective leaders who could have built a viable movement. They actually donated their own money and time. They were givers instead of takers. Pragmatic radicals for Liberty.
Of course, they were also big babies. After suffering a close defeat for the Presidential nomination in New York in 1983, they pulled out never to return. You can still hear the sucking vacuum they left behind.
They should have stuck it out and come back to pick up the pieces and rebuild the party after Bergland bombed. But they left the LP in the hands of overpaid bumblers who sucked the National Party of its lifeblood at various times over the next 20 years.
Now we have the Barr/Root campaign. They have made a lot of mistakes. Totally incompetent management of ballot drives. Failure to bring in and woo the losing factions from the Presidential nomination struggle. Failure to articulate a clear and clean Libertarian message. LP members could accept a soft, gentle message to bring in new people, as long as it is Libertarian in principle (even if watered down). But the Barr message has been a mix of Libertarian and Conservative ideas, a bit off-putting. But it’s still in the Libertarian Quadrant on the Nolan chart. And we can use this campaign to move the LP and true Libertarianism forward.
Unfortunately, we have a lot of people in the losers group who are repeating the mistakes of the Crane machine long ago. They are crybabies. Quitting to form or join tiny alternative parties, even the Boston Tea Party formed before the Barr campaign, interference in ballot access, or attacking the Barr campaign or National LP, is not productive.
We all need to hold our noses, support our state and local candidates, and stay in the LP long enough to rebuild after November. We will still be here after November, and McCain or Obama will be in the White House, and we will have plenty to do to fight the evil, fascist state everafter. We will need our Libertarian Party and each other more than ever. We will need to pull together and work for Liberty.
George Phillies should help the LP. He should help get his ballot lines turned over to the LP.
All the other whining posters need to get to work and stop complaining about Barr. We even need to vote for him. Give your money to other campaigns, and help them. Vote for Barr and vote for ballot access. Even donate to the National LP.
Explain to the world while you’re campaigning what real Libertarians stand for, and that we are working for the future. And we do need to build a big tent if we are ever going to restore our liberty. We will never all agree on any issue.
There are a lot of former LP members and big donors waiting to come back to a mature, pragmatic, hard working, and yes PRINCIPLED LP.
But, the crybabies set us back before. And if we can’t grow up, and stop crying when some fellow Libertarians and some fellow candidates disappoint us, and put those episodes behind us, and keep moving forward, suck it in, stand tall, still in the LP and still maintaining our own personal Principles, then the crybabies will derail us again and we will all die, still ruled by the evil fascist-socialists who are our common enemy, only because we let a bunch of big babies prevent us from joining together to Fight and Win.
G.E. – This truly is a Donderian delight, isn’t it?
Great, the only people smiling are clowns who are unable to comprehend that “libertarian republican” is an oxymoron.
I wonder if Root still seriously sees himself as the 2012 nominee.
Damn italic tag. I’ll repeat this to remove the problem. It would be nice if people could edit their comments.
Russ Verney wrote:
Unbelievable! Even if I were consciously trying to think of ways to piss off Libertarians and lose Barr votes, I couldn’t come up with half this stuff.
I’ve repeatedly said I’m still voting for Barr in spite of his stream of blunders, but I’m beginning to question even that. Downgrade me to “likely voting for Barrâ€.
I don’t think that’s true, Galileo.
Baldwin just doesn’t have the same name recognition.
Given his notability and ballot access, I can’t see anyone knocking Barr out of fourth place.
But his actions over the last two days won’t necessarily directly hurt his vote total, but it’ll kill his ability to raise money within the LP and cost him alot of people who will work for his campaign — therefore hurting his vote total.
While it would be satisfying to see him fall to sixth place, it just won’t happen.
I’ve never seen a campaign make so many bad decisions in so short a time.
Balwin will end up getting more votes per state than Barr.
Stupid? No. We all said from DAY ONE that their goal was to destroy the LP.
Mark my words: Barr/Root will endorse McCain/Palin before it’s all over.
Oh, and AnthonyD — Join the Democratic Party with that B.S.
Praising Bush?
Oy.
Barr’s people really don’t know when to stop. I really can’t believe any campaign could be so stupid.
George Bush helped plan the 9/11 attacks, that’s leadership. His role has been exposed, but he has yet to face justice.
AnthonyD,
I’v got news—Barr is a Republican and a theocratic fascist.
Baldwin never tried to ban a religion, Barr did.
I forgot my Trademark logo behind rediculous.
If you are prepared to support a Republican or a theocratic fascist, then you were never a Libertarian to begin with. Good riddance, my only hope is that you take the rest of the malecontents with you, so LP’ers do not have to waste so much time telling you to take a shower and dress like a normal person before you go out in public.
Barr is doing ALOT to help Baldwin.
This is seriously rediculous, they want to put the integrity of Paul up against the integrity of Bob “voted for the Patriot Act, Drug War, and War in Iraq” Barr.?
Bob Barr continues to unify the LP. Behind Paul and Baldwin.
This truly is a Donderian delight, isn’t it?
BARR MUST BE REMOVED.
They really don’t know when to stop.