The Saturday New York Times has a largely favorable, and fairly long, profile of Libertarian Bob Barr’s presidential campaign on its front page. The piece says talk that Barr is a “spoiler” and “would-be Ralph Nader” does not bother the candidate, “who gleefully recounted what he says a group of Republicans told him at a recent meeting in Washington: Don’t run.” Barr said, “They all said, ‘Look, we understand why you’re doing this. We agree with why you’re doing it. But please don’t do it.'” Barr is “hoping to hitch his wagon to the enormous grass-roots movement” behind Rep. Ron Paul, “and with presidential elections increasingly boiling down to state-by-state battles for Electoral College votes, many political analysts think a Barr candidacy, no matter how marginal, could have some impact. On the ballots in 30 states so far, Mr. Barr has the chance to be a spoiler for Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, in several states, among them Alaska, Colorado and Georgia.” The Barr camp also says their candidate “has similar potential in other mountain states, New Hampshire, Ohio and other swing states.”
However, “even those sympathetic to the party’s beliefs complain that it is prone to infighting, fundamentally more committed to principle than electoral action and seemingly incapable of raising money or organizing supporters. And some of its own members are asking how they ended up with Mr. Barr, who at the Libertarian Party convention in Denver last month squeaked by with the nomination only after six raucous rounds of votes. ‘There certainly are still those,’ Mr. Barr said, switching to the third person, ‘that may view Bob Barr as somewhat of a Johnny-come-lately.'”
Well, the convention is over–and the fact is–Bob Barr IS the Libertarian Party nominee. Let’s accept that and get with building a party that can stand up to the Republicrats in an election. The LP can feel all intellectually smug all it wants. It can look down its nose at the “non-pure” and “not totally libertarian” American voter all it wants. It can nominate all of the George Phillies it wants to–but what good is “being right” when this nation’s direction isn’t being influenced in a libertarian direction? Thunderation, folks! The nation needs our ideals, and polls reveal there are millions out there who would vote libertarian if the party would just present the right face. Do we need to make a few internal changes so we don’t get branded as part of the “kook fringe.”
While I don’t necessarily agree with the statement “it’s pretty obvious that we got sold down the river by certain members of the LNC and the staff at National,†I also consider it disingenuous to deny knowledge of the various manipulations that have brought us to our current situation.
The national office, under Shane Cory’s control, has repeatedly violated the LNC Policy Manual and ignored the LP Platform, and never once received so much as a reprimand from the LNC. Just as one example, let’s not ignore Cory’s email (published at Third Party Watch) where he mercilessly insulted a number of presidential candidates who had just participated in a debate and demanded that the LNC find another candidate.
Let’s not forget the Iraq Exit Strategy that violated the LP platform and was shamelessly promoted by both the staff and LNC.
Let’s not forget the press release from the national office that was clearly intended to discredit Barr’s biggest rival.
After a while, many of us decided that if the national party is not going to follow their own rules, we are wasting our time and money supporting them. It wasn’t exactly subtle.
Some of us even speculated that Stephen Gordon resigned his staff position so he would not be constrained by the LNC Policy Manual and subjected to the rightful criticism of the members while he searched for, and promoted, the presidential candidate of his choice.
Then shortly before the convention, Shane Cory resigned (and received questionably large amounts of money from the LNC for at least a month—maybe more) and went to work for Barr. Rumors abound that he will return to the national office as LP National Director after the campaign. And perhaps Gordon will return as well.
Barr’s nomination was not guaranteed, but it sure looks like somebody was trying to stack the deck. Were we “sold down the river?†There’s some circumstantial evidence that maybe we were.
Steve,
Email Root… [email protected]. Give him the contact information for the station or put the station in contact with him.
The campaign is doing lots of radio. They just aren’t going the media announcements for all of the spots yet. I’d assume that might be coming.
Steven Linnabary wrote:
“And yet, this past Friday on Fred Anderle’s “Open Line†radio show on WOSU-AM, Fred reported that neither Ralph Nader nor Bob Barr would come on his show.”
Barr is obviously doing a lot of media: national TV, radio, and print. Since he doesn’t have time to do all the media available, Root is doing a lot of the smaller radio shows. I wonder if Fred was offered Root but is insisting on having Barr.
BTW, Harry Browne did the same thing — he just didn’t have as many major national media opportunities as Barr so he was able to do more local radio.
LOL I can only laugh one someone refers to themselves in third person. Bob Barr is starting to sound like Bob Dole more and more.
SteveDasbach // Jun 28, 2008 at 8:56 am
OTOH, I have seen plenty of postings from people who opposed Barr commenting favorably on some of his media appearances and press releases.
And yet, this past Friday on Fred Anderle’s “Open Line” radio show on WOSU-AM, Fred reported that neither Ralph Nader nor Bob Barr would come on his show.
I thought this was strange, a drastic departure from Harry Browne’s campaign strategy. Browne was on Fred’s show during both his campaigns.
Freds shows are supposed to be archived, but I couldn’t find the link. If you can find the link, the comments are at approx the 35 minute mark with a guest that was talking about general campaign issues (I forget his name).
PEACE
Steve
On the article, to put us back on topic. I think it was poorly researched. Many of the things he said he is planning to do, he’s done.
Quoth Steve Dasbach:
I have to agree with Mr. Dasbach, and then some.
To the extent that LNC/staff involvement played a role, the allegations concerning it almost certainly COST Barr more votes than it won him, and Barr was far from the only candidate who arguably had support from LNC members and/or staffers.
All of the presidential candidates had relatively unfettered access to the delegate population. Some of them rented booths in the vendor area, others just waded into the crowd. None of them were prevented from making their arguments and seeking support. Neither were the delegates themselves prevented from advocacy (I recall reading at least one, possibly two, articles by Mr. Torrey that were distributed in the convention hall).
There were at least three presidential candidate debates. At least two of those debates were open to ALL the candidates, and almost all of the candidates made it over the objective support hurdle to participate in the third (with many of them helping each other get over that hurdle, and several trying to help Christine Smith over it as well, after she had helped them at the expense of her own aspirations).
The convention was not “packed.” There were credible rumors that an attempt would be made to fill empty delegate slots with buses full of Barr supporters, but it didn’t happen — and if it had happened, the attempt would probably have failed in almost every state.
So far as I could tell, the delegate votes were honestly tabulated. I watched my state delegation chair count our delegation’s votes, and the national secretary’s count on the screen always matched that count. Presumably other delegates similarly monitored their own state results.
There was no coronation. The presidential nomination voting went six ballots, with Barr in second place until the end. Even with Barr’s endorsement, it took Root two ballots to win the VP nomination and he did so by less than 2% over the majority requirement.
Barr and Root won their nominations fair and square. One need not like, or even support, that outcome to acknowledge that it was honestly arrived at.
George Phillies never had a chance for the LP nomination.
He made many enemies in the LP due to his attacks on those associated with the Browne campaign. While I agree with many of the criticisms behind those attacks, I don’t think a point man in those criticisms is a good leader for the LP.
His economic program for his Presidential campaign was too moderate even for me. And
I am pretty moderate on the economic issues.
While his social liberal positions are reasonable (and I generally agree with them,) his over-the-top rhetoric on those matters is unappealing.
It makes him sound crazy, when he is promoting mainstream positions.
The key strategic goal for the LP during this cycle is to gather in as many of those attracted by the Ron Paul effort as possible. Phillies has a long record of attacking Ron Paul. And ran this campaign as the anti-Ron Paul.
At this time, he was an especially poor choice.
And, his poor showing at the convention reflects that reality.
And Torrey just can’t get over the fact that this hopeless campaign generated no support.
Art Torrey wrote:
“However I don’t particularly wonder how we ended up getting stuck w/ Barr – I figure it’s pretty obvious that we got sold down the river by certain members of the LNC and the staff at National …”
How exactly did the LNC and staff accomplish this miraculous feat? I was at the convention, and it seemed to me that the delegates considered the pluses and minuses of every candidate and each made his/her own choice.
I was present at many of the Barr campaign planning meetings at the convention. I don’t recall seeing any LNC members, nor anyone then on staff.
Three former staff members were involved (Steve Gordon, Shane Cory, and myself), but I left the staff in 2002 and Gordon left well before Barr considered running.
There was far more involvement by current and former LNC members in the campaigns of Mary Ruwart and Wayne Root (not that there is anything wrong with such involvement).
Barr announced his exploratory committee and candidacy so close to the convention that there was no opportunity for the staff to promote him in LP News. I can’t think of anything else the staff could have possibly done to help Barr win the nomination.
I have yet to hear someone who voted for Barr at the convention complain of being “sold down the river” or anything similar. OTOH, I have seen plenty of postings from people who opposed Barr commenting favorably on some of his media appearances and press releases.
The negative comments have come from people like you who have been opposed to Barr from the beginning.
The delegates weren’t “sold down the river by certain members of the LNC and the staff at National…” They made a choice — one that you disagree with.
Well, can’t say that I’d argue with the last part… However I don’t particularly wonder how we ended up getting stuck w/ Barr – I figure it’s pretty obvious that we got sold down the river by certain members of the LNC and the staff at National (many of whom are now collecting their payoffs in Barr campaign jobs…)
I also don’t view Barr as a “Johnny-come-lately.” He’s more of a carpet bagging slime with no semblance of being a Libertarian…
I’m not worried about it (especially not in this state) but I couldn’t see myself casting an electoral vote for Barr, even if he does manage to replace Phillies on the Mass. ballot.
Things like the Immigration bigotry letter certainly don’t help his crawling (You have to reach a certain height to have “standing”) in my mind.
ART
LPMA Operations Facilitator
Elected Libertarian
LPMA Presidential Elector, not voting for Barr