DENVER -- Midway through Sunday's first round of balloting for
the Libertarian Party presidential nomination, a worried John
LaBeaume muttered, "It's like Badnarik all over again."
LaBeaume, an LP delegate from the District of Columbia and a
supporter of former Rep. Bob Barr's campaign, was tallying up the
state-by-state presidential votes and remembering his party's 2004
convention in Atlanta.
The 2004 Libertarian convention rejected a media-savvy candidate
-- Hollywood executive Aaron Russo, who led in the first two rounds
of voting -- and delivered a third-ballot win for software engineer
Michael Badnarik.
Badnarik went on to garner just 0.32 percent of the vote in
November, a disappointing result that left many Libertarians
dejected, feeling their party was doomed to obscurity.
On the first ballot this year at the Denver Sheraton, it seemed
to LaBeaume that the LP was headed for deja vu all over again. The
convention would reject the candidate with mainstream appeal in
favor of a relative unknown who could be safely ignored by the
press.
THAT NIGHTMARE SCENARIO was averted when Barr won on the sixth
ballot Sunday. The ex-Republican from Georgia finished with 324
votes to 276 for longtime LP activist Mary Ruwart.
His nomination was secured with the help of rival candidate
Wayne Allyn Root, who endorsed Barr after being eliminated in the
fifth round of balloting. A high-energy Las Vegas oddsmaker, Root
was subsequently nominated for vice president, producing what Barr
called "the strongest ticket in the history of the Libertarian
Party."
Whether that ticket can exceed the LP's past performance -- the
party's presidential nominee has never topped a million votes --
remains to be seen, but Barr says Libertarians have the opportunity
this year to do more than play the "spoiler" role in which many
commentators have cast his campaign.
"We are not in this race just to send a message, although a very
important message will be sent," Barr told delegates in his
acceptance speech Sunday. "This is a campaign that will win."
An outright victory for the LP is a long shot so remote that
even Root probably couldn't calculate the astronomical odds against
it. But the possibility that the party could score its best-ever
November showing is very real, as demonstrated by the strong
showing in the Republican presidential primaries by Texas Rep. Ron
Paul.
PAUL, WHO WAS the LP's presidential nominee in 1988, raised more
than $20 million this year for his anti-war, limited-government
candidacy in the GOP. Barr calls Paul "a very good friend," and
says his former House colleague has been an inspiration to
Libertarians.
"What Ron Paul has done is brought to light the manner in which
libertarian ideas, the libertarian philosophy, are very much a part
of the political fabric of the country," Barr said at a media
breakfast Saturday. "He's moved it from the back of the room to the
front of the room."
Barr sees Paul supporters as a bloc of independent voters who
are unlikely to support either the Republican or Democratic nominee
in November.
"It's very difficult to imagine the circumstance under which
people that had come out and supported Ron Paul, voted for Ron
Paul, would switch their allegiance to Senator Obama or Senator
McCain. Their natural home would be Bob Barr as the Libertarian
candidate," Barr said, speaking of himself in the third person.
BECOMING THE LP candidate was a major challenge for Barr, who only
joined the Libertarians two years ago and didn't officially declare
his presidential candidacy until just ten days before the
convention started.
Barr's status as a latecomer and his conservative record during
four terms in Congress fueled opposition from many hard-core
Libertarians, who rallied around Ruwart and other presidential
hopefuls, including California marijuana activist Steve Kubby,
Massachusetts physicist George Phillies, and Internet entrepreneur
Michael Jingozian.
Those candidates had spent months campaigning for the LP
nomination, as had Root. An ex-Republican -- he quit the party in
2006 after the GOP-controlled Congress passed a law banning online
gambling -- Root has a telegenic presence that had made him an
early favorite of the Libertarian Party's Reform Caucus.
The differences between the Reform Caucus and other Libertarians
are less ideological than strategic, as one Barr supporter
explained during the Denver convention. "I'm not sure if [Barr's
opponents in the LP] appreciate the fact that we actually have a
candidate who can get elected because he's been elected, as opposed
to someone who wants to run just to get attention," said David
Chastain, a delegate from Georgia. "I think that's where we're
really split, is you have people who want to be the Libertarian
Party of education and some of us want to be the Libertarian Party
of making political progress."
The late entry of Barr threatened to divide the votes of
pragmatists who had previously been united behind Root. The LP
presidential contest got another wild card when former Democratic
Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska announced in April that he, too, would
seek the Libertarian nomination.
AS IT PLAYED out in Sunday's voting, Barr barely led on the first
ballot, with 153 votes to Ruwart's 152, with Root trailing at 123
and Gravel at 71. Jingozian was eliminated in the first round and
endorsed Gravel (to the consternation of Ruwart, who'd lent support
to Jingozian to help him qualify for Saturday night's televised
debate).
Barr's one-vote lead on the first ballot caused "a lot of
angst," one of his floor leaders said afterwards. Or, as one of his
Alabama supporters said in the heat of the moment, "Oh, God, it's a
dogfight."
Barr's backers cheered when the second-ballot results were
announced, and he had increased his lead to 16 votes, but he and
Ruwart were tied on the third and fourth ballots.
Kubby, Phillies and Gravel had been eliminated before the fifth
ballot, when Ruwart pulled ahead 229 to 223 over Barr. That lead,
however, was illusory.
Root was eliminated by his third-place finish (165 votes), and
in his concession speech told his supporters, "I would like to be
part of a Barr-Root ticket in 2008."
That some 50 of Root's delegates voted for Ruwart on the sixth
and decisive ballot indicates the depth of internal hostility to
Barr among some LP regulars. Yet the hard-fought win was enough for
Barr, and apparently satisfied LP donors, who contributed a record
$64,000 at the party's presidential banquet Sunday evening -- more
than twice the amount of donations at the 2004 Atlanta
convention.
AT A PRIVATE reception later Sunday night, Barr campaign manager
Russ Verney solicited donations from delegates and the candidate
gave a short speech mentioning $40 million as his fundraising
target.
Verney managed Ross Perot's 1992 and '96 presidential campaigns,
and it remains to be seen whether Barr's campaign can have a
Perot-like impact in 2008. Also unknown is whether Barr can get the
kind of online fundraising and grassroots support that sparked the
Ron Paul campaign.
Just surviving the "dogfight" of the Libertarian convention was
a major victory for Barr supporters like Jennifer Chambrin, a
Georgia delegate who did a little dance on the sidewalk outside the
Sheraton after Sunday's voting was done.
"We won! We won! We won!" Chambrin said in a singsong voice,
then reflected: "Can you imagine after all this, if we had come
this far and lost?"
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