Libertarian Party presidential candidate — and former
American Spectator Contributing Editor — Bob Barr has to
prove this weekend, in Denver, at the LP convention, that his
commitment to liberty is genuine and not new-fangled (in the way
that Alan Keyes’ Illinois citizenship was in the 2004 Senate race
against Barack Obama), and that he can be the messenger for a
message that’s lost in the current political debate.
A perusal of his blog posts during his time with The
Spectator reveals he’s been a consistent gadfly for the Bush
administration’s War on Terror policies. Barr might not give
Libertarians everything they want — kiddie-porn won’t become legal
under a Barr administration — but will work to push the
Republicans back in the direction of protecting individual
liberties.
On this blog, Barr wrote against the indefinite detention of
potential terrorists and attacked the “terrorist surveillance
program” as “NSA spying.” He cheered on “Civil libertarians on the
right and left” in Congress who were, in
December 2005, preparing to filibuster an extension of the
Patriot Act that didn’t include “modest but important amendments”
meant to limit the government’s powers in detaining suspected
terrorists.
Then there was that now-ironic
post about former New York Governor — and then-Attorney
General — Eliot Spitzer, “the poster child for anti-business and
anti-individual liberty tactic[s],” suing H & R Block for
selling low-interest, high-fee retirement accounts. Barr, of
course, framed Spitzer’s actions as an overreach and an attack on
“the Little Guy” in his attempt to achieve prosperity.
When, in April 2006, Congressman Tom DeLay left the House, Barr
declared it “The
End of an Era,” an era in which the Newt Gingrichs and Tom
DeLays and Dick Armeys espoused a principled, limited-government
conservatism that swept in the “Class of 1994.” It was as much a
compliment of old Republican leadership as an attack on new
Republican leaders, whose me-too-ism on spending led to a slaughter
of the GOP in the 2006 elections.
A week later, Barr was challenging President Bush’s weakness on
immigration reform and pandering appeals to the “decency”
of the American people. Barr deciding it was more important to be
right than to be decent. “America is first and foremost a “nation
of LAWS”; at least we used to be,” Barr said. Immigration reform
was one of Barr’s major bugaboos at Reason’s recent
Libertarian debate, with Barr going so far as to say would-be
immigrants need have background checks and disease screens before
gaining entrance to America.
In one of his final posts before joining the Libertarian Party
in December 2006, Barr saluted Governor George Allen as a “class
act” for passing on his right to a re-count in favor of a
smooth transition. Allen’s senatorial campaign in Virginia was
marred by gaffes and a bad election year for Republicans.
One wonders whether Barr will go quietly into the night, as
Allen did, if things don’t go smoothly for him at the Libertarian
Party convention this weekend — or if we’ll see a repeat of the
Reform Party debacle from 2000, when Pat Buchanan’s detractors
stormed out of the Reform Party convention, threatening to start
their own party if the nomination were delivered to the
Paleoconservative.
Buchanan got less than one-half of one per cent in the general
election, and the Reform Party hasn’t been a player since. But with
Dr. Ron Paul earning over one million votes in the Republican
primary, and Barr claiming at the recent
Libertarian debate that “we need to move far beyond that,” and
having just enough name recognition to tug at the voters disgusted
by the choice between a Democrat and cap-and-trade McCain,
Libertarians aren’t going away any time soon.
