Libertarian Candidate Bob Barr Hopes To Eat Into Republican Vote

• November 4, 2008

Because apparently an Obama victory is a libertarian victory.

ATLANTA — Bob Barr’s longshot presidential bid is in some ways as much about sending a signal to the Republicans, his former party, as it is about earning a respectable showing Tuesday for his Libertarian Party.
The former Republican congressman has focused on places where he can hurt the GOP the most, eyeing Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia and Georgia — states where the Democrat-Republican race is tight and where he sees “an opportunity for a real impact.”
“If the Republican Party hasn’t gotten its message already, I don’t think it will,” Barr said. “The message is: Y’all have no vision, no message. And that’s why we’re running this campaign.”

Part of me can almost understand the feeling here. Maybe the Libertarians are thinking that a McCain win would only shore up the status quo in the Republican Party, and that if we get four years of Obama maybe the GOP will be forced back to its fiscally conservative roots.
That could be. But I think there are also a lot of members of the Libertarian Party out there are actually rooting for Obama. Which is just baffling. What part of Obama’s platform (what parts he’s actually been specific about) is about limiting the role of government in the lives of the individual? Something that libertarianism is supposed to be all about?
I think the GOP absolutely needs to bring the libertarians back into the fold, and doing that means getting back to advancing a fiscally conservative agenda, so I can understand not supporting McCain. But any libertarian supporting Obama isn’t really an libertarian.

Tags: Politics

http://Array robert108

Liberaltarians.
http://truthisrevolutionary.blogspot.com/ James Kuhn

olorin: Right on.

Rob: Your comment about Paul supporters voting Obama in droves probably isn’t happening. Ron Paul endorsed Chuck Baldwin, the conservative/libertarian Constitution Party presidential candidate. Ron Paul acolytes are more likely to vote for the candidate he endorsed.

Concerning the comments: Rob, like you, I had libertarian sympathies. I have been a Republican ever since I was 18, 9 years ago. As of last week, I now consider myself a libertarian, but it didn’t require any change in my conservative attitudes. In a pure sense, conservatives are libertarians with the exception of some social issues (notably, abortion). Real libertarians (not the extremist Libertarians which are liberals in disguise) do not want an Obama presidency.

I’m not sure if I’m going to actually switch parties, or stay in the G.O.P. so I can vote for libertarian-minded conservatives in the primaries. But I finally realized that with the exception of Reagan, every Republican president in the last 50 years has done next to nothing to stop the advancement of socialism in this country. I’m tired of it. The Libertarian Party, The Constitution Party, hell, Ralph Nader is more serious about stopping socialism than the G.O.P.
http://olorinpc.com/ olorinpc

I would hardly agree with the case that Libertarians are liberals, or that if there wasn’t a Libertarian candidate that Obama would be the next pick.

Like the two main parties, not everyone is a “motley collection of liberal college students who want to smoke pot and clueless baffoons who are angry at “the establishment”.”

I would say that Barr is more going on a reform or admit you are no longer the “conservative” party to the GOP. McCain with his Obama light policies just helps enforce that point for Barr.
killerbee

Thanks BOB! We Republicans are really gonna miss those UFO Society members you’ve been working in those battle ground states.
http://ndgoon.blogspot.com/ goon

He is such a non starter, I didn’t like him when he was a Republican. Christ.
http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/entry/some_hints/ AKAJOEL

Fuck Obama and his black racist thugs- Just now on the news;Two black panther party members were intimidating & blocking voters outside a voting center in Philadelphia.
This is war mother-fuckers!!!!
jvftz

For pro-abortion “libertarians,” as for pro-abortion lefties, abortion seems to take over and become the only issue. Once a person supports abortion, his intellect rapidly rots, until it appears to him as the only “right” or “freedom” that matters, and he becomes indifferent to the loss of actual rights.

At this point, the fact that Obama promises to promote killing babies means that it doesn’t matter that Obama also promises to bankrupt all coal power plants and cause electric rates to “skyrocket.” The fact that he promises to promote the killing of babies means it just doesn’t matter that he also promises to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, and add more taxes on top of that. Killing babies is such an all-important “right” that, as long as people can kill their babies, it doesn’t matter if they have no property, no 401(k), no free speech–the right to kill babies makes up for the loss of ALL OTHER FREEDOMS.

This is what happens to people who allow their intellect to corrupt, by embracing murder as a “good.”
http://insanereindeer.blogspot.com/ Kenny

But any libertarian supporting Obama isn’t really an libertarian.

The libertarian party is a motley collection of liberal college students who want to smoke pot and clueless baffoons who are angry at “the establishment”. Regardless of my libertarian leanings…it’s not much of a party.

Any Republican supporting neocons aren’t real conservatives. After 3 consecutive Republican presidents who do nothing but hand our taxpayer over to the private sector, pile up record deficits, and pursue a foreign policy steeped in liberalism are you really confused why Libertarians aren’t happy?

Ignoring that the Republican presidents weren’t consecutive….
What the hell kinda libertarian would argue that “they put the taxpayer in the private sector? That’s what EVERY libertarian in the world wants. Deficits are just a fact of life. And are hardly a Republican problem, as anyone who’s paid attention for (oh, maybe) the past two years has noticed.

Go ahead and check out Libertarian literature from the past couple years and leading up to the election. Very few of us support Obama’s social policies but the vast majority will vote for him or a third party candidate simply because we’re sick of Republican corruption and the propagandized sheep that prop it up. In a pathetic turn of events, Democrat foreign and fiscal policy have been much more conservative than the Republicans.

Yea, hardly. You’re just a liberal trying to pass yourself off as a libertarian. Or a liberalatarian.

Bigger spending is a conservative ideal? Giving us over to the UN is a conservative ideal? Please.
The Decider

But any libertarian supporting Obama isn’t really an libertarian.

Any Republican supporting neocons aren’t real conservatives. After 3 consecutive Republican presidents who do nothing but hand our taxpayer over to the private sector, pile up record deficits, and pursue a foreign policy steeped in liberalism are you really confused why Libertarians aren’t happy?

Go ahead and check out Libertarian literature from the past couple years and leading up to the election. Very few of us support Obama’s social policies but the vast majority will vote for him or a third party candidate simply because we’re sick of Republican corruption and the propagandized sheep that prop it up. In a pathetic turn of events, Democrat foreign and fiscal policy have been much more conservative than the Republicans.
di butler

I have no problem with a lot of the libertarian ideals, but unfortunately there are too many kooks that are members. I actually saw a video of Nader talking to a head of cabbage. That doesn’t help with his cred.
http://insanereindeer.blogspot.com/ Kenny

I would hardly agree with the case that Libertarians are liberals, or that if there wasn’t a Libertarian candidate that Obama would be the next pick.
Like the two main parties, not everyone is a “motley collection of liberal college students who want to smoke pot and clueless baffoons who are angry at “the establishment”.”

You’ve certainly not been to meetings of the party. I have. I’ve sat down with the libertarians running for the state and federal offices to pick their brains. Because, except for abortion, I’m a libertarian. But there’s never anything there.

The two biggest issues for the party are abortion and pot. They’re not in favor of legalizing pot because of the costs of criminalizing it, the people in jail over it, or even on a principled basis of smaller government, but because they want to smoke it. At townhall debates between candidates, you can always pick out the libertarian, he’s the dude in jeans and a t-shirt while everyone else (including the socialist) is in suits or dresses. While there are certainly intelligent libertarians (Larry Elder, John Stossel and Neal Boortz come to mind) the party is a waste. And half the time you can’t tell a libertarian candidate from the socialist candidate.
http://truthisrevolutionary.blogspot.com/ James Kuhn

Kenny: I’ve never sat down at a Libertarian meeting, but all the research I’ve done so far suggests that many support legalization of pot for the right reasons: government has no business regulating it.

I, for one, support the legalization of marijuana for reasons of principle; I have never even touched the stuff, much less smoked it.
docdave

jv, I think you are right, that the Libertarians would vote for Obama if they didn’t have a candidate so maybe no loss there for the Republicans.
Jerry

I know what I’d have Bob Barr eat. And, it ain’t Republican votes.
David

Rush
If you want to listen to RUSH online
http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/realitybasedbob/ realitybasedbob

Says you, a dishonest partisan hack.

Rob on July 30, 2006 at 6:58 PM
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

Any Republican supporting neocons aren’t real conservatives. After 3 consecutive Republican presidents who do nothing but hand our taxpayer over to the private sector, pile up record deficits, and pursue a foreign policy steeped in liberalism are you really confused why Libertarians aren’t happy?

What’s a neocon? I think you’d need to define that term means before you go throwing it around.

This conservative thought Bush was a mixed bag. He was right on Iraq, and the federal deficits actually shrank under Bush. If spending growth hadn’t outpaced revenue growth we might have actually seen surpluses.

But the problem I have with Libertarians is how few of them seem to actually understand the proper role of government. A lot of big-L libertarians (members of the Libertarian party as opposed to those who just harbor libertarian sensibilities like me) are about as mature as liberals in their world view.

They feel things, they don’t think things, which is why so many are fine with an Obama presidency.

In fact, I’d be willing to bet that most of Ron Paul’s hordes are voting for Obama today. Because they weren’t ever really about limited government. They’re just disaffected losers looking to be contrarian.

The funny thing is that they think they’re being anti-establishment as they vote for the candidate supported by their establishment hippie parents.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

Case in point from my comment above:

Very few of us support Obama’s social policies but the vast majority will vote for him or a third party candidate simply because we’re sick of Republican corruption and the propagandized sheep that prop it up.

You’re voting Obama because you’re an immature, unprincipled jerk who doesn’t actually grasp the libertarian/conservative few of the proper role of government.

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Libertarian Candidate Bob Barr Hopes To Eat Into Republican Vote

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