In 2000, Ralph Nader took just enough votes from Al Gore in New Hampshire to give the state’s four electoral votes to George Bush, who won the election by three. And in Florida, Nader took 97,488 votes away from Gore. Bush won Florida by only 537 votes. Nader cost Gore the 2000 election.
It is also argued that Ross Perot was the reason George Bush lost his bid for re-election to Bill Clinton. Perot ran as a third party candidate in 1992, and was the most successful third party candidate in history.
In 2008, Bob Barr may be the Nader or Perot for John McCain. But who is he?
Bob Barr is a former Republican turned life member of the Libertarian party. He was a part of the Republican Revolution with Newt Gingrich, representing the 7th District of Georgia in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003.
And he’s probably going to run for president as a Libertarian.
Bob Barr has a serious conservative history. The American Conservative Union gives him a lifetime conservative rating of 98. He was the first to introduce “a resolution directing Judiciary Committee to inquire into impeachment proceedings — months before the Lewinsky scandal came to light. Chief among the concerns Barr cited at the time was apparent obstruction of Justice Department investigations into Clinton campaign fund raising from foreign sources, chiefly China.”
He also wrote and sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act. This law was passed in 1996, and states that only marriages between an man and a woman will be federally recognized, and does not require states to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.
Barr is also a supporter and active member of the National Rifle Association. He also supports the Fair Tax.
But there are some stances he has today that will turn off many conservative voters. Barr spoke out and worked against the legalization of drugs while a Republican. On May 14, 2002, Barr said on the Neil Boortz show:
“This [marijuana] is not medicine. This is bogus witchcraft. It has no place in medicine, no place in pain relief, and it has no place around our children.
Since then he has seriously changed his tune:
“I, over the years, have taken a very strong stand on drug issues, but in light of the tremendous growth of government power since 9/11, it has forced me and other conservatives to go back and take a renewed look at how big and powerful we want the government to be in people’s lives. [There might be] legitimate medical uses of marijuana and we ought not have this knee-jerk reaction against it, and people ought to be allowed to explore.”
| Exploratory Committee Announcement |
Now he lobbies for the Marijuana Policy Project.
He also works for the American Civil Liberties Union. Just mentioning the ACLU will cause many conservative voters to turn away from Barr, without taking the time to learn Barr consults on “informational and data privacy issues.”
A few other positions that will repel conservatives are his stances on illegal immigration and the War on Terrorism. Lonewacko writes:
I have trouble seeing any major difference between Barr’s positions and those of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, George Bush, Teddy Kennedy, and on down the line. In fact, it’s like his campaign was the recipient of a blank cardboard box with just the word “POLICY” stenciled on it.
On the audio, he implies that he supports a form of amnesty where illegal aliens who are caught in the interior, as long as they passed a background check, would get to remain. He doesn’t specify whether that would be as a “guest” worker or whether they’d get on the “path to citizenship”. Asked about this, he says:
“I think as a practical matter, that makes a lot of sense. I’m not sure how you would go about rounding up millions of people and trying to deport them. The key here is security…”
And on the War on Terror, Barr would probably pull out of Iraq:
What we’ve fallen into in recent years — not just since 9/11, but particularly since 9/11 — is this notion that, in order to protect ourselves, we have to preemptively go into and — in the case of Iraq — occupy another sovereign nation,†Barr said. “Simply saying, ‘Gee, it’s better to fight over in this other nation and destroy another nation, so we’re not potentially attacked here, is the height of arrogance.â€
| Bob Barr on WBS-TV |
He shares John McCain’s stance on water boarding.
Bob Barr cannot win the election, and has said as much himself. But he is an attractive candidate to many voters. He is currently polling at 7%, which is roughly the same percentage Ross Perot was polling at before he entered the race. Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Jackson recently dropped out of the campaign and endorsed Barr.
Voters find Barr attractive, in spite of positions that contradict with their beliefs, because of national issues, which George Will recognizes as:
limiting government, defending civil liberties during the war on terror, opposing preventive wars and “nation-building,” and combating the elephantitis of the presidency. He especially opposes the “unitary theory of the presidency,” which he says is: Where the Constitution gives the president power (e.g., national security), no other branch of government has any constitutional authority to limit it.
There was a time when those positions were held within the Republican party. The fact they are not prominent anymore is the reason many people are leaving the Republican party.
Or, as Ronald Reagan said about leaving the Democrat Party, “I didn’t leave the party. The party left me.” There are many voters who feel the same way about today’s Republican party. Those voters could dash John McCain’s presidential hopes onto the same rocks that H.W. Bush, and Al Gore crashed against.
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