This Time Bomb is Poli-Ticking!

State chair of Illinois Libertarian Party sheds light on “Big ‘L’” support for Bob Barr

I have had some very interesting communication with a newly introduced friend of mine over the past several weeks. That person is Valiant “Val” Vetter, state chair of the Libertarian Party of Illinois. What I find very interesting and reassuring is that with all this talk about the New Hampshire Libertarians threatening to leave George Phillies on the ballot and the Arkansas Libertarian Party chairman threatening to put Daniel Imperato on the ballot, we do have a strong partisan spirit going on in Illinois.

Prior to the Libertarian National Convention in Denver Val told me that he wasn’t sure about what to make of Bob Barr and it seemed that he had a favorable opinion of Barr’s challenger, Mary Ruwart. When I asked him how he greeted the last minute decision of Bob Barr to join the race for president he gave me what I believed to be a very thoughtful, honest reply:

“As with many news bits I hear, I greeted Bob Barr’s announcement that he was throwing his hat in the ring for the LP’s nomination with mixed feelings. First off, I don’t know that much about him, but I do think I’ve heard that some Libertarians have questions about his positions – which isn’t unusual at all. I am concerned that folks like Bob Barr and Mike Gravel will get a fair number of followers at the convention because they have ‘experience’ in politics that our home-grown candidates don’t have. I think they feel this is an advantage and I don’t agree. Look at Ron Paul. He has tremendous experience, is a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian, and even ran for a “major” party – and he STILL couldn’t get the respect he deserved. No, a ‘name’ running as a Libertarian in November will not likely be a factor – UNLESS we can get somebody like Clint Eastwood to run. I do worry that Johnny-come-latelys (to the LP) like Gravel and Barr WILL steal the nomination opportunity from long-time LPers like Mary Ruwart who really DESERVE our nomination because of their long-term support and work for our party. Unfortunately, if Barr or Gravel gets the nod, then get shunned by the press during the race and get less than 1% of the vote in November, they’ll abandon ship, and the LP members will be demoralized (again) and we’ll lose even more members and support.”

But since the Libertarian Party made their decision and have nominated Bob Barr, Val Vetter is fully on board. When I asked him whether he would be working on the Bob Barr campaign and voting for Barr his answer was a hearty “Hell yes!”

Val and other Libertarians have spend six months doing their best to insure that the LP candidate has ballot status in Illinois but that is not the only reason that Val Vetter and other LPers will vote Barr this fall. Val explains it best in his own words…

“Whether people like Barr or not, my default position would have to be that the very ‘best’ candidate that the Democrats or Republicans can field would be an inferior choice to the ANY candidate the LP can put on the ballot.

“Is Barr a ‘perfect’ Libertarian? (Does that even exist?) Probably not, but as Ron Paul’s campaign showed us, unless a major party candidate fully buys into the party plan, maintaining the status quo, and answer to his or her handlers, they will NOT receive the support and money of their party. So we know that Obama or McCain will do just as they’re told. Should someone like Barr (or Gravel) get elected as a Libertarian and have a partial reversion to their old party’s beliefs, ANY amount of libertarian ideal they brought to the office would be an improvement.”

I personally feel that the combined presence of Bob Barr and Ralph Nader have Barrack Obama now clarifying and emphasizing his Iraq position – and either way this will bite him. Why do I think this? Simple, Obama doesn’t have to differentiate himself much on this issue in a two way race, but a recent CNN poll showed Nader and Barr eating into the overall vote, approaching 100% of those polled. I personally believe that this is the reason why Obama is stressing his Iraq policy at this point – to differentiate himself from Barr and Nader who are actually serious about getting out of Iraq.

Often, Libertarian candidates influence politics even if they don’t gain office simply by causing candidates to stress their points policy that are similar to Libertarian policy or shift their positions totally in order to escape a sizeable chunk of votes heading to the Libertarian Party. Val Vetter agrees:

“Many, possibly all, Libertarians will agree that the Libertarian doesn’t even have to win the election to affect public policy. Once an LP candidate starts threatening to win – even getting 10 or 20% of the vote for a major office, the D’s and R’s will see the light and feel the heat, and start making some concessions to win back those votes.

“The fact is, we don’t care what party banner the guy who wins the election runs under. What we DO care about is that that person “move public policy in a Libertarian direction” – just like it says in our purpose statement. There were very few Libertarians who didn’t like, no – love, Ron Paul. We’d be thrilled to see him in the White House – even as a ‘Republican.’

This is a facet of democracy that our Republicrat brethren don’t seem to understand when they calculate winners and losers. Fair enough. But I think Bob Barr will wake them up to a bit of that reality this year.

I have been seeing lots of mumbo jumbo in the media about Bob Barr hurting John McCain’s chances for election as the United States president.  I would respectfully disagree with the general assertion that Bob Barr’s candidacy overwhelmingly supports Barrack Obama to McCain’s detriment.  For one, I believe that our mainstream media has fallen into the ill logic that equates Bob Barr’s candidacy to Ralph Nader’s independent run in 2000.  Here the media concluded that the Nader run cost Al Gore the presidency.

Simply put, to believe this conclusion is to accept that only Florida’s vote
mattered in deciding the year 2000 presidential election.

Concerning the matter that Bob Barr will cause John McCain more pain than Barrack Obama is to deny the fact that first and foremost Bob Barr is running as a small government Libertarian candidate which neither Barrack Obama nor John McCain are doing.  Libertarian candidates like Bob Barr are for minimizing government influence over our lives and shrinking the governmental apparatus.  If Al Gore was in fact “Naderized” it would have been more due to the fact that Ralph Nader ran on very similar issues to the Democrats.  Ralph Nader simply put an anti-establishment spin on his message and as a result it resonated well with many younger liberal voters.  Bob Barr on the other hand has serious differences with both John McCain and Barrack Obama regarding the war in Iraq, how to deal with Iran, the overblown fiscal budget, border security, the detainees in Guantanamo and many other issues.  Secondly, not only is Ralph Nader also in this race but so is Cynthia McKinney, who is running for the Green Party.  She is not only a former Democratic congresswoman but she is also an African American. Both Nader and McKinney will put a drag on Barrack Obama rather than John McCain.

There are clear distinctions on the Libertarian sides of the major issues facing our country as opposed to both the Republican and Democratic sides.  I would hope that Americans would be much more responsible in looking closely at the candidates rather than simply whining that a third candidate only hurts their candidate’s chances of winning.  When it comes down to it, if there is more merit in John McCain’s positions he won’t have to worry about Barrack Obama nor Bob Barr.

Personally, I think anyone should look at where Bob Barr stands before deciding against him.