Bob Barr Throws Down Gauntlet to Ron Paul

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


bob-barr.jpg Former Republican Congressman Bob Barr is declaring his bid for the Libertarian Party’s nomination for president today. Barr, who is perhaps most well-known for his high-profile role in the Clinton impeachment proceedings, left the Republican Party in 2006 and says that his run for the presidency will provide voters with a “genuinely conservative” alternative to John McCain. A recent Zogby poll had Barr taking three percent of the vote in a general election match-up between Obama and McCain. As you might expect, Republicans are trying to convince Barr not to run.

This creates an interesting drama on the libertarian right. While Ron Paul is the country’s preeminent libertarian, he has repeatedly declined to run for president as anything other than a Republican. But he has refused to endorse John McCain (and even gone so far as to praise Barack Obama’s approach to foreign policy), leaving the door open for a run as a third-party candidate.

So here are the key questions. Will Ron Paul run as a candidate in the Libertarian Party? (I know it’s unlikely, but he did run for president as the Libertarian Party’s nominee in 1988 while maintaining his Republican affiliation.) If he doesn’t run, will he endorse Bob Barr and cede his status as America’s big dog libertarian? After John McCain secures the Republican nomination in early September and Ron Paul drops out, will his supporters shift their support to Barr, Obama, or no one? We considered this question before here; what say you?

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate