2008 U.S. Presidential Election

Libertarians, Bob Barr, Ron Paul, and the “Revolution”

Posted by John Publius Jr. on July 10th, 2008 — in Bob Barr, Libertarian Party, 3rd Party Politics, John McCain, Blog

Will 2008 be the year for an insurgency of Libertarian politics? This could be the achilles heel of the John McCain campaign. The Republican coalition is breaking apart at least to some extent. The tremendous political success of Ronald Reagan is a distant memory. Reagan united all conservatives and Republicans while winning over much of the center and even some Democrats. George W. Bush successfully brought together enough of this coalition to win in 2000 and 2004, but the many problems of the Bush administration have alienated voters across the political spectrum.

Some conservatives even view Bush as a “liberal”. An interesting and popular sentiment is expressed as: “I didn’t leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me.” Many conservatives are angry at the exploding federal budget, budget deficits, and federal debt. The new Department of Homeland Security especially represents expansive government contradictory to the conservative bedrock principle of smaller government. Additionally, some conservatives are unhappy with the Iraq War. Some viewed the invasion of Iraq as bad policy from the beginning, while others are more critical of the handling of the war.

Ron Paul ran a provocative and exciting campaign in his bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Without winning a single state and accumulating only 35 delegates (out of 2,380), Texas Congressman Paul nevertheless galvanized a highly enthusiastic following and won over 1.16 million votes (see this page from CNN for a good summary of Ron Paul’s performance in the primaries). Ron Paul was especially popular among younger conservatives critical of the Iraq War and angry that the Bush administration continued to expand the size of the federal government. While technically a Republican, Ron Paul advocates Libertarian Party principles: limited government, low taxes, and modest foreign policy.

Coincidentally, once Ron Paul’s campaign effectively ended, former Republican U.S. House Representative from Georgia, Bob Barr emerged as the Libertarian Party candidate for President in 2008. Some of the energy and excitement for Ron Paul’s candidacy has transferred to the Barr campaign. A small but dedicated constituency for Libertarian politics hopes to shake up the U.S. political landscape in 2008. The most recent Zogby Poll released on July 10th shows Bob Barr at 6% nationally (with Obama leading McCain 44% to 38%, a 6% margin). Review the Zogby electoral map to see that Bob Barr has significant support in several swing states.

Unlike the other unsuccessful Republican candidates for president this year, Ron Paul has NOT endorsed John McCain. Many supporters of Ron Paul and Bob Barr hoped that Ron Paul would be Bob Barr’s running mate, but this did not happen. Wayne Allen Root is the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential candidate in 2008. The selection of Root has not been well publicized. I never heard of him or even knew if Bob Barr had selected his running mate until I did some research to write this paragraph. I cannot even find information about Root on Bob Barr’s official campaign website. Libertarians, if you want more success, you must do better than this!

Ron Paul has yet to endorse either John McCain or Bob Barr. According to this article in the Atlantic Journal Consitution:

Paul has criticized McCain, and while Paul has not endorsed Barr, he recently praised his former House colleague.

Barr, Paul told CNN, “talks our language, so I do really believe that he can have a very positive effect in this campaign and let the people know that limited government is a very, very important message.” 

Some Ron Paul supporters are still undecided about how to cast their vote in November. An official endorsement from Ron Paul likely would help Bob Barr’s campaign tremendously.

If the Libertarian Party can make a splash in 2008, that would represent a minor “revolution”, to use the terminology of the Ron Paul campaign (and the title of Paul’s new book, Revolution: a Manifesto). Bob Barr’s campaign has the potential to break off a sizeable portion of the traditional Republican vote. It could signal the beginning of a real third party in American politics: a party strong enough to influence elections for the foreseeable future and end the stranglehold of the U.S. two party system.

Please see our previous articles in the Topic of 3rd Party politics and vote in our opinion polls on 3rd Parties.

Update, July 13, 2008: After I first posted this article, the website for Bob Barr’s campaign added a new link on their home page, “Meet Wayne Allyn Root“.  Also, Time magazine published this article: “Libertarians: A (Not So) Lunatic Fringe“.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 10:21 pm and is filed under Bob Barr, Libertarian Party, 3rd Party Politics, John McCain, Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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