Bob Barr Mulling Anti-McCain Presidential Run!

Remember Clinton impeachment activist, wingnut and former Republican House member Bob Barr?  Well,  those who have been paying close attention know that Barr has been anything but a Republican hero over the last few years, mostly because his libertarian tendencies have been at odds with the increasingly hyper-authoritarian nature of the Cheney-led Republican Party.  Mr. Barr has been an opponent of renewing the Patriot Act, opponent of Bush's warrantless wiretapping, and a close ally of the ACLU.

Now, Faux News is reporting that Bob Barr is mulling becoming a conservative Ralph Nader by running for President on the Libertarian ticket--with the explicit intent of giving libertarian conservatives an anti-McCain option during this election cycle:

Former Republican Georgia Rep. Bob Barr is considering a run for president on the Libertarian Party ticket.

Barr told FOX News on Tuesday that he should know in the next few days whether he is going to go for it.

If he does decide to make an announcement in the next few days, Barr said it "would not be in either Washington or Atlanta."

Another source todl [sic] FOX News that the announcement should happen this weekend, probably on April 5. That is the day Barr is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Heartland Libertarian Conference in Kansas City, Mo.

Now, no one should overstate Barr's influence or ignore the "anti-conservative" skeletons in his closet, including acquiescing to his first wife's abortion, his multiple affairs and marriages, and even licking whipped cream off the breasts of two women at a fundraiser.  There is no way he can mount a serious challenge as a Libertarian candidate.

Nonetheless, the near abandonment of Libertarian views and ideals within  the Republican Party in order to appease its authoritarian, proto-fascist, hyper-fundamentalist wing has already proven a thorn in the side of the GOP.  Ron Paul's small but consistent, frenzied support is one indicator; the Republican Party's decline in the more libertarian-leaning Mountain West is another.  Bob Barr's presence as a conservative Libertarian candidate could throw anywhere from 1% to even 4% of Republican voters not willing to cross over for Obama away from McCain--numbers that would surely doom the GOP nominee's already uphill candidacy.

Better yet for progressives, Bob Barr is not Ron Paul.  Ron Paul's longtime, wacky mix of insane views (combined with his opposition to the occupation of Iraq) has led many less informed libertarian-leaning Democrats and progressives to believe that he is neither a Republican nor a conservative at heart; the same cannot be said of Bob Barr, who until recently was a Republican hero.  While one might have worried that a small but significant number of Democrats would cross party lines to vote for Paul, that number would shrink significantly for Barr.  Libertarian-leaning conservatives might be another matter, however--especially those who remember him as the leading opponent of Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal.

And with Ron Paul declining to run as a third-party candidate himself lest he jeopardize his own House seat as a Republican, Congressman Paul is likely to throw his weight and support behind Bob Barr, taking many of his supporters with him:

...Barr will receive the endorsement of Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, a GOP presidential candidate who is still technically in the race but has not suggested he would throw his support to McCain. McCain and Paul, who ran on the Libertarian Party presidential ticket in 1988, also are at odds primarily over the role of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Let's all hope that Barr follows through his plans to run for several reasons:

• It's about time the GOP got its own taste of the Ralph Nader medicine
• It's time the GOP paid the price for ignoring the libertarian wing of its party to the detriment of free speech and civil rights
• It forces John McCain even farther from his already disaffected wingnut base in order to ensure minimal defections.

With an effective and crusading Paul-backed Barr in the race, Obama could well get a landslide victory over McCain, and force an early realignment in the Republican Party.  And that would be good for every American, regardless of political orientation.