Bob Barr The Libertarian Nominee For President
After six ballots, the 650+ Libertarian delegates selected former Republican and former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr (GA) as their presidential nominee. There were seven candidates; among them, former Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel (AK).
Pragmatically, perhaps, delegates picked millionaire television host, author and CEO, Wayne Allyn Root for the vice presidential slot. Since 2000, Root has hosted Winning Edge, a website and cable television show that promotes "sports betting, gambling, handicapping, live lines and odds."
Brief Bio
Born in Iowa, Barr spent his high school years in Iran (he graduated from Community High School, Tehran, Iran, in 1966). From 1970-1978, he worked for the CIA and was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, 1986-1990 (spanning the Reagan-BushI terms of office).
Barr represented Georgia's 7th congressional district (northeast of Atlanta) from 1995 to 2003. Writing in the Athens Banner-Herald in 2002, Georgia political analyst Bill Shipp described Barr as "the idol of the gun-toting, abortion-fighting, IRS-hating hard right wing of American politics." (tip) Barr lost that 2002 (fifth term) re-election bid to John Linder, "a former lieutenant to ex-Speaker Newt Gingrich." Today he runs Liberty Strategies, a lobbying firm headquartered in Atlanta.
Barr gained national attention as one of the leaders of the Clinton impeachment; on 5 November 1997, he introduced H.Res. 304, "Directing the Committee on the Judiciary to undertake an inquiry into whether grounds exist to impeach William Jefferson Clinton, the President of the United States" (pdf). Like another prominent Republican from Georgia, Barr has had multiple marriages and has not walked the Republican party's "conservative family values" talk, something uncovered when Hustler magazine Publisher Larry investigated Republican hypocrisy. From American Journalism Review (1999):
Barr was one of 13 House Republicans chosen to act as prosecutors in Clinton's Senate trial. Barr, Flynt's investigators found, was guilty of king-size hypocrisy: An outspoken foe of abortion, the Georgia lawmaker had acquiesced to his then-wife having an abortion in 1983. And he had invoked a legal privilege during his 1985 divorce proceeding so he could refuse to answer questions on whether he'd cheated on his second wife with the woman who is now his third.
Barr, in Flynt's mind, was guilty of far more heinous moral crimes than Clinton. "Bob Barr stood on the House floor and said abortion was the equivalent to murder,'' Flynt told the assembled press. "To me, that represents the ultimate form of hypocrisy, and in many ways it's worse than failing to tell the truth under oath.''
But that was 10 years ago, and Americans have short memories.
While in Congress, Barr voted for the U.S. Patriot Act but now opposes it; in 2005 he formed Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances in an effort to have the Act amended during its reauthorization process.
The Libertarian Party is America's third largest political party, founded in 1971. Go to Barr's campaign website. Tom Head outlines Barr's positions on key civil liberties issues.