Barr Calls for Debates with McCain, Obama: Include Libertarian Party, Nominee Demands
From the Barr 2008 campaign:
John McCain has proposed ten weekly town hall forums before the Democratic and Republican conventions convene. Barack Obama says he looks forward to several debates during the campaign. “The apparent willingness of both presidential contenders to break the mold and engage in an extended dialogue with the American people is a welcome change from the past,” observes Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party candidate for president.
The principal problem in past presidential campaigns, however, was too few voices, not too few debates. Despite all of the shouting and campaign hoopla, “on most major issues the differences between the Republican and Democratic candidates pale compared to their similarities,” says Barr. Both favor a huge Leviathan state centered in Washington, prepared to regulate most every aspect of life across America and to intervene in most every foreign squabble overseas. “It is time for the American people to see a clash of ideas as well as of candidates,” Barr insists.
Rock-the-Debates has called for “free, open and inclusive debates” that include all candidates with a mathematical chance of being elected. Barr says he would be pleased to begin at New York’s Federal Hall next week, as Sen. McCain suggested, or at a later time, if preferred by Sen. Obama. “The critical issue is not place or format, but a willingness to engage in a rich, wide-ranging, and informative discussion that includes the American people.”
Our nation faces critical challenges in the years ahead. We can no longer accept “the tyranny of the status quo,” says Barr. The American people deserve to know that they have a real choice come November. “Let the debates begin!”
Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003, where he served as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, as Vice-Chairman of the Government Reform Committee, and as a member of the Committee on Financial Services. Prior to his congressional career, Barr was appointed by President Reagan to serve as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and also served as an official with the CIA.
Since leaving Congress, Barr has been practicing law and has teamed up with groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the American Conservative Union to actively advocate every American citizens’ right to privacy and other civil liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Along with this, Bob is committed to helping elect leaders who will strive for smaller government, lower taxes and abundant individual freedom.
June 5th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Nice gauntlet, Sir. Hopefully, they will pick it up.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
He should just show up whether they invite him or not.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Resisting my urge to look out the window to see if pigs are flying about willy-nilly, I have to say disinter, on this singular point, may be correct.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Considering you actually think that Barf CAN win, I would guess you are seeing a lot of flying pigs.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Considering you actually think that Barf CAN win, I would guess you are seeing a lot of flying pigs.
Nope. I just have a better grasp of electoral math that you do- and I’m not filled with a Hillary Clinton’s bitter streak, like you are.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Yea ok. Get with me after November and we will so who has the better grasp.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
so = see
June 5th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Yea ok. Get with me after November and we will so who has the better grasp.
I think that he CAN win- not that he will win. But he does have a chance- one that his campaign seems to be moving forward with.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I do believe that is what every campaign says. No matter how delusional, and fraudulent, the claim.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
ofcourse Barr can win, anything can happen, it doesn’t mean he will but he has a shot. If I was to tell you 4 years ago that a Black Man named Barack Hussein Obama would be the Democratic nominee and probably next President you would have said when pigs are flying about willy-nilly
June 5th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
This is true.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
just imagine… bombshell scandals hit Obama AND McCain ! Suddenly: Barr is the front-runner!
... there goes another flying pig… wheeee!!
June 5th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
England has six (6) Political Parties on the ballot. I don’t see why the USA can’t do the same. It makes very good action in their House of Commons, which will be are House of Representives.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
If we can generate enough press about Barr’s candidacy, inclusion in the debates is not impossible. Unfortunately, that means we may have have to put disinter (exhume?) where he belongs: buried in the litter box.
Let’s start with fundraising.
Did we all moneybomb ourselves into debt with RP08, or can we pull it off twice in the same cycle?
June 5th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
GB, I thought I was the “resident” expert on all things UK, but thank you for your comments all the same. I too, for once, agree with Disinter’s remarks. Bravo! What good fun it would be to crash the party!
June 5th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
If Barr is included, and doesn’t fight for the rights of McKinney, Nader and Baldwin to be included as well, then he is just a hypocrite who wants a three party state instead of a two party state.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Barr in the debates. It will never happen.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
It’s not Barr’s responsibility to take up the torch for any other candidate. If they want in the debates, then they will have to fight for it just like Barr. There is no mandate candidates be included in debates. There are standards they have to meet to become newsworthy enough to carry.
I think Barr has met that criteria more so than any other LP candidate has (or would have), and the same goes for Baldwin and McKinney.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
“Barr in the debates. It will never happen.”
Never say never. But Barr will have to translate all the media he’s been getting lately into poll numbers and money raised before he gets any chance at being in any debate.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
I want to see Bob Barr in the presidential debates.
June 5th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
If you want to see Barr in the debates, let’s talk. I just created a (*UGH*) MySpace page which is still in it’s infancy. Message me there.
myspace.com/genetrosper
June 5th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
John McCain and Barak Obama do not have enough confidence in their ideas or policies to debate Bob Barr.
June 5th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
if you want to see Barr in the debates you gotta work for it. It means spreading the word, donating money, asking for donations, writing emails, writing editorials, emailing shows on TV, walking the streets, talking to neighbors, anyhting and everything to get America acquainted with Bob Barr to get the poll numbers where they need to be to qualify for the debates. It’s called grassroots grassroots, This web site comment section should be used in a constructive manner whereby we discuss the best ways to do this, it’s called organization, it’s called a meetup discussion, call it a conference call or whatever you want but it’s not being done here. Now I know there is always 1 or 2 that will try to disrupt this organization mainly Disinter and aso called British citizen called Kenny but you can’t let people get you down with negativity. They ae not the only morons in this world, if you learn to ignore them, they will eventually get tirted and go bother someone else or in the best case scenario they join.
Now let’s get out there and let Freedom grow ! any ideas?
June 5th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Digg at:
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Barr_Calls_for_Debates_with_McCain_and_Obama
June 5th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Barr is an idiot and the libertarian party is a sad joke. BUT….they could take lots of votes from McCain and get Obama in the White House.
June 5th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
The idea of Bob Barr “crashing” the debates (if necessary) is appealing, but hasn’t it been tried before? Didn’t Michael Badnarik show up to the 2004 debates and attempt to serve a court summons on the organizers? He was promptly arrested.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
The two liberals would never debate Bob Barr.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Nader and Barr should file a lawsuit now to let them debate
June 5th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
How much you want to bet Mike Gravel tries to work his way in there?
June 5th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
$ 224,000 and counting…............. only 150 days left come on guys let’s open up those wallets
June 5th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Action is needed we must support Barr, this is a critical time
June 5th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Yes. In 2004 Michael Badnarik and David Cobb, unable to get invited to a debate, told the police, “We are the Libertarian and Green Party presidential nominees and we’re here to debate,” then just barged through the police line. They were both arrested and they spent the entire night in the slammer.
June 5th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Any candidate who has a mathematical chance to win should be included in any debate. That means being qualified to appear on the ballot in enough states to receive more than 269 EC votes.
If things were as most believe, (no controlled media, and no controlled B.O. and McSame) why wouldn’t B.O. debate Barr and/or Baldwin and ENSURE his victory ? Reagan did it with Anderson, who pulled liberal support from some Kennedy primary voters.
Or, this is even better, why doesn’t McSame debate McKinney and Nader ? ENSURING his victory. No ! It’s a rigged game people !
The most powerful people in the world met today in a hotel in VA ! To decide YOUR future fate ! What? Yes, they will decide how HIGH gas goes, how many will starve from food shortages, will Iran be invaded, WHO will be your next VP, and a few more things we will all suffer through. Didn’t you see it covered on the nightly news? On your favorite cable news show? No? It wasn’t worth covering ! Or, was it not allowed to be covered?
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2008/040608_b_Coast.htm
The worst thing about remaining a mushroom all your life ?
You are fed the same thing, morning, noon and night…
June 5th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Maybe Barr is a real Libertarian after all—he used “Leviathan” in a press release!
June 5th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Help out OpenDebates.org. They are trying to lower the hurdle from 15% to 5%—meaning Bob Barr would have a chance.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Before Bob goes rushing off to debate with the AIPAC twins, might he first answer my question about whether he signed a check for or was otherwise formally cooperative morally in an abortion performed on his former wife. I’ll bet that lots of pro-life voters like me would be concerned to learn that he had, but getting a denial at his blog to date hasn’t been altogether productive.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:53 am
Help out OpenDebates.org. They are trying to lower the hurdle from 15% to 5%—meaning Bob Barr would have a chance.
They need to lower it to being on enough ballots to potentially win, otherwise they aren’t posing a real fix. 5% is just as arbitrary as 15%, and just as ripe for abuse. Baldwin and McKinney probably won’t even be included in polls. OpenDebates’s “open debates” would have excluded every LP candidate so far, despite having nationwide ballot placement for the past however many election cycles. They would have excluded pretty much every other third party candidate of the past 30 years too. The only practical change their standards would have resulted in would have been including Perot in ‘96 and possibly Nader in ‘00. Not good enough.
June 6th, 2008 at 1:56 am
I’m all for Bob Barr being in the debates against the Democrats and Republicans, however, I think that it is kind of hypocritical for Barr to complain about this when he only took part in one debate (the one on the floor of the National Convention) against fellow Libertarians as he ducked out on the rest of the Libertarian debates (including the other two debates which were held at the National Convention).
June 6th, 2008 at 7:44 am
...shhhhhhhhhhh, you stoooooooopid barfucks, THIS is not the year you want people looking at the LP candidate!! (unless you want to smear the LP as merely stoooooopid warmongers, drug warmongers, etc. republican fuck-heads who lick whipped cream of strippers’ tits, promote some stinking national $ale$ tax, etc. ad goddamned nauseam!)
...and i have to laugh at your Republicrat naivete, barnyarders..firstly, these ‘debates’ about which you work your cheeseburger chutes are worse than phony…rigged,...always have been…
...so perhaps instead of wasting your hot, humid breath on trying to gain your republicreep bard’s inclusion in some stinking phony ‘debate’...trying to peel off a few stoooooooooopid republicrat voters in the process..
...maybe you should PUBLICLY, LOUDLY, AND FREQUENTLY POINT OUT WHAT A STINKING, CONTRIVED, GODDAMNED FRAUD THIS “COMPETITION OF IDEAS ABOUT GOVERNMENT” (political elections, campaigns, debates, polls, etceterot..) IS..trying to entice some of the MILLIONS of thoughtful americans who don’t vote, etc. now because, well,...thoughful, decent, people don’t support, affirm/’vote for’ mealy-mouthed, stoooooooooooooopid, fucking republicrats!.. ;o)
BTW…!!OF COURSE THE PARTICIPANTS IN ‘THE COMPETITION’ SHOULD COMPETE/DEBATE FREQUENTLY, HEAD-TO-HEAD, etc. WITH NO STNKING ‘MODERATORS’ (only time-keepers) TRYING TO CONTROL THE DIALOGUE, OUTCOME..(but it seems some stooooooopid fucks are left begging themselves into yet another stinking republicrat farce instead of exposing it, exposing the fucks who feed us this shit, etc.!)
(but then again, what can you expect out of republicrat numbskulls whose lives revolve around the acqui$ition of ‘$ome-thing’ about which the origin, nature, etc. remains worse than a mere mystery while the antics of britney spears, the latest republicrat polls, etc. crap ad nauseam, are thoroughly understood/revealed!..) ;o)
..oooooooga boooooooooga, republicrats!..
June 6th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Feel free to rewrite and submit to your local dead-tree papers. We can build the pressure to open up the debate process.
—Stone
——-
The issue isn’t electability, short-cutting, or anything other than fair democracy. In a fair democracy every candidate has an equal chance and equal opportunity. Now, the Libertarians, Greens, Constitutionalist, and others already start out handicapped, by having to pay huge sums to get onto ballots that the Democrats and Republicans get onto for free. Non-status-quo candidates already have to deal with media opposition and rampant election fraud, as evidenced by the Ron Paul campaign—and he was running as Republican. Folks, there are third-world countries that run cleaner, fairer democratic processes than we do here in America. We should be ashamed.
Damn right, Barr should be included in the debates, and so should Nader, Baldwin, or any other candidate who has properly complied with level-playing field requirements. Why? Well, one, because it is right, just, and fair, but, two, because the American people deserve to hear as broad a range of ideas and positions as are truly represented in the American population. When John McCain stands up there and represents conservatives as being pro-war, and Barack Obama stands up there and represents liberals as being pro-socialist, they are not speaking for the whole of America. 70% of the American people are against the Iraq war. As many as 30% of conservatives are not only not Republican war-hawks, but also advocate a non-interventionist foreign policy. That is 140 and 15 million(!) people respectively. Those people have a right to be represented on that stage by people who will accurately represent their views. And so do “market-liberals” who do not buy into the New Left socialism that current grips the Democratic Party.
Both the Democrats and Republicans have become the parties of “big,” big money, big interests, and big extremes. Neither of them truly represents the views of the average American, who does not have a big bank accounts, who is not a big corporation, or a big lobby, or a big union, or a big extremist socialist or neo-con. Only the small parties are representing the smaller interests of average Americans these days. And if we want to change Washington, to take back Washington, we’ll have to do it, by giving the small parties a fair chance.
—Stone
June 6th, 2008 at 8:44 am
..stone, other republicrats, PLEASE!...once you learn even a little about the origin, nature, etc. of ‘the money’ you won’t work your chute in wonderment any more.. ;o)
June 6th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Clark, sweetie, no republicrats here. Hard-core libertarian and former Beltway insider. Very familiar with the corrupting power of money, even on libertarians. Check your assumptions at the door please.
June 7th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Why doesn’t Barr have a debate with Ralph Nader and raise money for thier campaigns?
June 17th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I don’t know that much about the Libetarian Party and even less about Bob Barr. What I do know is that ALL forms of government in this two party system have without doubt proved themselves corrupt to the core. So the only way to reduce the corruption is to reduce the government. It’s that simple.
As for our right to debate the well established corrupt parties out there. I’m for it of course. But there is also no doubt they will not consent to such a challenge. After all they want to win.
Frankly it is my opinon that we should someday pick a president much the same way we chose the winner of American Idol. Now that would be most interesting.