Bob Barr to run as Libertarian.I'm not exactly sure how he qualifies as a Libertarian, given that he's anti-abortion (for other people; it was apparently okay for his wife in '83), pro-drug war, WROTE DOMA, helped lead the Clinton impeachment proceedings, and tried to ban Wiccans from serving in the military. In short, where the rule-of-thumb definition of a Libertarian is "fiscally conservative, socially liberal", this guy completely fails the latter test. He's been active in the ACLU the past few years and opposed Bush's privacy invasions, but that hardly makes up for decades of rabidly anti-libertarian policies.
He comes across as more of a Pat Buchanan figure; he seems to be basing his campaign largely around being anti-immigrant and isolationist. Which of course has never worked out that well for ol' Pat, except where butterfly ballots were involved.
So that leads me to wonder why the Libertarians would nominate this guy -- is it a big tent thing, a "we can allow for the fact that he disagrees with us on these things so long as he agrees with us on these others"? Is it that they think he'll get more press for his name recognition, even though that name recognition is overwhelmingly negative? Is it that a plurality of Libertarian voters are ignorant and don't actually know the policies of the people they're voting for? (Anecdotally, I can vouch for a guy I knew in college who supported the Libertarian candidate in '04 without knowing all the crazy shit he'd said in the past, like proposing that prisoners be confined to beds so their legs would atrophy.) Or is the Libertarian Party moving into full-on Reform Party territory and not having any clue WHAT the hell it actually stands for?
Given that I've been seeing a trend in the Republican Party moving more Libertarian (sup Guild), it could be that in the long term we're going to see the "fiscally conservative, socially liberal" crowd become the Republican base and the religious base search for a new party. It won't happen overnight, but I could see it happening over the next decade or two.