Matt,

If the GOP had something better to offer than McCain I suppose some Libertarians might indeed vote red this year. However with McCan't at the help I suspect Libertarians will be very happy voting for the Barr/Root ticket.

BTW, I don't think Jesus would have been down with charging folks $2K to see political candidates speak at their church. Methinks he would have driven them from the temple...

Art:

Saddleback is doing that to offset the costs of putting on the event, and any excess goes to their charities.

Methinks Jesus would also have a problem with Boob Barr's support for gay marriage...

Matt -

I'm convinced. I'm switching parties again! No, I'm kidding.

Seriously, what do you have against liberty? If your party were more socially tolerant and actually lived up to its platform of fiscally responsible government, there would be no need for a Libertarian Party now would there?

Personally, I agree with you that suing to get into what is really a private forum is pushing it, but if you see it from Barr's perspective, you're watching everyone argue about the Obama media bias and wondering why everyone thinks the extra time that's being devoted to him should come from you. He should have saved this move as a 'Plan B' in case he fails to get into the debates, which are a more public forum that he has a right to participate in.

SMS

Matt,
Why would any libertarian go to the GOP? We differ with the Republican Party over economic issues (you guys support the same social-welfare policies as the Democrats, and your president has outspent LBJ in growth of the federal government, foreign policy (your party these days loves Wilsonian meddling), many social issues (you mock libertarian views on the big-government drug war, which only shows how far the GOP is from the ideas of liberty), civil liberties and on and on. I certainly hope Barr costs McCain the election (wasn't it McCain who authored some of these absurd campaign restrictions?)and then perhaps the GOP might start listening again to those who remind it of its long-abandoned principles.
Steven

Steven,

Well said! Ditto!

Matt: You claim you're a conservative free of party ideology, but your blind faith toward the GOP is so expected as to be a cliché. Man your conservatism up.

Gustavo:

Translation: blah, blah, blah. What the heck did that straw man screed even mean? Man your comment up with some thought.

We differ with the Republican Party over economic issues (you guys support the same social-welfare policies as the Democrats,

"You guys," Steve? Do you want to be just a little bit more specific than that? Or are gross over-generalizations the name of the game here?

As you well know, I have been fed up with the spend-and-elect mentality that came to dominate the congressional wing of the GOP, as well with President Bush's complete failure to exert any fiscal discipline on Congress. That is the great destruction Bush and the congressional GOP wreaked on our party, and from which it will take time to recover.

But to paint us as identical to the Democrats is bosh, and I think you know as much. There is a significant and growing element of the congressional GOP pushing the party back to its principles -- from which the rank-and-file never departed.

As for foreign policy, I'm no Wilsonian, but I do reject the Libertarians ostrich approach to foreign policy that thinks, but won't actually say, we were "asking for it" on 9/11. Libertarian foreign policy has been amazingly consistent. During the Cold War, it was hardly distinguishable from the accommodate-the-Soviets attitude that prevailed in the Democratic Party. It's just an update of the myopic America First isolationism that would have let Britain succumb to Nazi occupation and insisted Nazi ambitions were none of our concern. Europe was so far away, and the Nazi's hadn't attacked us, after all.

But back to the Libertarian Party itself. Yes, the saner members can remain in a party that, in it's 37 years of existence, has failed to do much more than elect a few hundred members to local offices. It's electoral success isn't much greater than the Green Party.

It's impact is entirely negative, especially from the stand-point of a party that proposes to reduce the size of government: it helps elect Democrats, who don't just expand government in practice, but entirely believe in doing so.

Or, they can enter the GOP, form a Libertarian Caucus and help conservatives push the party back onto its philosophical moorings and into majority status. Libertarians will accomplish much more of their agenda that way.

American socialists (or social democrats, if they prefer) figured that out decades ago by going into the Democratic Party. Just look at how much of Norman Thomas' platforms have become law.

Yeah, entering the GOP would likely entail fights with other members of the coalition over certain things. But moving your agenda forward as part of a coalition accomplishes more than standing tall for Americans' right to get stoned, or debating whether it would be going too far to nominate for president someone who thinks child pornography should be legal.

Yeah -- THAT'S the kind of political party that will get a serious hearing from the American people. Someday. Maybe during the next 37 years.

Libertarians have a lot to offer this country in the fight for liberty and limited government, but not in a Libertarian Party whose practical effect is to assist the Party of Government.

I certainly hope Barr costs McCain the election (wasn't it McCain who authored some of these absurd campaign restrictions?)and then perhaps the GOP might start listening again to those who remind it of its long-abandoned principles.

OK, Steve. When Obama and the Democratic Congress raise corporate taxes (already second highest in the world), raise Social Security taxes, raise income taxes, harness our economy to their global warming hysteria, tip the Supreme Court firmly to the left for a generation, make GOP federal spenders look like pikers, bring health care completely under government control -- well, will just send the bill to you, Bob Barr and the rest of the "let the good be the enemy of the perfect" crowd.

Because, as we all know, massive expansions of government are so easy to roll back, aren't they?

That's a hell of an "I told you so," Steve.

Jubal,

Thank you for a most interesting post and your follow ups to Mr. Greenhut. I have been increasingly saddened by Mr. Greenhut's lurch to despair and the gloom and doom he always pronounces upon the Republican Party.

As you so correctly pointed out, Mr. Greenhut paints all of the Republican Party with a broad brush. He does not note that A. many, many great Republicans, like Congressman John Campbell, are fighting to great congressional Republicans back to fiscal discipline and B. that most rank and file Republicans, even many in the OCGOP Central Committee, are greatly disappointed with the free spending by many Congressional Republicans and we are advocating to them to stop ear marks, etc. Personally I would rather work within the Party to get elected Republicans to stand by the party platform than throw darts at them from the outside.

While I still read Mr. Greenhut's editorials (he still has some good points such as on things like NIMBYism), I do so with a grain of salt.

As for Mr. Barr suing Saddleback Church, the sign of a desperate candidate grasping for straw to be noticed. Suing a church that is trying to provide a public service to the country - sad indeed.

Again Steve, thanks for getting Lou Correa elected to the 34th SD.

Jubal did you just ask Greenhut for specifics? I suppose next we will ask him to do actual research…

I'm surprised they've given Mr. Barr the coverage that he's gotten. It just shows you how desperate the Libertarian leadership was when they nominated him. Barr is such a political flip-flopper he puts a large number of current legislators to shame. He wouldn't have had to sue if he didn't run such a pathetic campaign, I mean does he even register in the polling? Not in any polls I have seen.

The Libertarian Party has demonstrated a problems in being able to win.

They cannot win even congressional elections, let alone one for president.

Hasn't the Libertarian Party been around for 30 years?

Maybe if Libertarian nominees could start winning congressional elections, then they'd be considered a viable option.

Seriously, Libertarian nominees for congress have lost thousands of times over. What makes one think 2008 will be any different?

The Libertarian Party is a demonstrated poor vehicle for libertarian philosophy.

Note that Barr was not trying to weasel his way into the debate, but only pointing out that the law of the country should not be violated. Ironically, it was the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation that was being broken-McCain was breaking his own laws! Russ Verney (Barr's campaign manager) explains filing a lawsuit under the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation thusly: “While we’re no fans of that legislation, we don’t write the rules, we’re just forced to play by them." Bob Barr believes that even if one does not like a law that this country has passed, one still needs to follow it. You don't fix the law by ignoring it.