The Argument for The Argument for Bob Barr
August 25, 2008 by Mike Rushmore
from Bob Barr for President on flickr
With all the media coverage of Obama and McCain, it can be easy to forget there are other candidates for president this year. Perennial Democratic candidate saboteur Ralph Nader comes to mind, but this year the republicans may have to deal with their own Nader. Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate for president, has been stealing away McCain’s supporters.
A recent Zogby poll says that 55% of voters think Barr should be included in the presidential debates. The Obama campaign needs to help make this a reality. Not only would it make Obama look good if he publicly works to get Barr into the debates, it would help Obama gain more ground against McCain as McCain supporters switch to Barr. And of course, if McCain fought against letting Barr into the debates, it would make him look terrible. Regardless of prefer you like Barr’s message or Obama’s, you want Barr in the debates.
This isn’t a revolutionary idea. My suggestion has a historical precedent. In fact, the past two presidents have won their first elections thanks to third party candidates. Without Ross Perot in 1992, Bill Clinton probably would have lost and never become president. And nobody can forget Nader in 2000 costing Gore the presidency (and, for a time, his figure). This has worked before, so what’s to say it won’t work again? In 2000, most voters thought of Nader as a complete joke, but he still had an effect on the results. In contrast, the media and voters are actually taking Barr’s candidacy seriously.
Not that I am in favor of dirty tricks, but allowing Barr into the debates is a simple strategy that could help Obama in November. Besides, everybody knows that the two-party system isn’t working, and letting a third party have a respected voice for once (even one that many Americans disagree with) could be just the spark our nation needs to create real change.
I think anyone who is polling in any poll at 1% should be allowed in the debates.
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“Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate for president, has been stealing away McCain’s supporters.”
You stated in your entry, correctly, that America needs more political parties to have mass access, and this statement is a great example of why this is needed. It reflects the arrogant attitude that each major political party has, as it suggests that voters somehow “belong” to each party and its Presidential candidates. Voters own themselves and should start acting like it, and a great way to facilitate this is to break the Republican and Democratic protection racket they have created through election laws.
As a libertarian (small “l”), I’m very thankful that the LP has gotten on the ballot here and will give me a choice for a number of major office in November. Otherwise, after the GOP made the massive mistake of not nominating Ron Paul, I would not have even gone to the polls this November.
And koko, you need to recheck your polling figures. The latest Zogby battleground state polls have Barr running very strongly in a number of states: 11% in New Hampshire, 10% in Nevada, 8% in Colorado, 8% in Ohio, and 5% in a number of other states. (http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1543) He’s been polling between 2-6% in a number of national polls when he is included.
As for your suggestion that Obama should fight to get Barr into the debates, I agree wholeheartedly. It would also restore some of the respect that I’ve lost for him in light of his recent speech at AIPAC and his support for telecom retroactive immunity. However, I don’t think that the effect of Barr being included in the debates will be as one-sided as you suggest. Many civil liberties activists are very upset with Obama over retroactive immunity (hence, the Strange Bedfellows alliance), and some of them may decide to get behind Barr’s campaign, as he had a great record on civil liberties in Congress and has worked very hard to repeal the Patriot Act and other anti-Bill of Rights legislation.
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“Perennial Democratic candidate saboteur Ralph Nader”—that’s a fine name for him, disregarding all other factors that may have been present, such as a Democratic candidate not differentiating themselves strongly enough from their opponents. My hair always catches on fire when I hear someone dumping on the little guy who can’t defend himself, especially when the blame just doesn’t make sense. With regard to the 2000 Election, many people generally believe two conflicting things: (1) that Al Gore won the election and that Bush just stole it from him; and that (2) Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the election. If Gore had won the election, then how on earth could Nader have cost him the election? The Democrats sabotage themselves enough—they don’t need Nader to do it for them—it is common knowledge that blaming someone else is a means to removing the responsibility from yourself. There was just an illogical stream of blame-pointing after the 2000 election, in a frenzy for the two major parties to remove the blame and responbility from themselves, and that blame and responsibility was instead saddled on Ralph Nader. Surely this makes logical sense? Just look at the other factors, the other developments—it is not as simple as “Nader lost Gore the election.” I will be preparing an essay about this, which no one, of course, will ever read in my lifetime. It is really quite pointless.
I don’t like your idea, Mr. Rushmore, for its motives. If Bob Barr is invited to the debates because Obama is politically motivated, concerned with his own political gain, believing that Barr’s presence will remove many votes from McCain, then I will be very disappointed. I do not appreciate such political calculations. If Barr is invited to the debates, it should be because of the true and just and fair reason of free speech in the United States. It should be to provide different choices and create an election system more open to third party candidates and their different ideas. It should be based on principle. Completely and utterly. I can’t emphasize that enough.
And, naturally, if Barr is invited to the debates, for whatever reason, then it is obvious that Nader will be also—Nader generally polls above Bob Barr in National polls. So, that’s kind of a catch to the plan. And, of course, Barack Obama would look terrible if he fought against Nader’s exclusion—a majority of the population would like to see Nader in the debates.
People are taught—let me emphasize TAUGHT—to belittle third party candidates and treat them as a joke. The media teaches us this time and time again. The other candidates, of course, do not take third party candidates seriously. Our social relations with other people all pressure us to treat third party candidates as jokes—if you don’t, then you are liable to be considered weird or different, and that is quite terrible in a society built on conforming to typical social norms. Peer pressure caused me personally to not openly support Mike Gravel until the summer of 2007, a couple months after I first was so impressed with him—it is a powerful force.
I don’t mean to be the skunk at the party, but whenever I hear somebody talk about change, I think seriously in my mind that it is the stupidest thing that I have ever heard. I’m an idealist—I have ideals that I adhere to—but doing the same kind of thing over and over again and expecting different results is just insane. Real change, as you put it, will not come from up on the dais, cast down by politicians to the masses, as though an allowance through the goodness of the politicians. The people do not just stand in the masses and wait for the goods to come to them—they go out and protest and write letters and march on Washington and act and work for their ideals. Without overwhelming pressure from an enlightened and active people, civically engaged, I believe it to be the truth that nothing will change in this country, not how we want it to or as much as we want it to, at least. Changes do not come through the actions of politicians on the dais—they come through the organization and rallies and blood and sweat and tears of the average person who bothers to involve themselves in the improvement of their country. The ultimate strike against citizen apathy will come when the people are enlightened enough to desire empowerment, when they vote to empower themselves as full-fledged law-makers in partnership with their elected officials, with the National Initiative for Democracy proposal. How many times do I have to repeat this until either everyone tells me to shut up or somebody finally gets it?
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I think any person who is on enough ballots to get the electoral votes if they won them, should be in the debates.
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