Tom Knapp is a friend . . .

. . . and therefore I will accept his criticism as sincere, even if I think his analysis of the 2008 Libertarian Party campaign is flawed:

And what, pray tell, did we get out of the [Bob] Barr nomination? . . . [T]he fourth-best results (as a percentage of the vote total) of the Libertarian Party's ten presidential outings. Our reward for taking a flier and running a conservative instead of a libertarian was middle-of-the-pack performance at the polls and incalculable damage to our reputation as a party with principles we weren't willing to sell for a mess of . . . well, let's just note that it was a mess and leave it at that.

One might attack Tom's argument from several directions, but I think the most important point is one which Tom ignores altogether. One of the reasons that the Barr campaign got so much national media attention in Spring 2008 was the widespread belief that, given the strength of the Ron Paul GOP campaign -- especially in terms of online fundraising -- and furthermore considering an established personal friendship between Barr and Paul, if the LP nominated Barr, he would bring much of Paul's financial and grassroots support with him.

While this envisioned scenario did not actually develop after the "Dogfight in Denver" (in which Barr fought for six ballots to gain the LP nomination) this does not mean the original hope of Team Barr was misguided.

There has been a good deal of behind-the-scenes finger-pointing among Libertarians as to what went wrong after the LP convention in May, but a falling-out between Paul and Barr (which seems to have happened in June) could not have been anticipated when Team Barr organized its nomination campaign.

Tom and I met as part of the vanload of "smelly libertarians" who made the road trip to the Denver LP convention. Tom represents a sizeable faction in the Libertarian Party who hate and despise anything "conservative" or Republican. And, of course, there are any number of Republican conservatives who use "libertarian" as an epithet.

This is unfortunate, especially since most Republicans I know are, to some degree, libertarians (with a small "l"). And most Libertarians I know have been involved in primary campaigns for libertarian-leaning Republicans like Ron Paul.

Eric Dondero attempts to bridge this chasm by styling himself a Libertarian Republican. My friend Stephen Gordon has been an operative in both the GOP and LP. Personally, I have attempted to describe "Libertarian Populism" as a potential locus for opposition to both Democratic Party progressive statism and the Progressive Lite go-along-to-get-along approach of GOP "moderates," by offering freedom as the basic answer to populist grievances.

What is at stake in all this is something much more important than divergent estimates of individual candidates or disagreements about campaign strategy. What is at stake is nothing less than liberty itself.

If our nation's future is to be entrusted to Nancy Pelosi and her ilk, then the disagreements between Tom Knapp and myself are moot, no more relevant to contemporary politics than an historical discussion of how the Whigs self-destructed after 1844.

In the present crisis, friends of liberty must prioritize their efforts and focus on practical activism to stop ObamaCare, Waxman-Markey and EFCA -- the Big Three legislative initiatives being pushed through Congress with every resource that can be mustered by the special interests who control the Democratic Party.

The passage of any one of these Big Three initiatives would inflict a damaging blow, perhaps even a fatal wound, to the cause of American liberty. I assume that Tom Knapp fully supports the "angry mob" effort to prevent passage of those initiatives, and therefore do not wish to waste time debating the past.

Let us act now to secure the future of freedom, Tom. We'll leave the historical debates for some occasion when we can sit down together with cold beverages and each tell the other to his face how completely full of crap he is.

Home-Schooling Works:Fencing Champion Dakota Root, 17

One of the questions every home-schooling parent hears is, "What about extra-curricular activities?" OK, even with six kids, I'm still five kids short of a varsity football squad, but my 16-year-old twins sons, for example, are excellent swimmers who just completed YMCA lifeguard certification.

Lots of home-schooled kids not only compete in sports, they excel. The Las Vegas Review-Journal just featured one such athlete, 17-year-old Dakota Root:

"Every time you fence, you have to keep changing your game," Dakota said. "You can't just rely on your skills. You have to rely on growing within the bout. You don't do that in most other sports."
Dakota has been in the sport only four years, but she is considering attending college at Ivy League fencing powerhouses such as Harvard and Columbia as well as Duke, Northwestern and Notre Dame. There appears to be reciprocal interest. . . .
She has achieved scores of 2,240 on the Scholastic Achievement Test (Dakota still hopes to break 2,300) and 31 on the American College Test. . . .
Last November she traveled to Germany and Austria for 16-and-under World Cup tournaments. Dakota fenced especially well in Germany, making the fourth round of pool play.
Showing that performance was no fluke, Dakota in April won under-19 epee at the Pacific Coast Championships in Long Beach, Calif. She was second in the senior epee, which was open to all ages.
That's a head-turning rise through the ranks for a relative newcomer. It's also a rise that could continue, perhaps even to the Olympic Games, with 2016 as the likely target. . . .

You can read the whole thing. Dakota is also a refutation of the stupid claim that home-schooled kids aren't "socialized" adequately. You want to see poise? Watch this C-SPAN video as Dakota Root (then just 16) nominated her father, Wayne Allyn Root, for president at the 2008 Libertarian Party convention:

I covered the 2008 LP convention, where Wayne made it to the fifth ballot of the six-round "Dogfight in Denver" nomination battle, and then was chosen as Bob Barr's vice-presidential running mate.

When I saw Wayne at the Georgia LP state convention last month, he spent most of his time bragging on his daughter who -- and I hope I'm not spoiling any scholarship negotiations here -- is leaning heavily toward Columbia. (She likes the big city.) Wayne also brags on Dakota in his new book, The Conscience of a Libertarian:

To illustrate the remarkable talent, creativity and intelligence of home-schooled children, I offer Exhibit A: My 17-year-old daughter Dakota Root. She is beautiful; well mannered; disciplined; articulate; poised beyond her years; treats adults with respect; maintains a straight A+ average in her studies; scores in the 99th percentile of every national test she takes; devours as man as a dozen books a month (because she wants to, not because she has to); has achieved a black belt in martial arts; and is a world class fencer who has participated in Junior Olympics, Fencing Nationals and World Cup events internationally. . . .
Many adults that have had the pleasure of meeting Dakota have made the comment, "Is your daughter home-schooled?" I always answer, "Yes, but how did you know?" The reply is always the same, "In my experience, only home-schooled kids are this focused, disciplined, well-mannered and respectful of adults."

It's true. Hearing one's children praised for being poised, well-mannered and respectful is one of the joys of being a home-schooling parent. Wayne writes:

Dakota has had the advantage of being taught one on one literally since birth, by people that love her . . . praise her . . . motivate her . . . and expect the very best of her.

The official publication date for Wayne's book The Conscience of a Libertarian is the Fourth of July (when else?) but you can order it now at Amazon.com.

UPDATE: Hey, Wayne's not the only home-schooling dad who can brag on his kids. And remember, I'm an expert.

Greetings from Georgia!

(BUMPED; UPDATED) The 2009 Tea Party Rabble Rouser Tour continues today as I speak at the Georgia Libertarian Party state convention at the Hilton Atlanta Northeast in beautiful Norcross. Just talked to Libertarian blog legend Jason Pye, and everyone is awaiting the arrival of Stephen Gordon of the Liberty Papers.

Right now, my opening act, Bob Barr, is warming up the crowd for me. Remember: Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Bob Barr!

UPDATE: We're now a Memeorandum thread. Also got a link from Pundette. There's nothing like the smell of rabble in the morning! Smells like . . . victory!

UPDATE II: More linky-love (and some Rule 5 action) from Donald Douglas at American Sexist Right-Wing Extremist Power.

UPDATE III: This place is crawling with right-wing extremists!

Right-wing extremist Benjamin Franklin enjoys an authentic revolutionary 18th-century Camel Light.

Right-wing extremist Bob Barr shares top-secret plans with Georgia Libertarians.

Right-wing extremist Rule 5 with Stephen Gordon's long-suffering wife Deb and Georgia Libertarian Party "Hottie of the Year" Ashley Petty.

Election Day in Georgia

UPDATED & BUMPED: Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Chambliss's double-digit victory dashed Democrats' dreams of securing a filibuster-proof, 60-vote "super majority" in the Senate and buoyed a Republican Party battered by staggering losses in the Nov. 4 general election.
"Republicans still know how to win an election," Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan told hundreds of Chambliss supporters at the Cobb Energy Centre.

The size of the victory (a margin of more than 300,000 votes) is important as a warning to Democrats going forward that the GOP is still a viable opposition. It is also important that Barack Obama diminished himself by refusing to risk his political capital campaigning for Democrat Jim Martin.

I've added an analysis of the vote here. Also, Michelle Malkin responds to my defense of Chambliss' immigration record: "[T]he guy went wobbly went it mattered most -- and it took massive resistance and vigilance to set him straight." OK, but at least he responded to the outcry, whereas Maverick did not.

PREVIOUSLY: Associated Press and New York Times call it for Chambliss. With 93% reporting at 10:15 Chambliss leads 58-42% with a 300,000+ margin. Still 70+ precincts to report in Fulton County and, for some odd reason, only half the precincts in Paulding have reported. I might add an analysis if I can get those numbers.

With 84% of precincts reporting by 9:30 p.m., you've got the makings of a solid victory for Chambliss. The key thing to notice is the Republican's overwhelming majorities in the fast-growing exurban "outer ring" counties. Most of these margins are based on partial reports, but look:

Carroll .........2.2-to-1
Cherokee .....4.5-to-1
Coweta .......2.8-to-1
Fayette .......2.3-to-1
Forsyth ........5.3-to-1
Hall ............3.3-to-1
Paulding .......3.2-to-1
Walton ..........3.7-to-1

It looks like Chambliss is cruising to re-election. But I'm disturbed to see Michelle Malkin transmitting misinformation, calling Chambliss a "pro-amnesty Republican." This is false. Chambliss has an A+ rating from NumbersUSA for his opposition to amnesty. Yes, Chambliss supported the bailout, but he's been a solid conservative vote on immigration issues.

UPDATE: Michelle responds by reminding me that Chambliss was booed at the Georgia GOP convention in May 2007 for defending the guest-worker provisions of the bill that was then pending in the Senate. But Chambliss eventually voted against cloture on S.1639, just as he had voted against S.2611.

I remember being shocked by Chambliss' May 2007 defense of the immigration bill, since I knew he'd opposed S.2611. I am under the impression that, between the Atlanta business community and the Beltway echo chamber, Chambliss had gotten the mistaken idea that maybe the "enforcement" bells and whistles on the shamnesty bill would be enough to satisfy the base. Getting booed at the convention apparently sobered him up pretty quick.

New York Times reports low turnout in Atlanta:

At the Atlanta Public Library on Ponce de Leon Ave., where more than 1,600 people voted in the general election, only 400 people had voted by noon today.

This is probably good news for Chambliss. Also, Bob Barr has endorsed Chambliss. Will update.

Boosted by Sarah Palin's whirlwind tour, Sen. Saxby Chambliss appears poised to win today's runoff in Georgia. Jim Antle reminds us why the runoff was necessary:

Libertarian Party candidate Allen Buckley . . . received nearly 3.5 percent of the vote, running almost 100,000 votes ahead of Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr . . .
Many of those voters were fiscal conservatives upset with Chambliss's vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout -- or, as he prefers to describe it, "the financial rescue package."
"It's for the people, by the people," an anti-bailout conservative told the Politico in late October. "I think that 99 percent of the phone calls that Saxby got were for him to vote against the bailout, yet he did it anyway. He's supposed to represent the people of the state of Georgia.… By far, the vast majority did not want the bailout."

"Libertarian populism," anyone?

(Hey, who is Bryan Caplan, and why is he stealing my title without credit?)

Who says Libertarians don't count?

Libertarian Party candidate Allen Buckley got 127,723 votes (3%) in the Georgia Senate race, enough to throw Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss into a runoff with Democrat Jim Martin.

Chambliss voted for the $700 billion bailout. Should have listened to me, senator!

UPDATE: Ace wants his readers to donate to save Chambliss's seat. I'm having a hard time working up any real enthusiasm for that. His constituents were bombarding his offices with phone calls and e-mails begging him to oppose the bailout. He didn't listen. He pays the price. And if part of the price is a veto-proof Senate majority for Obama, well . . . whose fault is that?

These out-of-touch big-government Republicans commit political suicide and then come running to the conservative base expecting help. Screw 'em. Sen. Richard Shelby provided a solid argument for his vote against the bailout. Why didn't Saxby Chambliss listen?

UPDATE II: I've been watching this YouTube video of the last debate with Chambliss, Martin and Buckley, and you can see how Buckley (an attorney and CPA) slams Chambliss from the right. Martin -- he's just feeble. Should have been a Buckley-Chambliss runoff. And if I still lived in Georgia I'd have voted for Buckley, who at least tells the truth about entitlements bankrupting the country.

Libertarian populism (the column)

Monday's blog post becomes Tuesday's full-length column at The American Spectator:

Nobody seemed to notice when Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr adopted as his campaign slogan "Send Them a Message!" -- the same outsider theme that animated George C. Wallace's populist third-party run in 1968.
Leaving aside the vast political and historical distance between the late Alabama Democrat and the former Georgia Republican, Barr's slogan clearly seeks to tap into an enduring populist conception of the government in Washington as a corrupt insider racket controlled by special interests, in which both Democrats and Republicans are out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans.
The defeat of the Wall Street bailout deal in the House yesterday was an amazing convergence between libertarian ideals and a resurgent populist sentiment. . . .

Please read the whole thing.

UPDATE: The column is linked today by Eric Dondero at Libertarian Republican, Tom Knapp (one of the "smelly libertarians" on the famous van ride to the LP convention in Denver) and the fabulously bewhiskered James Poulos.

Libertarian populism

I attended Friday's event at Reason magazine's DC office where Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr "debated" John McCain and Barack Obama. Barr viciously mocked the proposed bailout as a boondoggle: "The bailout plan, anyway you slice it, is a bad idea for America." In doing so, Barr aligned himself with the firestorm of grassroots opposition to the bill -- congressional staffers report that their phones are ringing off the hook and practically all the calls are from bailout opponents.

FreedomWorks -- the free-market think tank led by Barr's former GOP House colleague Dick Armey -- has a list of "Ten Reasons to Oppose the Wall Street Bailout." With Big Government coming to the rescue of Big Business, the bailout presents one of those rare occasions when libertarians find themselves handed an issue with widespread populist appeal.

Here's video of Friday post-debate Q&A with Reason editor Matt Welch, in which Barr addresses foreign policy, the bailout and Ron Paul's recent endorsement of Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin:

(Cross-posted at AmSpecBlog.)

Barring Barr in Boston

Jim Antle chronicles how Massachusetts Libertarian Party chairman George Phillies -- who placed fifth in the "Dogfight in Denver" -- appears to be conniving to keep LP presidential nominee Bob Barr off the ballot in the Bay State:

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit last week to help get Barr a place on the ballot. Unfortunately, the intransigence of state election officials has been compounded by mixed messaging by some supporters of the ACLU lawsuit - especially Phillies himself.
Almost immediately after Barr secured the nomination, Phillies told Reason magazine that the Massachusetts Libertarians might hold a state convention to nominate a separate candidate. "Nominating this man," he is quoted as saying of Barr, "is the equivalent of nominating an Imperial Wizard of the KKK to lead a party of African-Americans." He repeated a variation of this statement on the state party's website shortly afterward.

Phillies and certain other hard-core LP activists basically resent the effort of Barr's supporters to expand the Libertarian Party beyond its current status as a philosophical debating society and make it a party of major political significance.

This has been an internal tension within the LP almost from the outset, as Brian Doherty explained in Radicals for Capitalism. The "libertarian" label has, unfortunately, attracted a number of fringe flakes who don't seem much interested in mainstream free-market ideology -- deregulation, low taxes, reduction of government bureaucracy -- but who are passionate about, inter alia, gay rights and drug legalization.

This drift has resulted in the party becoming a sort of Geek Club whose members take turns nominating each other for state and local offices they don't stand a chance of winning, and then staging quadrennial "More Libertarian Than Thou" contests for their national conventions.

At a time when the Republican Party appears to have forsaken its Goldwater/Reagan message of limited government, one might expect the LP to be scooping up huge contributions and winning over voters disgusted by the GOP's abandonment of principle. Yet as the situation with Barr illustrates, when disillusioned Republicans approach the LP, they inevitably find themselves confronted by the Geek Club contingent, whose worst fear is that their private debating society will be taken over by people who aim to actually win elections.

Video: 'A Real Choice'

Wow. Very powerful video by Martin Avila.

TNR on Barr

Michael Idov has a colorful story on the Libertarian Convention in the New Republic, much of it based on the unofficial Friday night debate, which the eventual nominee Bob Barr didn't attend.

Several of the LP delegates I spoke to in Denver who attended that debate said they thought Barr made a mistake by not participating, but the fact was that (a) he'd previously scheduled a Friday night reception for his supporters, and (b) the candidates who would actually be in contention for the nomination would be in the official Saturday night debate anyway.

As I explained in my first story from Denver, there was a paranoid vibe among the hard-core anti-Barr contingent. Barr's late entry into the race, and the fact that he'd officially been a Republican until 2006, had a lot to do with that. Understandably, he was viewed as an outsider by many longtime LP people, but some of the more freaky-deaky fringes of the party's grassroots are just paranoid anyway. Ivov captures the conspiratorial vibe:

By Sunday morning, all nerves are fraying. There's another persistent rumor -- cheerful to some, frightening to others -- that a last-minute busload of pissed-off anti-Barr anarchists, summoned by Kubby, is on its way to the Sheraton.

Nerves were also fraying in the Barr camp, after Wayne Allen Root's strong debate showing Saturday night, as Ivov notes:

Stephen Gordon, Barr's rail-thin, gloomy adviser, when the debate is over. He's staring at the convention hall's floor as he speaks. "Root won. Personally, it frustrates the hell out of me."

Rail-thin, yes, but "gloomy" is not a word I'd ever think to apply to Gordo -- most of the time he's a happy-go-lucky fellow. As the man in charge of organizing the Barr campaign's floor operation at Denver, however, he was definitely as stressed-out as I've ever seen him.

There's a certain Rashomon thing comparing my coverage to other reporter's coverage of Denver. For example, Ivov reports a lot of the wheeling-dealing among the campaigns during the presidential vote, while I was focused on live-blogging the balloting as close to real-time as possible.

Denver was a very competitive journalistic environment: Dave Weigel of Reason was also live-blogging it, as were Jason Pye and other Libertarian bloggers, and Aaron Gould Sheinin of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was reporting the story in real-time. I was mainly concerned about trying to keep up with Weigel, an excellent reporter who knows the LP inside and out, so I was quite flattered when Rocky Mountain News columnist Dave Kopel credited the Spectator with providing the "best national coverage" of the convention.

Herd journalism doesn't suit me well. Whenever I go to an event that's being covered by a lot of other reporters, I usually feel like I'm out in my own little orbit. It's easy to get paranoid about this stuff: "Look at those other reporters over there, doing their thing -- should I be doing that, too?" But you can't let that stuff get to you.

During the balloting at Denver, I found it convenient to set up my laptop near the Barr booth in the exhibition hall, where Team Barr had a super-fast WiFi connection and a big-screen TV with a closed-circuit connection to the action on the convention floor. I'd go out to the convention floor to collect notes and get photos, then hustle back over to the Barr booth to file the updates as each ballot's results were posted.

Since I was the only reporter doing it that way, it seemed a bit weird, but it had its advantages. My laptop was in a safe and uncrowded space. I could leave it there and roam around to report, not have to worry about squeezing past the chairs of other writers on Blogger's Row, and file my updates without being surrounded by a lot of distractions. Doing it a different way apparently worked, but at the time, I was by no means sure this was how I was "supposed" to be doing it.

Here's my video of another media moment at Denver, with Barr responding to a question from Ivov at a Saturday morning media breakfast -- the camera pans over to show Ivov near the end:



Something else about Denver: Extreme sleep deprivation. Weigel and I talked about this afterwards. All the delegates had to do was to attend meetings, vote, hang out and party. We reporters had to cover most of that activity and then try to write coherently about it. Ivov had the luxury of being assigned this one big feature story, rather than constantly filing updates and liveblogging. We'll try not to hate him for that.

MSM idiocy on Ron Paul and Bob Barr

I've been covering Bob Barr's Libertarian Party campaign since Feb. 11, and because of my continuing coverage (e.g., April 14, May 20, May 23, May 25, May 27) I've been invited to appear on several radio talk shows to discuss the campaign. I've also closely followed the MSM coverage of Barr. Over and over, I keep running into various feeble-minded confusions over the relationship between Barr's LP effort and the Ron Paul GOP primary campaign.

The essence of this confusion is typically expressed by radio hosts as a question along the lines of, "Is Ron Paul going to endorse Bob Barr?" However it is worded, the question signifies a profound misunderstanding of who Ron Paul is, what his campaign has done, how political movements and coalitions are structured, and how the Barr campaign hopes to capitalize on the Paul phenomenon.

To get an idea of what I'm talking about, here is Newsweek's know-it-all novice Andrew Romano (folks, I've got T-shirts older than this kid) who expresses his confusion not as a question, but in pseudo-informed declarative sentences:

Barr's goal is snag the support of 15 percent or more of registered voters and participate in this fall's presidential debates. That's unlikely to happen. One big reason: Ron Paul. With his cult-hero bid for the White House, Paul has done more this year than any of his predecessors to popularize Libertarian ideas. . . . But the trouble is, he ran (and is still running) as a Republican, and shows no signs of abandoning his party. If Paul continues his campaign through the GOP convention, as he's already promised, he'll monopolize much of the newly-unleashed Libertarian energy -- the record-breaking donations, the clever online organizing, the passionate activism -- at least through September. At that point, he could (belatedly) pass the torch the torch to Barr. But Paul has shown little enthusiasm for his ostensible heir, and it's unlikely that his followers . . . will abandon their guy for a relative unknown. . . . No matter what happens with Paul, Barr's going to have a tough time attracting the grass-roots and financial support necessary to reach double digits in the polls.

This kind of nonsense on stilts will take a while to deconstruct, so pull up a chair and get comfortable.

First, look at Romano's statement that "it's unlikely that [Paul's] followers . . . will abandon their guy for a relative unknown." Wrong. Many of them already have. Were you paying attention? I repeat:

Many Ron Paul supporters already have been active in the Bob Barr LP campaign for weeks.

This is what Romano and other MSM people don't get. Campaign contributors, operatives and volunteer activists -- to say nothing of ordinary voters -- are not required to devote their support exclusively to one campaign, one party or one candidate. There is considerable overlap between LP activists and the anti-war conservatives who backed Paul in the GOP primaries.

I know these people personally. I talked to them at the Libertarian convention in Denver. There were lots and lots of veterans of the Paul campaign among the delegates, some of them still proudly wearing their "Revolution" T-shirts and Ron Paul buttons. In fact, some of the Georgia LP delegates with whom I traveled 1,400 miles to the convention ("a bunch of smelly Libertarians," to quote delegate Lance Lamberton) had actively campaigned for Paul.

To cite just one example of this phenomenon, Barr's online team is headed by Martin Avila of Terra Eclipse, who also did Ron Paul's Web design. A few more examples with which I am personally familiar:

• Austin Wilkes -- Featured in Paul's "Supporter Spotlight," helped organize Paul effort in Alabama GOP straw poll; now coordinating meetup groups for Barr.
• Bradley Jansen -- Former Paul congressional staffer and presidential campaign activist; recently came to the defense of Barr's LP candidacy.
• Shana Kluck -- Former "Homeschoolers for Paul" coordinator; now serves similar function with Barr campaign.
• Stephen Gordon -- Former LP political director, served as media coordinator of Paul's Alabama campaign; now working for Barr campaign.

Such examples could be cited almost endlessly. But just try this: Go to the Barr for President Facebook group, and see how many members are also members of the Ron Paul group.

The MSM types don't get this. They keep acting as if what Ron Paul does personally -- whether he endorses or supports or gives money to the Barr campaign -- will have a determining influence over Barr's success. Not true. As one LP convention delegate explained it me, "The Ron Paul movement wasn't about Ron Paul, it was about a movement."

Now, with that in mind, go back and read the Romano article, where he says, "Barr's going to have a tough time attracting the grass-roots and financial support necessary to reach double digits in the polls." Wanna put money on that proposition, kid?

Barr hit 6% in the first national poll that included his name in the survey -- a poll taken just one week after Barr officially announced his candidacy. Since then, Barr's appeared on C-SPAN's "Morning Journal," CNN's "American Morning," Neil Cavuto's Fox News show and Bloomberg News, while Barr appeared with his running mate, Wayne Allyn Root, on Fox Business News.

Most laughable of Romano's misconceptions is his description of Barr as "a relative unknown." Barr was a high-profile figure in the 1994 "Republican Revolution" Congress, helping lead the impeachment of President Clinton. Barr was a prominent conservative leader back when Andrew Romano was still an elementary school kid who'd never even heard of Ron Paul.

And, hey -- Barr was in "Borat." How many movies has Ron Paul starred in? This coming week, Barr will show up on Glenn Beck's CNN show and on "The Colbert Report."

Keep in mind, now, that Barr only officially declared his candidacy on May 12. As "tough" as it may be for Barr "to reach double digits in the polls" (though, remember, he's starting at 6%) does all this media attention look like the campaign of "a relative unknown"?

Over and over, radio interviewers have asked me what I think of Barr's chances in November. I say two things:

• First, I don't have a crystal ball. Who knows what can happen? We're more than five months away from Election Day. Five months is a long time in politics. Five months ago, Hillary Clinton was still the odds-on favorite to win the Democratic nomination.
• Second, people close to the Barr campaign keep using the phrase "perfect storm." Congressional approval is at 19%, and 79% of Americans say the country's headed in the wrong direction. Gasoline is at $4 a gallon, and no major-party candidate -- neither Obama, Clinton nor McCain -- is over 47% in head-to-head polls. Such omens of deep discontent in the electorate certainly could indicate the kind of political environment in which a third-party campaign might catch fire.

No crystal ball, like I said, but anyone who parrots the MSM conventional wisdom and underestimates the potential of the Barr campaign does so at his own peril.

Joker in the deck

The clueless MSM thought Bob Barr would win the Libertarian Party nomination by acclamation; it took six ballots. Now, the clueless MSM thinks of Barr only as a "spoiler" for John McCain. Better think again:

A simplistic "spoiler" conception of Barr's LP bid ignores certain wild-card scenarios. For instance, what if Barr takes advantage of the "Hillbillies for Hillary" phenomenon and capitalizes on Barack Obama's weaknesses by campaigning in West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania? (The "Bitter for Barr" vote?) Ex-Libertarian Ron Paul got 16 percent of the vote in the Pennsylvania Republican primary, and 128,000 votes is nothing to sneer at in a key swing state.
It is possible (though by no means certain) that by appealing to disaffected voters of both major parties, Barr could force Republicans and Democrats alike to alter their campaign calculus. As Barr's running mate, Vegas oddsmaker Wayne Allyn Root, might say, it's like playing Texas Hold 'Em with a joker in the deck.

David Weigel is also tired of ignorant "spoiler" talk.

BTW, this morning I spoke to Georgia LP Political Director Doug Craig, who said, "When we got back [from the Denver national convention] we had a ton of e-mails and voicemail from people wanting to get involved with the campaign and join the party, so it's already having an impact."

Right now, I'm using Wi-Fi in a McDonald's in Calhoun, Ga., having spent the last two days visiting friends and family in Georgia. In 20 minutes, I'll be on Jeff Crouere's "Ringside Politics" radio show in Louisiana.

Barr wins LP nomination

Bob Barr has just won the Libertarian Party presidential nomination in the "Denver Dogfight." Complete coverage of the six rounds of balloting at the American Spectator.

UPDATE: Just enjoyed celebratory refreshments with Barr operative Stephen Gordon. Gordo managed Aaron Russo's 2004 Libertarian campaign, which lost on the third ballot at Atlanta, and today's victory for Barr was a major vindication for Gordo. The fact that it took six ballots for Barr to win (with just 54% of the vote in the end) should stand as a permanent rebuke to those MSM outlets that seemed to believe that Barr's LP nomination was a done deal.

I'll try to get up some photos later. I'll have to write a story for Tuesday's Spectator Online. The agenda for this evening? The Barr campaign staffers say tonight they're planning to put the party back in Libertarian Party. And I have to cover that story. Work, work, work.

UPDATE II: USA Today's political blog relies on Associated Press coverage of the convention, which erroneously describes Mary Ruwart as having previously been the LP's presidential and vice-presidential nominee. Jim Antle corrects.

Exhaustion begins to overtake me, after hustling to cover such an exciting story all day. My first post at the AmSpec blog was filed before 9 a.m. MT, the second post two hours later, then about noon, I began reporting the six rounds of balloting, which continued until almost 4. All of that on about five hours' sleep.

I don't mind the hours, but it hacks me off to see people relying on the AP, which can't get the story straight, when I've been covering this story for more than three months. God forbid USA Today should bother linking the guy who first reported the beginning of the "Draft Barr" movement in February.

UPDATE III: Memeorandum links, with links as well to Weigel, Vox Day and Radley Balko. Instapundit links my Spectator blogging as well as Weigel. Noting the accusations of a "neocon" takeover of the LP, Insty says: "Funny, Barr doesn't look neoish."

Jason Pye has a good chronological liveblog of the Sunday action, including the vice-presidential balloting, where it appears that the radicals wanted to get California marijuana activist Steve Kubby for the No. 2 spot. Actually, Kubby is a funny and engaging guy, although I'm sure he'd be viewed as a liability in the general election campaign, where Mr. and Mrs. Middle America wouldn't get it. But it looks like Wayne Allyn Root will get the running-mate gig. And Lord, can he run! That man is energy personified.

UPDATE IV: The VP race was razor-close, Root winning with just 50.6% of the vote. Many delegates had left the convention floor after the presidential race, and Barr came within an eyelash of ending up with Kubby as his running mate.

Afterward, Kubby told his supporters, "Spark up!" No ... wait. No, that's wrong. What he actually told his supporters was, "Please, I don't want anyone trashing this ticket." So he's apparently an LP loyalist, uniting behind Barr and Root.

On the sidewalk out front of the Sheraton, I happened to run into Jim Burns, one of the third-tier candidates who didn't qualify for the presidential debates. I asked Burns how he felt. "I'm a Libertarian -- I'm used to losing. And we're going to keep on losing until we win!"

Team Barr is now getting organized for the general-election campaign. I spotted Russ Verney at the Barr exhibition booth, making phone calls to delegates who'd donated to the campaign, inviting them to a private reception that starts in a few minutes. Work, work, work.

UPDATE V: Daniel McCarthy calls Wayne Allyn Root "the poster child for ADHD." That's unfair. Root is extremely high-energy -- someone said last night, "I feel like he wants to sell me Ginzu knives" -- but he is also very focused.

Tim Lee is nervous. Brendan Loy notes the child-pornography issue that damaged Ruwart. And perhaps the damage was unnecessary. It would have been the simplest thing in the world for Ruwart to have said (about a book she wrote in 1999), "No, I don't believe child pornography should be legalized. What I really meant was ..." blah, blah blah. Or else say she'd changed her mind, realized that her argument could be misconstrued as an endorsement of things she hadn't meant to endorse. But she didn't do that; she just cried "smear," which won't work in such a circumstance.

Stephen Littau offers parting thoughts on the LP convention.

LP afternoon thread

UPDATE 5:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. MT -- A new update at AmSpec blog with official token counts and video. Looks like Russ Verney's assessment of Barr as the "underdog" wasn't just campaign spin.

Now it's nap time for me, as I'll need to be rested for the C-SPAN debate tonight at 9 p.m. ET/7 p.m. MT.

* PREVIOUSLY *

My post about the token race is at AmSpec blog. Just went to lunch with Bob Barr and some of his campaign staff. My suggestion was Johnny Rocket's, but one of the staffers said the candidate had to be back to the convention at 1:30 pm, so they wanted to go to Starbucks.

"But we can eat at Johnny Rocket's in 30 minutes," I said.

"Stop whining," said Barr, reprising a line he uses often with Republicans who complain of his potential as a "spoiler" in November.

"You're spoiling my lunch," I replied.

What kind of serious caffeine hound is Barr? He's been in Denver three days, and already the barristas at Starbucks know his order: "The usual?" That's a latte with five espresso shots and foam.

Overall, Team Barr is feeling good about their candidate's chances, but the wild-and-woolly nature of an LP convention makes it impossible to say what the odds are at this point. David Weigel makes this clear in his latest excellent article at Reason:

As the convention fills up -- almost 600 delegates have registered now, more than 250 of them on Friday -- it's becoming clearer that this is not a Bob Barr coronation. Delegates are tolerant people who can sit through a pointless convention floor vote or a ramble from longshot Daniel Imperato, but they prefer to hear from candidates who say what they really think. Kubby and Ruwart do that. . . .
Kubby's alliance with Ruwart is the single most direct threat to a Barr nomination -- the outcome that most outside media still think is assured. A motion to make it harder to participate in Saturday's "C-SPAN debate" failed, making it easier for the two radical candidates to share support and propel each other into the fray.

It appears that seven candidates have qualified for tonight's debate. I'm going to need a nap, but here are some more photos:

David Weigel of Reason works from the convention floor. When it comes to reporting this convention, I can easily run circles around the MSM reporters, but it's almost impossible to scoop Weigel, who knows LP politics like the back of his hand. Also, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Charlie Sheen.

Wayne Allyn Root hears a report from one of his supporters. Root and Barr, the two pragmatic ex-Republican candidates, turned in a combined 187 tokens. Root had 94 and Barr 93, but the Barr staff noted that they shared tokens with ex-Democrat Mike Gravel, to ensure his inclusion in the C-SPAN debate. So if Gravel turned in 57 tokens, that would put the Root/Barr/Gravel block at 244 initial votes. I should point out that while Root and Barr are ideological allies, they are political rivals in terms of the byzantine LP nominating process.

Candidate Christine Smith solicits support. Unfortunately, Smith didn't collect enough tokens to qualify for the C-SPAN debate, although she did have enough to earn a nominating speech on Sunday.

Barr addresses his supporters prior to marching to the convention hall to turn in their tokens.

An LP official counts Barr's debate tokens, as Barr operative Steven Gordon and campaign manager Russ Verney watch. Depending on how all this turns out, there may be a book, in which case the story of the role performed by the mysterious Gordo will be good for at least a chapter.

Breakfast, etc.

It's nearly noon on the East Coast, but here in Denver, it's not yet 10 a.m., and the Saturday platform fight at the Libertarian Party convention is getting underway.

Just got back from a media breakfast with Bob Barr, which I highlighted at AmSpec blog. The key quotes from that event, I believe came at the end, when Barr essentially told the 9/11 Truthers to take a long walk off a short pier:

Barr was asked why he hadn't signed the "Libertarians for Justice" pledge, calling for a new investigation into 9/11 -- a "Truther" project endorsed by 11 of the 14 LP presidential candidates.
"I'm not interested in conspiratorial theories, I'm interested in moving the country forward," Barr said. "Some candidates will sign whatever's put in front of them, if they think it will get them votes. I don't operate that way."

Two words for Truthers: Popular Mechanics. Two more words for Truthers: Occam's Razor.

Barr's willingness to incur the wrath of Truther crackpots is an act of courage, in the context of this convention, where cracked pottery is not exactly in short supply. Will be blogging mainly at AmSpec blog today, but hope to update here with photos and video later. At some point, I've got to start transcribing the massive amount of audio I've recorded. Plus, I just realized I got less than three hours sleep, so a nap is in order this afternoon. UPDATE: The Popular Mechanics link has gone dead, so permit me to direct 9/11 Truthers to Jay Chambers' debunking of these conspiracy theories.

Saturday a.m. roundup

The Rocky Mountain News has a nice story, including a quote from my friend:

Delegate James Bell, a videographer from Atlanta, said he is one of the Georgians "responsible for moving Bob Barr . . . into the Libertarian Party."
Considering this coup, Bell smiled and said, "I believe Bob is now ready to take this party, and this country, to a whole different level."

The Georgia LP guys know Barr best, and they're very excited about him. Meanwhile, the Economist has this article:

The Libertarians, now deciding who should be their presidential nominee, are usually a sideshow. Their last candidate, Michael Badnarik, took a third of a percentage point in 2004. The hopefuls this year include one who wants to move the United Nations headquarters to Somalia, one known mostly for a book about the spirituality of John Denver, a country singer, and a near-obsessive marijuana-legalisation advocate.
But this year the Libertarian nomination may be a bigger prize. Ron Paul ran a lower-case libertarian campaign for the Republican nomination, generating surprising levels of enthusiasm, votes and money. Paulites continue showing up and voting for him in primaries, despite the fact that Mr McCain has locked up the nomination. The word “libertarian” has, in the wake of that run, gained more currency and respectability.
And now Bob Barr, a prominent former Republican Congressman, is campaigning for the nomination. Mr Barr, a former anti-drug warrior and leader of the impeachment against Bill Clinton, has converted to a rightish branch of Libertarianism.

A very good article, and you can read the rest here. I've got to get in the shower and attempt to get into some kind of condition to attend a media breakfast this morning.

UPDATE: Just saw Mike Gravel at breakfast in the 22nd floor Concorde Club. He's buttonholing delegates one-by-one. His wife, Whitney, is very nice.

I've got a lot of photos from last night, but only time to upload one right now.

That's Stephen Gordon with Barr's assistant, Jennifer Chambrin. A short story about Jennifer: Each delegate to the LP convention receives one token. To get participate in the Sunday night presidential debate, a candidate must collect at least 30 tokens. For a candidate to collect a delegate's token, then, is a major coup -- especially if he collects those tokens early in the process.

Jennifer told a tale last night of her effort to woo a token from a reluctant delegate. Large amounts of bourbon were required, but she finally got that token.

Well, media breakfast with Barr at 8 a.m. I've had about three hours sleep. Ready to go.

Just so you know

Most of my LP convention blogging is at The American Spectator blog. Just woke up from a three-hour nap -- trying to recover from the exhaustion caused by riding 20 hours in a van to get here. (The Atlanta Journal Constitution has a story about the guys I rode with.) If you think jet lag is bad, you should try van lag.

I really needed the rest because tonight's Bob Barr's big delegate reception party. Barr is a well-known party animal, so I need to be at my best if I'm ever going to keep up with him.

UPDATE: About to get in the shower to get ready for the party. In my Pajamas Media convention preview, I quoted Daniel Adams:

"I think the Libertarian Party’s going to see what organization looks like," the Georgia LP chairman said.

And Team Barr has indeed fielded a very professional operation, including endorsements and liveblogging. They're also canvassing the delegates and compiling a database of the results, putting together a list for use in whipping votes when the vote comes Sunday.

UPDATE II: Out of the shower now, ready to describe a little bit more of the Barr operation here in Denver.

Last night, Stephen Gordon chased me away from the sidewalk cafe outside the lobby bar at the Sheraton, where he was convening a meeting of his floor whip team. Then this afternoon, I saw Gordon outside the entrance of the hotel, scribbling down information on a canvass form -- pre-printed sheets with spaces for the delegate's name and state, his preference for candidates, his key issues, etc. Gordon was completing two of these forms, and then shoved them into his portfolio, which I could see contained a thick stack of completed forms.

Not long afterwards, Daniel Adams walked up and suggested that three of us grab drinks. Gordon and Adams discussed the results they were getting in the canvass and were pleased at the number of delegates who were supporting other candidates, but listed Barr as their second choice -- a key point, if the balloting goes multiple rounds.

While we sat there, another member of the Barr team (whose name I didn't catch) walked up and asked Stephen if he had more canvass forms, which Stephen gave him.

Canvassing is one of the most basic elements of political organization, and so far as I can tell, Barr is the only candidate doing an organized canvass of the convention delegates. This could be a decisive advantage in the nominating process.

On the other hand, there are some delegates beyond Barr's reach. I just talked to one of them, a longhaired young man from West Virginia, who was wearing a button declaring himself a member of "The Libertarian Wing of the Libertarian Party" (a Radical Caucus slogan) and another button supporting Susan Hogarth for an LNC office. Hogath is a Ruwart supporter whom I met in my April visit to "Ruwartistan" (a/k/a, North Carolina).

The size of the "anybody but Barr" delegation is at this stage unknown, except perhaps to Gordon's canvassers. Two days into the convention, however, the Barr team seems confident and cheerful.

Denver dinner with Dave

Just had lunch with David Weigel of Reason magazine and two Libertarian conspirators I won't name. (The alleged Barr conspiracy updated here.) Weigel's got a good take on the convention:

When Barr walked onto the exhibit floor of the 2008 Libertarian Convention, a trail of six campaign staffers followed behind him -- the kind of showy political operation that gives outsiders the impression that the former Georgia congressman is the obvious frontrunner in the race to head up the biggest third-party challenge in this year's presidential campaign.
A few feet away in the Denver Sheraton, Barr's opponents are shaking their heads, sharing "can-you-believe-this" looks. "Talk to some delegates, already!" says Jim Casarjian-Perry. A Massachusetts delegate for candidate George Phillies, Casarjian-Perry had, moments earlier, pinned Barr over whether he sticks by all the propositions of the Defense of Marriage Act, which Barr uthored.

Read the whole thing. Weigel is a great reporter, extensively familiar with the LP's history. Here are some photos from Denver:

LP National Chairman Bill Redpath presides over the opening session of the convention.

George Phillies and Wayne Allyn Root -- both LP presidential candidates -- chat in the exhibition hall.

Barr and I, attempting to get some product-placement bucks from Starbucks.

Denver's 16th Street, which has been converted into a pedestrian mall and tourist magnet.

Greetings from Denver

I'm here for the Libertarian Party National Convention at the Denver Sheraton. Got into town Thursday at 5 p.m. Central, which is 7 p.m. Eastern. That meant I had only three hours to file my story for The American Spectator:

"The Libertarian Party -- Not For Sale!" declares a flyer being distributed here by the LP Radical Caucus. The charge is that former Rep. Bob Barr's presidential campaign is part of a takeover plot by Barr's campaign manager Russ Verney and longtime conservative fundraiser Richard Viguerie.The accusation that Barr and others are attempting to "hijack" the party is one of the many intrigues surrounding the Libertarian convention that began here Thursday. With 14 declared presidential candidates and more than 1,000 delegates -- none of them officially pledged to any candidate -- there is plenty of opportunity for suspicion. ... (MORE)

"Suspicion" -- I prefer to use mild, sensible words when doing news reporting. Resist the temptation to jazz it up by depicting the LP convention as a crucible of insane paranoia. It might get there, but it's not there yet.

I'll come back and update with more details, including the 22-hour cross-country van ride.

UPDATE: About 8 p.m. Wednesday, Doug Craig of the Georgia LP (and the Crazy for Liberty blog) arrived in the parking lot of the Calhoun (Ga.) Times, where I was sports editor 1987-91. I chose this as the rendezvous point because it's an hour north of Atlanta, saving me a little drive time, and I could leave my car in the parking lot.

Riding shotgun in the 12-passenger van was Garrett Michael Hayes, the LP's gubernatorial candidate in 2002 and 2006. Also on board were Alex Chandler of Fayetteville; John Monds of Cairo; Marc Caplan of Lawrenceville; Lance Lamberton of Austell; and James Bell of Douglasville. Along the way, we stopped in Nashville to pick up Aleq Boyle of Chickamauga (who had been visiting his father in the Tennessee capital), and stopped in St. Louis, Mo., to pick up Tom Knapp, a colorful and outspoken Libertarian blogger.

The van ride was one of those small-world situations, because I went to school with James Bell at Lithia Springs High School. James is now a professional videographer and does communications for the Georgia LP.

Conditions aboard the van were not exactly conducive to relaxation. Not only was it crowded, but when you've got that many Libertarians together, there tends to be a lot of . . . discussion. (Like I said, mild, sensible words.) So over the course of 22 hours on the road, maybe I nodded off for four hours. Maybe.

I volunteered to drive from Marion, Ill., to St. Louis, the across Missouri past Kansas City, about five hours, before Doug took over driving again. On the next leg of the trip -- the seemingly endless ride across the plains of Kansas -- I drifted off to sleep and woke up about 11 a.m. (Eastern) to hear Glenn Beck on the radio interviewing Bob Barr for a full hour.

Just as we neared the Colorado border, I noticed tumbleweeds blowing across the highway. I'd never seen tumbleweeds before, so that was cool. We stopped for gas near Burlington, Colo., and the wind was whipping about 30 mph. Didn't realize it at the time, but northern Colorado was then being hit with devastating tornados.

Coming into Denver, we ran into a traffic jam, which the radio told us was caused by an overturned dump truck. I suggested we take the next exit and try to navigate surface streets to reach our hotel. This turned into a bit of an adventure, because the Denver street map in my atlas isn't very detailed and is so small the street names are hard to read. As Davy Crockett once said, I've never been lost, but I've been a mite bewildered a time or two. We made a few wrong turns, but eventually found our way.

The Sheraton abuts the 16th Street Mall, an area of downtown Denver that's been renovated and is lined with shops, restaurants and nightclubs. Very nice.

Arriving with only three hours to go before deadline, I had to work fast, and with the assistance of the LP media staff was able to get hooked up with a WiFi connection. Did a few quick interviews with delegates, threw together about 550 words, and filed it, then packed up my computer and took it back to the hotel room before heading out in search of refreshments.

Writing is very difficult when you're in a condition of complete exhaustion. I'd gotten about seven hours sleep Tuesday night and then, as I said, about four hours during the ride from Georgia.

By Thursday evening, brainfog was setting in, and the story I filed for my 10 p.m. (ET) deadline was a bit thin. Jeremy Lott, my editor at the Spectator, called me to ask if I had anything else to add. I promised to get back to him.

Fortunately, I found Stephen Gordon in the lobby of the Sheraton, where he was getting ready to convene a meeting of the Barr campaign's convention floor team. Since Gordon is a central figure in the allegedy conspiracy that has inflamed some LP imaginations, I got a few quotes from him.

I called Jeremy back and dictated a few extra sentences, and mentioned that floor votes at the convention today (Friday) were expected to be indicators of the relative strength of Barr and his opposition. One of the issues to be voted on is the party platform, so I e-mailed Jeremy a brief synopsis of the platform dispute and some details. Jeremy smoothed all this stuff into a coherent story.

The title "Fear and Loathing in Denver" naturally suggested itself and is, of course, another Hunter S. Thompson reference. Everyone always associates Thompson's Gonzo style with drug abuse. But deadline pressure and exhaustion are equally part of what Gonzo is about.

Thompson preferred Wild Turkey and mescaline to help him meet deadlines. I manage to get the job done with Starbucks. Of course, if the LP's Radical Caucus ever gets their way, we'll be able to buy bulk quantities of mescaline at Costco. I report. You decide.

Barr to end exploration, begin campaign

He'll announce Monday in Washington:

The Hon. Bob Barr will hold a press conference on Monday May 12 to discuss his future plans and the 2008 election. Rep. Barr . . . launched an exploratory committee last month to determine whether he should file as a candidate for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination.

Dave Weigel has more at Reason's Hit & Run.

A little birdie tipped me last night that this news was coming this morning, but the news was embargoed and I don't burn sources. Anyway, I was so shagged out from Wednesday's trip to Shepherdstown (following Tuesday's trip to Martinsburg) that I slept until noon, and got scooped on it. Eh.

At the AmSpec blog, Philip Klein says that "Barr has the potential to hurt John McCain in some swing states," and who can argue otherwise? The Ron Paul boom signaled that clearly enough.

To me, however, the real story -- and one that Jonathan Martin at Politico, for example, doesn't discuss -- is the very tough struggle Barr faces just to get the Libertarian nomination. (I wrote about that last month.) The more radical faction of Libertarians is not going to let an ex-Republican like Barr have the LP nomination without a fight.

The Libertarian radicals don't give a damn whether they nominate a candidate who can hurt John McCain. The radicals are fanatically committed to keeping the LP a cozy little discussion group for ideological purists like themselves. Having a political impact in the real world is less important to them than ensuring that the LP doesn't accidentally attract people with more mainstream views.

Of course, the LP radicals spew venom at Republicans and conservatives. But when a Libertarian candidate like Barr comes along, with the potential to be a torpedo that sinks the GOP and makes the LP genuinely relevant -- well, the radicals don't want any part of that.