The Choice for REAL Change, and Why You Probably Haven't Heard About Him

Only one candidate this year would actually bring real change. That candidate is Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party's nominee for President.

Obama and McCain (For the sake of ease, I'm going to refer to them collectively as McBama) are so alike that, yes, you can call them McBama. They both voted to reauthorize FISA and have both voted to make it easier for the federal government to spy on American citizens. Isn't it crazy that the government can break into our homes without a warrant and take whatever they want now? Well, you can thank McBama for that. You can also thank McBama for the new rules allowing the federal government to listen to any American's phone call, for any reason or for no reason, also without a warrant. They can read our e-mails, without a warrant. And McBama supports that, wants that, and for whatever sick reason actually believes that it's a good thing for our country. According to McBama, the Constitution no longer applies. If that's the kind of change Obama is talking about, I don't want it. And McCain is on the same boat on most of the issues.

McBama won't make government any smaller--they both say repeatedly that they want more government regulation, more federal involvement in our personal lives, and more taxes. But wasn't this country founded on the principle of liberty? Where did that go to?

Bob Barr is trying to bring liberty back to America. He is a former Republican Congressman from Georgia (7th District). He wrote the Barr Amendment, also known as the Sunset Clause, to the Patriot Act--It's because of him that Congress has to keep voting whether to continue the Patriot Act every so often. Without the Sunset Clause, Congress would be completely powerless to control what goes in in our country. But when the Patriot Act became the Bush administration's excuse to violate our Constitutional rights, Bob Barr left the Republican Party because he realized that it no longer stood for what it used to.

That's why he's running for President as a Libertarian: To give us a real choice and to give us some real change.

Despite significant support nationwide (7% + in most national polls, 10% + in some states), the media refuses to cover the Barr campaign. Why is this? Why is it that I could watch CNN or Fox News for three hours and hear not one reference to the Barr campaign, while being overloaded with useless facts about McBama (like how much they pay for their haircuts, or who they're having dinner with tonight)? It's because the media, by and large, is afraid of change.

Mike Huckabee is a perfect example. When he began his primary campaign for the Republican nomination this year, he was polling at 1% or 2% in all the polls. But as soon as the debates came around and voters got to hear what he stood for, he shot up to 30% and was even the front runner for a time (I'm still convinced that if Huckabee had won South Carolina, he would be the nominee rather than McCain). The media simply didn't cover him from the beginning because he wasn't one of their favorites; he was a candidate more concerned with helping to make America a better place (though I didn't agree with all of his ideas, at least his heart was in the right place) than appealing to the media and serving their interests.

It's the same with Bob Barr. Because the media isn't covering him, people don't know what he stands for. But if they did, they would probably realize that they like alot of what he says. They would probably realize that he's a whole lot better as a candidate that McBama. The Barr campaign is all about smaller government and more power and freedom going back to the people, which is where it belongs. Apparently that scares the media.

It also scares the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is run by supporters of the McCain and Obama campaigns. They require candidates to receive at least 15% in three national polls in order to appear in the debates. But how is Bob Barr supposed to get 15% in the polls when the media blackout prevents people from hearing his message? Clearly, the CPD is just trying to keep American voters from realizing that they have more than two choices this year.

And then there's the issue of ballot access. The Democrats and Republicans are automatically on every state's ballot, plus DC. But any other party has to collect thousands of signatures and pay filing fees in order to get on the ballots. In Oklahoma, a third party candidate has to collect nearly 50,000 signatures, pay a fee of several thousand dollars, and has only 90 days to get it all done. On top of that, only Oklahoma residents can collect those signatures, making it even more difficult to get it done. In West Virginia, a third party candidate needs more than 16,000 signatures (more than 1% of the total population, or almost 2% of registered voters) to get on the ballot. In total, a third party candidate would need to gather 867,134 signatures in order to be on the ballot in all 50 states plus DC. McBama doesn’t have to collect any.

This issue of ballot access is in place simply to prevent third party candidates from being a serious threat to the two party system. Because it is so difficult to get on the ballot, third party candidates spend millions of dollars to simply get on the ballot, leaving them without the resources needed to field TV ads and thus make a noticeable impact on the general election. This is exactly what’s going on with the Barr campaign this year. And I bet that you probably don’t know that there are no fewer than six people running for President this year! Fortunately I live in South Carolina, a state that believes in giving voters a choice; all six candidates will be on our ballot, while Oklahoma will likely have only two. Oklahoma voters who don’t like McBama will be forced to choose between the lesser of two evils, even if they would rather vote for Bob Barr, Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader, or Chuck Baldwin. They are simply denied the right to vote for the candidate of their choice. They can’t even write-in a candidate, or their entire ballot is thrown out.

And that is why you probably haven’t heard of Bob Barr. If you’d like to learn a little about him and his campaign, the campaign website is outstanding. It’s made by the same folks who ran the Ron Paul website. The address is http://www.bobbarr2008.com and I would strongly advise a visit.