Barr!

Great piece on Libertarian Presidential candidate Bob Barr, who's sick of the GOP Establishment and running on a platform of limited government. Barr has a built-in audience with the Ron Paul crowd, and if he taps into them he can cause a stir. I don't agree with him on a bunch of issues, but there are points of convergence on civil liberties, making us strange bedfellows. Bob Barr, of course, is strange bedfellows with the Bob Barr from Congress:

And some of its own members are asking how they ended up with Mr. Barr, who at the Libertarian Party convention in Denver last month squeaked by with the nomination only after six raucous rounds of votes.

“There certainly are still those,” Mr. Barr said, switching to the third person, “that may view Bob Barr as somewhat of a Johnny-come-lately.”

While libertarian philosophy generally bows to the rights of the individual — and against government intervention — Representative Barr voted for the USA Patriot Act; voted to authorize the war in Iraq in 2002; led the impeachment charge against President Bill Clinton in 1998; and introduced the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.

So there's, you know, that. If Paul were running in this space, with his more consistent record, he'd get 5%. I don't know about Barr.