Bob Barr

Full name Robert Laurence Barr. Jr but known commonly as Bob Barr, is a former federal prosecutor and represented the 7th district of Georgia in the House of Representatives between 1995 and 2003. He was also the Libertarian Party nominee for President of the United States in 2008.

Some of Bob's opinions and policies have included:

• Replacing the current tax system with a consumption tax.
• Free trade - allowing more access to private trade with many other countries around the world.
• Voted for the Iraq resolution of 2002, allowing President Bush to procede with the preperations for war. However, Bob has since apparently "regretted" this decision and premotes the call for withdrawal.
• Does not believe in the United Nations and wants the U.S to withdraw some of its functions to bring down America's financial contribution.
• Confidently supports the 'right to bear arms.'
• He is also known as the "Privacy Candidate" for his passion for wanting to protect people's privacy from the government. (For example on the internet.)
  
• And other such policies as: Free, undefined marriage and more control on illegal immigration.

The following is the 2008 Election campaign video used by Robert Barr in order to promote himself to the public. This was directed at citizens using the popular video-sharing website Youtube.



The first quote that stands out for me is when Bob explains that he is running for president; "Because liberty needs a voice and America needs a choice."
The "choice" he refers to is to "get the message to Washington" that the American people will not stand by and watch whilst billions of U.S dollars are spent overseas to fund the American war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan in, to quote from the video, "Operations with no point and no end in sight." He also goes on to say how people with small businesses in America are being told how to run them by the government.
To me, this sends a very clear message that America has too much government involvement both in US functionality and outside affairs and that this should be stopped. By saying this he is promoting himself as the 'perfect' person to deliver this message and change the state of the government.

Towards the end of this video, Bob notably says that Americans "are no longer satisfied with simply voting between the lesser of two evils." By saying this he indictes that people are generally voting for what he has termed as "second-best" and that the American people are not voting for a candidate that represents their wishes because there is not one.

Following the 2008 Election results, Bob Barr and his vice president candidate Wayne Allyn Root recieved 509,478 votes which accounted for 0.4% of the popular vote. Whilst this could not contend with Obama's score, it did, according to an unofficial supporting website of Barr, mean that he had the "Second best result of any Libertarian Party candidate ever."

Referenced websites:
http://www.bobbarr.org/ (Background on Bob Barr)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEV5Zn57HeI (Election campaign video)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9993135-38.html (Background on Bob Barr)
http://www.bobbarr.com/2008/11/14/bob-barr-wayne-allyn-root-2008-presidential-election-results/ (Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root Election Results)