With no bailout in sight, Libertarian Bob Barr's campaign hits tough financial times

Here we have, what, 26 days left until the election? The Republican ticket of Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is trying to figure out how to make up six, nine or maybe even 11 points in the polls.

And over at Libertarian Bob Barr's Atlanta offices, they are almost ecstatic to report they are at 3% in Virginia. That's 3% total, not points behind.

In Florida his campaign says they're just under 4% total, in Colorado just over and in Ohio all the way up to 5.2%.

"Those states are vital for us," a brave fundraising letter proclaims, "as it is in those battleground states where the election will be decided."

If the little-known former Republican congressman from Georgia can multiply his support ten times in less than four weeks (and overcome the unwritten national aversion to male candidates with facial hair), he just might pull out a victory.

Otherwise, he will suffer the usual sad fate of third party bids, struggling with the two V's: Valiantly but in Vain.

Like Rep. Ron Paul's electorally unsuccessful though financially robust bid for the Republican nomination, Barr's campaign is often built around adversity -- the media conspiracy that keeps it from getting free publicity, the difficulty of being obscure and raising money in hard times, being excluded from the debates by the two major parties and their debate commission and the local efforts by state parties to get or keep them off the ballots.

On Barr's website, which not surprisingly also asks for money first thing, Barr has posted a 3 minute 25  second video (see it below) for the faithful and the curious, calmly analyzing the recent financial crisis bailout and how wrong, once again, the big government folks were in Washington.

And charging, in fact, that they all knew precisely what was coming.

In her recent fundraising plea, Ashley Petty (see photo) said a financial crisis has also hit the Barr campaign. She'd just come back from the mailbox and last week's armload of donation checks had dwindled to a mere handful. "I'm asking you to really dig deep," she wrote.

She suggested supporters devote $5 a day for the rest of the campaign.

-- Andrew Malcolm

By the way, for $0 a day you can have alerts of every new Ticket item dispatched directly to your cell. Simply register here at Twitter.

Comments

[Alessandro Machi]

Your mini ad "By the way, for $0 a day you can have alerts of every new Ticket item dispatched directly to your cell. Simply register here at Twitter." is technically incorrect.

I assume to view a twitter download costs money, no? If that is the case, then there actually is no way to view your downloads for free.

If I'm wrong feel free to correct me.

[Anonymous]

It's high time that a new day dawns in American politics.

Time for the duopoly bickering to be drowned out by substantive discussions about our nation and its future.

Time for the media to stop playing both sides of the fence before the horses even leave the starting gate. Time for a general realization that there's more than two horses, and that the electorate is done a disservice when told otherwise.

The election should be decided in voting booths and not in backrooms, boardrooms, and newsrooms.

[For the Mediocre Sarcasm Blogger]

devote...donate It's only grammer, no big deal. Since it is not in a quote, it would appear that the author of the article is the one who does not quite grasp the importance of using the english language properly.

[ScottieL]

I love to blame the media for the lackluster coverage of third party candidates. But I realize now that on top of the nonstop media glare on the obamam mccain 08 campaign, selling common snese and diversity is something relegated to public television or NPR.

Tragic is it that the dance we are currently in is a broken record set to the tune of the two parties that are destroying the country.

They create gigantic problems and then tax us for the gigantic solutions.

Where are the limitation of political powers set out in the Constitution? HA

Knock Knock. . .

Scott~

[spinnikerca]

A Congressman in North Carolina just pulled in a one day record after Ron Paul asked for support in a money bomb this week. I know I donated. http://techrepublican.com/blog/the-ron-paul-money-machine-bombs-a-republican-congressional-candidate

I think people are more careful with their money, and Barr is not the only liberty candidate. Some don't like his record, although I think all libertarian leaning people consider him a much better bet than Obama or McCain. Baldwin is who Ron Paul said he supported, on being pressured to pick someone, but he really wants all principled third parties to get a lot of votes.

Finding a home for our vote is one thing, and being sufficiently enthusiastic to donate and volunteer is something else, though. Those of us who follow Ron Paul still want to write him in, and despite his statements cautioning against that, I suspect hundreds of thousands would. I'm fighting the impulse, myself.

[Roga]

The "Valiantly but in Vain" comment is missing the point. Most of those who vote for a 3rd-party candidate don't expect him or her to win. The Mets missed the playoffs by a few games this year to the Phillies. But their losses to losing teams like Washington in September no doubt hurt more than loses in May to the Phillies. The point being, it's not just the front runners who affect elections.

We know that the losing major party will ask themselves after the election, "what could we have done to get these votes? Maybe if our next candidate has a record of (fill in the blank: legalizing marijuana, pulling out of Iraq, balancing the budget, privatizing social security, liberalizing health care) we can get those extra 2% that would have pushed us over the top."