Opinion: Dear (insert editor’s name here), I support Bob Barr

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We hate to spoil surprises here on The Ticket. But any newspaper editors out there, be on the alert for a slew of similar-sounding letters suddenly supporting Bob Barr.

He’s the not-so famous former Republican representative from Georgia who’s now the presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party. Kind of like a Ron Paul with an old-fashioned mustache. Not that there’s anything wrong with such handsome facial hair.

Anyway, Stephen Gordon is the eCampaign Manager for Barr, and if you’re not printing your own money by the millions like Barack Obama’s crowd in Chicago, then you need to do a lot of really cheap -- even free -- things to attract attention to your campaign and try to break out of the 1% cellar.

Bob caught a break. He’ll be interviewed Monday on PBS’s national ‘NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,’ where serious voters study.

Meanwhile, Stephen wrote an e-mail to Barr supporters, linking them to a web page where he has quite thoughtfully stored a whole batch of sample letters about Barr’s policies. Coincidentally, they all involve an avowal of a vote for Bob Barr on Nov. 4 and a request for others to consider the same thing.

Stephen suggests, if you’re perhaps maybe probably too busy to write your own letter, you might want to copy down one or three of these and fire them off to your local newspaper or website.

Since Bob’s been barred, so to speak, from all the presidential debates, Stephen’s also collected Barr ads and videos on their website, which people can watch at no cost to Bob. Or Stephen.

Many newspaper letters editors these days will Google common phrases from letters and find them showing up all over the web, and maybe they won’t publish that letter or maybe they’ll publish just one version.

But maybe someone will see the letter somewhere and decide to vote for Bob Barr. And that’s the kind of thing your shoestring campaign has to do to compete if you’re not That One.

--Andrew Malcolm

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