Below The Beltway

Former Republican Congressman and 2008 Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Bob Barr talked with CNN about the state of the GOP three months into the Obama Administration:
(CNN) — Former Georgia Rep. Bob Barr said Saturday it’s hard to “overestimate the damage” that’s been inflicted on the Republican Party — not only with this week’s defection of [...]

Glenn Beck and Penn Jillette talked the other day about the Missouri “terrorism” report that informed officers that supporters of Ron Paul and Bob Barr, among others, should be considered threats:

H/T: Jason Pye
         

Apparently Bob Barr isn’t the only American libertarian politician to fall victim to Sasha Cohen’s unique brand of comedy:
Presidential candidates will do almost anything for publicity. But Ron Paul’s appearance in Sacha Baron Cohen’s upcoming Bruno movie suggests he draws the line at making sex tapes with gay Austrian TV hosts.
In a five-minute scene, comedian [...]

Did Bob Barr cost John McCain the Tarheel State’s 15 Electoral votes ?
It appears that the answer may be yes:
It’s about to be official: Barack Obama carried North Carolina in a squeaker.
With all the provisional votes counted, the president-elect broadened his narrow lead over Republican John McCain.
Obama carried the state with 49.7 percent to McCain’s [...]

Brian Doherty’s piece in Reason about the relative failure of Bob Barr’s Presidential campaign, which I commented on earlier this week, leads  Volokh Conspiracy contributor Ilya Somin to wonder if the Libertarian Party should even exist anymore:
Brian’s article discusses numerous possible causes of Barr’s failure that were specific to his particular campaign. Some of these [...]

Reason’s Brian Doherty does a post-mortem on yet another disappointment Libertarian Party Presidential campaign:
From the outset, Bob Barr’s Libertarian run for the presidency was fraught with great expectations.
For many Libertarian Party members, the former Georgia congressman was a living hope, an actual experienced politician with a national reputation and real fundraising experience who could finally [...]

A humorous alternate reality:
JAN. 20, 2009
Inauguration Day arrives and Barr “reluctantly” accedes to being sworn in on a statutorily mandated date. Visibly irked by Chief Justice John Roberts’ attempt to have him swear on a Bible, Barr mumbles that he recognizes no authority and instead suggests that he swear on his own moustache. Veep-elect Wayne [...]

Bob Barr has issued the following press release on the election results:
ATLANTA, GA – “This is just the beginning of the new Libertarian Party,” says Bob Barr, the 2008 Libertarian Party nominee for president. “In these next four years, there will be an even greater need for a political party fully dedicated to lower taxes, [...]

Based on these preliminary vote total figures, it looks like Bob Barr’s best outcome would be to exceed Harry Browne’s vote total in 1996:

Based on these numbers, Barr has exceeded Ron Paul’s vote total from 1988 and seems likely to match or exceed Harry Browne’s vote total from 1996, but will fall far short of [...]

Order yours today.
H/T: Robert Stacey McCain