Open letter from Lance Lamberton about Bob Barr

Posted by Doug Craig at 5/17/2008 9:45 PM
Categories: Bob Barr
 
Dear Libertarian Party Delegate:
 
    As a delegate from the great state of Georgia, I am writing to ask that you vote for former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr as our nominee for President of these United States.  I first became acquainted with Mr. Barr when I moved to Georgia in 2001 and he was serving at that time as a Republican member of Congress.  My impression of him was that he was a strong social conservative who had an impassioned commitment to our fundmental right to privacy from the government as guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.  In other words, he didn't fit the typical social conservative mold which is more than eager to sacrifice liberty for security at any cost, as witnessed by the Patriot Act and other unprecedented assaults on our right to privacy.
 
    After Mr. Barr was gerrymandered out of his House seat in 2003, I witnessed a transformation and evolution from conservative to libertarian which eventually resulted in him joining the Party in 2006.  Bob will claim that he didn't leave the Republican Party, but that the party left him.  And in point of fact he's right.  The party of George Bush and John McCain is a far cry from the party of Goldwater and Reagan.  But I think it goes much deeper than that.  It is my belief that Bob as always philosophically been a libertarian, and that he joined our ranks once it became abundantly clear that the Republican Party's commitment to liberty is as vapid, shallow and non-existent as the Democrats, and that to try to reform the party from within is an exercise in futility.
 
    Bob Barr chose to join the Libertarian Party because at this time in our nation's history, it's essential to work with a party that's 100 percent committed to protecting liberty.  But his commitment does not stop there.  Not only has he joined our party, but has contributed generously to it, and has assumed a key leadership role as the LP's Southeast Regional Representative.  Barr serves on the Libertarian Party National Committee and has traveled throughout the country spreading the Party's message of liberty and freedom.
 
    Moreover, Bob Barr has garnered national exposure and name recognition far in excess of any other declared candidate for the LP nomination.  For example, he has appeared on virtually every major cable and network television program dealing with public policy matters, and has served as a contributor for CNN.  He writes a regular column for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, has hosted a nationally syndicated weekly radio show, and is a Contributing Editor for the The American Spectator.
 
    Bob Barr also has far and away the most impressive credentials of any other candidate running for the nomination.  In addition to his eight years of service in the U.S. Congress, Bob was appointed by President Reagan to serve as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia (1986-90), and served as President of the Southeastern Legal Foundation (1990-91).  He heads up the second largest Political Action Committee in Georgia (the Bob Barr Leadership Fund) which raised $1,234,883 last year, where the money is used to get the libertarian message out.
 
    Some of Bob's opponents for the nomination may argue that his former affiliation as a conservative Republican makes his conversion to libertarianism suspect, and I would argue that nothing could be further from the truth.  First of all, unless we were born into a libertarian household, we all came from "somewhere" before we discovered libertarianism.  And as a former staffer in the Reagan White House, I can relate first-hand to the disillusionment and frustration of once working for a party which has truly lost its way.
 
    But my frustration goes deeper than that, and it has to do with the historically poor performance of our presidential candidates at the ballot box.  Let's face it.  On the national level, we have yet to achieve what I would call relevance.  For the most part, we have been ignored by the media and the voters, and consequently have been subjected to some pretty nasty derision by conservative talk show hosts, among others.  Bob Barr can change that.  In fact, he is the only candidate who can.  I say this because of the Ron Paul phenomenon.  A whole lot more people voted for Ron Paul in the Republican primaries than ever voted libertarian.  Yet isn't Ron Paul's message the same as ours?  Here we have an opportunity to capture that demographic, but it won't be accomplished unless we field a candidate who has credibility and standing.
 
    In that regard, Bob Barr brings to the table an intangible but subtle quality which I don't believe any of our other candidates have, and which we must have if we hope to ever break past the less than one percent vote total for our candidate:  He is "Presidential."  Even the dictionary doesn't clearly define what that is, other than its an adjective for "President."  It's not enough for candidates to hold libertarian positions on the issues. If voters don't believe they have the leadership skills to implement our agenda, they won't give us a second thought.  That's what's happened in the past, and its time that we learn from our past and jump on this tremendous opportunity that Bob Barr has presented us with.  Thank you for the time you have taken to read this letter, and I look forward to discussing with you in person at the Convention why I believe Bob Barr is the best choice that our party has ever had.
 
Yours in liberty,
 
Lance Lamberton
GA LP Delegate
 

 

What did you think of this article?




Trackbacks
Trackback specific URL for this post
  • No trackbacks exist for this post.
Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Leave a comment

 Name

 Email (will not be published)

 Website

Your comment is 0 characters limited to 3000 characters.