I believe a large segment of the US would be receptive to a Libertarian message, if it had the money and resources to compete at the same level as the Dems & GOP.

I wonder about this...ultimately I don't think so, though.  I don't think the American people are being tricked.  I think we have the government we want.  Go out, talk to people.  People want order and they want good economic times and they want low crime and they want "morality".  Republicans and Democrats both offer paths to these things (although through very different ways, of course).  Republicans promise that helping business and promoting "values" will fix all our woes.  Democrats promise a social welfare state and while they don't have as strong a "values" platform as the Republicans, they still love to pander to the "save the children" crowd with things like HRC's proposals for censorship of violent video games, etc.  Americans have come to love feeding at the government teat these days.  We no longer fight over whether the gov't should be involved or not - the only question is who gets to feed and how the food will be distributed.  Politicians say the things they say because they know it will get them elected.  If there was a constituency where an anti-government message was truly popular, we'd see libertarian candidates out there.  The simple, sad fact is that it doesn't sell.  It sells to a certain number of people - mainly reasonably well educated white males who don't have a strong religious background and don't have kids - but libertarians are by no means in the majority even in that (relatively limited) category.  Most people here in the US (and probably most people, period) simply don't value the same level of personal freedom that we do.  

I doubt that 55% of Americans know who Bob Barr is; they answer "yes" to the poll question because we're an open minded people, and, hey, why not hear all sides?  You could put almost any name into that question and get a similarly high response.  Only a notorious name like Nader will get you a lower number.

The press will take Libertarians seriously when voters do.  Their presidential candidate in 2004, Michael Badnarik (who listed his greatest prior political achievement as being a "big man on campus" and vice-president of his college dormitory) got 0.43% of the vote in 2004.  By reference, some voting machines have a 1% error rate.

As for how crazy Libertarians are, judge them by the company they keep.  How did Sonny Landham get the LP's nomination to run for U.S. Senator from Kentucky after he referred to Arabs as "camel dung shovelers" and said "We should bomb every man, woman and child in the Muslim countries. They're hiding weapons and breeding terrorists. We need to commence genocide in the region. Islam is not a religion"?  And this guy had the nomination this year, until outcry forced the party to withdraw it.  I won't even get into the LP's entanglement with the militia movement in the 1990s.

Sonny Landham nomination

Landham had the nomination before making those comments.

Landham was stripped of the nomination after making those comments.  The "outcry" didn't force squat. The "outcry" was about 30 people in California and 10 in and around Detroit, who have another agenda anyway.  We made our decision based on what was best for LPKY.

I received 2 messages from people in Kentucky.  Both were from people within the freedom movement, but outside of the LP, with whom I have worked closely.

I know.  I'm the chair of the LPKY.

One outrageous candidate doesn't discredit an entire party.

If it did, the Republicans and Democrats would be discredited a whole lot more.  Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Gary Condit, and Jimmy Carter are good examples of bad politicians known to most people on the Dem side. Republicans have their share of poor candidates as well.

People looking for a new way

Meanwhile, our press is taking us seriously in Kentucky.  We're building an organization here in Kentucky. People are angry at the R's and D's, crying out for a new way.  We are still building it, but it's coming along nicely.

We most recently (2006) had a Libertarian Party US Congressional Candidate in KY-4 take 5% of the popular vote with about $750.  

55% of people saying that Barr should be included is likely more of a reflection that 55% aren't satisfied with the 2 "Big Party" choices.

It's not about choice

The real problem is ballot access.  Republicans and Democrats write election laws that hurt each other a little bit, but mostly keep out any new competition.  This is effectively the creation and maintaining of an oligarchy.

In Kentucky, Republicans and Democrats need only 2 signatures to be on the ballot.  3rd parties and independents need between 100 and 5000, depending on the office being sought.  So we spend time and money gaining access to the ballot for a couple of months first, setting the campaign back in funding and critical campaign time.  This has happened to Barr as well.  Petitioning is still on-going in some states.

By contrast, Indiana has had ballot access since 1994, and has people in both non-partisan and partisan office.

McCain-Feingold prevents the LPKY from assisting with the Barr campaign without filing FEC paperwork.  That increases our 'cost of entry' if we wish to get involved in Federal races.  Legislators tried to pass a miniature state-level version in our past legislative session.  Imagine if the state chapter of your political party wasn't able to campaign, give advice, or basically do anything that helps the campaign.

Summary

The press is starting to take us seriously.  We are starting to make some big moves in Kentucky.  Even still, 33% of Kentuckians push the "straight party ticket" button, and another 33% vote consistently with their party (unless the Candidate does something really stupid, like former Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher).  That means we have to win every single open-minded person's vote to win in today's climate.  It's an uphill battle.  We'll get there.

OK, you get credit for withdrawing the nomination, but serious parties don't nominate genocidal racists to the U.S. Senate.  It's hard to see how his racism came out in a single press interview (his first press interview, right?) but didn't come out in your primary, or convention, or whatever it is you use to vet candidates before nominating them.  I would think that you'd at least check as to whether the people the Libertarian Party nominates are, well, libertarian.  Someone who favors limited government would typically not favor using a government to murder all members of an ethnic group, right?

Yet you want a fast-track path to the ballot.  Good luck with that plan.  And in the meantime, what "other agenda" are you referring to in "Detroit"--the agenda of the many Arab-Americans who live there?

Racism and the End of a Candidacy

We did investigate his record.  He was accused of being a racist by the Southern Poverty Law Center, but they call anyone who isn't for complete redistribution of wealth a racist, so that didn't play a role, in our minds.  He had also done an engagement for the CCC, but that was explained as a paid engagement (I've done work for the NEA. So what?).  Other prominent and known elected officials had participated in the same organization.

We gave him our endorsement, knowing that he was 80% libertarian, based on what he had said during the a multi-day, multi-event "interview" phase; 80% is significantly better than McConnell or Lunsford.  Certainly Republicans and Democrats don't insist on platform purity (do they even have a platform?)  Heck, Democrats in Kentucky would be Republicans in California.

His original comments about Bush and McConnell taking us into war over oil are exactly what many believe.  He espoused a belief in smaller government,  returning power to the states, and helping people help themselves by getting government out of the way.  We were very hopeful for his campaign and his chances.

He had multiple interviews with the media prior to the comments in question.  Beyond the announcement that went worldwide, and was apparently broadcast on CNN, there were a number of other interviews, on both radio and TV (Fox News, too), as well as the print media.

The first that I heard about the comments was the Friday following the first, second, and third time the comments were made.  Once I became aware of the situation, I alerted the executive committee, and we worked internally in the party to determine our options.  We don't have full-time paid lawyers on retainer.  We investigated our options before taking the appropriate action.

The LPKY does not file FEC (McCain-Feingold; frickin' McCain) paperwork, we are not directly related in any Federal campaigns once the campaign begins.  We don't involve ourselves because we're not allowed.  McCain-Feingold is another example of the system being rigged against 3rd parties and independents by increasing the cost of entry.

Perfect Parties?

Republicans and Democrats have run racists.  David Duke ran under both banners.  Strom Thurmond under both banners.  Robert Byrd of WV formerly led the local branch of the KKK.  Just a few examples.  Certainly there have been racists in both parties in the past who have even held office, and very likely there are still racists in office still today.

To insinuate that Parties don't make mistakes from time to time is ridiculous.  Parties are a group of people.  People are not perfect.  Mistakes can and will be made, because people are not perfect.  The actions taken after a mistake are what you should judge.

Other Agenda

The "other agenda" in Detroit and (mainly) California I mentioned is an internal squabble within the Party at the national level that has no bearing on this topic.  The only people to contact me from the Arabic community was the Center for American-Islamic Relations, who called me to commend us on our actions in removing him from the ballot.

You obviously know what the Libertarian platform is about, based on your commentary. Perhaps you have another agenda by bringing up the Landham situation?  I'm pretty sure the topic is Bob Barr.  Barr had nothing to do with the Landham campaign.  So commentary about Landham in a thread about Barr is mostly irrelevant.  Unless we're going down the route of associating McCain with Stevens (AK) and Craig(ID) or Obama with Byrd (WV) and Jefferson (LA).  But that seems like a side-bar from a presidential candidate's inclusion in a debate.

Republicans have their share of poor candidates as well.

No understatement here, eh?

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

It's possible the next president could have a major impact on the court. Stevens is over 85, Scalia and Kennedy are in their 70s.

 federal legislation would bring an end to abortion in all states.

I don't think a Democratic House and Senate would outlaw abortion.  Even if the  Democrats committed political suicide and did so, the Supreme Court would find the law unconstitutional, probably unanimously.  I know Scalia has already stated that he would find any such federal ban unconstitutional. .

Of course, it is entirely possible that even if John McCain is elected President and he then uses every means at his disposal to outlaw abortion in the US, he might still find it impossible to do so, because of obstacles in either the Congress or the Supreme Court.  I have been looking at the worst case scenario, which I have somewhat overstated for rhetorical purposes.  The threat is not quite as dire as I have predicted since it might still be avoidable.  But then again, it might not.  I would consider it to be foolish to give McCain the chance to outlaw abortion even though he might never be able to actually do it.

We have to consider as well the possibility that if the American public elects a Republican President (against current expectations and polling results) they might also surprise you and elect a Republican Congress which would support their Republican President and his reactionary policies.  And certainly, McCain as President might well have enormous impact on the composition of the Supreme Court, although he might have to wait for some years for existing justices to either die or retire.  So I would not completely count on either Congress or the Supreme Court to hold the line on abortion rights.  It would be better to elect Obama.

Come up with a male version of the pill and watch the abortion rates fall some more (and STD's rise).

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

The closest equivalent of the male birth-control pill is the vasectomy.  In any event, while birth control helps a lot, there would still seem to be a need for abortions.

And how does your utilitarian calculus account for unwanted children who are born and grow up to make extraordinary contributions to society?  Not everyone with a horrible childhood becomes a horrible adult; some rise above and give us wonderful things.  Does one John Lennon make up for the "inevitable" multitudes of "unproductive" citizens that you'd rather be aborted?

You throw around words like "logical" and "inevitable" as if you were talking about right angles in triangles.  You are not.  When you are making a policy argument for abortion choice based on sociological and demographic effects, you are far away from a place where logic is available to decision makers.  You are firmly in the land of hunch.  Although there is a real debate about the effect of abortion on crime (and the most famous proponent of that theory, the Freakonomics guy, has admitted at least one serious error), it is not clear to me that reducing crime should be a society's paramount concern, valued above the dignity of life.

I have been clear from the beginning that I am discussing statistical results.  Obviously, not all the children who might hypothetically be born as a result of preventing their mothers from obtaining abortions would grow up to be unproductive citizens.  Some people rise above difficulties, and they are to be congratulated for doing so.  Unfortunately, many other people fail to rise above their difficulties.  As a society, we should be at least somewhat practical in making our decisions, because there really is only so much social chaos that we can afford to deal with, and we seem to be reaching the limit already.

My arguments have been perfectly logical, even though they are not mathematical, nor have you shown any defect in my reasoning.  Do you disagree that willing parents are more likely to do a good job than unwilling parents?  Do you disagree that children who are brought up well by good parents have a better chance of success in life than those who were brought up badly by bad parents?  You haven't even addressed these issues, you merely assert that I'm not so logical as I claim to be.  So what's wrong with my logic?

I am not suggesting that reducing crime is a paramount value above that of the respect for human life.  I respect human life.  I would not, for example, advocate that everyone convicted of even a minor crime should be immediately executed.  I happen to believe (unlike Senator McCain) that human life does not begin at conception.  Abortion is a matter of preventing the development of what might BECOME a human life if it were allowed to develop.  It is a loss of human potential but not a loss of actual human beings.

Of course, the loss of potential is itself unfortunate in some respect.  Some of the people who might have been born had they not been aborted might grow up to be great people, like John Lennon.  But by that logic, the more people live on planet Earth, the better.  If seven billion people are good, a hundred billion will be even better; think of all the great artists, scientists, leaders, and so forth, who could potentially emerge from such a large planetary population.  But of course, such joyous expectations ignore the fact that the resources of the planet Earth are not adequate even to give our existing population of seven billion people the standard of living that they want and increasingly insist upon, and are willing to go to war about.  A world with a hundred billion would be total madness.  So there is a limit to the amount of human potential we can afford.  At least, unless we can expand our arena of operations.  The capacity to export excess population other planets, for example, could make a huge difference.  But no such capacity presently exists.  So far, we can land on the moon but we can't live there, and certainly not in any significant numbers, even if a lunar colony were to be created.  It would have no effect on overpopulation on Earth.

Abortion is not in itself a good or desirable thing.  It is always better to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place.  In general, surgery is not desirable; it is much better to avoid having the kind of serious injuries or illnesses which might require surgery.  Prosthetic limbs are not as desirable as real limbs.  But some people still lose their limbs and require prosthetics.  People who carelessly failed to use birth control when they should have, and who wind up with an unwanted pregnancy are foolish.  But from the viewpoint both of their individual freedom and the good of society at large, it is still necessary to allow them to have abortions, rather than to penalize their  mistake by forcing them to have children that they don't want.