In case you missed it, here is video of the third party debate. The debate took place on Thursday at the City Club of Cleveland and was aired last night on C-SPAN. It will air again tomorrow morning at 7:30am.
C-SPAN will air the debate between Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and Chuck Baldwin tonight at 7pm and again on Sunday, November 2nd, at 10:30am.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer was on hand to cover the debate:
The candidates repeatedly veered from the debate’s central theme - “The Economy: Where Do We Go from Here?” - to take swipes at the Democratic and Republican parties and their presidential nominees, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain.
Barr called Obama and McCain indistinguishable on policy positions. The former Republican congressman from Georgia accused them of practicing “sound-bite politics” and showing “no leadership whatsoever.”
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Barr found it curious that the Department of Justice has been absent during the nation’s financial crisis.“There have been no prosecutions, not even apparently a significant investigation of what appears to be historic fraud,” Barr said.
You can also read more coverage of the debate here.
Feel free to leave your thoughts about the debate in the comments. You can watch the debate here, but it’s first come, first serve.
C-SPAN will be taping the event for broadcast at a later date. Check back here for date, times and video.
As if we needed anymore proof that the debates sponsored by the CPD is nothing more than but a scripted event so the two major parties can espouse their rhetoric to voters, just take a couple of minutes and watch this video. The answers would have been much different had Bob Barr been included in the debates.
Don’t forget about today’s debate between Bob Barr and Ralph Nader. You can find out the details on how to watch the debate here.
Bob’s interview with Dave Weigel of Reason is now available online. The interview was the cover story for the magazine’s election issue released in stores earlier this month.
On deciding to run for the Libertarian Party’s nomination:
reason: In 2006, when you joined the Libertarian Party, you told reason that you were not interested in running for anything else. What changed?
Bob Barr: A couple of things. First of all, since 2006 civil liberties have continued to be under assault by this administration and by Washington generally. At the national level—in both the Congress, with very few exceptions, and in the administration, with no exception—the assault on the right to privacy and other civil liberties, the assault on the notion that we are a nation that lives by the rule of law, not by the rule of men, continues to move forward at an accelerating pace.
There’s a very interesting quote by Dante Alighieri: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis remain neutral.” So even though continuing to work as a member of the Libertarian National Committee certainly provided an appropriate forum and an opportunity to work to restore liberty and freedom in America, the process has accelerated so greatly that it was absolutely essential to enter the fray.
On his philosophy:
reason: How would you characterize your philosophy? You’ve described yourself as a Randian. Unpack that.
Bob Barr: I don’t know that anybody is a perfect Randian. I have a very high regard for Ayn Rand, her philosophy, her writings, and the ideas that continue to resonate surprisingly well in our society more than 50 years after Atlas Shrugged and 65 years after The Fountainhead was published. To me the philosophy that is at the core of Ayn Rand, that is at the core of the Libertarian Party, and that is at the core of my philosophy of what government should be doing, is that the government should exercise those powers that are clearly delineated to it and, in addition to that, are essential to allow the citizens to operate with the maximum amount of freedom in our society. In other words, scaling back tremendously, for example, that scope of federal criminal laws.
Even if Bob Barr were president or another Libertarian were president, none of these changes would be accomplished dramatically and instantaneously. But if we don’t commit ourselves very consciously to the process, to start unraveling the power of the federal government in particular, I fear the notion that the federal government is able to and should be the supreme authority in a whole range of domestic behavior will be so entrenched, so established, so systematized, that it will from a practical standpoint be impossible to unravel. In that sense, I think this current cycle and the next few years are the sort of the last best hope, as Reagan said, to unravel the oppressive statism that has grown up in our society.
And it’s the result not just of these social issues. It’s the result, I think, also very much of the power of the government to regulate in the economic sphere. Government regulates so much of what goes on in business and in our economy at all levels, from the personal through the state to the federal level, that it has acclimated people to think of the federal government as not just the last but the first resort to solve problems that people perceive in this society. That is not the job of the federal government.
That’s all I’m going to give. Head over and check the rest of the interview out.
Most of you have received the e-mail from Russ Verney about tonight’s counter-debate.
You’ll be able to stream the debate live at 9pm EDT by clicking this link.
Bob will be broadcasting from Newport News, Virginia on the campus of Christopher Newport University before a live audience. We will be using digital video recording technology to splice in Bob’s responses to the moderator’s questions.
The press release for tonight’s event is here.
Thanks to supporters in Virginia, Bob will be “virtually” participating in tonight’s debate with Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama.
This will be somewhat different from the Reason counter-debate a few weeks ago where Bob was adding commentary. He will be participating.
I’ll have more details later in the day, including a link where you’ll be able to stream it live.
Stephen Gordon provided some commentary on the most recent presidential debate over at Blogging the Debates (second video down).
I’ll be adding commentary for the third and final debate sometime after Wednesday debate.
Bob writes that alternative voice is needed in the final presidential debate:
The presidential and vice-presidential “debates” are awful. The bloviating is excessive; the substance is minimal; and the moderating is bush league.
Virtually no one has been satisfied with the debates so far–except perhaps Barack Obama’s campaign staff. The less substantive and contentious the debate is, and the less interesting the discussion–the better it is for the political front-runner, but not for the American people.
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[T]he biggest failing of the three contests so far is substantive. For all of the noise and fury of the campaign, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain agree more than they disagree. Both support the $2 trillion succession of federal bailouts of anyone remotely connected to Wall Street or the housing industry. Both support an expensive, imperial foreign policy, in which the U.S. subsidizes its wealthy friends and attempts to remake failed societies.
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There is one more debate scheduled, and it desperately needs another voice: An alternative candidate to challenge the false, but shared, assumptions of Senators Obama and McCain. The political establishment has bungled America’s foreign policy and wrecked America’s economy, but refuses to accept responsibility for its mistakes. The conventional wisdom has failed, but the two establishment candidates will talk about nothing else.Add Bob Barr to the upcoming debate and open up its format, and I promise that the American people will enjoy a real debate that is focused on the issues. We will talk about substance, not fluff. And the American people will learn that they do have a genuine choice on November 4th–a candidate committed to making real change in Washington.
Consider this an open thread for tonight’s debate. Wouldn’t it have been great to have Wayne Root there tonight?
Trivia Question: Who was the first female vice-presidential candidate to receive an electoral vote?
