As Hillary Clinton clings to the almost mathematically impossible dream that she can be the Democratic nominee, it’s becoming increasingly clear that November’s general election match-up will pit Barack Obama against John McCain.
While Democrats worry that Ralph Nader could, yet again, take votes from their nominee, Republicans might also be concerned about former Georgia Rep. Bob Barr, the front-runner to be Libertarian Party’s nominee. A real right-wing stalwart, could Barr play McCain’s spoiler?
Village Voice: The Libertarian Party is supportive of legalizing same-sex marriage, legalizing currently illegal drugs and keeping abortion legal. You were a sponsor of the “Defense of Marriage Act” and you had a 100 percent rating from the Christian Coalition when you served as a congressman. How do you square those positions with your current involvement in the Libertarian Party?
Bob Barr: Of course, many of the positions that I took in the Congress and that I take now are based on the principle of federalism, which is certainly a libertarian position. It used to be a position reflective of the Republican Party but obviously is not longer a part of the Republican platform. So, for example, regarding the “Defense of Marriage Act,” the fundamental, operative provisions of the “Defense of Marriage Act” say that each state makes up its own mind. I think that’s a fundamentally sound, libertarian-oriented position on federalism. With regard to drug usage similarly, these are issues in my view that ought to be left up to the states, based on the principles of federalism.
With regard to the Christian Coalition I have no idea what my positions, how they would rank them or not. But one thing that I have done, and I’ve explained this on a number of occasions to libertarian groups and other groups, and that is that since 9/11 the threat to our liberty and our basic right to privacy has become so pronounced that it truly has caused me to go back and take a look at the degree to which in previous years I was willing to accept, perhaps, a great deal more government control in certain areas because we did have a sort of residual of freedom and liberty in other areas. That no longer is the case. We have an administration in Washington that claims the power to inquire into virtually every aspect of our lives without court order. Where you have an administration that believes it does not have to abide by the law, where you have an administration that believes that the most fundamental provisions of our Constitution and our Bill of Rights have to give way to executive branch power, clearly something has changed. And that has caused me to go back and really take a long, hard look at some areas where I was willing previously to give the government the benefit of the doubt and conclude that we can no longer afford to do that because there is so little freedom left. We have to hang out every incremental piece that we can and start rolling back the government intrusions in a number of different areas.
VV: So, if different states legalized drugs, or legalized same-sex marriage, it wouldn’t be a problem for you, just so long as it was not at a federal level?
BB: Yes. I believe that those are precisely the type of issues that ought to be up to the voters of the states. There may very well be some aspects of those laws that do bring them within certain aspects of federal jurisdiction, but fundamentally those are states rights issues.
VV: Going back to privacy issues, what is your take on the “Telecom Immunity Bill?”
BB: I see no reason to grant a category of commercial enterprises in this country immunity for violating the law. I think it is a slippery slope and a very dangerous precedent that the government would set by doing that. And it’s unnecessary. If a company receives a directive or a request from an administration that it believes may very well violate a federal law then they have an obligation to tell that to the government and to refuse to violate the law. If they choose, voluntarily, to violate the law as some bureaucrat has told them, then they need to suffer the consequences. They should not be granted retroactive immunity.
VV: Your campaign recently sent out a press release highlighting a seven percent showing in a poll your own campaign commissioned. Have you been getting complaints from some of your former Republican allies that you could hurt John McCain in November?
BB: There have been some. I’ve heard from some Republicans to that effect. I would not enter this race for president to be a spoiler or to take votes from McCain anymore than I presume that his goal would not be to take votes from me. That may happen, on either side of the equation. It may just as well happen if I were to enter the race that I would take votes from whoever the Democrat nominee is, based on my civil liberties positions and the right to privacy. This notion that seems to prevail among the two major parties in recent election cycles, including this one, that somebody that gets in on your side of the ideological spectrum should not do so because it might draw votes from you I think is on one hand terribly arrogant. Neither of the two major parties has a right to exclusivity on the ballot. And I’m not sure its valid at all. The votes that I suspect I would garner if I got into the race would more likely than not be voters that had no intention of voting for Senator McCain anyway.
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