“Barr Demands a Higher Degree of Accountability”

September 30th 2008: Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr said the current financial crisis has breathed life into his Libertarian bid for the presidency because many people think that party’s philosophy of less government and free markets is far superior to the $700 billion bailout plan that failed on Monday. “It’s provided me an issue that we have some credibility on,” he said Tuesday after one of several campaign stops in Charleston.

Barr spoke to the Rotary Club at lunch, and his remarks largely centered on the historic financial and political events of the week. He held up a copy of Tuesday’s edition of The Post and Courier newspaper and took exception to its banner headline that read “Financial Meltdown.” “What we don’t have is a financial meltdown,” he said. “What we have is a leadership meltdown.”

Barr, who was a Republican when he represented Georgia in Congress, said he began to become disillusioned with the GOP after 1998, when party leaders worked with Republican incumbents to ensure that a spending bill had projects they wanted for their home districts.

Asked what he would do to address the current financial mess, Barr said he would hire a new Treasury secretary more familiar with Main Street, that he would veto any bail-out bill and that he would encourage the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute financiers whose fraudulent dealings led the nation to this point.

The Rotary crowd gave Barr a polite, but not enthusiastic, welcome. He drew little applause, but some members and guests approached him afterward to chat or shake his hand. Leslie Fellabom, a real estate agent who described herself as a political independent, asked Barr about his running mate and later said, “There was very little that he said that I could argue with.”

President Andy said a lot of people would agree with Barr’s condemnation of the lack of leadership in Washington “regardless of what party you’re in.”

Barr said he hopes to be on the ballot in as many as 47 states, but South Carolina is one of a dozen states that his campaign is concentrating on.

He acknowledged the long-shot nature of his bid but hopes to do well enough so that the Libertarian Party candidate won’t have to jump through onerous hoops to get on the ballots of certain states in 2012.

Contributed by Post & Courier Journalist Robert Behre