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From the Chronicle-Telegram:
Jason Hawk | The Chronicle-Telegram
OBERLIN — Bob Barr isn’t expecting to win, but that’s not stopping him from running for president.
The former congressman from Georgia, who gained notoriety as one of the leaders in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, lectured to a crowd Thursday night at Oberlin College and asked for votes.
Calling himself “Bob the Builder,” Barr spent more than half an hour criticizing a lack of substance in the recent debates between Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.
Barr was barred from those debates because he isn’t considered a viable candidate, even though he is slated to appear on the ballots of as many as 47 states, including Ohio.
About 4 percent of voters say they back him, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
As the Libertarian Party candidate, Barr said if elected president he would drastically cut government spending, begin a withdrawal from Iraq, support free trade, protect civil liberties and privacy rights, and push for immigration reform.
“The job of the president is to protect the one thing that is the United States of America — and that is liberty,” he said.
Not included in that job description, according to Barr, is bailing out failing banks.
“What we’re certainly going to get hit with are more laws, more regulation, and not better laws or better regulation,” he said.
“This bailout, buyout plan they’re proposing is an insidious way to say we have a problem, and we’re going to make everyone pay for it.”
Barr took equal time to attack promises of the Obama and McCain campaigns, criticizing universal health care, income taxes, the war in Afghanistan and covert government wiretapping.
He also attacked the war in Iraq, saying President Bush used a “classic bait and switch” to get Congressional approval to invade.
“What we need to do immediately — as I would do as president — is to start drawing down not just the military footprint, but the economic footprint we have in Iraq,” he said.
That appealed to 16-year-old Travis Kurtz of Amherst, who said he would consider casting a Barr ballot this November if he were old enough to vote.
“He’s more leaning toward bringing the troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, which is the most important thing for me,” Kurtz said after hearing Barr speak.
John Malloy, 36, of Chesterland, Ohio, was also in the audience and said he was considering voting for Barr or another third-party candidate such as former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas or Ralph Nader.
“I think Libertarian economic policy makes a lot more sense than the situation we have now, where the two-party system has a stranglehold on us,” he said.
Ron Seward, 51, traveled from his home in Dayton to see Barr speak. He said he’s already cast his absentee ballot for Barr.
Also appearing with Barr were Paul Conroy, Libertarian candidate for the Ohio’s 10th Congressional district, and Robert Owens, the party’s candidate for Ohio attorney general.
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