You can look up Barr’s filings here:
But just a few notes. He seems to have ended his campaign in major debt – with $38,478.79 cash-on-hand, his debt is $233,327.41. Yes, a quarter-million dollars, about 20% of his total fundraising effort. It’s itemized here, but I’ll also reproduce the itemization:
| Campaigner Pro | 2379 Holly Lane Ste 210 Ottawa, ON K1V 7P2 , ____ |
12 | 6057.34 | Software | |
| American Express | PO Box 981540 El Paso, Texas 799981540 |
12 | 44057.28 | Campaign Expenses | |
| Gillis Express Mailing | 9208 Enterprise Ct Manassas Park, Virginia 201114809 |
12 | 433.95 | Direct Marketing | |
| All Points Packaging & Distribution, In | 1650 Marietta Blvd NW Atlanta, Georgia 303183645 |
12 | 1149.42 | Online Order Fulfillment | |
| Press Well Services, Inc. | 9204-B Vassau Ct Manassas Park, Virginia 201114849 |
12 | 1756.13 | Printing | |
| UPS | PO Box 7247-0244 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19170 |
12 | 1362.05 | Shipping | |
| McKenna Long & Aldridge | PO Box 116573 Atlanta, Georgia 30368 |
12 | 39414.69 | Legal Fees | |
| Terra Eclipse | 9043 Soquel Dr Aptos, California 95003 |
12 | 35566.87 | IT | |
| Mr. Shane Cory | 5 Burwell Place Stafford, Virginia 225547828 |
12 | 20105.82 | Political Consulting | |
| Dr. Robert B. Stuber | 11401 Little Bay Harbor Way Spotsylvania, Virginia 225518904 |
12 | 4000.00 | Political Consulting | |
| Mr. Steve Sinton | 1923 Fields Pond Glen Marietta, Georgia 300681575 |
12 | 4000.00 | Political Consulting | |
| Lisa Franzman | 21 N. Kalaheo Ave Kailua, Hawaii 96734 |
12 | 2160.00 | Rent | |
| Russ Verney | 6812 Summer Meadow Ln Dallas, Texas 75252 |
12 | 15000.00 | Political Consulting | |
| Wayne Allen Root | PO Box 725007 Atlanta, Georgia 311392007 |
12 | 4797.81 | Campaign Expenses | |
| James Bovard | 1348 Templeton Place Rockville, Maryland 20852 |
12 | 47000.00 | Authoring Fee | |
| Doug Bandow | 7901 Cliff Rock Ct Springfield, Virginia 22153 |
12 | 6466.05 | Political Consulting |
And, lest we forget, his PAC is still active. And still funding at least one Republican (Greg Ball) mere weeks before the election.
Last Free Voice 
The PAC shenanigans makes the continuing use of Barr as spokesman for the LP especially vexing:
http://www.lp.org/news/press-releases/barr-condemns-government-plans-for-domestic-troop-deployment
We tolerated – and where possible, supported – Barr as our nominee. Now let’s let him quietly and quickly fade back into the shadows as he is obviously not serious about being an LP partisan.
I note that Angela O’Dell is not listed as being owed anything. Has she been paid for her petitioning services?
Good work, Susan. I was about to question where the evidence is that Barr is still funding Republicans, but on further research I see that the group “New Yorkers On The Ball” to whom Barr’s PAC gave $1000 in October is a group connected with Republican state Assemblymember Greg Ball.
Like Barr, Assemblyman Ball’s record of standing up for freedom is decidedly mixed. Included in his resume was a stint working as an intern at the White House Drug Policy Office under Clinton, and his Wikipedia page contains the following quotes:
“His support for pro-agricultural legislation, including creation of measures to establish a $30 million Dairy Assistance Program, as well as providing financial assistance to counties for farmland protection and for the construction of greenmarkets, among others, earned him an award from the New York Farm Bureau.”
“The Assemblyman introduced a bill that authorizes local police to detain and begin the deportation process immediately for illegal immigrants caught committing a crime known as the New York State Criminal Illegal Alien Deportation and Legal Hiring Act, and also cosponsored a series of immigration bills that passed in the State Assembly to crack down on contractors breaking state labor laws such as prevailing wage and IRS tax form 1099 misclassification.
1. Those who supported the candidacy of Bob Barr are morally obligated to pay his campaign expenses. If the LP walks away from candidates’ debts then the LP will eventually find no suckers willing to run and no vendors willing to work.
2. If a campaign is expected to spend only money that is already in hand, then that is a powerful argument for choosing our presidential candidate at least a year early so the nominee has plenty of time to connect with party members, put together a coherent campaign plan, and build a warchest.
LNC: Let’s pick the 2012 candidate no later than Labor Day 2011!
Roscoe:
1. That would be the donors, not the party. The LP does not and should not, and does not have the assets to assume campaign debt for any candidate. No bailouts.
2. Agreed. The question is whether the Bylaws Committee and the delegates have the wisdom to make such a change.
Here’s a little humor:
Gmail serves up ad links based on your inbox content. They’re usually pretty spot-on. This one just showed up, and I’m not sure if it’s attributable to the amount of LP mail in my inbox or the thread on horse-powered forage grinders I’m following on a gristmillers’ list:
Manure Spreader – http://www.NewerSpreader.com – Small, Compact Lightweight Aluminum Manure Spreader, for Small Farms.
That’s hilarious, Susan!!
Speaking of which, do you have any particular “best buys” that you might recommend in the grain milling department? I’m not looking for anything large, just enough to grind the 13 cups of flour my sourdough recipe requires in something resembling a decent amount of time without having to do a lot of sifting and regrinding like I currently have to do. Up until yesterday I was using a coffee grinder to do this. half a cup at a time is no **** fun. Hand powered is fine.
If it were possible, I’d ask for my $50 BACK, seeing as it went toward paying Verney and Cory for running a sh*tty campaign.
I became a libertarian in May; I did not think I would become disillusioned so quickly 🙂
Maybe it’s worth pointing out that the corresponding report for the Badnarik 2004 campaign showed $11,000 cash, and zero debt.
(I worked as a low-paid office helper at the Austin HQ, so I feel a little pride in helping not to rack up debt.)
Well, if you don’t happen to have a waterpowered stone gristmill like the one I use on weekends:
http://picasaweb.google.com/hogarth/EnoMillDec06#
(check out the collection of handsome dudes I work with)
I am comfortable recommending the Nutrimill:
http://www.closertonature.com/emergency/electric-grain-mill.htm
It’s loud, but does a VERY nice job – quickly! I used to think handgrinding would be an OK option, and it’s a good option to have, but an electric grinder sure is nice. We don’t worry about storing flour like the fellow who wrote that review, because our power is almost all solar anyway. We just grind-and-go.
I haven’t used other electric mills (or hand mills for that matter), so I can’t really compare, but my husband did the research and decided on this one, and we’ve had absolutely no trouble with it and it’s easy to use and keep clean.
We also have an old steel burr feed grinder to coarsely grind corn for the hens, but we’ve (well, Bill) have not yet finished getting it belted to the hit-and-miss engine we have to run it (it also needs a hopper).
it’s a great feeling to buy your wheat in sacks and grind at need. It’ll be even better when we start growing our own wheat and corn on a decent scale.
OK, more milling chatter:
I work with a Meadows Mill at the gristmill where I volunteer (we also sometimes use a monster stone mill of no particular manufacture).
I wanted to pull a pic of the mill I want off the Meadows website, but I noticed they are now selling repro querns – how amusing:
http://www.meadowsmills.com/forsalesbm.htm
I guess lowtech is all the rage these days.
Anyway, the one I want is the 16 inch woodframe Meadows on that page, but I wouldn’t turn up my nose at this little sweetie:
http://www.meadowsmills.com/sbm8.htm
William,
Take heart. Bob Barr is not the LP. You are!
Have you joined your local LP?
What Susan said. Totally. All the way.
Get involved in your state and local affiliates. The national party does some good work with the money we send them, primarily ballot access, however at the end of the day, the real activism goes on locally.
$47,000 authoring fee? That sounds like book-ghostwriting money, not just run of the mill press releases and website copy. Did Bovard ghost Barr’s book? If so, why in the world would this be a campaign expense?
Nothing looks completely unreasonable in terms of what is owed. We could argue over political consulting fees, but there is actually nothing out of the ordinary with respect to that.
What is really annoying is that they knew damn well what they were raising, and they should have known that no magic cash was going to start raining down in the last few months. That the campaign racked up THAT MUCH debt is amazing. I was thinking maybe $20-30k. Overshooting on spending and missing fundraising goals happens. But 20% of total fundraising!?
Chris,
Ghosting was my supposition for the Bovard expense.
35K seems excessive for the last of (presumably more than one) IT bills, but I can’t be sure.
I seem to recall Verney mentioning several times in his fundraising pitches that he was working without pay, but I may easily be misremembering that. Anyone else have a clear impression?
The money to Bandow (there were several other Bandow payouts that actually got paid…) was, to my mind, unnecessary. The LP is full of talented thinkers and writers, and if Barr was too busy or too unsure of himself to formulate and write policy statements, he ought to have been able to find plenty of help within the LP – that sort of assignment is exactly what our activists need to be doing to develop themselves. These campaigns should be not just voter outreach, but LP *inreach* – that is, they should help develop and grow our own activist base.
Watching the Munger campaign – and it was by no means an unflawed campaign! – gave me lots of food for thought on the role of campaigns in party and activist development.
At the end, I think that’s my biggest beef with the Barr campaign. Rather than trying to include folks from within the Libertarian Party, I felt that Barr (a very RECENT Libertarian, who could have used a lot of strong libertarian input) instead pulled in folks from the outside. Even the LP folks he did use were often marginalized (e.g. Stephen Gordon). The campaign didn’t (seem to, based on my experience) engage local LPs or focus on party-building.
I had the feeling that Barr’s attitude was more that he’d show the LP how a ‘real’ campaign was run (ref: his comments regarding previous LP candidates), and perhaps it never occurred to him that third-party campaigns are (or should be) necessarily a different beast in many ways from tradition D/R campaigns.
In essence, Barr failed (in my estimation) on two essential counts: he failed to use the resources the LP had to offer HIM to learn about libertarianism, and he failed to to use his resources to develop libertarians into stronger campaigners. Both of these were costly failures for Barr’s campaign, but that’s over now (or will be when he mortgages his house and pays Bovard), but they were also costly to the LP, and that damage will be longer-lasting.
But that’s yesterday. Today we need to consider how best to move forward in developing and training our activists, strengthening their ties to each other and to other politically active groups, and giving them more confidence and skill in delivering our message.
Readers who know fec rules will see at once the improper personal expenditure. Who gets the book royalties? I am posting on my blackberry so expect brevity. Go through all spending including iirc 14K of limos. There is no campaign here. No ads. Volunteers who buy campaign signs.
What is really annoying is that they knew damn well what they were raising, and they should have known that no magic cash was going to start raining down in the last few months. That the campaign racked up THAT MUCH debt is amazing.
Absolutely. I keep thinking there’s some accounting issue here, because those numbers are truly, awesomely unbelievable. Perhaps there will be some questions asked at the LNC meeting, or individual LNC members will make inquiries of the barr campaign.
@susan and @matt: Yep, I’m a member of the Florida LP and am a BIG believer in that you build a party from the ground UP, not the top down. Just asked today how I could get more involved on the Executive Committee.
I think LPF should be lean and focused, with low body fat.
Instead we have dozens of yahoo!groups trying to herd cats with a cowbell.
We’ll see what happens.
@susan (again): Thank you for so eloquently putting together those thoughts and reading my mind about the failings of the Barr campaign. Perfectly put.
The purpose of the campaign appears to have been patronage in the form of consulting fees for those aligned with the more conservative wing of the LP. At least, that has been its principal “positive” EFFECT — and I mean “positive” in the sense that if *anybody* values the Barr campaign, it will be those who profited from it. Value is subjective, doncha know…
William (Bill?),
The national party activism is important, but activists, like the party, should probably be ‘built’ (or grown, if you’re the granola type) from the ground up. That is, a new activist should fist work with his local party and local issues, and then think bigger, move the state level, then possibly to national.
This is one serious objection to folks like Barr and Root – they never really got involved with libertarians at a local level, as far as I can determine.
But maybe I just think that because that’s how I’ve approached it – I’m sure other approaches work well for other folks.
I finally got around to visiting your website – I’m envious of you for putting enough coherently-arranged words on paper to publish bookS 🙂 I also share your interest in Frank Herbert and am appalled by Herbert-the-younger’s depredations on the _Dune_ mythos. Have you read the final two _Dune_ (Frank Herbert) novels? _White Plague_? Other Herbert?
I went through a period when I thought it’d be cool to be obsessed by one non-‘literary’ author, and Herbert won the lottery 🙂
a new activist should fist work with his local party
That was unintentionally funny.
fiRst work
@susan: Herbert definitely wins the lottery.
I’m a strict traditionalist when it comes to Dune, which is my favorite s/f universe to play in.
No Son of Herbert and Anderson Novels. NONE whatsoever.
I have the first book, unabridged, on audio, and it’s wonderful to listen to.
No Son of Herbert and Anderson Novels. NONE whatsoever.
Of course! I was referring to _Heretics_ and _Chapterhouse_. There we six _Dune_ novels, with (it’s pretty clear) at least one more to have followed, had Herbert not inconveniently died
The last two (often said to be structurally one novel) are fascinating – I re-read them fairly often. There are a lot of amusing (and alarming) discussions of government, and some interesting speculation on what-might-come-after-government, or at least how a body of true self-willed folks might choose to govern themselves.
Brian did co-author at least one novel with his father (mercifully unrelated to the _Dune_ scenario). It was (best I can recall) silly, but probably not offensively so. The 20 pages I read of the BH/KJA abominations (morbid curiosity) were just plain awful.
I’ve never listened to the audio; I should.
There are a lot of amusing (and alarming) discussions of government…
…oh, and some awfully good sex scenes.
(I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m one-dimensional:))
I wonder if the Barr PAC (that gave all that money to Republicans) gave a contribution to the Barr for President Campaign.
I am guessing no.
RE: money problems
I feel really, really bad about all this.
I worked on the Ron Paul POTUS ’08 Campaign. I started with absolutely nothing (homeless), and ended up with about $25 extra, along with a huge bundle of Commie-bus passes (Seattle), loads of donated clothes, etc., etc., and a Ron Paul T-shirt that I’m actually wearing today. (And that’s without going on payroll) I’m still giving stuff away from the Ron Paul parties from last winter. A got another load of stuff today to haul back to downtown Seattle.
Ron Paul still has lot’s of extra cash from the rEVOLution. Maybe Bob Barr could just ask the good doctor for some help.
(Second thought, maybe Bob Barr should ask Cynthia Mckinney, or Ralph Nader, or Chuck Baldwin)
Again I stress, if the candidate is in place one year before the election, there is time to find and persuade writers, campaigners, fund raisers, petitioners, etc . to get on board your campaign. There is time to sit with, and coordiante with campaigns of local candidates. There is time for those who don’t know the winner, or are unsure about him/her to learn more, to influence the campaign, and to settle the nerves of those who look to them for guidance. With a dozen or so candidates for the nomination still running on Memorial Day it is hard for the eventual winner to identify and draw in all the very competent libertarians who were backing the other campaigns. A THIRD PARTY CANNOT COBBLE TOGETHER A CAMPAIGN AT THE LAST MOMENT!
I totally agree Roscoe. It was a grand mistake when the LP decided to move nominating conventions to the election year. The time has come to right that wrong.
isn’t Bovard a radical L?
So, what happens if he doesn’t get donations to cover the debt? Will Mr Barr himself be responsible to pay it off (not that I think that would be wonderful and appropriate or anything)?
@grinding. No I live in the middle of the blank-blank city at the moment, only have .2 acres. Want to move to Texas Hill Country but doubt I need a gristmill of that size, however lovely. Does the Nutrimill keep the flour cool enough? Are you more of a farmer lady than I’d realized?
@ s/f Saw the old Dune movie but for s/f fantasy worlds have to prefer Valdemar (Lackey). I guess I can at least dream about an incorruptible government.
Does the Nutrimill keep the flour cool enough?
This site
http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/index.aspx#Nutrimill
says:
“Nutrimill keeps your flour at temperatures (typically about 118° in our testing) that protect the nutrients in your grains. Its new airflow design make the Nutrimill the world’s coolest-running impact mill”
It’s not something we consider important since we typically don’t store flour, but just grind at need.
Are you more of a farmer lady than I’d realized?
Probably not. We live in a mixed ‘burb/rural area on one acre. We have just started serious gardening and food preservation (read: canning) and are still in the experimenting stage. Oh, I do keep a small flock of chickens for eggs and amusement. Was ten until last week; now it’s nine
[…] Barr, the 2008 LP Presidential candidate and an LNC member from 2006 to 2008? He runs a PAC that donates generously to Republican candidates, even in races where the LP has a candidate. Mr Barr has provided a lot of very material support to […]
What type of hens? I have a lot of friends who are partial to Auracanas but a couple who prefer Rhode Islands.
Have you considered lacto-fermentation as a partial substitute for canning? Dehydrating? I’ve abused an Excalibur for six years now and have some knowledge there.
I can grow just about A to Z, no boast, I have records. If you have questions…
I wouldn’t be storing the flour either but I don’t want to ruin the fragile oils in wheat/spelt/kamut/rye.
robert capozzi aks:
“isn’t Bovard a radical L?”
For someone obsessed with defining themselves and others, I’m sure you will find it baffling that Jim Bovard does not waste any energy defining himself. He once refused to pidgeon-hole himself when Brian Lamb of C-SPAN tried to ascertain his ideology.
Bovard deals with facts and ideas, leaving it up to you to classify and catagorize him.
It is unfortunate that so many in the freedom movement waste so much time and effort over labeling. I tend to try and keep my labeling efforts simple – asshole and not an asshole. Bovard is not an asshole.
I will say he must be a very good salesman in order to squeeze 47 large out of Barr. That says something, although I’m not sure what. Very amusing though.
Maybe we should start a separate ‘survivalist’ thread 🙂
What type of hens? I have a lot of friends who are partial to Auracanas but a couple who prefer Rhode Islands.
Mixed flock of rare-ish breeds and crosses. I have a couple Auracana crosses (with Sumatra, I think) that lay blue and green eggs, a Penedesenca cross, a Marans (cuckoo, in both the color and the mentality sense of the word), a Welsummer and a Wyandotte (or cross… I forget), a Fayoumi (gorgeous!), and a pair (hen and roo) of Nankins (bantams). I think that covers them.
Have you considered lacto-fermentation as a partial substitute for canning? Dehydrating? I’ve abused an Excalibur for six years now and have some knowledge there.
Fermentation, no. I’ll have to look into it. My husband is skeptical of food prep/storage that involves buggies, as a rule 🙂 Miso was a pleasant discovery for us. (Thanks – now I’m wasting time reading wikipedia about natto and miso).
Dehydration, yes – we’ve thought of it but need to work out a sun-powered solution (similar to our 3.86 billion billion megawatt clothes dryer:) The idea of having a 200+-watt machine running for hours at a time just to dry out food is a bit ‘taxing’ for us.
I can grow just about A to Z, no boast, I have records. If you have questions…
Thanks. I seem to be mostly good at growing weeds. But the food I do grow often goes unharvested. Our ambition outstrips our summer activities, I think. I blame the Party 🙂
I wouldn’t be storing the flour either but I don’t want to ruin the fragile oils in wheat/spelt/kamut/rye.
Yeah, I was looking for info about this; maybe you can help me. I am not sure why overheating the oils right before you use it is an issue – I mean, it’s about three hours from the oven at that point, right?
So $71K of the $240K is payments “owed” either to the campaign officers themselves (Wayne Root), or to “staffers” like Cory and Bovard.
Bovard should be paid out of the books he authored, and Cory should just go away.
Here’s the link from the NY State Elections Board database concerning Barr’s contribution to Greg Ball.
What a creep.
Susan, you’re being entirely too nice to Barr.
He’s a half-stepping traitor, at the very least. People like him, Shane Cory and Sean Haugh make me think that the LP does need some kind of mechanism to expel undesirable elements.
Dr. Kevin Barrett, Libertarian for Wisconsin congress, house seat # 3, finished his campaign with money in the bank and no debts.
Barrett and/or Ed Thompson may make a run for the big prize in 2012.
www. barrettforcongress. us
Hi, I do believe this is a great website.
discount shoes http://www.artsbuffalo.org