DD) You've got to be kidding Brian, you never heard in Denver people
saying Barr would an historic LP campaign (DD
What I heard Barr advocates promising was historic credibility and media
access -- both of which I knew he could deliver, and he did.
The reason why Barr wasn't my top choice is that I worried his
Libertarian message would be overshadowed in the media by 1) the
un-libertarian parts of his legislative record and 2) the
federalist/conservative/Paulish slant to his libertarianism. I've been
systematically analyzing his national TV coverage (which was about 10X
or 20X the national TV coverage that Badnarik got), and I'm concluding
that (1) was not much of a problem, but (2) imposed a significant
discount on the value of his media exposure. However, that discount was
nowhere near deep enough to erase the benefit of his extra earned media
-- especially if you consider that the federalism/conservatism of Barr's
media payload was similar to that of Ron Paul, the darling of so many
libertarian radicals.
I heard serious LP players discuss the possibility of Barr getting 2%,
but to anybody promising 5% I would have laughed in their face. I would
have remembered the name of any serious LP figure making such a bizarre
claim. I never heard it -- and I bet neither did you or anyone else.
But that won't stop this urban legend from being propagated...
