By Marcus E. Howard
Marietta Daily Journal Staff Writer
MARIETTA - Former U.S. congressman and Smyrna resident Bob Barr announced Saturday that he has formed a presidential exploratory committee and may seek the Libertarian party's nomination.
"America today faces a grave moral and leadership crisis, and those of us who care about our country's future can no longer sit on the sidelines and remain neutral," Barr told an audience at the Heartland Libertarian Conference in Kansas City, Mo.
Rumors had been circulating on political blogs that Barr, 59, would soon announce a third-party bid for the presidency.
David Chastain of Acworth has been active in the Libertarian party since the 1980s, serving as chairman of the Cobb Libertarian party from 2002-06.
He said he had been waiting with anticipation for Barr to make an announcement.
"I have been hoping that Bob Barr would put his name out there as a Libertarian nominee," said Chastain.
As a former elected official who has been in the public eye, Chastain said Barr's candidacy as a Libertarian, if nominated, would give the party the mainstream credibility that it has been lacking.
"It sends the message to America that we are a party that understands the freedom that the original Founding Fathers intended," he said.
Barr became a well-known conservative lawmaker in the 1990s when he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995-2003. He gained further notoriety in 1998 as a manager of House Republicans' impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton.
After losing re-election, he left the Republican party in 2006 over what he called bloated spending and civil liberties intrusions by the Bush administration.
Prior to serving in Congress, Barr was the U.S. District Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990. In 1992, he ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate, losing to Paul Coverdell.
A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, Barr currently practices law in the Atlanta firm of Edwin Merger.
He's also been an active fundraiser since leaving office, maintaining a political action committee he formed as a congressman. He has raised more than $1.2 million during the current two-year election cycle, spending most of it on direct mail that his staff says in intended to spread his "message of liberty."
He also runs the Atlanta-based lobbying firm, Liberty Strategies, working with national organizations on privacy and national security-related issues.
His clients have included the American Civil Liberties Union and the Marijuana Policy Project - a group pushing Congress to allow medical marijuana use and to cut spending for what it says are failed anti-drug media campaigns.
Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, who dropped out of the Democratic presidential race, is among several other Libertarian presidential candidates.
mhoward@mdjonline.com
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