Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate

Bob Barr

On why he switched from the Republican Party to Libertarian:
"The best way to put that is what Ronald Reagan said years ago, when he was asked a similar question. He said that the Democratic Party left him, he didn't leave it. And that's really what happened with me. The Republican Party went off in the direction of big government. The Libertarian Party stands for all the things I believe are important: states' rights, less government, individual liberty and so forth.
"It was a combination of the administration's view of executive power being absolutely unreviewable by Congress and the courts, as long as the president says, 'I'm doing this as commander in chief,' and its spying on American citizens."

On where he believes the conservative movement went wrong:
"The problem with the conservative movement is it allowed itself to become captive to the Republican Party. People look to the Republican Party as the means to reflect conservative ends. When you hitch your wagon to a political party, you're never going to do that, because a political party exists to get and hold onto power. The conservative movement needs to reassert itself as the conservative movement and detach itself from any political party."