CENTENNIAL, Colo.—Restricting the presidential debates to the two major party candidates has trivialized the campaign by focusing on Joe the Plumber and hockey moms rather than broader issues of the Constitution and government’s role in the economy and education, Libertarian candidate Bob Barr said Friday.
Getting into the debates is a Catch-22, Barr told supporters in Colorado, where he launched his campaign.
Third-party candidates normally must prove they have at least 15 percent support from voters—an impossible task because major polls don’t take third party candidates seriously, he said.
Barr, a one-time Republican who served as a Georgia congressman, launched his presidential bid at the Libertarian Party’s national convention in Denver in May. Wayne Allyn Root, a businessman, professional sports handicapper and TV producer from Las Vegas, is his running mate.
Barr said Barack Obama and John McCain spend more time on sound bites than addressing the serious issues that face the country. They use catch words like “maverick” or “change” that they think voters want to hear, he said.
“If you reach Joe the plumber or June the hockey mom, that’s more important to them” than running government the way it was intended and enforcing existing laws, Barr argued, saying government should spend its resource prosecuting those responsible for the financial crisis than bailing institutions out. “You never hear any discussion about the principles on which our country was founded.”
Barr said his party has suffered because it made serious mistakes during past campaigns by focusing on legalizing drug use and prostitution instead of its core values of limited taxes and government.
Barr said that this year, the Libertarian Party and the Democrats are competing for the votes of college students and young people.
Andrew Cepeda, a 23-year-old student at Metro State College, said he attended the meeting because he’s looking for a third-party candidate he believes is serious about shoring up Social Security to ensure his generation has a secure financial future.
“I think a lot of youths are caught up in the rock star campaign of Barack Obama and the campaign for change. I’m not impressed. They’re just sound bites,” Cepeda said.
