WASHINGTON — When Bob Barr called a news conference last month to discuss his idea of the perfect Supreme Court justice, a phone booth could have accommodated the reporters who showed up.
Nonetheless, the Libertarian Party's candidate for president was no-nonsense: Cuff links fastened, mustache trimmed, he ripped into John McCain's interpretation of the Constitution, words like "penumbra," as in "outside the penumbra of Sen. McCain's misunderstanding," rolling off his famously tart tongue.
Then he threw it open to questions from members of the Fourth Estate, whose average age looked to be about 19.
"Do you think the country is ready for a president with a mustache?"
"Do you think you could take Ron Paul in an arm-wrestling match?"
Clearly, one of the many challenges of Barr's fanciful bid for the White House is figuring out how to get America to take him seriously.
Barr, 59, is not without political credentials -- a four-term Republican congressman from Georgia, he crusaded to impeach President Clinton for abuse of power even before the country heard the name Monica S. Lewinsky.
But out on the presidential campaign trail, hardly anyone asks about his plans to end taxes or get out of Iraq. When they aren't focusing on facial hair, they want to know if he plans to steal the election from McCain, the likely GOP nominee, and hand it to Barack Obama, his Democratic rival.
Barr is regularly compared to Ralph Nader, the Green Party spoiler who drew crucial votes from Democrat Al Gore in 2000. Worried McCain supporters have begged Barr to drop out. The renegade responds with his famous bespectacled glare, referring to himself in the third person, as is his habit: "The GOP has no agenda, no platform and a candidate who generates no excitement. That's not Bob Barr's fault."
Being regarded as a spoiler is not his first choice, but if it gets him on CNN -- which it did twice in as many days during a recent week of campaigning -- then so be it. This is known as free media, all Barr can afford since he started out 18 months and millions of dollars behind his more famous rivals. His operation is so frugal, campaign manager Russ Verney personally authorized a case of Dr. Pepper and a big jar of pretzels for the untested staffers, who are so young they have to pay a premium to rent a car.
Barr is running as a Libertarian because he thinks the Republican Party -- which he once served with such enthusiasm that his house and offices overflow with elephant decor -- has run off the rails.
