Short in stature, with Richard Nixon's round-shouldered posture, Barr is direct and uncomplicated. He is prompt and never dilly-dallies. He hunts deer, grills steaks and neither knows nor cares what kind of mileage he gets with his 2-year-old Dodge and its V-8 engine.
Although not wearing the much-ballyhooed flag pin, Barr displays his patriotism in other ways: all of his phone numbers end in 1776 and there is a 7-foot Statue of Liberty replica in one of his offices.
When he's not running for president, Barr is a lawyer and co-owner of Liberty Strategies, an Atlanta consulting firm he founded after his party redrew his district to his detriment and he lost his House seat in 2002.
"I didn't cry over spilled milk," Barr said, later conceding that sometimes he missed life on the Hill. He flashes his former-member identification card to get through restricted doorways and writes thank-you notes on special former-member stationery.
He has no problem envisioning himself as commander in chief.
"Immediately upon assuming office, I would sit down with our military leaders and I would direct, not ask, but direct that they begin an immediate and significant drawdown in Iraq," he asserted, deftly shifting talk of Bob Barr as spoiler to Bob Barr as president.
Unlike candidates who play verbal games of Twister to avoid the dreaded flip-flop, Barr freely admits that he has disavowed his long conservative resume in favor of the Libertarian philosophy of less government.
His vote to authorize the war? A mistake. The Patriot Act? Ditto: It was an excuse for unreasonable government spying. He has disowned the Defense of Marriage Act he championed, not because Jeri Barr is his third wife but because Libertarians don't believe in government telling people whom to marry. (He says that is up to each state.)
"Clearly the federal policies I've supported in the past are not working," he said, unabashed.
Barr aims to be on the ballot in every state but Oklahoma, where the signature requirement is too high. Part of his challenge as he stakes out the electoral map is his party's hard-to-define ideology. Libertarians line up with liberals on privacy issues and with conservatives on gun rights.
They have never fielded a serious presidential contender, and their conventions are even more bizarre than the spectacles the major parties throw. The Denver gathering in May that nominated Barr after six raucous ballots selected as his running mate Wayne Allyn Root, a professional sports handicapper and gambler from Las Vegas.
