The Gulf Coast Crawler

There is a very good, issue-oriented post up over at Pajamas Media about the impact Bob is having in the presidential election:

Looking back upon his time as a conservative Republican in Congress, the candidate told this reporter during a recent conference call, “We no longer have representatives from either major party who have any serious interest in reducing the size of government, cutting taxes, or getting spending under control.”

This is a salable sentiment among paleoconservatives, but some may wonder precisely how much one person — even when seated in the Oval Office — could accomplish toward such lofty goals. Barr insists that the very presence in the West Wing of an apostate from the two party system would send out a clarion call, shocking Congress into action. He also promised to lead by example, mandating a 10% cut in spending by the executive branch on his first day in office. This, he assured us, would be followed by a meeting with both houses of Congress where he would shame them into following suit.
[...]
[H]e plans on completely retooling America’s military strategy abroad. Barr indicated that the United States could significantly reduce spending by putting the “defense” back into the Department of Defense. He would drastically reduce the number of foreign bases we maintain, along with cuts in overseas troop levels, while strengthening our defensive position at home. Reductions in foreign aid were also proposed. I found some of these positions quite similar to proposals from the Democrats.

Even on the domestic front, Barr has adopted a number of uniquely Libertarian policies geared toward keeping the government “out of our business.” Some of these deal with aggressive positions on personal privacy and diversity, such as the recent “flawed” FISA legislation and his belief that gay marriage is an issue for the states to decide.