This evening, I spoke with former congressman and Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr on the phone. I’ll have the full Q&A up tomorrow, but for now I thought it might be worth posting his response to Newt Gingrich, who told the Washington Times yesterday that “Bob Barr will make it marginally easier for Barack Obama to become president. That outcome threatens every libertarian value Barr professes to champion.” Barr says:

BOB BARR: I have great respect for Newt. He’s a friend, and I’ve known him for many years and worked with him in the Congress. But I’d be running not as a Republican. Newt’s views are very much colored as an advocate only of the Republican Party. My views go beyond, and my principles go beyond, simple adherence to a particular party. The reason that I have entered the race, the reason that I seek to be the Libertarian Party nominee, is to put forward an agenda for the American people of libertarian philosophy and libertarian principles that would seek to maximize individual liberty and minimize government power. That would be the purpose of my running. Now if in fact, at the end of the day, I am unsuccessful in securing the presidency on that platform, but I have moved that agenda forward, have raised the level of debate and have caused the American people to recognize that there really is a choice there and cause a large number of them to vote for me as the Libertarian nominee, I think that’s very important. NRO: But you don’t believe that Americans would experience significantly less liberty if a President Obama were to, say, raise taxes, spend more and enact a series of regulations that curtail Americans’ liberties? BOB BARR: I think anybody that does that would be by definition curtailing Americans’ liberties, but why wouldn’t the American people legitimately blame Senator McCain for that? Because Senator McCain, for example, if he loses to Senator Obama, did not put forward an agenda that appealed to a sufficient number of Americans, did not convince them of his bona fides in terms of being a so-called conservative candidate. Why blame Bob Barr? Why not blame Senator McCain for not putting together and moving forward with an adequate platform?

Come back tomorrow and read the rest of the Q&A.