Bob Barr is gearing up to announce his Libertarian POTUS bid. Normally political types don’t much care about who is running on the Libertarian, but this election year it’s news. Barr has a national profile, having served as the Georgia’s Republican congressman from 1995 to 2003. What he’s most famous for is leading the impeachment charge against Bill Clinton. People actually know who this guy is.

Another reason why this is news is because of that under-reported fact that the conservative base hates McCain. The thought is that Barr might draw some of those conservative votes away from McCain. I think another big as-yet-unspoken fear is that if McCain makes it to the White House many of those old-skool conservatives (i.e. – not neocons) might leave the party altogether and go Libertarian like Barr.