Bob Barr Speaker & Booking Information

Robert Laurence "Bob" Barr, Jr. is the Libertarian candidate in the 2008 Presidential election. He was born November 5th, 1948 in Iowa City, Iowa to Bob Barr Sr. and his wife, Beatrice. Bob Barr Jr. was the second of six children, and spent much of his childhood traveling all over the world because of Bob Barr, Sr's career as a West Point soldier.

He spent parts of his childhood in Malaysia, Pakistan, Panama, and Tehran, Iran, where he graduated from Community High School in 1966. He returned to the US, and attended the University of Southern California. During his time at USC, he joined the Young Democrats of America, and protested the war in Vietnam. His parents greatly disaproved of this, and threatened to cut of his financial funding.

To curb this wild liberal attitude he had developed, his mother introduced him to the work of Ayn Rand, which sparked an interest in conservativism. He then joined the Young Trojan Republican Club. He graduated with a B.A. from USC in 1970. He went on to earn a Master's Degree in International Affairs from George Washington University in 1972, and his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1977. He worked for the CIA between 1970 (71) to 1978.

After his time with the CIA, he moved to Georgia. He worked as a lawyer, and became actively involved in the Republican Party. In 1984, he ran for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives and lost. But two years later, Barr was appointed to serve as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia by then President, Ronald Reagan. He held that position until 1990. From 1990 to 1991, Bob Barr was president of the Southeastern Legal Foundation; an Atlanta-based law firm and policy center.

In 1992, he made a failed run for the Republican Party nominee to the U.S. Senate. He lost the primary by a very small margin of around 1,600 votes. He did win a Republican House seat in 1994, and was re-elected three times, serving from 1994 to 2003. During his time in Congress, he served on several committees, including a Vice-Chairman position on the Government Reform Committee, and as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee. A restructuring of the House Districts in 2003, led to the loss of Barr's seat in the House of Representatives. He has not made any additional bid for a Congressional seat as of today.

He currently practices law with the law offices of Edwin Marger, and runs a consulting firm, Liberty Strategies LLC, which has its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and also has offices in the Washington, D.C. area. From 2003 to 2008, has has occupied the 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom and Privacy, which fights for fundamental rights to privacy based on the Bill of Rights. He has also served as a Board Member of the National Rifle Association since 1997. Barr is also a member of The Constitution Project's Initiative on Liberty and Security, and from 2003 to 2005, has served as a member of a project at Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University that addresses matters of privacy and security.

Even though many people are unaware of who Bob Barr is, he is a prominent figure in mainstream media today. He has written a regular column for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, hosted a nationally-syndicated radio show, served as a contributor to CNN, and served as a Contributing Editor to The American Spectator.