BARR SEEKS LIBERTARIAN NOD FOR PRESIDENT

A former Republican congressman of Georgia, Robert Barr Jr., is running for president on a Libertarian Party platform of small government and a more limited role for America abroad. “We do not have a field of candidates currently or anywhere on the horizon that understands and will raise the issues that are important to the great heritage of America, the history of this great land, the principles on which this great land was founded,” Mr. Barr, 59, said yesterday as he announced his candidacy in Washington, CNN reported.

Mr. Barr promised to “dramatically decrease the military” and “the economic and the political footprint we maintain in Iraq.” Although some Libertarians favor open borders, the former congressman signaled a tough stand against illegal immigrants. “This notion that government owes something to people just because they’re here does not resonate with me. … This is not a charity,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

During his four terms in Congress, Mr. Barr was considered one of the most conservative members of the House, but after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he sharply criticized surveillance conducted by the Bush administration, quit the Republican Party, and took a position as a paid consultant to the American Civil Liberties Union.

At a convention in Denver later this month, Mr. Barr will be vying for the Libertarian Party nomination with a former senator of Alaska who also sought the Democratic nomination this year, Mike Gravel. “I think I can best him in the contest,” Mr. Gravel told The New York Sun yesterday. “After all, I was a senator and he was a congressman.”

IN NORTHWEST, MCCAIN PUSHES CLIMATE CHANGE

The presumptive Republican nominee for president, Senator McCain of Arizona, is vowing to mount a serious fight against climate change, while preserving flexibility for American business. “For all the good work of entrepreneurs and inventors in finding cleaner and better technologies, the fundamental incentives of the market are still on the side of carbon-based energy,” Mr. McCain said during an appearance yesterday at a wind power company in Portland, Ore. He proposed a system of carbon emissions trading that would reduce carbon releases to 60% of 1990 levels by 2050.

“A cap-and-trade policy will send a signal that will be heard and welcomed all across the American economy,” Mr. McCain said. “The cap-and-trade system will create jobs, improve livelihoods, and strengthen futures across our country.”

Senator Obama of Illinois called Mr. McCain’s speech “truly breathtaking” in light of his votes against subsidies for wind power and higher fuel economy standards for vehicles. Senator Clinton said Mr. McCain’s plan did “not go far enough.”

OBAMA OPINES ON ISRAEL, HAMAS

In a new interview, Senator Obama is professing a deep cultural affinity for Israel and speculating on why he won the endorsement of a senior Hamas official. “My starting point when I think about the Middle East is this enormous emotional attachment and sympathy for Israel,” Mr. Obama told the Atlantic magazine. “The idea of Israel and the reality of Israel is one that I find important to me personally because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus. … I’ve got it in my gut.”

Mr. Obama said the expression of support from Ahmed Yousef of Hamas might be the result of a misunderstanding. “It’s conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, ‘This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein, and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he’s not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush,’ and that’s something they’re hopeful about. I think that’s a perfectly legitimate perception as long as they’re not confused about my unyielding support for Israel’s security,” Mr. Obama said. He also said he told a Palestinian Arab audience in Ramallah that they were “delusional” if they thought America would distance itself from Israel.