"Throughout the '80s and '90s the drug war was the principal justification for reducing civil liberties in this country," Nadelmann argues. "On September 11, the drug war was superseded by the war on terror as the new rationalization for curtailing civil liberties. That's what changed."
One issue hasn't eclipsed the other. While many libertarians are hoping Barr will change his views on the drug war, that might not need to happen. As Barr says, every successful party (or political movement) includes swarms of allies who don't agree on key issues. The issue that finally pulled Barr into the Libertarian Party—civil liberties during the war on terror—happens to be one of the starkest, most controversial fissures in American politics. If every voter who distrusts the government to respect his liberties were to follow Barr into his new political home, the GOP and Democrats could start holding their conventions in high school gyms. That won't happen, but the parties have a reason to be worried about libertarian voters for the first time in a long time.
"There's a downside," says Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform. "You get more attention as a former Republican congressman criticizing the Bush administration than you do as a Libertarian." For people like Norquist, who joined Barr in the conservative PATRIOT Act reform group Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, it's not clear that a Libertarian Barr can have the same influence as the Republican Barr. Not even if his key issues are so crucial and so controversial. Not quite yet.
"On the other hand," Norquist adds, "the Libertarian Party has always needed more practical leadership. Maybe it's like that scene in Young Frankenstein where the scientist swaps part of his brain and the monster swaps another body part. It can be good for both of them."
David Weigel is an associate editor of Reason.
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