Bob Barr, onetime bulldog of the Republican right spoke in Pittsburgh tonight, shorn of both his party membership and his allegiance to some of the policies he voted for as a Georgia congressman and promises to reverse as the first-ever Libertarian president.

He admits it's a long shot.

Mathematically, he could win the Electoral College, after surviving a gantlet of state ballot access laws and a ballot challenge in some of them.

Conventional wisdom -- the kind that usually prevails in national elections -- suggests he has little hope.

Mr. Barr, in fact, opened his speech before an audience of 150 at Carnegie Mellon University by listing his disqualifications for the nation's top office.

"You'll notice I'm not wearing an American flag lapel pin," he said He also noted he has only one house and doesn't care how many anyone else has.

Like Barack Obama, he said, he has also "had coffee with a number of people of dubious background."

"I'm not afraid to operate outside of my comfort zone," he said.

Mr. Barr represented Georgia's 7th District as a Republican from 1995 to 2003, and spearheaded the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998. He left the party after departing Congress, disillusioned, he said, with the party's trajectory away from constitutional principles.

One of Mr. Barr's key votes in Congress was to support passage of the Patriot Act in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

He regrets that now, saying powers to wiretap and spy have been abused.

"I voted for the Patriot Act -- something that I came very quickly to realize was a very bad vote," he said.

Mr. Barr said the administration promised the act would not be used for non-terrorism investigations and that they would report openly and fully about how the act was being implemented.

"In every instance they failed to honor those commitments," he said.

One key supporter said that change of heart is hardly a disqualification.

David Powell, Libertarian chairman for Allegheny County, likened Mr. Barr to the hero of his favorite television show, "My Name is Earl."

"Like Earl Hickey, he means to make amends, no matter what it takes," Mr. Powell said.

If Mr. Barr was there to make amends, it wasn't with leaders of either major party.

He referred to President Bush as a leader "who, similar to Sarah Palin, did not have any experience operating in the real world outside of the borders of our country."

He mocked the debates, from which he was excluded, as exercises that consist of candidates "answering questions that they want to be asked. That is not what they're going to be called on to do as president of the United States."

Last night's gathering pointed to the growing blur that has emerged between some groups on both the left and right, with right-leaning Libertarians making common cause with groups such as the overtly liberal Green Party.

Titus North, the Green Party candidate for Congress in the 14th District, delivered a speech prior to Mr. Barr's and was cheered when he attacked the Federal Reserve system, long a target of the far-right.

"The old left-right definitions don't work anymore," noted Mr. Powell.