The timekeeper did, however, hold up fingers for minutes remaining. None the less, this easily led to nominating and seconding speeches going long consuming time left for the candidates themselves. The speakers weren’t individually timed, just the entire block.

The next day we went through the same process for the officer elections, but these blocks of time were much shorter. 5 min for the Chairman’s race. 3 min for all other races (though we did shorten it to 2 min for the Judicial committee as we were running out of time)

Having been a Toastmaster, I was roped into being the timer that day at the last second, as the previous day’s timers had left. And with so many races I was kept quite busy.

It was quite clear who had prior experience speaking with timers. Some of the less experienced saw the one minute or 30 second signal and rushed through their speech too quickly. Some of the more experienced saw my early finger signals of three or two minutes left, and nodded slightly in acknowledgment.

John

“I’d guess most of these guys were Barr’s former supporters when he was a Republican who also jumped ship with him, reminding the audience further he’s not a complete Libertarian.”

Actually, aside from his family, most of the people there were long-time Libertarians.

However, your overall point is sound, except that Barr always needs to contrast his positions with both McCain and Obama. Small government conservatives who don’t like McCain aren’t fans of Obama either.