Former Georgia Republican Congressman may be returning to the campaign life — as a Libertarian candidate for president.

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Barr is a featured speaker at the Heartland Libertarian Conference in Kansas City, Mo., today and the chatter in political circles is that he will announce the creation of an exploratory committee.

Barr was not available for comment Friday and his staff would only talk about the usual topics in his speech outline — protecting civil liberties, reducing government spending and shrinking government.

But last week, Barr confirmed on the internet site Antiwar.com that he was 'very seriously" considering a Libertarian presidential race, a contest that already has 10 announced candidates. Only one of those candidates has any national political experience.

Barr, who writes a column for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said in that interview many people were encouraging him to run and there was evidence voters had a "great deal of dissatisfaction with the current candidates and the current two-party system."

He said in that interview his candidacy would be an extension of the campaign of Republican Ron Paul, who remains a candidate for president even though Sen. John McCain has surpassed the minimum number of delegates to win the nomination.

"Ron Paul tapped into a great deal of that dissatisfaction and that awareness," Barr said on the website. "Unfortunately, working through the Republican party structure, it became impossible for him to really move forward with his movement. But we have to have ... a rallying point out there to harness that energy, that freedom, in this election cycle."

Barr has been preaching his philosophy to relatively small crowds.

Last month, he was featured at a meeting of the Georgia Libertarian Party, where fewer than 50 people met in a small hotel meeting room in Gwinnett County. There he complained about government spying on individuals and threats to the Bill of Rights.

"Unless you're terribly deluded, you don't do it thinking you're going to take the oath of office next January," University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock said of Barr's potential Libertarian run. "It does give you a bit of a platform where you can articulate your view of the world. You aren't going to get a lot of [news] coverage, but you're going to get a little coverage."

Barr was a Republican congressman representing Cobb County from 1995 until 2003, when he became a Libertarian.

Emory University political scientist Merle Black said third party candidates like Barr, run because they "feel strongly about the issues. They are self-motivated. They know they aren't going to win. They just get out there and make the case for the way they think it should be."

The Libertarian presidential candidate in 2004, Michael Badnarik, won slightly more than 3 percent of the 122 million votes cast.