PERSON: Chris Barron

Republican Party

Political consultant

Christopher R. Barron is an American political activist best known as the cofounder of GOProud, a political organization representing gay conservatives. He is the president of CapSouth Consulting, a political consulting firm, and previously the national political director for Log Cabin Republicans, where he directed the organization’s federal lobbying efforts and media relations.

Barron joined the Log Cabin Republicans as political director in February 2004. He was instrumental in the organization’s September 2004 decision to not endorse President George W. Bush’s re-election. In a 2004 interview, he revealed that in 2003 he submitted a written testimonial praising Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on a web site and that he supported Edwards’ 1998 U.S. Senate campaign.

In 2009, Barron and Jimmy LaSalvia both found GOProud and left the Log Cabin Republicans. This was in direct result to both of them viewing the Log Cabin Republicans as too centrist.

Before the 2012 Republican primary, Barron helped organize the “Draft Cheney 2012” movement, which was to convince the former vice president Cheney to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Early in the 2012 Republican primary process, Barron endorsed Herman Cain for the 2012 U.S. presidential election. After Cain dropped out, Barron endorsed Republican and later Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson for the 2012 U.S. presidential election, saying he was “refusing to settle”. He was a delegate to the 2012 Libertarian National Convention. In the 2012 Republican primary in the District of Columbia, Barron voted for Ron Paul. In October 2012, however, he announced he had decided to support and vote for Mitt Romney for President, even while continuing to serve as a D.C. elector for Johnson.

In the November 2013 Virginia gubernatorial election, Barron voted for Terry McAuliffe for governor.

On February 19, 2014, Barron left GOProud after Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) invited GOProud to attend the 2014 CPAC. In an interview with BuzzFeed, Barron said, “Last night I resigned from the Board of GOProud, the organization that I co-founded back in April of 2009. I cannot in good conscience sit by and watch as the current leadership of the organization disingenuously pawns off an unconditional surrender to the forces of bigotry as some sort of ‘compromise,’” and “Nothing has changed in regards to GOProud and CPAC, GOProud does not have a booth, they are not a sponsor, they are not participating in any formal sense — individual members can attend and that’s exactly the terms ACU dictated the previous few years.”

— Wikipedia