Running for Office

by: AuGeo

Sat Aug 28, 2010 at 20:33:07 PM MDT

Tennessee candidates
Daniel Lewis writes:
I think having a  Libertarian run as a Republican highlights some very important issues.   First, as has been said before, the system is rigged so a candidate has to often cross-dress as a Republican or a Democrat to get elected. This is one of many problems with the two party system.

Second, having someone like Ed Marsh elected can help the movement towards liberty, but it also adds to confusion in the difference between Libertarians and conservatives. The Libertarian/Conservative distinction is one of the problems facing the national LP.  We have a bunch of Conservatives who think that just because they favor trimming government a bit and cutting a few taxes that they are Libertarians.   Libertarians ARE NOT Conservatives, we are classical Liberals.

Finally, running Libertarians as Democrats or Republicans also adds to the perception of the two party monopoly.   If we ever want the Libertarian Party to be viable, we need to work on getting Libertarians elected that are running as Libertarians.  This is not to diminish Ed's accomplishment, but it is to differentiate between getting someone with Libertarian views elected and a Libertarian elected.  

Let's Go Maverick

by: AuGeo

Tue Aug 24, 2010 at 20:37:05 PM MDT

Well, I've had plenty of time to think about it and I vow not to make that mistake again.

I am a Maverick and Mavericks think:

Why on Earth does a so-called "Political Party" with 15,000 "members" need a Headquarters, Executive Director and Staff just to ride herd on 50 State Affiliates, none of which are being helped by the LNC?

We believe the whole operation is upside down, which is why the LP is not getting anywhere. The action takes place where the voting takes place  - States and their Counties.

MORE BELOW FOLD

Libertarian News August 2010

by: AuGeo

Sat Aug 21, 2010 at 19:51:38 PM MDT

Rhode Island Libertarians Return
After years of near-complete inactivity, Rhode Islanders are following the Maine example in reviving their state organization.  We hear from Tony Jones:

Calling All Libertarians!
Please join us on Sunday, August 22 for our first 'Libertarian Social' this will be an informal gathering, a free event and all are welcome. Come chat, network and enjoy the company of like minded folks.

Feels Like Ohm Coffee Shop & Art Gallery
115 Washington Street
West Warwick, RI

For more information, feel free to contact:
Tony Jones, tonyjones@cbgb.net 401-206-9194

Tony has also launched a Facebook page.

North Carolina Libertarians Get Funding Equality
Like several other states, North Carolina has a
check box on its income tax form that allows taxpayers to give $3 of their tax money to a political party instead of giving it to the state government. Until recently, only Democrats and Republicans could get the money (except 2008, when North Carolina let the Libertarians get money by mistake).  North Carolina Libertarians have now gained legal eligibility to receive the money from agreeable taxpayers.

Libertarian Party of Nebraska Expects To Be On Ballot
Libertarian Party of Nebraska (LPNE) State Chairman Gene Siadek reports: "Today we submitted 8,000 signatures collected from across the state. We believe this indicates that Nebraskans are tired of the 'politics as usual' offerings of the two other parties  5,934 signatures were required, with around 2,000 coming from each Congressional District."

Oregon Libertarians Deploy First Video
Libertarian candidate for Governor of Oregon Wes Wagner has deployed a video in support of his campaign.  You can see it at his campaign web site cureoregon.org.

What Your National Committee is Doing

by: AuGeo

Tue Aug 10, 2010 at 14:09:50 PM MDT

So what did the LNC do last month?  They met.  There was a long discussion of Green Party vs LP, with no one looking at the GP budget and comparing with ours.  David Nolan insulted the fine Libertarians of my region, and our representative Rachel Hawkridge, writing "The regional system has become ridiculous, with some containing states scattered across the USA."  He also correctly noted "Or we could easily find ourselves in a situation where the replacement represents views diametrically opposite the person who resigns (or is forced out, as with Angela Keaton)."

LNC Appropriates $25,000 for New York Ballot Access

by: AuGeo

Sun Aug 01, 2010 at 08:23:13 AM MDT

LNC Claims Obama is Marxist Plotting to Destroy Capitalism

by: AuGeo

Sat Jul 17, 2010 at 07:24:39 AM MDT

No one could make this up. Go look at LP.ORG.

Read: "I believe my old college classmate Obama (Class of '83 Columbia University) is a Marxist purposefully trying to destroy capitalism, "  The author is LNC At-Large member Wayne Root.

The APRC debated the publicity, as may be covered in a future issue.

Meanwhile a Bylaws amendment passed through at the last LNC meeting forbids committees larger than ten or so, such as the entire LNC, to meet by phone.  It turns out that the LNC affiliate support committee has more than ten members, so thanks to the new Bylaw it reportedly can no longer meet electronically

LNC Meets in Las Vegas

by: AuGeo

Sun Jul 11, 2010 at 10:44:48 AM MDT

Seebeck writes:  OK, finally got connection here at Ballys and we're underway. H/T to Don Wills, LPWY for the connections. Public comment.

Who's not here: Oaksun (family emergency), Olsen (4, Wills covering), Sink-Burris (3, Wolfe). In crowd, Starr, Ray Strong, me, all CA, more

Creds report by Mattson.

Setup this morning tweaked by Kraus and me, ditto getting projector going. Hotel connection sucks. Room is huge, 109 in Vegas today, yuck.

Region 5 (Karlan/Vassar) both not here.

Still getting stuff organized here on the binders, Mattson directing traffic on this, newbie instructions for this time only.

Agenda review.

Rachel Hawkridge now on board of LOLA.

4 minutes ahead of schedule. Chair's report. Liberty Links at lp.org, FreedomFest attendance & talked to Mackey who is supportive in ways.

Neale, Lark, Root, Ruwart, Hall on this cmte. Still want to be in DC for volunteers from GWU, others nearby. amt to raise TBD.

Nolan asks if presumption is HQ continues in DC if buy made. Hinkle says yes unless LNC says otherwise. (They should check nationwide IMO)

Chair report done. +16 minutes. Treasurer out, family emergency. Hinkle has Starr covering for it, maybe from transition? not sure here.

Will try to figure this out later. Thought Oaksun was going to submit a budget today, so this is off the plumbline some.

Going over numbers on screen. I need a telescope to see them from here. BBIAM.

NEW MATERIAL

BTW, I'd webcast this, but the video is upside down and the audio in here is lousy and all anyone would here is my typing. Aint tech fun?

What's confidential? Not reporting any numbers anyway.

OK, back, still in Treasurer report. I don't have a copy here so I can't really tell much about it.

Convention operations made $6K, not counting banquet donations. That's a different switch, mainly from no speaker fees.

LNC members treating Starr like he's still on the LNC? Also he's taking chair ops instead of simply giving a report? Hinkle needs to rein.   6 minutes ago via web

Treasurer report done. Still +8. Now secretary report. Motion to adopt 5-28 LNC mtg minutes, pre-convention. Seconded, objected by Hawk

A Step for Liberty

by: AuGeo

Sat Jul 10, 2010 at 19:14:35 PM MDT

OK, put together a list of your candidates.  Find their phone numbers, emails, web pages, face book pages, yahoo and google groups, Myspace and twitter accounts, etc.  If you have a state party page that is missing these, try to publish your list. If your state has a Facebook page, Google group, etc., please sent it to all those places. And send a copy to LNC Executive Director Wes Benedict wes.benedict@lp.org and to your LNC Regional Representative.

The Other Side from Lee Wrights

by: AuGeo

Tue Jul 06, 2010 at 09:47:05 AM MDT

We can certainly contrast Lee Wrights' approach - grab a solid libertarian issue, actually a bunch of them - and run with them, with the latest proposals from the LNC, as leaked to Liberty for America magazine. This is a preview from our forthcoming issue, though coverage of the return of limousine Bob may tend to push it to shorter length.

The LNC email list according to my sources recently had the following dispute between Wayne Root and David Nolan. I believe that the exchange as forwarded to Liberty for America magazine, which is going to be a bit full this issue, is authentic. You may decide for yourself how this sort of discussion advances our National Committee's business. Root responded to Nolan's comments (which were in turn a response to an earlier Root post, which we'll reach separatelybecause it more or less shows stands the opposite of Wayne's.):

"On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 9:13 PM, Dave Nolan wrote:
Wayne, I'd have a lot more respect for your unsolicited advice if you actually had a track record of winning elections, inside the LP or outside. In 2008, you ran for our Presidential nomination and YOU LOST by a large margin. You came in third, with 26%, behind both Barr and Ruwart. You just ran for LNC Chair, and YOU LOST, despite raising and spending more than all of your competitors combined (your claim). The Nevada LP begged you to run for U.S. Senate this year, and you refused. Instead, you spoke at an event with Sarah Palin, the whole purpose of which was to rally people to vote for the REPUBLICAN candidate, to defeat Harry Reid. And now you're still banging the drum for the REPUBLICAN nominee, Sharron Angle, who is not a Libertarian.

Wrights Announces Presidential Exploratory Committee

by: AuGeo

Mon Jul 05, 2010 at 13:55:50 PM MDT

For more information:
Thomas Hill
Phone: (704) 621-8621 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (704) 621-8621      end_of_the_skype_highlighting (Skype also)
E-mail: thomasbhill@msn.com

BURNET, Texas (July 4) - R. Lee Wrights, a former Libertarian Party national vice chair and the editor and co-founder of Liberty for All online magazine, announced today he is forming an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for a possible bid to seek the Libertarian nomination for president in 2012.

"The Libertarian Party faces a critical test in 2012 and I want to make sure that we're up to the challenge," Wrights said. "The Libertarian message in 2012 must be loud and clear - Stop the Wars! Stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stop the war on drugs and alternative lifestyles, stop the war on civil liberties."

Wrights said that it's time to stop supporting politicians, regardless of party, who don't even come close to fulfilling their campaign promises.

Good News on Demographics

by: AuGeo

Sat Jul 03, 2010 at 19:37:01 PM MDT

Occasionally, buried in news from other political factions is some incredibly good news for our Libertarian Party.  And here we have some, in the form of a statistical report Demographic Change and the Future of the Parties, which you can read at http://www.americanprogressact...

Much more below the fold:

LNC to meet in Las Vegas

by: AuGeo

Thu Jul 01, 2010 at 20:56:06 PM MDT

Readers may be aware that there will be a meeting of the Libertarian National Committee in Las Vegas on July 11.  This is a one-day meeting, not a day and a half meeting, so time will be tight. What will be on the Chair's proposed Agenda, which was recently circulated to the LNC by the Secretary?

For answers, see below the fold.

New LNC Elected

by: AuGeo

Sat Jun 26, 2010 at 08:28:19 AM MDT

The Libertarian National Convention met over the Memorial Day weekend in St. Louis.  An interesting time was had by many.  There were a series of bylaws and platform changes that we will need to cover in future issues.

The New Path slate, and thus, in considerable part, the plans it proposed, were almost without exception defeated.  The only declared New Path supporter who was actually elected at the convention was Treasurer candidate James Oaksun.

Oaksun, however, received by far the largest applause when his victory was announced.

Vote totals included (Counts as reported in Tom  Stevens blog:    DrTomStevens.BlogSpot.com

Carpetbaggers at the National Convention

by: AuGeo

Sat Jun 19, 2010 at 08:15:08 AM MDT

Those of you who attended the 2002 LP National Convention in Indianapolis will remember the Carpetbaggers for Eli - that was the badge several of them wore.  These were the two dozen Indianans added to the 2002 Massachusetts delegation as a dirty trick of Indiana State Chair Mark Rutherford,  to pack the National Convention in support of the (failing) National Chair campaign of Eli Israel.

The Indiana Party is up to its tricks again. This time, 15 Indianans were added to the delegations of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and South Carolina.   Another 10 Missouri libertarians were added to the state delegations of Alabama, Georgia, Minnesota, and other places.  That's convention packing, back from the dead.

Let's start at the beginning.  We return to the August 2002 Let Freedom Ring!, which you can read at cmlc.org/letfreedomring.htm.  The article is page 1, top left column.  We quote from the article:

"I was delighted to leave the surplus of my hospitality suite with the LPIN.  I am even happy to specify that that it was very generous of LPIN chair (and LNC member) Mark Rutherford to supply the LPMA delegation with a list of Hoosiers who wanted to be seated as Massachusetts delegates 'so they could attend National' because 'their state delegation was full'.  Returning the courtesy, the LPMA delegation narrowly voted (2-vote margin) to seat the 15.   Admittedly, I was busy with my own campaign, but I recall seeing only two Hoosiers at the delegation vote to admit them.  I first saw the rest of them Saturday morning at the National Chair vote... National Convention

Where Your Money Went -- LNC April 2010

by: AuGeo

Sat Jun 19, 2010 at 07:25:46 AM MDT

The LNC began April with $150,318.40 cash on hand, had $191,140.18 in income and $91,675.68 in expenditures, and ended the month with $249,782.90 cash on hand.  Total income to date for the year was $608,468.45.  However, that income number includes very considerable income corresponding to the National Convention; we must wait to see how matters ended up.

On the bright side, buried in that $91K in expenses was a Facebook Ad Charge for $229.69.  That was spending on real politics.

The Watergate Offices cost $10.5K.  

More below fold: