Today’s message from the LP Office asks us to participate in their poll at:
Interestingly, in early results about 1/3 of the poll participants say Joe should drop out of the race in favor of one of the other Candidates, almost exclusively, by a margin of 17-1 for the Republican Candidate.
Begging the question: Should an LP Candidate ever help an opponent in a different party?
I have a website/web page discussion group, yes.
It’s for discussion about this kind of thing, sure, but not targeting anyone, just discussion.
It remains misleading to call a “website” what was actually just the invite page for a private email list. And we only have Cohen’s surmises about what was written about his congressional campaign inside the private group.
Bruce, you have a private Y group called LPCA Dirty Laundry or some such. Does this mean you run a “website” airing dirty LPCA laundry?
It was a web page, sponsored by Yahoo with it’s own distinct URL address. I don’t recall saying exactly what it was for, but it was not a secret that Norm Westwell, the ‘owner’ and operator of said group, web page, effort called ‘Committee to Defeat Bruce Cohen’ opposed me for anything and everything.
Norm was not in my Congressional District, but he did discourage other Libertarians in the district from voting for me.
He also applauded Paul Studier voting for the Democrat and not me.
So, what’s your point, Brian?
There was a web page.
You say tomato, I say tomatoe.
I called it a website, whatever.
It was more than a private email list.
It was a Yahoo group and you could
find it on the Internet if you searched
[“bruce cohen” libertarian]
I think you are playing sematical hair-splitting games, Mister Holtz.
What Cohen says was a “website” against his LP congressional candidacy was actually a private email list, that for all we know was only about opposing Cohen for LP-internal office.
Mr. Lake, if you have a coherent and timely article about VA privatization that would be interesting to CF readers, I’ll be happy to post it. Instead of constantly trolling on IPR, you should invest some effort in your web presence: http://calvets.blogspot.com/.
Darcy G Richardson // Jan 18, 2010:
“………… and as far as George Phillies goes ……. He strikes me as somebody who can get the job done.”
theorizing, writing, may be. Face to face, voice on phone ????????? Well [from personal experiences] I believe he [and much of the college educated, elistist white males that dominate the] and much of the LP ‘leadership’ , the weak nesses start in Kindergarten.
‘Does not play well with others ………..’
Again, I respect your perspective and math, both. I happen to disagree on the strategy and tactics here.
I think a very good case could be made to publish CA Freedom again.
I also think a very good case could be made to justify its cost.
And finally, I think smart people like you could help keep the costs beneath the benefits.
You disagree, and that’s fine too.
Can you name a single donor-supported advocacy organization of <= 1300 members that spends $12K/yr for editing and layout? I bet you can't.I also bet you can't look at my sample CF issue and say that the previous incarnation of CF was $12K/yr better. I offered the following sample issue to the LPCA to show how it could save that $12K/yr in editing and layout costs. Note how the self-mailer on the last page can also be a standalone postcard. While on ExCom I advocated that CF go all-electronic, with monthly or quarterly postcard mailers that just give headlines, deadlines, and event announcements.http://marketliberal.org/LPCAFreedom/CaliforniaFreedom.pdf
LPCA leadership [and so called San Diego County Leadership] …. too risk-averse to send it any traffic ……….
or Don Lake’s printed Privatizing California Department of Veterans Affair article/ views.
What is the title of the situation of an amorous person winking at a targeted romantic potential in a darkened elevator. Hmmmmmmmmm The LP affect ???????
I worked for free on CA Freedom for years. When the Editor resigned to work at the Independent Institute, I was offered her job for her pay as well. I accepted, but several LPCA Board members had a tantrum about the pay factor. So, I worked for free to shut them up.
As far as your ‘bad idea’ concept, the printed media still works very well, for very many reasons.
And this publication is not a stand-alone business, but rather, a synergistic part of an overall presentation.
Certainly there are many small donor-supported organizations of our size that do continue to publish magazines and feel it’s an excellent investment.
I agree with that perspective.
The benefits far outweight the costs.
On the other hand, as you pointed out, the LPCA leadership is ‘playing poker with scared money’.
Risk-averse people like this don’t make good leaders in politics, business or anywhere.
Sorry about the low traffic at your site.
One would think the LPCA would grab on this opportunity for free PR, especially with California Freedom closed.
Bruce, CF never even came close to paying for itself during the year or more that you were in charge of it. Even the plan of charging $25/yr extra for CF subscriptions was not keeping CF afloat.
It was a bad idea to be paying $12K/yr in editing and layout costs. And it’s a bad idea to pay $8K/yr to deliver printed CF content to members via the government postal system, when the vast majority of those members can receive that content electronically.
My site gets what traffic I send it, but not much more. It’s had 1100 unique visitors since launching in October. The LPCA leadership is too risk-averse to send it any traffic from either ca.lp.org or from its thousands-strong email contact list.
I sort of understand where Mister Holtz is going with this, and from his perspective, I get it.
On the other hand, I don’t agree the LPCA comes out ahead by shuttering the second largest Libertarian publication in the USA, maybe in the world.
As far as the 1300 number, that seems to be half or less than what it was only a few years ago.
Anyway, if I were running the LPCA, and I am not, I would promote the magazine as a wonderful PR and recruiting tool and get it to ‘pay for itself’ one way or another.
Again, we are playing chess, I want to move the pieces one way, Brian another.
How many people are reading your website, by the way, Brian?
Thanks.
Libertarians advocate voluntary, decentralized, self-organizing solutions to problems that other people think require centralized top-down control. The Libertarian Party of California had in recent years been spending over $20K/yr in members’ dues (including over $4K/yr for editing and as much as $8K/yr for graphical layout) to communicate once a month with the ~1300 recipients of its newsletter California Freedom.
Now all 80,000 of California’s registered Libertarians can get more news, sooner, and at zero cost: http://CalFreedom.net.
Darcy,
I tend to agree with you about the appropriateness of this question.
On the other hand, to Wes’ credit, a whole ton of people did go the the LP website because of the poll. So give them at least that.
The reason I posted this article was that I too, didn’t like the tone of the poll.
I have never voted against a Libertarian in my life. Never. Not when they were running for public office.
No way.
No how.
I have had Libertarians vote against me, even campaign against me.
In Orange County, I had a hot-tempered activist actually start a website to ‘defeat’ me. He and another guy in Orange County contacted folks in the Congressional district I was running in and asked them to vote for the Democrat instead.
Voting against the Libertarian is a bad idea.
Here is what I said in 2004 on this:
http://www.ca.lp.org/cf/CF-200401.pdf
From California Freedom Magazine, Jan 2004.
And speaking of California Freedom Magazine, it’s shuttered, dark and silent, with no plans to start it back up again.
RIP California Freedom Magazine – Summer 2009.
Tom, that whole business with NH was rather odd, as I recall.
For those who weren’t aware of it or who don’t remember from 2008, NH had to name a candidate for its Libertarian Presidential candidate long before the nominating convention in Denver. Given that Prof. Phillies is very popular in New England and that many polls at the time showed him at the forefront of the announced candidates, NH put his name on the ballot with the understanding that they could substitute whoever actually did get the nomination if it wasn’t he. Except that that wasn’t how it actually worked.
A lot of people mistakenly believed it was an act of ego on George’s part to stay on the ballot, but it wasn’t up to him either to put his name on the ballot or to take it off. The lawsuit was not against HIM, just to clarify.
As to #23, I tend to agree. We don’t need a cheerleader or a bobble-head for chair, not at this juncture. We need someone who can, as Angela Keaton so colorfully put it, “make a penny scream,” and George Phillies can certainly do that. 🙂
It’s a sad truth that the party is in dubious financial shape at a time when the American people are probably more ready for our message than ever. Would that we were poised to take advantage of that with a healthy pile of cash to spend on fundraising events and activities and literature, candidate support…
dgr 24, if you’re refering to 22, it says “relatively tame,” with a T.
Damn, Robert, I hate being called “relatively lame.” Oh, well…
I totally agree…I might have been a bit harsh — but just a bit — and as far as George Phillies goes, I’m not sure he isn’t exactly what the Libertarian Party needs at the helm as the party enters what might be its most propitious moment in more than 38 years. He strikes me as somebody who can get the job done.
Poll: ill-advised. The good news is the poll won’t affect JK’s vote totals, or the outcome of the race.
Why run this poll? I can’t begin to guess. If Donny or Shane were involved, the squawks here’d likely be raucous shrieks; calls for ousters; deranged screeds containing attacks on familial history; etc. Interesting that the attacks thus far have been relatively tame.
But, it does beg the question: Is there something in the air in the Watergate, converting hard-core angrytarians into Republican-lite amen-corner residents?
Darcy,
I wouldn’t say we don’t see eye-to-eye on it.
Like I said, I agree that the poll was a bad idea.
“Biggest bonehead exploit in the annals of third-party politics,” on the other hand, is a judgment that I think you’ll eventually decide is harsher than warranted.
Another counter-offer just came to mind:
2008 — The Barr campaign, or the national LP, or the New Hampshire LP, or some combination of the three, filed suit in New Hampshire not to get Bob Barr on the ballot — he was already there — but to get George Phillies off the ballot.
That was boneheaded in pretty much every way imaginable.
The LP, the Barr campaign and the LPNH presumably had limited funds and better things to spend them on.
The national office and the Barr campaign obviously didn’t like George very much … but for some reason chose to deliver publicity to him on a silver platter.
At least some of the Libertarian volunteers who petitioned to put George on the ballot probably wanted him to stay on the ballot. Wonder how responsive they’ll be to the national party’s pleas for help in the future after it tried to disenfranchise them?
And so on, and so forth.
Tom,
It might. While Perot’s withdrawal in 1992 was his own decision, Norman Thomas — supported by the Socialist Party’s militants — had no control over what his party’s “Old Guard” would do in 1936. The party’s right-wing forces had been feuding with Thomas and the left-wingers since 1932-33 and the split, for better or worse, was inevitable. It was completely out of his hands. Similarly, the Reform Party faction that eventually nominated Buchanan in 2000 didn’t try to deliberately undermine his campaign four days before the election.
I’m sorry we don’t see eye-to-eye on this, but the LP’s poll on Kennedy’s candidacy was pretty bad…awful, actually.
Darcy,
You write:
“The mere fact that this poll was conducted in the first place might have been the biggest bonehead exploit in the annals of third-party politics.”
Hyperbolic much?
I agree that the poll was a bad idea, but …
October 17th, 2002: Libertarian candidate Kurt Evans withdraws from South Dakota’s US Senate race and endorses Republican John Thune. Thune then loses to incumbent Tim Johnson anyway.
2000: The Reform Party holds competing conventions in the same building, one nominating Pat Buchanan for president, the other nominating John Hagelin. The federal courts end up deciding the nominee, and Buchanan manages to blow more than $12 million in taxpayer money while barely outpolling Libertarian candidate Harry Browne’s campaign, run at a fraction of the cost and with a fraction of the name recognition and publicity. The Reform Party loses its future matching funds eligibility.
July 16th, 1992: Ross Perot, while polling in the lead in the presidential race, announces that he’s withdrawing from the election because GOP operatives have threatened to publish fake nekkid photos of his daughter (or something like that). He returns to the race later and pulls down half the number of votes he was on track for before he withdrew.
1936 — After Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas went from 276,00 votes in the 1928 election to 884,000 in the 1932 election, the party’s split, its “Old Guard” walked out and formed the American Labor Party, and endorsed FDR in 1936, and Thomas’s total went right back down to less than 200,000.
There have been all kinds of boneheaded moves in the history of third party politics. I’ve heard there’s this guy who’s written four volumes of third party history, with a fifth coming out this year. I bet he could think of some more. I wonder if this online poll will even make it into volume 8?
Well said, Carolyn.
Indeed, I found myself wondering if we ran a similar poll for Barr/Root or really for any of the hundreds of Libertarian candidates peopling the ballots in Texas and elsewhere…
I do understand that this race is pivotal because the outcome will all but dictate what happens with Obamacare, but come on.
Our quickness to toss aside our principles and slide between the sheets with the GOP whenever it’s expedient is becoming a habit.
One other thing, Bruce. The fact that one-third of those who participated in the LP’s on-line poll think Joe Kennedy should drop out and support Scott Brown — the pet teabagger and unapologetic abuse afflicter of the Republican establishment — speaks ill of the Libertarian Party nationally.
The country’s right-wingers already have ample opportunity to show their ugly side. It’s beyond me why the LP gave them one more opportunity…
Go Joe!
No, Bruce, it’s not the least bit interesting. It was an imbecilic poll to begin with, one — regardless of the results — that made it appear as though there was some sort of serious discussion within the Libertarian Party, or at least in the LP’s national office, on whether or not Mr. Kennedy should withdraw from the Senate race. Kennedy and the Libertarians in Massachusetts never hinted at any such thing.
One can’t imagine the Democrats or Republicans conducting such a poll at the eleventh hour of a campaign. If you want to be a Republican that badly — and, who knows, that might have been the real purpose of the on-line poll — simply join the GOP.
The mere fact that this poll was conducted in the first place might have been the biggest bonehead exploit in the annals of third-party politics.
Some folks obviously aren’t ready for the big leagues.
Poll Update: Sun Jan 17, 2010
33% Drop out – Help Republican
1% Drop out – Help Democrat
66% Stay in – Fight for Liberty!
Total votes submitted: 2706
Interesting, no?
@11 Must …. resist …. obvious …. troll-feeding … joke …
Drop out? LOL! That is the exact opposite of what the candidate should do. The candidate should adopt PLAS & go for the win! Educate the VOTERS about The PLAS. They will respond favorably. Don’t leave them without the info they need to vote prudently.
losertarians.
Actually, providing Revolutionary Socialists (or several other parties) with the line “Today, Hundreds of Libertarians sent electronic messages to their party headquarters, saying ‘I think Joe Kennedy should drop out to help the Revolutionary Socialist (or some other party)’.” is not politically astute. That is particularly the case if the poll is freeped by one of those other parties so that ‘drop out’ wins.
Now if you polled asking of Martha Coakly should drop out and endorse Joe, as GoldMassGroup.com just started doing,it would be more amusing.
Thanks, we had Jake_Witmer fix the headline.
Ms. Keaton,
“In fact, perhaps I will withdraw my support of him for Chair.
If only my new BFF Cory would run?”
Bad ideas for different reasons.
You should support Mark Hinkle, at least out of the currently announced choices.
NOOO!!! He should stay in this race!
Yes he should but he is over-influenced by my former BFF Georgie.
In fact, perhaps I will withdraw my support of him for Chair.
If only my new BFF Cory would run?
A girl can dream…
Gotta get back to work!
Arg!
Bruce, you should really change to title.
I’m glad I’m not a Mass. voter because I don’t know who I would vote for. Coakley is such pond-scum (see Dorothy Rabinowitz’s column on her in WSJ). If I could vote, my one vote for Kennedy counts a lot more than one more for Brown.
The fantastic press release from our fabulous ED makes it clear on support for Joe.
Georgie just gets irritated when he needs to change his Depends!
Currently 78% say: I think Joe Kennedy should stay in and keep fighting for liberty
Peace,
The title of this blog post is already out-of-date; the poll now shows only 22% want him to drop out.
Your IPR headlline is misleading.
The poll is not titled ‘Joe Kennedy should drop out,’ nor is that what the early results indicate.
There’s nothing “interesting” in that 1/3.
Anyone can vote in an LP poll, not just Libertarians.
Right now, many people are being fooled by the false arguments offered by BrownBaggers that Brown will stop obamacare. That accounts for that result.
The LP.ORG poll seems to be a truly novel approach to “supporting” your candidate, a man who is persevering despite death threats directed against him and his family.
We spend $130,000+ a year on a national office space, and this is our reward?