Posted by Tom Knapp at Kn@ppster. In addition to writing for IPR, Knapp is a past and/or present officer in his local, state and national LP, staffer for various campaigns, and candidate for a variety of public offices, among other things.
In endorsing George Phillies for chair of the Libertarian National Committee, I should probably first explain why I did not support his campaign for the Libertarian Party’s 2008 presidential nomination.
Ideologically speaking, George and I are very different creatures. I’m a radical libertarian. He’s a moderate libertarian. We disagree in significant respects on important issues, and I believe the party’s presidential candidate should be a bold standard-bearer for my take on most issues.
Furthermore, I viewed the party’s nomination contest as a two-way race between its “right/conservative” faction (Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root) and its “left/libertarian” faction (Steve Kubby, Mary Ruwart and Mike Gravel) in which no significant “movement to the center” — i.e., Phillies or Mike Jingozian — was either likely or desirable.
So, for both ideological and tactical reasons, I just couldn’t support George.
However, his presidential campaign was confirmatory evidence of the wisdom of supporting him for chair, as I did in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006, and as I do this year.
From a technical standpoint, George ran the best of the 2008 pre-nomination presidential campaigns — and I say that as the manager of one of his opponents.
He produced and distributed real campaign literature.
He produced and aired well-made radio campaign ads. He produced television ads for airing in the general election campaign if he was nominated — and not just for himself, but for other candidates to insert their own “paid for by” blurbs in, free of charge. He pushed those video ads over the Internet, and also served up nearly 3.6 million text ads through Google.
He conducted an active and well-crafted internal campaign of delegate contact, appearances at state conventions, etc.
With the New Hampshire Libertarian Party’s nomination in hand, he did the work to get his name on the ballot.
George is a can-do kind of guy.
Throughout the entire time that I’ve known him — more than a decade now — he’s been a doer, not just a talker.
When he concluded that the LP suffered from systemic problems in the manner in which it is organized, he didn’t just complain. He conceived and fully explained (in Stand Up for Liberty) an alternative organizational strategy and went to work to implement it.
When he felt that the national LP was doing a poor job on ballot access, he didn’t just complain. He founded a real PAC (Freedom Ballot Access) which raised and spent real money to put real third party candidates on real ballots (disclosure: I sit on the board of Freedom Ballot Access).
He’s also been a mentor to numerous Libertarians, encouraging them to become involved in party work and helping them to do successful nuts and bolts politics.
I was one of those young Libertarians in 2000, when I worked with him on Don Gorman’s presidential campaign and on his own first campaign for chair, and ran for LNC as part of his local-organization-oriented “Clean Slate.”
I remain grateful to George for everything that I learned from him back then, and have learned from him since. I welcome the opportunity to work with him to this very day, and was thrilled to be able to assist in some voter database work for Joe Kennedy’s US Senate campaign under his supervision in late 2009 and early 2010.
Finally, George is a partisan Libertarian who understands that the Libertarian Party is, and should be, “a libertarian political entity separate and distinct from all other political parties or movements.”
This is something which should be a hard line that no candidate for chair dare cross. Instead, it’s become a “gray zone” in which one of his opponents actively attempts to blur the distinction between libertarianism and conservativism, while anothers comes to the race directly from an active role in the most recent Republican presidential primary contests.
I’ll be the last person to tell you that George Phillies is perfect. I’ve had significant ideological, political and personal disagreements with him in the past, and I expect that I will in the future as well.
For the office of chair, however, I’m looking for a candidate who will exercise fiscal and managerial prudence, address and mend the party’s structural/organizational flaws, and put our party’s feet on a path to success through practical politics and positive public engagement.
That man is George Phillies. I hope you’ll join me in supporting his candidacy.
in me in supporting his candidacy.
So five Members on the ballot. Congratulations!
huh ?????????
Actually,we will not know for some time how many candidates for state legislature are on the ballot. For two of them, we will not know until late September. We are months away from the nominating paper filing deadlines for Congressional candidates, so that we gained a possible Congressional candidate in the last month. He has the money to handle petitioning, and there is a good petitioning house that does Libertarians, so he is likely to be on in the sixth district.
The two state rep candidates who are surely on the ballot are members of the State Committee. The other Congressional candidate who appears most likely to be on the ballot is a dues paying member. The fellow on Cape Cod who is running as a Libertarian is legally required to be registered Libertarian. The other people who have successfully submitted signatures have made their current party registrations match what state law requires in a timely way.
Joe Kennedy, who ran for U.S. Senate this last winter and who was in the press and in the New York Times etc as a Libertarian is a state committee member. Fortunately, on the magic date he was registered “unenrolled” so he could run as a “Liberty” candidate, meaning his signature challenge was cut effectively in half. If he had not done this, he would not have been on the ballot. The spelling of the ballot line had absolutely zero effect on the press coverage, which was “Libertarian” all the way.
Fortunately, the Massachusetts press is pretty sharp about ignoring our state’s exotic ideas on ballot access.
GP@14
I am unclear on how many candidates the LP in Mass is running. How many of the five you listed are members of the party? I sorta sounds like only one.
$30,000 to get on the ballot — you can cut that about 40% by running for, e.g., Auditor.
@12
In Massachusetts, parties actually cannot “run” candidates. The legal maximum we could donate to such a non-Federal campaign would be $500. If someone wants to run for statewide office, they have to do it, which requires finding donors or putting up the cash themselves — about $30,000 give or take to get on the ballot.
Mind you, our people who actually do run for office and have experience petitioning, notably our 2008 U.S. Senate candidate Bob Udnerwood, would be vigorously encouraging this hypothetical person to run for something else, e.g., Congress, where with some thought ballot access would cost $6000, leaving ca. $24,000 for actual campaigning. At the moment, we have five people who are more or less libertarian trying to get on the ballot for Congress (one as a Libertarian), ca. five candidates for State Rep (three are on the ballot; two are trying an alternative approach whose success cannot be known until September) and four folks whose single issue is arguably libertarian running for Governor’s Council (effectively, the third house of our state legislature) with I gather a major objective of removing from office a considerable chunk of our family court judges. Four candidates is half the seats.
In Massachusetts “Major Party” status (we call it something else) is for a small party less viable than “Political Designation” status. The Massachusetts Republican Party is already small enough that its effectiveness is being hindered by being a major party.
If anyone has questions about the advice I give families on how to save money and cut down on expenses, please email me directly at [email protected].
I’ll ask a more direct question, then. Is your State Party running a Statewide Libertarian Candidate in 2010, in an effort to garner 3% or more of the vote, which would result in the Libertarian Party being granted “major party” status?
Mr. Maguire, not to hijack this thread, but on your website you have a piece about people using public transportation. I have no idea what the situation is where you live but in many American cities it is difficult if not impossible for people to own a private for hire transportation business because of all the regulations. On top of which government operated transit often provides poor service to low income neighborhoods.
Don’t you think it is more important to open up the marketplace and allow for private ownership of the transit business than to encourage people to use the government services?
The truth lies between the spin @8 and @9. The full story is at https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2010/04/lpma-surrenders-ballot-status/. What neither side is telling you here is that Massachusetts law creates some tension between presidential ballot-access and down-ticket ballot access.
As George himself wrote: “If a Libertarian runs for Treasurer this year, and manages to get 3% of the vote, he will hurt ballot access for every Massachusetts Libertarian Party candidate other than President in 2012, because each of those candidates would need exactly as many valid signatures as before, and with major party status it would no longer be possible for Democrats or Republicans to sign Libertarian nominating papers.”
If your priority is 50-state ballot access for the LP presidential ticket, then the LPMA is making a mistake. If your priority is making it easier for LPMA candidates to get themselves on the ballot, then arguably not.
But Richard Winger responded: the Massachusetts Libertarian Party had plenty of candidates on its primary ballots in 2000, 2002, and 2004. Yes, it was a lot of work, but people did it. In 2000, Libertarians who qualified for the Mass. Libertarian primary ballot were Carla Howell for US Senate, David Euchner for US House, and 18 candidates for legislature. In 2002, Libertarians who got on the Mass. Libt primary ballot were Michael Cloud for US Senate, Carla Howell for Governor, Kamil Jain for Auditor, Ilana Freedman for US House, and 14 candidates for the legislature. In 2004, Libertarians who did it were 6 candidates for the legislature.
In 2006, when the party was not ballot-qualified (because in 2004 the only statewide race was president, and the LP just doesn?t poll 3% for president, in any state, ever), ballot access was ?better? (in George Phillies? opinion). Yet despite the fact that the party?s no-qualified status is supposedly better, the party had no candidates on the 2006 general election ballot for any federal or state office, except two for the legislature.
Rumors that Massachusetts ballot access is being lost are totally false. Sorry you heard the rumors, not the facts.
Move to Massachusetts. In 2012 you will be able to run for office as a Libertarian. Period.
Under our current state laws, there is nothing that can happen this year that can change your ability to run as a Libertarian in 2012.
Mind you, our ballot access laws are not the same as yours. If you want to read how ballot access works here in Massachusetts, please see my article at http://cmlc.org/onballot.htm.
Isn’t Phillies going to let his home state lose ballot access this year, without a fight? Doesn’t sound very “can do” at all. We need someone who is SERIOUS about getting Libertarians elected to office.
Vote Phillies Slate.
He is quite correct about Paul & Barr. The LP needs somebody who is correct from the get-go on such issues. Whether that is popular or not.
I favor a Phillies or Myers chairmanship, though I can’t say I care deeply between those two. I love what Myers has done in TX and his out-front anti-war stance, but I’m also impressed by the depth of information Mr. Phillies has put forth in the plan for how he would lead us. Good luck to both.
Whatever it is, freedom advocates ought to donate to it.
I saw Dr. Phillies speak at the convention in Maryland. While I had disagreements with him (especially on the Ron Paul question), it was clear that Phillies cared passionately for the LP, and wanted to see it succeed. It was also clear that he was a very organised man.
I am not endorsing anyone, but I will say that I would prefer to see Phillies elected over Mr. Root or Mr. Hancock.
Alex
Isn’t Freedom Ballot Access a 527 group & not a PAC?
Of course Arch Boy Tommy Tune sings the praises of mega faker George ‘Does Not Play Well with Others’ Phillies. In a century and a continent where pretty much every one out side of the Cheney Bushleague orbit was anti war, or at least anti Afgan, Iraq, Iran military adventures, Knappster and Doctor Phillies, directly from the insanity ward, proclaimed LP as the ONLY 21st Century Peace Party.
[a] water is not wet!
[b] under neither my clothes I am not naked!
[c] we were not born at an early age!
[d] Peace Party LP has a guy monikered ‘W. A. R.’ (oh brother ………)
[e] LP head quarters is not float down ‘Da Nile’!
and from Hawaii,
Gommer Pyle”
‘surprise, surprise, surprise’