From an e-mail:
It’s Official!
I am the Presidential nominee for the Boston Tea Party!
Thanks to everyone who voted and kept me at the top for each round of voting. Now the real work begins.
The First Conference Call for the Fire and Ice Brigade of the Duensing / Barrick Presidential campaign of the Boston Tea Party is tomorrow – Thursday at 5:30 p.m. Pacific / 8:30 Eastern. The number to call is (559) 726-1000. The pin is 989097#
The call will focus on our ballot access strategy and what you can do in your community and state to be the change you want to see in the world.
Thanks again for all the support. Now, let’s go give the people a real choice for real change this November.
In Liberty, with Eternal Vigilance,
Jim Duensing
www.VoteForAChange.US
Good job, Jim, and good luck!
Congrats, Jim!
Thanks Jill and Chuck. Hope you can make the Fire and Ice Brigade Conference Call tomorrow.
In Liberty, with Eternal Vigilance,
Jim
http://www.VoteForAChange.US – Time to Party Like it’s 1773!
I wish you and Kim the best of luck.
Congratulations, Jim. I don’t know why you choose this route rather than running on the LP ticket or supporting a candidate for the LP ticket, but good luck to you anyway.
@ Andy – I tried working within the LP for several years. The problems in it are systemic. It would take multiple conventions to throw the bums out – the Starr’s, Mattson’s Carling’s Redpath’s etc that are trying to implement their top down central plan for liberty. Our country doesn’t have the time for the liberty movement to be mired down in Roberts Rules of Order or to engage in political half measures or bad measures like the fraud tax. We must face the real issues head on and build an informed base of grassroots political support around solving those issues. The Neo Libertarian idea of watering down the founding principles of our nation and trying to sell Israel First Republicans as Libertarians is bound to fail. Either the Republicans get elected and implement non-libertarian policy – in which case we haven’t won anything – or more likely the neo-libertarians continue to lose while destroying the core principles of the LP and leave a broken shell behind that is afraid to -and incapable of – fighting for all our freedoms all the time. The real libertarians will end up in the BTP before the end of this election cycle. Thanks for the well wishes.
In Liberty, with Eternal Vigilance,
Jim Duensing
http://www.VoteForAChange.US
Congrats Jim,
I hope you can make a decent showing as the BTP nominee.
I realize you want to do ballot access all volunteer. I wish you good luck in that endeavor, although in my many years of petitioning for many parties and initiatives in many states I have rarely ever seen volunteer petitions succeed. I hope yours will be the exception rather than the rule.
Should you change your mind, or, should someone else decide they want to pay to get the BTP on any state ballots, we would be interested in adding BTP to our stack of parties. It looks like our next stop will be a state which requires 1,500 valid. That would cost 4k minus any volunteer signatures that are collected. If anyone would like to help donate or raise money on behalf of such an effort give me a call. Number below in next paragraph.
I am not willing at this time to volunteer large numbers of signatures to the BTP, but if I see efforts start taking off in more states than I expect and good media coverage above and beyond what I currently expect I could change my mind. In the meantime, I am available for free consulting (up to a point) if anyone is interested in my help with that. 415-690-6352.
I understand that you will also be working on getting NV on. I read recently there will be 1,000 Ron Paul supporters from NV in Sparks on May 5 (coincidentally – at least as far as I know – the same day the LP chooses a presidential nominee). That would probably be a good event to find supporters at.
When I last worked NV ballot access (Vegas 2004), what I found to work best were DMVs, the Flamingo library, UNLV, the community college, monthly art walk, election day (not sure if you get any elections during the petition window), some festivals/events, some hit and run in walmart and grocery store parking lots (none gave us permission that I can remember)….that’s about it off the top of my head.
The DMVs were the steadiest locations, with a pretty constant flow of new people there every day. UNLV was very good as well, but I’ve read that they have once again cracked down on free speech since then.
Paulie
415-690-6352
And from an email from Andy
“Jim Duensing // Apr 5, 2012 at 2:04 am
@ Andy – I tried working within the LP for several years. The problems in it are systemic. It would take multiple conventions to throw the bums out”
It seems to me that there hasn’t been much of an effort for there to be a more hardcore Libertarian candidate for President who really has got their “act” together (as in somebody who is running a real campaign and that is actually growing the party). If there were somebody like this I think that they’d win the nomination.
I think the LP is going to be stuck with a neo-Libertarian Johnson / WAR ticket – making sure Michael Badnarik still holds the title of the Last Libertarian Presidential Candidate.
The LP is rotten at its LNC core. This new floor fee is just another in a series of moves by the usual suspects on the LNC to restrict access of regular people to the process. In 2006, they limited the number of delegates who could show up, in 08 they tried to prevent the convention delegates from nominating Presidential candidates from the floor, in 2010 they tried to put in electronic voting machines, they’ve tried to make conventions as expensive for delegates to attend as possible, and now they are adding a floor fee.
The same faction, through professional spokesmodel Wayne Allyn Root, was part of abolishing all of the local affiliates of the Nevada LP. With leadership like that, who needs better funded opponents. The LP cannot afford for these people to keep failing upward. And the liberty movement doesn’t have time for the LP to get its act together.
By the end of this convention, I predict the LNC will look substantially like it does now and the party will be in a worse state in 2013 than it is now. This will be true no matter how many times the Republicans got on Fox News. It’s easier and more efficient to start with a blank sheet of paper – and some principle.
BTW, if you want to be part of our volunteer effort to take back this country join me on the First Fire and Ice Brigade National Conference Call for the campaign. It’s tonight at 5:30 p.m. Pacific / 8:30 Eastern. Details at
http://www.voteforachange.us/fireandicebrigade.php
In Liberty, with Eternal Vigilance,
Jim Duensing
http://www.VoteForAChange.US – Time to Party Like its 1773!
“Wasted days and wasted nights”….that should be the theme song!
None of you are young enough or rich enough to see this succeed. MARK IT DOWN.
Ls need to keep their investments in the LP. You can run for office and run any kind of L message you choose. This worry about the POTUS race is foolish talk about splitting the LP. Look at the 80 to 90% we can agree upon and run for office and promote the other 10 to 20% in your campaign if you want. Leave the Party, that’s nuts! Continue to build locally on your LP investment!
Place Gary Johnson’s resume against any other current candidate (Romney and Obama included). Johnson is the most qualified for the Job ! Point, set, MATCH !!!
If memory serves me GJ was a dues paying member of the LP in 1993. So there could be some discussion on this calling him “neo”.
BTW-Will Duensing call for a new 9-11 investigation this week or next? Are the “dead” jet passengers living in the Bahamas, Gitmo or caves in the middle east now? It’s 9 to 5 on a next week call ………….
Obama’s job resume is “sitting president” and none of the wannabes can match that.
Executive experience of all the current presidential candidates:
Gary Johnson, 8 years as Governor of New Mexico
Rocky Anderson, 8 years as Mayor of Salt Lake City
Mitt Romney, 4 years as Governor of Massachusetts
Buddy Roemer, 4 years as Governor of Louisiana
Barack Obama, 3.5 years as President of the U.S.
1 year POTUS > 1 year anything else
Job performance is the most important factor of executive experience.
Exactly.
@11,
“This worry about the POTUS race is foolish talk about splitting the LP.”
Bullshit.
Some BTP members were once LP members who left for reasons of their own before the BTP ever existed.
Some BTP members were never LP members.
Some BTP members are STILL LP members.
The LP is not automagically entitled to anyone’s support or loyalty.
Competition is a good thing.
17 tk: The LP is not automagically entitled to anyone’s support or loyalty.
me: Cannot disagree with this.
18 CT: Competition is a good thing.
me: Perhaps yes, perhaps no. There are maybe 5 “major” schools of thought in the LP tent. Certainly even within these tiny schools there are differences of opinion. The socialists schismed into various socialist political parties and remained tiny and largely electorally inconsequential. Socialist ideas have been incorporated into the Rs and Ds, but the socialist parties have been of no consequence in that process for at least 50 years.
The LP can schism like the socialists did, but that doesn’t sound like a good idea IF there’s desire to be influential electorally OR policy-wise.
How frustrating.
I told myself that I was going to sit-in on the conference call so I could do a little write-up of the new BTP ticket following my older interview with Briscoe from before, and 8 turned into 8:30 turned into 9 turned into 9:30 and I’ve missed it.
Congrats to Jim Duensing
Socialist ideas have been incorporated into the Rs and Ds, but the socialist parties have been of no consequence in that process for at least 50 years.
Sounds like the socialists lost their army, but won the war.
Perhaps if the LP fractures into a dozen tiny parties, then many libertarian activists will shift their energies from the LP black hole, into activism that will advance libertarian policies and actually achieve something.