From a release by the Libertarian Party:
796 Libertarian Party Candidates ran for office in 2010.
592 Libertarian Party Candidates ran for office in 2008.
With high hopes and the best of intentions, they ran. But very few of them had LP campaign experience. Very few won.
It didn’t have to be that way.
With the right Tools and Training and Coaching, they could have done a lot better. Many more of our Libertarian Party candidates could have won.
Do you want that?
Do you want to give a lot more LP candidates a real chance to make progress — and maybe win?
You do? Great! So do I. And so does our Libertarian Party Chair, Mark Hinkle.
But before we talk about how to successfully do it, let’s see WHAT FAILS OR FALLS SHORT.
UNTRAINED LP CANDIDATES. Get a lot of LP members to file for office, wish them well, and give them NO TRAINING. They’ll make tons of avoidable mistakes, get stuck, feel unsupported, and do poorly.
UNPLANNED LP CAMPAIGNS. Without a good campaign game plan, our LP candidates and volunteers waste time and money — and achieve too little.
UNFUNDED LP CAMPAIGNS. NO fundraising or inept fundraising cripples LP campaigns. Money pays for campaign fliers, yard signs, web sites, targeted ads and publicity. Poverty pays for nothing.
UNSTAFFED LP CAMPAIGNS. Motivated, trained LP campaign volunteers make a huge difference. Only a handful of LP activists have experience and skill in recruiting, training, and nurturing volunteers.
That’s WHY so few Libertarian Party candidates have broken through.
Will you help us change that? Starting now?
WHAT WORKS. WHAT WE NEED.
‘Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, feed him for a lifetime.’ – Proverb
We want to teach our Libertarian Party candidates and campaign workers ‘how to fish,’ so they can run great LP campaigns time after time, year after year.
AND teach other LP candidates in their cities and states ‘how to fish.’
CANDIDATE TRAINING FROM EXPERIENCED, SKILLED LIBERTARIAN PARTY EXPERTS. Not activists who have only worked with Democratic or Republican candidates. Not self-styled ‘experts’ who haven’t spent at least 1,000 hours practicing the skill they claim they can teach.
CAMPAIGN TRAINING FROM PROVEN, SEASONED LIBERTARIAN PARTY CAMPAIGN EXPERTS. Libertarian Party campaigns face radically different obstacles and challenges than Republican and Democratic campaigns. We need guidance from those who have successfully navigated them.
FUNDRAISING TRAINING. Why not the best? Michael Cloud personally fundraised over $5.3 million for LP candidates and organizations between 1995 and 2002. He’s agreed to teach LP candidates ‘How to Simply and Easily Fundraise the First $10,000 for Your LP Campaign in Just 4 Evenings – Even If You’re Shy.’ What’s more, he’s agreed to mentor and coach LP candidates over the phone – if they run into problems or get stuck.
HOW TO RECRUIT, TRAIN, MOTIVATE, AND NURTURE DOZENS OF VOLUNTEERS FOR YOUR LIBERTARIAN PARTY CAMPAIGN. Whether it’s a statewide or local campaign, volunteers make the difference.
DOOR TO DOOR CAMPAIGNING. A Libertarian Party candidate can be elected with less than 1,000 votes in over 30,000 elective offices in the United States.
LIBERTARIAN SOLUTIONS, NOT JUST POSITIONS. Running for office is like interviewing for a job. What will the candidate DO if she is elected? Our LP candidates need to offer simple, credible libertarian solutions to high taxes, high spending, and Big Government programs and policies – and show voters the huge, immediate, direct benefits to them and their neighbors. This is a master key to being taken seriously.
Great News! We are launching Phase 1 of this LP Campaign Tools and Training Project at this Libertarian National Convention.
But ONE-TIME SEMINARS, ONE-TIME TRAINING IS NOT ENOUGH to make sure our candidates regularly, repeatedly do what they learned.
We MUST REGULARLY PROVIDE tools and training for our LP candidates and campaigns.
Will YOU help us teach LP candidates ‘how to fish’? Will you help us provide the tools and training for our LP candidates this year? Will you help us train and guide our LP candidates to keep practicing their ‘fishing skills’?
796 Libertarian Party Candidates ran for office in 2010.
592 Libertarian Party Candidates ran for office in 2008.
This year, we will have about the same number.
BUT, if YOU HELP, this year they will be better-funded, better-trained, better-equipped – and together we can elect more and more Libertarians to office.
If you can donate $5,000 or $2,500 now, will you please do it now?
If you can give $1,500 or $1,000 to this high-leverage, high-payoff project, will you please do it now?
Or, if you can give $750 or $500, will you please donate now – and reap the benefits for the rest of the year?
If you can give $250 or $150, you will make a huge difference. Will you please?
If you can give $75 or $50 or another amount, you will be part of this historic effort. Will you please give now?
Your donation is our budget. Your donation means more and better Libertarian Party candidates and campaigns. And more victories, this year. And next.
Please give generously. You’re going to love the results.
Thank you.
Carla Howell
Executive Director, Libertarian Party
Dilettantes R Us #4
That is not necessarily the case, all of those things can be presented in a way that the average voter will seek more information as opposed to running scared.
What you list are features, we need to lead with benefits and follow with features.
Our problem is all about our communication style. If more Libertarians would understand this, we would be growing like crazy. Here is a write up I did on the subject.
Most people active in politics and the largest segment of society are concrete communicators. Here is how Dr. David Keirsey describes this type of communication. “Some people talk primarily about the external, concrete world of everyday reality: facts and figures, work and play, home and family, news, sports and weather — all the who-what-when-where-and how much’s of life.”
They are also cooperative in action, “they try to do the right thing, in keeping with agreed upon social rules, conventions, and codes of conduct, and only later do they concern themselves with the effectiveness of their actions.”
“As Concrete Cooperators, Guardians speak mostly of their duties and responsibilities, of what they can keep an eye on and take good care of, and they’re careful to obey the laws, follow the rules, and respect the rights of others.” They make up 40-45% of the population.
Most Libertarians are abstract communicators: “This group of people talk primarily about the internal, abstract world of ideas: theories and conjectures, dreams and philosophies, beliefs and fantasies –all the why’s, if’s, and what-might-be’s of life.”
They are often Utilitarian in action: “act primarily in a utilitarian or pragmatic manner, that is, they do what gets results, what achieves their objectives as effectively or efficiently as possible, and only afterwards do they check to see if they are observing the rules or going through proper channels.”
As Abstract Utilitarians, Rationals speak mostly of what new problems intrigue them and what new solutions they envision, and always pragmatic, they act as efficiently as possible to achieve their objectives, ignoring arbitrary rules and conventions if need be.
This group makes up 5-10% of the population, yet they are the vast majority of Libertarians.
How does this work out in a typical political conversation.
Libertarian: “We need to cut government by 50%”
Now in their thought process they are thinking abstract and tangentially, they see millions of forks in the road. Paths leading to various solutions, ideas abound in their vision of this simple statement. All of the benefits of the various liberty oriented ideas are wrapped up in that statement.
Guardian: “What!!? You want chaos in the streets and people dying?”
There thought process is concrete, they “hear” cut government and they immediately envision the removal of things they feel help (police, Fire, defense, etc.). No forks, no alternative paths or solutions, just an immediate thought to the worst case scenario.
Unfortunately few rationals will look into this stuff being that they think it isn’t scientific but more like astrology. It is ironic considering that for the most part “they do what gets results, what achieves their objectives as effectively or efficiently as possible.” Maybe more of them will realize that they are not being effective or getting results.
This must be why I am an idealist.
“As Abstract Cooperators, Idealists speak mostly of what they hope for and imagine might be possible for people, and they want to act in good conscience, always trying to reach their goals without compromising their personal code of ethics.”
Training is a great idea. This is too little and too late. For that I will blame the hardheads on the LNC. This should have been put together sometime ago.
Good point. My region reps comment at IPR fairly frequently, so if they are reading this consider them so contacted. If not, I’ll try to remember to include this with my menu of items to discuss next time I talk to them on the phone.
19 es, filling out forms may well have limited utility. Coaching a candidate in rhetoric and image consultancy are things that certainly can be helpful.
How to frame issues while sounding relevant (not like a soapbox lunatic) is a learnable art.
@16 Over the years, the LNC has passed a very large number of rules. Some of them, such as the trust fund for life memberships, seem to be harder to find than others. Thus, I said “may need”, because I can’t identify this as a recent proposal. There did appear to be a budget line item on this topic, generally speaking, but money given to fixed budget line items is the old charitable fundraising trick: it does not change how much money the recipient receives.
It’s the poetry RC, not the strawman lunatic on a soapbox that haunts your past . . .
@11
Not really. Passion and campaign promise are not really the gist of “training”. That kind of moxie and savvy are beyond fill out the forms routines that this training will focus on.
Personable qualities, community experience and understanding, connections and followup on important leads are not things you can train. They are intangible features that help, but ultimately the third party dilemma will rear its ugly head and reduce all campaigns to aobut the same difference.
We had a low-cost Libertarian E-University online and a project for free training programs.
These were shut down by the people always chanting we ‘be practical.’ Now it looks like another B & S con by them.
The old is new.
@15 so even though its being presented by the Execute Director of Libertarian Party through a release by the Libertarian Party it hasn’t been established as a separate project and thus it appears it might be a bait and switch fund raising scheme?
Seriously, set this up as a separate project that we can donate to, and have reasonable assurances the funds won’t be siphoned off for other purposes then I might make a donation.
@14 You may need to ask your LNC representative to vote through a motion establishing this as a project.
How do I make a donation that is to be used only for this project?
Training in my opinion is an excellent idea. I’ve gone door to door campaigning and know how frustrating that can be. However everything begins with telling our story so to speak.
We don’t have much in the way of inexpensive literature for people running at the local level and that is where most of our candidates will be competing.
People might be opposed to a private fire department but maybe they can be convinced to establish one as a non-profit much in the same way Canada runs Nav Canada their equivalent of our FAA. Or the local people don’t know the history behind the government run transit system, or that housing regulations drive up the costs of homes.
It is important to have literature available at a price candidates can afford.
What are they doing with the money? The idea is excellent.
9 es: Poignant protest and dissent that effects change on some level…
me: Poignancy and effective dissent can be trained as well, yes? Some soapbox lunatics, for ex., can be quite entertaining and effective in attracting onlookers. Others just seem strange and angry.
I absolutely think that the LP needs to develop the infrastructure to train candidates and volunteers. However, I don’t see exactly what the plan is here. I wouldn’t mind making a small donation if I could understand what my money was going to do. This just seems like a statement of things that don’t work, and things that the LP needs to do. There doesn’t seem to be a plan outlined there that will get these things done.
I never liked the whole ‘training’ thing. Qualified, intelligent and earnest candidates have all tried to crack the third party glass ceiling with ambitious and organized campaigns. It’s not the point to win.
Join one of the main parties if that’s your goal.
Poignant protest and dissent that effects change on some level is enough for a third party candidate. To try or state otherwise is the delusional part that doesn’t identify with reality.
You can lead a horse to Four Loko, but ooh, what’s that, is that a spider?
Give a cat a fish, and you feed it for a day. Teach a cat to fish, and it will pout because you didn’t give it a fish.
@5 That’s for sure.
The Libertarians, Constitutionalists, Reformers, Greens, and Whigs all have a problem with trainning and all need to build the infastructure to train cadidates and staff.
Just remember, after you walk into the room and someone tries to convince you that you must never talk about abolishing the Income Tax, legalizing drugs, privatizing the roads, or eliminating regulations on sex, that will be your cue that the training is a joke. Better at that point to leave and hit the gambling floor.
Ah, it is the LNCC that is doing the candidate training. The LSLA is doing affiliate training.
And now the LP national is going to do some things. Multiple options.
I thought the LSLA was doing this for FREE at the national convention. Is the LP national trying to play catch up to the notion that we need to train the candidates? And there are some LSLA workshops also. I hope they are directed at helping state affiliates get their acts together. Good to have other organizations doing the work that the LP can’t address or sometimes won’t address.
An excellent example of what the LNC should be doing.