Press release sent to IPR:
Andy Craig, a political activist and freelance journalist, announced today that he is running for Congress, in Wisconsin’s 4th US House district.
“60% of Americans say they want a third party, and millions of them voted for one in 2014. The failed ideologies of the past are finding that their last refuge is the Democratic and Republican parties, and it’s time to break their stranglehold on national office. I think the voters are ready to vote for something different. And in Milwaukee, I intend to see that they get that chance.”
Craig lives in a residential Milwaukee neighborhood just outside of Wauwatosa, with his husband, whom he married in an Iowa civil ceremony prior to a Federal court striking down Wisconsin’s ban on same-sex marriage. In 2014, he was the Libertarian nominee for secretary of state, receiving 59,000 votes on the platform of eliminating the office, and successfully re-established the Libertarian ballot line in the state.
“I consider myself a pragmatic libertarian. ‘Fiscally conservative and socially liberal’ is often used to describe us, but I think if we’re being honest that also describes a majority of Americans. Our bifurcated House of Representatives is profoundly unrepresentative of this common-sense consensus.”
“I’m an anti-war free-market individualist, a civil liberties advocate for smaller government, who believes in criminal justice reform and simplifying and lowering taxes. I don’t want to go to Washington to impose my view of the good life on 330 million Americans, I just want to defend your right to make your own decisions, at the local level and as individuals.”
Craig acknowledges an uphill battle in the deep-blue district, currently represented by four-term incumbent Gwen Moore.
“The 4th District, for good and valid reasons, will probably never elect a Republican. But that doesn’t mean we’re stuck with a Democratic incumbent for all time. When the only other alternative has been the national Republican Party, it’s no surprise that the Democratic nominee wins in a landslide. It’s time to have real competition on the issues that matter to the people of Milwaukee, with a candidate willing to compete for all the votes. In the youngest and most diverse district in the state, we have the potential to forge a new way forward. That’s why I’m running for Congress in 2016.”
IPR Note: Andy Craig is also one of the article writers/editors at IPR. His congressional facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/AndyCraig2016
I don’t know if you can get them in one night like zapper. I’ve gotten signatures in close to 40 states now, including in WI-4, and never had a day anywhere near like that. But certainly you can get them in two months if you are diligent, no question. I would advise it too – the more voters you personally meet, and introduce yourself to as the candidate, the better.
On the other hand I have also seen how many people really don’t like to petition, especially to approach strangers, and can’t force themselves to do it despite best intentions. A lot of times they finally decide they need help a bit too late for it to mobilize and do them good.
You can easily collect the 1100 valid sigs yourself in 2 months. Not that you necessarily should. But, you could. I certainly wouldn’t plan on paying for sigs, if I were you. Round up volunteers, (assume they’ll deliver 10% of what they promise), schedule yourself and some volunteers 5-6 hours per day every Saturday and Sunday, and maybe a weekday evening or two, and you’ll have it taken care of in a few weeks. That way, you can save those hard-to-get campaign contributions for outreach.
One point about ballot access, I can’t get it done this year, if you mean actually collect the signatures. The gathering period is from mid-April to June of the election year. I can and will be laying the groundwork, and in a good position well ahead of time to estimate if we have the volunteer base to get it done that way. If not, I’ll be soliciting earmarked contributions towards that purpose and seeking to make an arrangement with somebody well ahead of the start of the petitioning period. But part of bringing in volunteers will be getting out there and actively campaigning/recruiting first, which is of course also part of preparing for the post-ballot-access campaign.
All good points paulie, I’ll take it under advisement.
re: Eric O’Keefe, I was kind of curious about the backstory there. For those not familiar, he was at the center of the “John Doe” psuedo-scandal here in Wisconsin where trumped-up campaign finance charges were used to go after him for his role in supporting Scott Walker as the head of WI Club for Growth. I’m no fan of Walker of course, but the actions of the government in this case were truly an outrageous assault on the 1st Amendment. It was really nothing more than an attempt to make Walker into a “criminal” for running a successful campaign, and O’Keefe was the appointed bad guy in the narrative, complete with a militarized police raid to seize the supposed evidence. The courts ended up issuing a pretty stern rebuke to the gov’t over the whole thing.
I was surprised to find out that he and his wife (who runs the Lucy Burns Institute, publisher of ballotpedia) were once active in the Wisconsin and national LP. I’ve thought about trying to reach out to them to see if they might be willing to participate in the state LP again, or come to our convention, but it seemed like such a career arc probably had more to it than I’m aware of and that their departure from the party was presumably not on good terms.
Like I said, I don’t really know any of the details, but I was surprised to see such a past for somebody I first became aware of through the John Doe stuff and his high-profile support for Scott Walker.
I am aware that the party was much more active in the state in the 80s. Unfortunately accurate information and institutional memory on the topic and what lead to the decline are hard to come by. Might have been part of national trends, or a matter of certain personalities, I’m not sure. We are steadily rebuilding though, just concluded a good and productive excom meeting discussing the upcoming convention, our finances, membership, etc. All of which is looking to be in pretty good shape. We’re moving forward with making the party a little less dysfunctional and more professional, in terms of infrastructure and candidate support.
I’m happy to hear Zapper had such an awesome day many years ago.
What Zapper may not be taking into account is that not everyone is Zapper, and thus not everyone can do nearly that well, and also that things have changed a lot over time.
These days a lot of people walk around with phones or earphones to their ear. They tend to be more mistrustful of strangers. We have generations of exagerated fear of crime and social alienation where people don’t even know their own neighbors in most cases anymore. There’s been a lot of identity theft, and exaggerated fear of identity theft. So a lot of people are suspicious whenever anyone asks them to sign anything. There’s never been identity theft due to petitions but that’s what people keep suspecting…or being put on junk mail and telemarketing and spam lists. That’s if they even acknowledge you at all over their phone conversation or the music in their earbuds.
Since basically everyone has a phone on them, it becomes easier for them to call in complaints to managers, security guards and cops. And security guards and cops tend to have a more police state mentality when they see or hear of anyone doing something that rocks the boat, approaching people, asking them for their info, or really doing anything out of the ordinary or even vaguely non-compliant. Managers and owners meanwhile are more leery because of there being more complaints and because of the increased concerns over identity theft.
I don’t want to make it sound worse than it is. There are still plenty of times and places where you can get signatures, and even do well. You may even have fun doing it. But it’s not for everyone. It’s harder to get permission now for all these reasons…and easier to get caught or messed with if you don’t ask for permission. I’m noticing that more and more over the years.
But anyway…yes you can start out volunteer. Hopefully it works well for you and you won’t need to pay anyone.
Regardless of whether you go all volunteer or end up hiring people, I recommend not waiting too long. That’s one of the great advantages of declaring so far ahead of time. Get it out of the way this year.
Because next year…like every election year…I will have a bunch of people all calling me at the same time, near the deadlines, all panicking because they are way short of their goal and finally realizing they need help. And a lot of times I don’t know what to tell them because I am busy somewhere and so is everyone I know. I can try to tell them to outbid everyone else, but they usually can’t afford to. I feel bad, and I try to refer someone, but a lot of times they end up failing. All because everyone keeps trying to reinvent the flat tire.
Bottom line…just like it’s good to declare way early…it’s good to knock your ballot access out way early. Like you said beat the rush. It is never more true than when it comes to ballot access.
It’s not about whether you need to hire me or anyone else….I hope you don’t need to. It’s about the bottom line – getting on the ballot.
“Believe me now or believe me later.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHZhw94C5vQ
Permission of business owners or managers was key. I was lucky. I dressed nicely, went in, introduced myself, asked for permission for that day only – it was the day before the deadline – and they all said yes.
I collected outside the main entrance of a huge, high traffic supermarket, from 5-9 close, K-Mart down the highway from 9-10 (a bit slow), and inside a large bowling alley with a disco bar, packed with hundreds of happy adults on ladies’ night from about 10:30 until 2am. I collected up and down the lanes, and inside the disco. I drank beer, everyone was obviously 18 and eligible to vote, and everyone signed. They actually passed the boards around and told their friends to sign.
I also collected a few hundred for the statewide candidates at the same time – the LPWI had a full slate – on top of the 1100 for US House.
What kind of event were you at to collect 1,100 signatures in one day? I know that Wisconsin does not require petition signers to be registered voters, but still, that is a lot of signatures, so it would have to be a damn busy venue.
Andy, if you want to find out how the Wisconsin LP did in the past, the Wisconsin Blue Book is your friend. LP activity was much greater in the early and mid 1980s.
The Libertarian Pary has never recovered completely from the disaster that started in 1983 when Alicia Clark fired Eric O’Keefe and replaced him with Honey Lanham as National Director. Of course there have been other disasters since then that have exacerbated the problems.
Wisconsin is a great place for petitioning. You should be able to gather all of your own signatures easily and the state party should be able to run a large slate of candidates with all volunteer sigs. I collected 1100 sigs in a single day in WI … and I didn’t start that day until 5pm … and it was in the 4th CD.
Good luck Andy.
While doing it myself and with volunteers is always the first option, I’ll be looking at the possibility of fundraising for the petition. That’s so far in the future though, that I can work to build up the campaign for the next year, instead of having to rush to worry about ballot access right after announcing. That’s part of the idea of announcing early, which I’m pleased to see the positive reaction to. I know some have advocated it in general, and looking at it just seemed like the obvious thing to do. Once I made up my mind delaying the announcement didn’t seem to have any benefit.
Also, I really enjoyed the campaign for secretary of state, on the platform of eliminating the four-person ceremonial office. Many LP candidates seem to walk away frustrated, and there are certainly frustrations aplenty, but I’m ready to get back out there conducting interviews, putting out statements, going to events, and recruiting new members. In case it isn’t obvious, and I’m not afraid to say it, I enjoy political discourse for its own sake to some degree, and enjoy participating in it.
I’m also ready to focus on more general politics and national issues, instead of the state-level politics that was fun to dig into but doesn’t really cover the main issues that motivate me to be a Libertarian. The Milwaukee Co. Party, which I’ve just taken charge of, could also use a good shot in the arm and I thought a city-wide Congressional race would do that better than a state legislative campaign. The 4th has only ever had one Libertarian on the ballot for Congress before, back in 2002 or something like that, and I couldn’t find anything else about that person.
Hopefully more campaigns will start early, and WI and many other states will recruit large teams of candidates to run this year and next year.
Andy has done good work for a long time. Let’s wish him luck!
Good article at ONN!
Opposition News article: http://oppositionnews.org/articles/2015/q1/libertarian-craig-announces-wi-us-rep-seat/
Go get ’em, Mr. Craig!
The 4th doesn’t look too badly gerrymandered at all (except on a few of the edges) and I’d guess it has several legislative districts entirely within its boundaries:
https://www.facebook.com/AndyCraig2016/photos/a.688775351237580.1073741828.688767697905012/690060887775693/?type=1
Also, Wisconsin petitions have the nice feature that signatures are presumed valid if someone is eligible but not yet registered to vote.
Bravo Andy. Glad you’re organizing and planning in advance. Best of luck in the campaign; I know you’ll keep IPR reader advised of your progress.
On petitioning: 1000 sigs in a Congressional district located in a large city does not sound particularly difficult. Is there a specific timeframe in which they have to be obtained?
If you can get some funds together I may be up for going up there this summer or fall and knocking out some congressional and/or legislative districts, especially if the legislative districts are within the same congressional districts you would be doing.
Best wishes for your campaign, Andy!
I should say, full and equal party status minus presidential primaries, which are the only area where WI law draws a major/minor party distinction at a higher threshold. Other than that we get everything the big two get.
In 2014, our candidates used the independent mechanism (and thus didn’t appear on primary ballots), and self-described as ‘Libertarian’ using their up-to-five-words. For 2016, I’ll be on the Libertarian primary ballot even if I’m unopposed (which I’m assuming will be the case, but there’s always the possibility).
Automatic access for president only. We have full and equal party status, but all candidates are required to petition equally regardless of partisan affiliation. Currently 1000 valid sigs for US House, we’re hoping to get a bill that might lower that, but I’m not counting on it.
Are you going to have to petition for various offices for 2016 or are you covered?
Figured I’d beat the rush. 😉
re: state legislative candidates. I decided for various reasons that I didn’t want to contest either my assembly or state senate seat, but I do already have at least one person intending to run for state legislature in 2016. He’s just outside the 4th CD unfortunately, adjacent to it, but I do definitely hope to recruit more who’ll hopefully be on the same ballot. Milwaukee (the largest city in the state) is by far the easiest place in the state to gather sigs, it’s where we got the bulk of our statewides in 2014.
It’s good to see campaigns get started well ahead of time.
Good Luck, Andy! I’d like to see you run a few State Legislative Candidates under you, doubling up the petitioning and campaigning requirements, while they hand out your literature. I’d also like to see you yourself run for State Legislature, and talk to enough houses to actually win it.