LP official presidential debates tonight; lineups announced

Will John Monds really be in both debates?

From Dan Fishman:

Friday at NOON eastern (6 hours before the Convention Starts) I will send an ElectionBuddy poll to every delegate asking them “Are you here attending the convention” At 5pm Eastern I will report to the Credentialing committee the number of people who have responded along with the list of names and states. Responding to the poll constitutes “being in the room.” The Credentialing Committee will verify the list and pass it to the Secretary before we come to order. As we get closer to the convention, I’ll send you a more detailed overview of Election Buddy.

I will then check the election (which I will leave open) every 20 mins or so for new people to sign in, and report the new credentials number to the credentialing committee. Which leads to the obvious question: How do you change out a delegate for an alternate?

Your state chair has an SMS number to contact me, but swapping out an alternate for a delegate is not the easiest process. Please PLEASE if you are a delegate and you can’t make it, let your chair know NOW so that we can have a very accurate list of delegates who will attend Friday and Saturday.
?
We want to avoid all changes we could have known about beforehand.

Please make sure to contact your state chair to find out how you all can communicate during the convention.

We are using the Webinar format for the convention. Delegation Chairs will be “panelists”. Delegates will be “attendees”. Attendees cameras are off and are muted by default.

In the Convention most rising votes will be done via the Zoom polling system. We know that some people are going to be watching in groups. We recommend that people bring laptops and phones to group watches so that people can still vote in polls, and potentially raise their hand if they wish to speak.

For all balloted votes (For President and VP) states may use ANY METHOD THEY WANT to tabulate their vote and report it to their regional LNC member who will then report it to the secretary. Please check with your state chair to find out how your state is doing balloting.

—-

For Presidential Tokens we will send out an election buddy poll to every delegate AFTER the nominations who is “in the room” as defined above.

Updated article with my current understanding re Monds and McAfee missing the VP debate due to being below 10% of tokens.

Paulie,

Darn. I am all but expecting a second wave (If FL will count accurately, or anywhere close) by July, all but eliminating it as a site even if their bid gets through the LNC again… Or if it’s in Nick’s Hands alone now that the LNC approved and a contract is in the final negotiation stage…

Hopefully they will put in a force majeure clause due to C19 (and any sane government action) if we’re lucky enough to see ] FL Numbers… 1400+ is still a large group in a smaller convention space, plus staff, vendors, service workers of the facility etc. Even though it may not be a packed house for the business section)

And on the first part…

So you’re saying there’s a chance 😉

I still believe in A Place Called Hope…

OK, Sarcasm doesn’t work well either in Zoom or on here…

Thanks Paulie…

“I don’t think Jacob wins unless it’s on the first or at most second ballot. And I don’t think he has enough support for that. Jorgensen accumulates more votes in subsequent rounds; she is tolerated or likes by many different factions, hated by very few.”

I agree with that assessment.

“I don’t see why she would lose to Hornberger due to abortion. It’s not like he is more pro-choice.”

No, but she failed to capitalize on a way to differentiate herself from him. I would say she’s more amenable than he is to the idea of abortion as a constitutional right. She should have drawn that distinction out (especially in a pro-choice party)…not muddle it.

I still lean towards her winning the nomination, but you know as well as I that stranger things have happened at LP Conventions. A candidate should never miss an opportunity to draw distinctions.

Jim Gray: “get off my lawn”

Not anymore.

A Message from Vermin Love Supreme

Congratulations on being a delegate to the Libertarian National Convention!

My name is Vermin Supreme, and as most of you know I am running for president this year. I am reaching out to ask you for your vote during our convention this week. I want to take a minute to introduce myself to those of you I haven’t met yet, and say hello to everyone I already have.

I am running because I truly believe our nation needs a campaign built on love, respect, and unity in the face of the overwhelming divisiveness that has taken hold of our elections. A Vermin Supreme and Spike Cohen campaign will be built on love of liberty, love of one another, and love of this great nation.

The excitement about my campaign from outside the LP has been incredible and humbling, and has resulted in over 125 new dues paying national members in the month of April alone. In the last 3 days we have received over 200 individual donations, mostly from outside the party, and that ability to market out brand and our principles to a wider audience will make all the difference this November.

I’d like to ask you for your support during the convention, but my words don’t do justice to the truly awe-inspiring nature of what has happened in the last year of the campaign. My staff is a team of very dedicated, amazing, passionate Libertarians, and we would not have made it to this point without them. One of our wonderful team members has put together a fantastic video highlighting that, and I am proud to present to you our new campaign ad: Unity

Most of all, I would like to thank each and every one of you for the amazing opportunity to participate in this process with you all. I regret I haven’t been able to meet more of you in person, and I hope that can soon change. I have truly found my home within this party, and I am humbled by how you have all welcomed me. It is quite an honor to be in a party of such hard working activists who put their everything into making the world a better place. This is no easy feat, and I hope you take a moment to reflect and recognize yourself for all of your accomplishments in the face of such mighty adversity.

Sincerely, thank you.

For Love and Liberty for All,
Vermin Love Supreme

I’d like more diversification from LP presidential debates in the future. A bit stale like GOP and DNC debates. Becoming redundant with the same rehearsed comments and statements to the same ol’ questions.

God bless Vermin Supreme.

COC Vice Presidential Debate Qualification Tokens

Candidate Name Token Count
Larry Sharpe 335
Spike Cohen 247
Ken Armstrong 161
John McAfee 26
John Monds 24
John Phillips 10
Jo Jorgensen 7
Nicholas Sarwark 7
Dan Behrman 6
Mark Stewart 6
Zoltan Istvan 6
Adam Kokesh 5
Justin Amash 5
James Gray 4
NOTA NOTA 4
Jacob Hornberger 2
Jason Spyres 2
Sam Robb 2
Sorinne Ardeleanu 2
Brian Ellison 1
Jeff Wood 1
Joshua Smith 1
Kim Ruff 1
Laura Ebke 1
Mark Cuban 1
Matt Welch 1
Thomas Knapp 1
(blank) 46
Grand Total 915

Yep LOL

Legal in Mass

paulie,

its legal in Ohio.

I don’t light up during a job interview, however.

VP debate has started

My overall impressions:

Hornberger: bombastic, too much question dodging, attacking Jorgensen, too much rhetoric and not enough specifics.
Gray: tense and arrogant, not the man I helped campaign in 2004, still stuck on Fair Tax.
Monds: good on issues, terrible on presentation, needs a speech coach, no bow tie that looks like the Stars and Bars.
Jorgensen: should have been asked the abortion question, presented well but gesticulates way too much.
Vermin: presented well, came across as serious, stole the show with the doobie.

My verdict: Hornberger and Gray sunk themselves, Monds is not ready for this level. Tie to Jorgensen and Vermin.

P.S. the tokens to NOTA were me, both races. Unwilling to commit to any of them at the time.

Avens O’Brien is with Spike Cohen and 4 others.
5 hrs

Thoughts from the #LPDebate tonight:

I wish they were all much better speakers than they are.

I wish Jacob Hornberger was less aggressive so he didn’t come off as a smart jerk who has no sense of pragmatism. He’s like the stereotype of a Libertarian, and kept picking fights.

I wish Judge Jim Gray and Dr. Jo Jorgensen were more interesting. Gray really failed with “there’s some limit to 1st Amendment rights at the courthouse” (seriously?). I’ll admit Jorgensen easily came off as the most *reasonable* choice in the final debate.

I wish John Monds had more energy and more quotable lines because I think he could have a lot to offer.

I wish Vermin Supreme were better at shaping Libertarian talking points into clever soundbites when being interviewed live.

To whomever gets the nomination, I promise to help you articulate a compelling message to the American people. Soundbite training, practicing answers to common questions, writing up short and long answers to questions (and follow-ups). Because I want my party represented well, and you need the help. I encourage all my fellow Libertarians to help whoever gets the nomination. I think they need it, badly. To steal a phrase from celebrities during sheltering-in-place: we are all in this together.

For more on my thoughts on who I think the nominee should be, go find a fresh article on The Libertarian Republic in the morning. 😉

given how quickly he would be ignored post-nomination,

The one thing Vermin isn’t is ignored.

To the extent that he gets serious, there’s no reason for his candidacy to exist, because there are better “serious” candidates.

He’s built a bigger and better platform through the many years of satire.

To the extent that he satirizes politics in general, he marginalizes himself, because people…especially voters…actually think the job of President is pretty darn important.

And yet they elected the orange gasbag, while Democratic primary voters decided the best choice to challenge him last time was America’s most hated woman and this time another seventy-something white man with cognitive issues and accusations of sexual harrassment and abuse. Granted a lot of voters like terrible candidates but I think there’s room for a candidate who challenges that mass delusional clown rodeo with both satire and seriousness.

As an aside, I thought Spike was pretty damn articulate and quite possibly came off the best of anyone in either debate last night.

Agreed Spike did very well.

“The one thing Vermin isn’t is ignored.”

When the presidential campaign heats up, he’d be ignored, because presidential campaigns are serious and he is not. He might get a couple novelty interviews, which would embarrass the party as unserious, then he’d be ignored.

Yes, Donald Trump is a gasbag, but Vermin is in no way comparable to him. Trump had 100% name recognition, and 40 years at the helm of a 23,000-employee multi-billion dollar well-known organization. Vermin is in no way comparable to Trump, who was deadly serious about his policy positions. He satirized his opponents, NOT the political process in general. Of that he was 100% serious.

You cannot possibly compare Vermin to Clinton and Biden in terms of qualifications either. They are qualified for the office, despite their various weaknesses AS CANDIDATES.

“Granted a lot of voters like terrible candidates but I think there’s room for a candidate who challenges that mass delusional clown rodeo with both satire and seriousness.”

There is not.

Agree to disagree.

I’ll almost certainly cast my first ballot for Gray, but he has very little to no chance and its his own fault. On the other hand, I am warming to a Jorgensen/Monds ticket. I don’t think its gonna get much coverage, but lets not underestimate the optics there. They are very good. Time for a woman nominee.

and I’ll tell ya, assuming it goes off without a hitch (big assumption), its gonna be nice being at a “convention” in t-shirt and jeans and sipping some Larceny bourbon in the comfort of home, with no concern about how I look.