Libertarian Party of Tennessee Chair Josiah Baker wrote on Tuesday that he opposes the Libertarian Party presidential ticket of Chase Oliver and Mike Ter Maat, and is instead endorsing an alternate ticket of Clint Russell and Josie Glabach.
In an opinion article shared via the Libertarian Party of Tennessee’s X account, Baker expressed his belief that the Libertarian ticket of Chase Oliver and Mike ter Maat does not align with the values and goals of the LPTN. He cited several primary reason for his opposition to the campaign, including his view that Oliver is a weak advocate for the Second Amendment, past comments Oliver made regarding the Libertarian Party and “Ron Paul-esque libertarians,” his past promotion of masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, and his views on puberty blockers and gender-affirming care for minors, among other issues.
According to Baker, these positions have hindered the Libertarian Party of Tennessee’s efforts, including ongoing collaborations with a liberty-minded Republican candidate on supporting potential legislation and a ballot access lawsuit, which Baker claims has come to a halt due to the Libertarian Party being tied to the Oliver campaign and its views on gender-affirming care.
“I have said all the above to clearly establish the fact that I, in good faith, will not and cannot support this Oliver/Ter Maat ticket as the Chairman of LPTN,” Baker wrote. “I cannot and will not support actively undermining our efforts to spread liberty through local, statewide, and cultural efforts. I must do what protects our productive work in our state and what assists our continued growth in both numbers and influence.”
To continue the party’s influence, Baker is instead supporting an alternate presidential ticket of Clint Russell, who sought the vice-presidential nomination earlier this year, and Josie Glabach, a Timcast cohost known online as “The Redheaded libertarian.” Baker believes this alternate ticket better aligns with the goals of the Tennessee party and will support its initiatives without compromising its values. He concluded with a call for volunteer support to help further the party’s mission.
I remember an attempt to remove Ms Keaton from the LNC for simply wearing a BTP tshirt TK .
Read any 5 random “tweets” of Clint or Josie and you will see they don’t hold libertarian beliefs (I am talking specifically about policies, not their personalities) on the actual issues. They might be comparatively better than most of the MAGA-adjacent folks in their circle, but they still support rightwing big government policies.
Yes and … ? What I said was that is the only caveat that MIGHT BE DEFENSIBLE. I never said it wasn’t in the Bylaws, which you yourself routinely ignore and try to undermine.
My word, your desperation for being dishonest even clouds your reading comprehension.
It is you who are, yet again, spewing nonsense and embarrassing themselves.
So sit your dishonest ass down and shut your lying mouth up, you child abuse facilitating creep.
Seebeck, what do you hope type to accomplish by arguing with it? It insists vociferously it is correct on all sorts of things which it’s 180 degrees off on regardless of how many receipts anyone brings. There is no bottom to that pit. Good luck with that..
Nuña spewed:
“The only caveat that might be defensible would be requiring that chairs to make clear that they are not endorsing in their official capacity but as private individuals.”
This illustrates just how ignorant and foolish Nuña is.
Directly from the LPCO Bylaws, of which I have co-authored over many years:
Article XI: Conventions
Section 4. Nomination of Candidates
(i) The Party, its affiliates, and its elected Directors in their official capacities, either individually or as a group, shall endorse only Libertarian Party nominees for election to partisan public office.
That requirement already exists.
Receipt brought.
Nuña needs to learn when to quit spewing nonsense and embarrassing themselves.
A state chair should be able to make an endorsement that differs from either the national nomination or the state nomination or both, without being automatically forced to resign.
For example, LPCO chair Hannah Goodman endorsed Trump, while the LPCO nominated Kennedy and the national LP nominated Oliver. While I personally strongly disagree with it, I see no inherent problem with Goodman’s endorsement differing from those of her state and national party.
If the LPCO wants to remove her as chair over it, then let them do so through a vote of no confidence; but don’t expect her to voluntarily step down, since she didn’t do anything improper. The only caveat that might be defensible would be requiring that chairs to make clear that they are not endorsing in their official capacity but as private individuals.
I have no problem with Clint Russell or that Redheaded Libertarian woman (from what I know of her), so I disagree with Mr. Knapp’s equating them to the Barr/Root ticket philosophically, but having said this, they are not the presidential ticket that was nominated at the Libertarian National Convention. The Oliver/Ter Maat ticket was.nominated at the Libertarian National Convention. So if the Chair of the LP wants to place a different presidential ticket on the ballot than the one nominated at the Libertarian National Convention, and he wants to publicly endorse this alternative ticket, he shpuld resign as the State Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Tennessee.
The petition being used in Tennessee is an independent candidate petition. There is nothing to stop any Libertarian, or anyone who is legally qualified to run for President, from fulfilling the petition signature requirement and other legal requirements to get on the ballot in Tennessee as an independent presidential ticket. Getting on the ballot in Tennessee with a party label requires successfully completing the party status petition, which in Tennessee is a far more difficult requirement for which it is past the deadline to do anyway.
So there is nothing that can stop the Stare Chairman of the LP of TN from endorsing and helping place on the ballot a different presidential ticket than the one nominated at the Libertarian National Convention, but I do think that it is reasonable to say that since the LP of TN willfully participated in the Libertarian National Convention and since the LP of TN is an affiliate of the LNC, that if the State Chair is unwilling to abide by the result of the National Convention that he should resign as State Chair.
The Oliver/Ter Maat ticket can still appear on the TN ballot as independents regardless of what the State Chair of the LP of TN does and regardless of if this other ticket mentioned above qualifies for the ballot if the Oliver/Ter Maat ticket obtains the legally required 275 valid petition signatures and files the other necessary paperwork with the Tennessee Secretary of State by the filing deadline.
I hope the voters in Tennessee have the opportunity to vote for the Libertarian Party nominees for President and Vice President, Chase Oliver and Michael ter Maat. I will be voting for them in Florida.
“Our efforts for the ballot access lawsuit have ground to a halt because we cannot get signatures since the LP is tied directly to this campaign and potential signees have stated numerous times that the minor/gender issue is a DOA for them.”
That isn’t even a plausible lie. The only people who both know and object to Oliver’s position on that are people in the MC. 99% of people have never heard of Oliver, let alone know his positions on a specific issue that he isn’t campaigning on and only keeps coming up because the MC keeps bringing it up.
My memory must be going, I mixed it up with New Jersey. I think those are the two easiest signature requirements. I think the rest was correct though.
It’s 275 signatures, not 800.
It’s not “gender affirming care”. That is a far left woke term. It’s called a sex change operation.
It may not matter much who the party chair endorses. The Tennessee ballot access procedure is to qualify as independent with 800 valid signatures of voters statewide and 11 electors, including 9 from each of the congressional districts. The biggest hoop might be that the presidential candidate has to physically sign each of the signature pages. I remember one of the libertarian nominees had to fly into Tennessee at the last minute for the sole purpose of signing supplemental signature pages because it was too close to the deadline to use FedEx or anything like that. I forgot what year that was.
As for who or what is a libertarian, I guess the definition is “someone who is not a libertarian according to other people who claim they are libertarians.”
Russell and Glabach are themselves also far too progressive/leftist on differing topics to make for a truly libertarian ticket, but I guess they still are less unlibertarian than Kennedy and Shanahan, and certainly than Oliver and ter Maat.
A “weak advocate for the 2nd Amendment”? These people in TN are just lying through their teeth – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqJRUXIhGkk
And Oliver has only ever promoted individual choice as to whether mask or not. A reminder to the idiots in the back that wanting the government to ban people from being able to wear masks if they want to is an authoritarian position.
Oliver and ter Maat are not libertarians for the reasons given. I applaud the LPTN chair for taking a stand and actually having principles. Child abuse is not libertarian.
In 2008, the Libertarian Party chose a non-libertarian ticket (Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root), so the Boston Tea Party provided a libertarian ballot option for Tennessee’s voters.
It’s kind of an odd turn of the wheel to see LPTN (if the chair speaks for the state party) putting up their own Barr/Root analogs in opposition to a libertarian LP ticket.