An internal audit of the Libertarian National Committee commissioned earlier this year at the organization’s request has been fully leaked online. A segment was initially shared by a party member on social media and has since been released in its entirety.
Earlier this month, an excerpt of the audit was circulated on social media, describing the national committee as suffering from severe staffing shortages, internal dysfunction, and widespread staff dissatisfaction brought on by board member behavior. The document was later confirmed as authentic by a committee member, before LNC Chair Steven Nekhaila issued a statement denouncing the leak as “pathetic and weak.” Despite the criticism, he acknowledged its necessity, stating that the national organization is “in dysfunction.”
The text of the full report was published Thursday by Mike Shaner on The Sedition Papers Substack. The document, produced by Strategists, Inc. beginning in February and submitted in April, evaluates several key components of the organization and offers a suggested roadmap for recovery.
The Strategists, Inc. report identified national branding, organizational capacity, technological infrastructure, and strategic leadership as the areas of greatest concern. The document states that the party’s brand is damaged, citing a breakdown in trust among long-term members and donors. It adds that voters and activists are confused by inconsistent messaging and frustrated by factionalism, with both factors contributing to a shrinking supporter base and reduced visibility in electoral battlegrounds.
Operational concerns make up a significant portion of the analysis. The report references outdated customer relationship management tools, gaps in data centralization across affiliates, and limitations in the party’s digital infrastructure as ongoing issues. It also notes that too much authority is invested in the chair position, leading to dysfunction during leadership transitions. Fundraising challenges and a lack of institutional memory were also cited as factors limiting the national committee’s ability to support larger campaigns or scale its efforts nationally.
Although the tone is largely critical, the report presents a range of potential reforms for the national committee to consider. These include developing a professional communications team, hiring experienced fundraising staff, rebuilding voter targeting systems, and producing standardized resources for state affiliates. It also urges the organization to find commonality among its base and unify behind a message that clearly distinguishes it from the Republican and Democratic parties.
“…[T]he organization has a dedicated board of members who really want a future that looks different than its past,” the report states. “That coupled with the passionate, mission-driven staff and untapped potential of the organization can build credibility within stakeholder groups. With collective will, behavioral change, and renewed strategic focus, the LNC can rebuild its credibility, stabilize its finances, and reestablish itself as a strong national force.”
As of this article, Nekhaila’s earlier statement remains the only formal response from the LNC. The audit is not currently listed for discussion at the committee’s upcoming in-person meeting in Michigan. Still, Nekhaila touched on several of the report’s suggested solutions in his remarks, including the revival of Project Archimedes to grow the party, the implementation of mandatory fundraising benchmarks, and the hiring of a professional development lead and support team.
That could be one explanation. A different one was that Badnarik and his campaign had a winner, survivor attitude, took responsibility for his / their own success or failure, overcame obstacles, and made lemonade out of lemons.
Whereas Oliver and his fans have a loser, victim mentality, blame others for their success or failure, can’t overcome obstacles, and end up with bitter squeezed lemons that go to waste because no one wants them.
They both face similar obstacles, challenges, impediments – but how they react is different, and therefore they get different results.
Which explanation you embrace says something about you…
The reason that Michael Badnarik did better than Chase Oliver is because Mr. Badnarik didn’t have a bunch of homophobic disgruntled republicans called the Mises Caucus take over the leadership of the party then do everything they can to run the party into the ground in support of the republican candidate Donald Trump, the man who convinced the republican party to abandon free trade for socialist control of the economy.
The fact that the party loyalist amen corner (New Federalist and George Whitfield in this case) isn’t responding to any of my actual points tells me Andy had a point, and so did I.
My point was not to ask how either of you voted in 2004, 2024, or any other year. It wasn’t to disparage how you voted, try to convince you that you should have voted otherwise, or try to persuade to vote for some other party’s nominee next time.
The question I thought we were discussing is synergy or lack thereof between presidential campaigns and longer term party infrastructure building and membership.
In those cases where synergy is lacking, what lessons can we apply going forward. How do we maximize the potential for synergy rather than internal gear grinding going forward. How does a campaign that beats the odds to win the nomination and has few resources to start turn that around?
More broadly, should presidential campaigns continue to be the main driver ? Should more local races and enduring local infrastructure, tied into other local community organizations, become a bigger focus?
Should the party continue to emphasize a 1970s card carrying membership / annual opt in renewal structure, or are other models more advantageous in this day and age?
Etc.
“I am glad that I voted for both Michael Badnarik and Chase Oliver rather than their Democrat and Republican opponents.” – George Whitfield
Here, here! I briefly considered Michael Peroutka in 2004 but voted for Badnarik.
I am glad that I voted for both Michael Badnarik and Chase Oliver rather than their Democrat and Republican opponents.
“But Badnarik was better at making lemons out of lemonade than Oliver was.”
Oops, I meant lemonade out of lemons. Oliver, on the other hand, started with lemons, and ended with bitter squeezed lemons no one wanted that went to waste.
His campaign was weak and divisive from start to finish. You can’t rightly blame all of that on the national office or committee. <- I mean Oliver, not Badnarik. By contrast Badnarik was much better at turning weakness into strength.
That’s nice, but it ignores why I brought up Badnarik. As with Oliver, Badnarik’s campaign received ballot access help from the national office, but not much else. At TPW, Michael Wilson writes
“I was in another State at the time and there was an effort from couple of people to do what they could to keep (Badnarik) off the State’s ballot and to limit the Public Relations in the state. It began at the convention when they were concerned that Russo was going to get the nomination.”
I think what’s universally pretty true is that the national office tends to do more on behalf of campaigns which are already raising significant money and getting significant media attention themselves, usually because the candidate is already prominent in some other way – Barr and Johnson as former elected officials, Jorgensen as their own former VP candidate and personally financially comfortable, Browne as a fairly prominent investment author. Those campaigns then tend to do more for the party in return.
Badnarik and Oliver are the outliers in not being personally prominent in terms of background / personal past achievements or personally financially comfortable. Neither one came into the nomination convention as favorites to win. But Badnarik was better at making lemons out of lemonade than Oliver was. His campaign was weak and divisive from start to finish. You can’t rightly blame all of that on the national office or committee.
New Federalist, you are right about Badnarik’s debate performance and win. I was a delegate at that convention and voted for Aaron Russo on every ballot but I recall clearly that while Gary Nolan and Russo seemed fatigued and tense, Badnarik was relaxed, energetic and well spoken. He came across as an effective communicator. So while I was not his supporter at the convention I was a strong supporter after he received the nomination. I think the continued contest between Nolan and Russo with no clear winner opened a window of opportunity that Badnarik was able to benefit from. Later I supported him in his campaign in Texas and communicated with him by email in the year before his untimely death in 2022.
I was quoting Wikipedia, if that was unclear. The LNC actually paid for Chase Oliver’s ballot access in a bunch of states. He ended up with almost exactly the same number of states as Badnarik.
It’s true that some LNC members, including the chair, wanted to defer to state parties which wanted to have a different candidate or no candidate, but they were stymied in this by other LNC officers. In the end, Oliver ended up on the ballot everywhere except the places the LNC already expected to not make the ballot before it was known who the nominee would be and Tennessee, which at 275 signatures shouldn’t have needed any LNC help. Arguably, Badnarik’s ballot access in New Hampshire was sabotaged by a state chair who supported Bush.
The national office website promoted Oliver as the nominee more than they had Badnarik as the nominee.
“Badnarik’s capture of the nomination was widely regarded as a surprise by many within the party; both Nolan and Russo had outpaced him in both fundraising and poll results prior to the convention.” – Liberty Elephant
I was fairly active back then and I don’t recall open hostility from the LNC to the Badnarik campaign. Badnarik won the nomination over two better known and funded opponents by performing extremely well in the debate before the nomination. The LNC in place during the 2024 presidential campaign went so far as to try to keep Oliver off the ballot in several states. I don’t believe the two circumstances are equivalent at all.
I think the blame for that is with the presidential campaign. There have been past presidential campaigns which didn’t get much of anything from the national office. Badnarik (2004) was barely mentioned on the national site. He was a relatively dark horse for the nomination, behind the better funded Nolan and Russo campaigns. According to Wikipedia
“Badnarik was viewed as unlikely to win the Libertarian presidential nomination, facing challenges from talk-show host Gary Nolan and Hollywood producer Aaron Russo.
…
Some members of the party disapproved of Badnarik becoming the presidential nominee, feeling that he would be unable to draw media attention that many had felt Russo would have.
…
Badnarik’s capture of the nomination was widely regarded as a surprise by many within the party; both Nolan and Russo had outpaced him in both fundraising and poll results prior to the convention.”
Badnarik was also not personally well off, famously having to fundraise for travel costs for his next campaign stop at the previous one when seeking the nomination.
Did membership grow then? If so, what was different 20 years later?
“If the 2024 presidential ticket had caused there to be an increase in dues paying membership and in fundraising the party would not be in such bad shape right now.” – Andy
It seems to me the LNC didn’t help the national ticket very much. In fact, there appeared to me to be outright hostility. Given those circumstances it is little wonder that membership didn’t grow.
The Libertarian Party was not doing that great when Sarwark was National Chairman. The party got pumped up by Gary Johnson money, which largely came from unprinciipled donors who were hoping to swing the outcome of the presidential election between the Democrat and the Republican. Take away the spike from Gary Johnson and that era does not look as good. There were big dips in dues paying membership during that era.
Is the party during worse right now? By a lot of standards, yes, however, it should be pointed out that the #1 driver for increases in dues paying memberahip and fundraising has been presidential campaigns, and the 2024 presidential ticket failed to increase party dues paying membership and fundraising. LP dues paying membership and fundraising went down during a presidential election year, perhaps for the first time ever. If the 2024 presidential ticket had caused there to be an increase in dues paying membership and in fundraising the party would not be in such bad shape right now.
As a Green Party member, it distresses me to see another important minor party struggle like this. If we had legislative elections by proportional representation in this country for state legislatures and the US House, many Greens and Libertarians would already be elected and influencing policy on both levels of government; and our internal operations would likely be stronger in each of our cases, because resources and talent would naturally flow to parties that win elections.
Project Archimedes: It didn’t work last time, but whatever.
As Nick Sarwark points out, under his leadership we were doing the things the report said we should be doing.
Without expressing an opinion on the accuracy of the report, the embezzlement references are not directed against Caryn Ann Harlos. They are directed against former National Chair McArdle. For better or worse, the evidence, FEC and other legal filings, was presented some time ago by Jake Porter on his blog.
Curious, no, though Harlos was reinstated. The JC basically said that the LNC could retry her on the same information. The charges where public and did not include embezzlement, either as a proposed charge or an adopted one.
Apparently so, yes, Sam.
So, they want to rearrange deck chairs on that Titanic?