Email from Mark Hinkle, the California rep to the Libertarian National Committee, who is running for LNC Chair at the LP National Convention in five weeks:
About a year ago, I asked Sharon Harris, President of the Advocates for Self Government (www.theadvoocates.org) if the LP could put a link from our web page (www.lp.org) under Liberty Links to them. And we did that. Recently I worked out another deal with Sharon to have them send us inquiries who scored in the libertarian quadrant of the World’s Smallest Political Quiz in exchange for us sending out an information package & for placing the Quiz on the LP’s home web page.
The first batch was for 333 names, which represented about 3 weeks worth of test takers who scored libertarian & who wanted more information.
The LP HQ sent out inquiry packages at a cost of about $129 to ask these libertarians to become dues paying members of the LP.
To date that’s resulted in: 11 new members and $350 in dues and donations. We appear to have a membership growth plan that immediately pays for itself.
Late last week I reported the first results to Sharon Harris. She said they had another batch ready to send to us.
Robert Kraus, LP Operations Director, has created a query to continue to track the progress of this experiment. But, it clearly seems to be working.
Some LP affiliates do have the Quiz on their web sites and, one by one, I’ve been contacting the others to encourage them to do likewise.
Furthermore, this data will be given to the state LP’s to do their own membership drives and fund raising.
We get money and members, the state LP’s get more inquiries and the Advocates get more web traffic.
Win win win.
Yours in liberty………………Mark Hinkle,
Candidate for LP Chair
I think this move, on its own, should be enough to boost Hinkle’s candidacy for chair. This is a big deal. It’s innovative, productive, cheap/free, and it grows the party.
Should, yes. Will it? That’s less clear.
Brian,
I think Hinkle has an extensive public record. He’s run for office quite a few times, has written numerous letters, has been in the LP since the early 1970s, and Aaron Starr describes him as a polite radical.
Myers is running for office now (Congress), but I don’t know if he has in the past.
I actually think Hinkle is the darkhorse in the race.
Possibly.
I think that might be Myers, though.
He probably has the lowest negative name recognition among any segment of delegates, and holds up well in debates.
Bylaw 7.4: “The Chair is the chief executive officer of the Party with full authority to direct its business and affairs, including hiring and discharging of National Committee volunteers and paid personnel, subject to express National Committee policies and directives issued in the exercise of the National Committee’s plenary control and management of Party affairs, properties and funds.”
Within the (traditionally loose) constraints imposed by the LNC and its Advertising and Publications Review Committee, the Chair has the responsibility and authority to determine the ideological content of the LP’s press releases, web site, and newspaper. The ideology of Chair candidates is a fair question.
All the Chair candidates would probably claim that their principles map to a 100/100. Due to his emphasis on a strategy of federalism on the issues of marriage, abortion, and drugs, Root could be scored as low as 85 on personal freedoms. His realism on tax reform could ding him to a 95 on economic freedoms. I doubt that the the other Chair candidates have anything in their public record to demote them from 100/100. (Hancock and Phillies have extensive records, but Hinkle and Myers don’t, AFAIK.)
I think this move, on its own, should be enough to boost Hinkle’s candidacy for chair. This is a big deal. It’s innovative, productive, cheap/free, and it grows the party.
“I’m curious how the five announced candidates for LNC Chair would score on Holtz’s expanded quiz.”
Why? Chair is an administrative position.
“I agree. Kudos to Hinkle. I think he would make a great chair, although I have doubts about his electability based on the debate I saw in Austin.”
I actually think Hinkle is the darkhorse in the race.
The 2004 platform did include language about emancipation, but the 2010 PlatCom rejected my proposal to add this: “Children have the right to petition a court to establish their maturity and become emancipated, with all the rights of an adult.”
That’s odd, as that is already the law. What was the problem? Did they think that re-stating existing law was superfluous? Or that this law should be changed so minors can’t become emancipated? Something else?
The WSPQ also uses the term “consenting adult” without defining it. Ditto for the current LP platform, and even for the bloated 2004 platform.
The 2004 platform did include language about emancipation, but the 2010 PlatCom rejected my proposal to add this: “Children have the right to petition a court to establish their maturity and become emancipated, with all the rights of an adult.”
Instead, they are proposing this: “Unlike adults, children realize certain rights as they mature and develop the ability to understand and accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions.”
Regarding foreign policy, see the explanation from http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz-faq.html:
There are three major areas of national political concern. Two are addressed directly in the Quiz: economics and personal freedom.
The third major areas of national political concern is foreign policy. Foreign policy, in turn, is chiefly concerned with two big areas: peacetime relations between nations, and the military (which includes defense spending and military action).
In the “Economic Issues” section, there are questions about ending government barriers to international free trade, and whether taxes and government spending should be cut by 50% or more (which would, almost certainly, result in a leaner defense budget and a more narrowly focused national defense policy).
Liberals, conservatives, centrists and statists all tend to disagree strongly among themselves on both peacetime and wartime foreign policy issues. (For example, there are hawkish liberals and isolationist conservatives, and vice-versa. And there are anti-free-trade conservatives and pro-free-trade liberals.) So adding foreign policy to the Quiz would not be very helpful in distinguishing between these groups — and it would make the Quiz much clumsier and more complex.
Brian’s list leaves out anything about foreign relations which is a big part of the U.S. policy and some of the issues you only qualify if you are an adult, whatever an adult is.
@20
Relative to how our other recent direct mail forays have performed, 3.3% is a staggeringly good result.
@ David 17
For what it’s worth I scored 100/94. I think that makes me part of the club without too much question. I also like one of the quizzes (can’t remember where I saw it) where you not only score yourself on the question but rate how intensely that issue matters to you.
Years ago when I did bulk mail for work it was generally assumed that it took four or five mailings in many cases to get the higher numbers.
As Matt notes above the return that came for this first mailing is nothing to sneeze at. And at a cost of just $129 that ain’t shabby.
I can tell you that a 3.3% response rate from a direct mail piece is great – even considering that these were qualified leads. Further, the other 322 are not lost. They are prospects to be worked for membership and/or money later, or addresses to be mailed to by candidates, etc.
I am glad to hear of this program. I hope it continues to work at this rate.
Tom: “The LP may place too much emphasis on joining the LP. Most conservatives aren’t members of the Republican Party and most Democrats aren’t members of the Democratic Party.”
The Republican Party and the Democratic Party also each get tens of millions of dollars annually from special interest groups. The Libertarian Party doesn’t; it relies on its individual members for money. If those funds are spent well–including on helping to fund the presidential campaign–then I think the LP is right to focus on new members (along with basic operations, the national convention, and promotional materials).
Tens of thousands more members would mean far more LP promotion and advertising. But I don’t think it’s correct to think there’s some magic bullet as far as getting all the people who score in the libertarian quadrant of the WSPQ to actually join the Libertarian Party. There’s not.
Instead of talking a lot of talk it looks to me like Hinkle has been walking a lot of walk.
I’m curious how the five announced candidates for LNC Chair would score on Holtz’s expanded quiz.
Some like to point out that generally people gravitate to winners or as the saying goes,”everyone likes a winner”.
One of the keys to growing this party is to find a couple of issues others are not promoting and run with them.
Unfortunately there are too many libs who howl and complain that there are just too many issues to focus on just a few.
Personally I think we need to focus on bringing all our forces home from abroad and refer to it as the PEACE issue as paulie and I hope a few others have been suggesting.
There should be lots of good news in these results. Let’s say 15% of registered voters are libertarians, per Cato. That’s 22,500,000. And let’s say the 333 who landed in the quadrant are all part of that 22.5 million. If 3% will actually join the LP, then our upside potential should be 675,000 members were we able to test the entire registered population and implement the Hinkle program! We are currently at about 2% of that, so let’s get cracking!
Identifying supporters and getting them actively involved is a crucial part of what any successful political organization does.
Candidates are recruited from among the membership. Money to help fund campaigns is raised from party members, although some campaigns have additional resources.
These factors don’t work in isolation.
If they are not joining political parties or voting out of anti-political principle, I’m not sure why that would not also apply to contributing to candidates. Is there a difference in principle between sending $25 a year or more to a political party and sending some amount of money to a candidate for office? It’s not that LP pledge, is it?
11 dues paying members out of 333 quiz takers is an excellent result. Millions of people have taken the quiz, but most of those have not been asked to join anything. If we continue to share info, both organizations will benefit.
I agree. Kudos to Hinkle. I think he would make a great chair, although I have doubts about his electability based on the debate I saw in Austin.
Tom Blanton // Apr 23, 2010:
“LP may place too much emphasis on joining”…..
The LP may place too much emphasis on joining the LP. Most conservatives aren’t members of the Republican Party and most Democrats aren’t members of the Democratic Party.
Perhaps if the LP runs good candidates that deliver a strong libertarian message, libertarians that aren’t LP members will vote for them and, better yet, contribute to the campaigns.
LP candidates that come off as buffoonish used car salesmen offering right-wing talking points may not excite a lot of libertarians. Libertarians might not wish to join a party that runs such candidates.
There are also some libertarians who won’t join a political party and who don’t vote, but who will contribute to a campaign to support a candidate who is putting out a message they like.
Great idea! This should have been done years ago.
Around: “Maybe the questions need to be tightened up as it would appear (11 out of 333) too many non-libertarians are scoring in the quadrant. Or, too many libertarians have little to no interest in joining the LP. In the latter case, the chair candidates need to discuss what can be done about that!”
First, I don’t see how 11 out of 333 people raises suspicion that too many non-libertarians are scoring in the quadrant. You’re saying you don’t think even 3% of people are mostly libertarian? I think that idea is false (and depressing). Cato research shows that it’s likely between 14% and 23% of the population. If you’re equating “libertarian” with “anarchist”, however, then 3% probably is high.
Second, I don’t think there’s a real solution to the problem of those who are libertarians and still don’t want to join the party. All that can be done is for LP spokespersons to publicly point out the (enormous) failings of Republicans and Democrats to advance liberty, let people know the Libertarian Party exists, and point them in the right direction so they can join. That’s it.
But even among the libertarians who won’t join, many may still vote Libertarian. In presidential elections, the Libertarian nominee typically receives a few hundred thousand votes even though there’s nowhere near a few hundred thousand dues-paying LP members.
AFT,
Opps — I see that you had the same thought. For some reason I didn’t see your last comment until I posted mine, even though they were more than two hours apart.
AroundtheblockAFT,
I think there’s a problem with your assessment.
Yes, it would be better if the LP could increase its ratio of “those we send info to” to “those who join.”
It is not, however, apparent that the way to do so is by mailing only to the top corner of the quadrant, because it’s not apparent that there’s a correlation between scores on the test and interest in joining the party.
For all we know, the 11 hits came from people who scored on the line separating “libertarian” from “moderate,” “left” or “right.”
You are probably right, Trent. But I like Holtz’ more precise questions. It might help to save recruitment costs if LP could cut down on sending to 333 and getting 11 hits: maybe only send to those in top corner of quadrant. It would be interesting to know if all 11 joiners were 100/100 or 90/90 or if there was no correlation at all between joining and not joining.
Aroundtheblock,
I would guess only people in the upper half of the libertarian quadrant are even going to be interested. Of that, a much smaller number will want more info from the LP. An even smaller number after than will want to pay a fee and join the LP. This is a solid program, I wouldn’t tinker with it at all.
Here’s a business-card-sized quiz that’s both smaller and higher-precision than the WSPQ:
1. every local LP should have an OPH operation.
2. there needs to be better qualification of those scoring in the libertarian quadrant. Maybe the questions need to be tightened up as it would appear (11 out of 333) too many non-libertarians are scoring in the quadrant. Or, too many libertarians have little to no interest in joining the LP. In the latter case, the chair candidates need to discuss what can be done about that!
This is quite genius. Well done.