Originally published at Liberty for All:
First, the protagonists. I’ve divided them using James Oaksun’s coalition analysis.
Chair Hinkle – very long-time dominant coalition man; Project Archimedes advocate
Vice Chair Rutherford – dominant coalition; Root man
Secretary Mattson – dominant coalition
At-Large Sink-Burris – dominant coalition
At-Large Redpath – dominant coalition
At-Large Knedler – dominant coalition; Root man
Regional Rep Karlan – dominant coalition
Regional Rep Lark – dominant coalition
Regional Rep Wiener – dominant coalition
Regional Rep Flood – dominant coalition
Nolan – major Hinkle-for-Chair advocate; tagged by his endorsements.
Regional Rep Craig – Georgian. 2008 Barr supporter.
At-Large Wayne Root – his own man. However, the dominant coalition has a long record of pursuing Republicans, and Root thinks we should chase right-wingers, so some lean is present.
Treasurer Oaksun – New Path, Regional Rep Hawkridge – New Path, Regional Rep Visek – not a New Path candidate, but offered motion implementing two New Path ideas
At-Large Ruwart – radical
By my count, the dominant coalition has increased its strength on the LNC. That vote division will not protect Oaksun or Ruwart from suspension, should the question arise. Mr. Starr may not be on the LNC, but several of his friends are. It would also not block the widely-rumored motion to expel me from the party, in the case that my supporters on the committee did not honor my request that they abstain on any such motion, and vote against any effort to avoid a vote.
We now come to the meeting. On the bright side, the meeting was adequate to disprove any claim that serving on the LNC would be a positive benefit if you want to be Chair. Rumors that if you serve on the LNC you will have some idea how to run an LNC meeting are clearly false.
The meeting came to order at the expected hour. The Chair arrived with no agenda. He was saved because there is a default agenda in the policy manual. Indeed, since I was sitting right behind them, I can note that Secretary Alicia Mattson repeatedly put the new Chair back on course. The Chair expressed an opinion on whether the Chair can vote, the position opposite to Roberts, and the parliamentary folks failed to correct his error.
Generally, when there is a change of Administration, a new CEO arrives with at least a modest statement of his issues, plans, intents, and targets for his term. This is called landing at a run. Yes, we have a CEO, our Chair. Those of you who attended the National Convention might have noticed that Mr. Hinkle, prior to his election, had set out a list of things we ought to do, admittedly with no indication of method, time line, or budget. He did not even mention his own list. Launch of LNC activity for the new Committee has been postponed until the next meeting, sometime in July.
The LNC did take public comments. Public comments have historically been ten minutes at the meeting’s opening for people other than LNC members to say things. The public comments actually dragged on for the better part of an hour. This meeting was very short, 2.5 hours, so the need for a schedule was intense. Past chairs have used clocks and time controls, even at first meetings, to keep the meeting on schedule. In past meetings, the public comments were actually comments by the public. The public comments here repeatedly devolved into the LNC members talking with each other.
We did have Mr. Snitker, who is running in Florida with a very well-organized campaign, claim that he had a serious chance of winning and should be given all resources possible. Snitker is in a four way race, the Florida governor having bolted his party to run as an independent against his party’s presumptive nominee. Historically, the press has mental problems coping with more than one third-party candidate. We have tried Snitker’s proposed approach of throwing all our resources at one candidate repeatedly, most recently in Mr. Badnarik’s 2006 Congressional campaign. Note also the Murray Sabrin Campaign in New Jersey, at least one campaign in Michigan, and arguably one campaign in Massachusetts. The approach has always failed. Mr. Snitker is doing what he can with his resources. It appears to be a good investment for Floridians; others would do better to keep their money in their home state.
Last year, the LNC adopted a self-modifying policy manual. The National Secretary can make changes, and if the LNC does not object the changes go into effect. To quote the policy manual:
“The Secretary may propose adding or amending annotations in the form of endnotes and introductory language to provide relevant references to authoritative statutes, the Party’s Corporate Charter and Bylaws, the parliamentary authority, and explanations as to how Special Rules of Order differ from the parliamentary authority. The Secretary shall promptly submit such proposals to the LNC, along with any written opinions provided by the Party’s parliamentarian. These proposals shall be considered adopted thirty days thereafter or upon the close of the next LNC meeting, whichever is sooner. The LNC may veto such proposals by majority vote prior to adoption.”
The LNC seems to have ignored the issue this meeting. The Policy Manual being passed about was the December 2009 policy manual, not any manual that the Secretary was may have prepared and presented more recently.
There is a point at which the LNC or its chair appoints committees as specified in the Bylaws and policy manual, for example the executive committee elected by the LNC. A reasonable Chair would have arrived with a list of those committees, the appointment rules, etc., and some leadership discussion. The Chair did have a list of three nominees for the Executive Committee, who were accepted after the number of candidates for the ExComm got up to ten.
I did hear the chair say specifically that there are no minutes to Executive meetings. Executive Committee or Executive Session? Historically, Executive Committee meetings have been minuted. You can read quotes in my book Funding Liberty. Executive Session? According to the LNC Policy Manual, there are two categories of topics for executive sessions. One set of topics are not minuted. The other set of topics are required to be minuted. If you think Executive Session meetings are without exception not minuted, you should read the LNC Policy Manual.
Some time back, the LNC apparently passed a rule that all substantive votes must be roll call votes, as should all procedural votes for which any one LNC member requests a roll call. I am trying to find the exact reference. At the end of the meeting, Mr. Sarwark was kind enough to remind the LNC of its own rules on this point. Apparently the long years of sitting on the LNC had not brought this issue to our new Chair’s attention. There were almost no roll calls. If you want to know how your regional representative voted, you are out of luck, because almost no roll calls were taken.
There came a discussion of dates for LNC meetings. Suggestions that the LNC should end its custom of pandering to the far right died quickly. The next LNC meeting will be at the Freedomfest, a far right Las Vegas event, and not, e.g., at PorcFest, a real libertarian event in New Hampshire.
There was a discussion of the timing of the Fall LNC meeting. October? Several LNC members are also running for high Federal office, and view their Federal campaigns as more important than their National Committee duties. Eventually the National Treasurer, James Oaksun, indicated that the budget meeting had to be later in the year than October, because we needed more financial data than would be available in October. The core issue here is that the National Officer elections were Sunday, the LNC meeting was Monday afternoon, and the new LNC chair had seemingly not contacted his own Treasurer in the intervening day to discuss when the budget meeting might effectively occur.
Several in the meeting said that it might be worthwhile to look at the election results, which will be available and analyzed two weeks into November. People who have been on the LNC might have noticed that we have usually done the budget meeting in December. The budget meeting ended up in early November.
Incidentally, Starr was knocked off the LNC by an overwhelming vote and the raucous applause of the delegates. At the LNC meeting he parked in the gallery as close as possible to the committee and spent much of the meeting with his hand up hoping to be recognized.
Comments from the floor showed another aspect of weak chairing. The Policy manual provides “4) Open Meetings LNC meetings are open to Party members, except while in Executive Session. However, participation is not permitted except by majority vote of the committee.” The Chair sat there while other LNC members seemed to have individually recognized nonmembers to address the LNC. To his credit, Mr. Seebeck asked if he had permission.
New Regional Representative Dianna Visek proposed establishing an Outreach committee, a collection of people to spread the Libertarian message to a vast range of people with different interests, issues, native languages. The notion was a committee of LNC members and others who could use their own life experiences to construct messages that speak to Americans of different backgrounds. The immediate response of the prior National Chair, William Redpath, was that we should not form an LNC committee, we should hire another staff member in the Watergate. Just think, instead of using volunteers who can, for example, give us messaging in Vietnamese, Portuguese, French, Hmong, or Spanish as spoken in Puerto Rico, languages we could use here in Massachusetts, and leave behind money for broadcasting the message, we could hire someone else to work in the belly of the beast. And if you were wondering how Mr. Redpath’s thought processes on using our volunteer base worked, you now have an indication.
We now come to the imminent California ballot access disaster. A year and a half ago, it was known that the California TopTwo primary was likely to destroy our California Ballot access. We’ll have the description of why no action was taken then by Libertarians as a separate report. It speaks to someone you might want to reconsider as your advisor on ballot access.
In any event, the absentee ballots went out by mail early in the month, and the election is June 8. A fair part of the electorate has already voted. The LNC, last week, voted $10,000 for radio ads. Mr. Flood assures me that $10,000 was the most he thought he could get at the last LNC meeting of the term. At the first meeting of the new term, he asked for another $15,000, hoping the new committee would be more supportive. Did the LNC act? No. It referred the spending decision to its Executive Committee. Wayne Root made an excellent speech – his first of any length — urging the LNC to make the decision itself, and spend the money. The LNC instead passed the buck. There was a motion to refer to committee, the Executive Committee, which made a decision Tuesday evening. On the bright side, the vote on the ExComm was reportedly 6-1 positive, Mattson opposed.
If you were looking for progress with the new LNC, you may well want to try someplace else.
George Phillies is a contributing editor for Liberty For All. You can contact Dr. Phillies at [email protected].
mhw, this is ESPECIALLY true for an organization or business with almost no market share, like the LP. Marketing exclusively to anarchists and micro-minarchists to the exclusion of MILLIONS of lessarchists hasn’t worked for decades. Our exclusive club will remain so unless and until we make actual adjustments.
@ 188 RC writes; “Mostly, I’d suggest our marketing not EXCLUDE anyone from a certain demographic. That would be a huge start. Excluding pro-lifers and Christians seems contra-indicated to me, and I fit neither category.”
I agree! As I was taught in business, never turn down a potential sale.
gp, thanks. Surely you have some skepticism about conclusions reached a very partisan organization led by John Podesta and Tom Daschle, yes? Their advice for Rs should be viewed mindful that they grind their axe one side, a non-L way, to be sure.
While there’s some interesting data in this report, it seems contra-indicated to put all our eggs in any particular basket. Liberty is attractive for every demographic I know of, although how liberty is marketed to is an interesting question.
Mostly, I’d suggest our marketing not EXCLUDE anyone from a certain demographic. That would be a huge start. Excluding pro-lifers and Christians seems contra-indicated to me, and I fit neither category.
Institutionally, the LP has made progress taking away the non-anarchist exclusions buried in the foundational documents…so there’s some progress.
Personally, I’d like to see the GOP become whiter, more southern, more male, older, and more absolutist on abortion. That would continue to create an opportunity for the LP IF we’re actually interested in electoral inroads.
Or, we can remain angry curiousities on the fringe.
Mindful that someplace there will be a future direction for our party, I urge people to read the extremely encouraging demographics at
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2010/06/pdf/voter_demographics.pdf
The article itself is written towards Republicans, of whom the less said the better, but does explain the evolutionary dead end down which Republicans are marching. It also bodes very well for the future.
On the other hand, the demographics make very clear why the path urged by Wayne Root, appealing to Christians, small businessmen, etc is the wrong direction, namely that is not the wave of the future.
Professionals, not small businessmen, are the future. Seculars, not Christians, especially not the minority of Christians who are conservative Christians, are the future. And, indeed, the demographic expectation is that the United States will cease to have a white Christian majority within a decade.
We can influence the system directly by being elected, by passing or defeating propositions, sure. And that happens occasionally. We have people in CA who keep getting reelected to office as Libertarians. We had Judge Gray on the bench for a good long time. That stuff’s awesome, and we like to keep doing that.
I agree with this. I would add I define success when the Libertarian Party has the level of coverage and publicity it had in 1980. What happened in 1980?
In 1980 Presidential candidate Ed Clark participated in national presidential debates. Unfortunately they were not against Carter, Reagan, or Anderson. He debated Citizens Party candidate Barry Commoner who was on the ballot in enough states that he could have in theory been elected President. He tried to get himself in debates with Carter, Reagan, and Anderson but they refused.
Ed Clark was covered by the media many times. He was covered by the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Orange County Register, and many other newspapers. He was covered by wire services UPI and AP. Ed Clark received the endorsement of the Journal Star and two other newspapers. Ed Clark was covered by magazines Time, Newsweek, People, The National Review, Reason, Libertarian Review, Next, The Progressive, New Republic, MacClean’s (a Canadian magazine), Society For Individual Liberty, Inquiry, Fortune, and others all which have (had) different political viewpoints. Ed Clark was in Face The Nation (CBS), Nightline (ABC) with Barry Commoner, and in other local (ABC, NBC, CBS, Metromedia) television stations. He was also covered by many radio stations of network affiliates ABC, CBS, NBC, and Mutual.
There were different groups that assisted Ed Clark’s campaign. There was Society For Individual Liberty, college Libertarian organizations (one of which was a national organization), NORMAL, and others. “Clark’s campaign spent “several million dollars” (mainly provided by his running mate),” Three Million Dollars + ($7,709,926 in 2009 dollars).
Ed Clark media buys were national in scope. When he bought an ad on CBS (All in the Family #1 rated show) it was aired on all 50 states and Washington DC during prime time. This had impact because the ads were seen by millions at the time there were only three major networks. Ed Clark published a book (A New Beginning), had many campaign brochures many of which were in Spanish, signs, bumper stickers, and badges. Ed Clark published position papers of the issues of 1980 which were covered by the media and think tanks of various political philosophies.
When we have a candidate that has the level of coverage and publicity Ed Clark had and other candidates continue and increase that level of coverage and publicity I will know the Libertarian Party has achieved success. When the Libertarian Party has the level of coverage and publicity Ed Clark had and the coverage and publicity is ongoing and increasing I will know the libertarian party has achieved success.
When candidates and the Party has achieved Ed Clark’s level of coverage and publicity it will mean we are having candidates elected to congress, state assemblies, city councils, and so on. And freedom is just around the corner.
He is. He considers the LP to be the oil slick, and wants Phillies to join the BTP (which doesn’t want to nominate Milnes either). Shrug.
@ 181 First thing I’d do is clean George off like a pelican.
I thought you were a George Phillies supporter?
Carolyn’s statement of our purpose and strategy @172 should be etched in something and read at every LP meeting. Nailed it.
I hold elective office, but I don’t consider myself “elected”. My election was a walkover due to only me and one incumbent filing for the three available seats. I was monitoring the uncontested seats, and signed up for one so that Takenaga and Lieberman couldn’t lecture me any more about their “farm team” strategy. Now I’m on track to repeal ~10 pages of ordinances about landscaping irrigation, and I’m likely to win re-election in 2012 as I’ll be holding the rotating Board chairmanship then. But I’ll go as high and as far as I have to, to get to my first defeat so I can tell those guys “see? farm-team strategy doesn’t work.” 🙂
@177 says, “Carolyn, you are brainwashed.”
You mean we SHOULD be moping about Barr not being elected? I don’t think even BARR is moping about Barr not being elected.
Seriously, Milnes, you’re kind of a one-note sonata here.
You seem to buy into the notion that it’s all about the Presidential race and that the sun will shine and the birds will sing and all will be right with the world as soon as you get elected President . Yep. Nothing but hope and change, as far as the eye can see. Where have we heard that before?
How’s that hopey changey thing going to work for you, though, with NO support in Congress or the Senate, NO support in the state legislatures, NO support amongst the lobbyists or the special interests… Exactly how much policy do you suppose you could implement that way?
And he calls ME brainwashed…
Everybody-send me 35 million INSTEAD of the Pauls. I’ll get all the ballots Either a LP OR GP candidate gets on WON. First thing I’d do is clean George off like a pelican. Then I’d get the LP& GP together & knock their heads. Then, every lower level candidate knock on every door & educate the voters about PLAS. We need a PLAS website to refer to & coordinate from.
George isn’t in The Nile. He is in The Gulf of LP covered with right wing oily goop.
Carolyn @ 175 – Exactly!
Bonus link:
http://www.myspace.com/jordanpagemusic
Michael, you are deluded & in The Nile.
Carolyn, you are brainwashed.
Michael, Carolyn, just admit you are in The Crazy Losers Club & pass the lube, ok?
Dude, we win more than just “on occasion.” We just don’t win the really sexy races yet.
Prop 215 = WIN.
2008’s defeat of Prop 4 and most of the other Props = WIN.
John Inks = WIN.
Norm Westwell = WIN.
Judge Jim Gray = WIN.
Brian Holtz = WIN. (Yeah, I said it. 😛 Dude was elected.)
I don’t even know how many other Libertarians across the state are holding office — LOTS — and they’re all a big fat hairy WIN.
This coming November where CA will vote to legalize marijuana will be a WIN.
I know, I’m annoyingly optimistic, and I tend to be a glass-half-full person, but seriously, if we just mope around about how boo hoo we don’t manage to elect Bob Barr as President (and honestly, why are we moping about THAT?) then we will just get more and more… well, defeated. And I don’t DO defeated.
Caroyn @172 has it right on the money.
To extend the baseball analogy, we’re the Charlie Browns of politics. We keep losing, getting knocked out of our clothes by line drives, yet we go out there again and try again.
And we do win some on occassion.
Carolyn, the how is a TBD. You do have a valid point.
Milnes, when I want party advice from a mentally ill person, you’ll be the third person I ask, right behind 1. everyone else and 2. Holtz.
@Milnes, 171, not necessarily. We can influence the system directly by being elected, by passing or defeating propositions, sure. And that happens occasionally. We have people in CA who keep getting reelected to office as Libertarians. We had Judge Gray on the bench for a good long time. That stuff’s awesome, and we like to keep doing that. But in order to do that successfully and keep the party’s activists strong and well funded, we need the visibility we get by running candidates that may not necessarily win — Presidential, Congressional, Senate…
We can also influence the system indirectly when our candidates are seen as spoilers. If the GOP candidate believes he’s losing votes to the Libertarian candidate, he will bend his message more Libertarian to try to minimize that, the result being that more people get to hear and appreciate a Libertarian message even if he reverts to being the same old statist he always was. Chances are he won’t, though, because he knows those same people are watching. The same Libertarian’s waiting in the wings to “steal his votes,” even though WE all know that’s a fallacy. We don’t steal their votes. We earn OUR votes. 🙂
So that old adage your father told you after you lost the baseball game turns out to be true. It’s not whether you win or lose but how you play the game. What prop 14 has done is say we’re not even allowed on the field.
Michael Seebeck@159, yeah, I have a question. So? That’s not going to work. You manage to get into the primary & lose. Before you ran & lose. Lose = lose, doesn’t it?
Paulie, check your email. 🙂 Phone is charging, or I would have called. Maybe we can talk later.
Come on, Tom, none of this is going to work. The LNC is broke or near broke & dominated by rightists who are only interested in TAKING LP wherewithall for rightist candidates and/or GOP candidates. Snitker should be honest & say the truth that he is rightist & THEREFORE deserving of disproportionate support.
What’s with you anyway? The solution is PLAS via BTP. You have abndoned them & still fool around with LP.
That goes for you, too, George.
Carolyn Marbry // Jun 9, 2010 at 1:21 pm
@159, a list of goals is not a plan. It’s PART of a plan. The other part of the plan is how you’re going to accomplish the goals.
You should have received my email about that by now.
Bob,
I hope I’m wrong about the Snitker campaign — I hope that he can get into real contention.
I don’t even have a problem with the LNC scoping out the situation and evaluating whether or not an investment is in order.
BUT … let’s not pretend that shoveling every available dime at this or that allegedly winnable race is a proven tactic. Historically, it has been a failed approach.
Would a national party investment:
– Elevate Snitker into real contention two win the race? (This strikes me as unlikely, but let’s soberly appraise it)
– Make Snitker enough of a factor to force Rubio, Crist and Meek toward more libertarian policy approaches — not just during the campaign, but once in office so as to court re-election? (Less unlikely, but let’s see what the opportunities look like)
– Make Snitker enough of a factor that after the election the LP will be able to tell a narrowly losing candidate’s party “see, if you had nominated a more libertarian candidate, he’d have won,” thus encouraging them to look for a more libertarian nominee next time? (This strikes me as a very likely outcome — so, how much money is it worth to achieve it?)
And of course Snitker’s campaign has to compete with other races all over the country on actual/potential “bang for buck” grounds for any candidate support money the LNC might decide to spend.
tk, I generally agree with your assessment of national funds for state races…. I also recall the $15K number…guess I could go back and research what GP was saying back then about whether the LNC should fund an L running on a non-L-line special election, but I recall it differently than you do.
Also agree with your assessment of the Kennedy effort, and my gut says you’ve got the Snitker campaign reasonably well scoped.
I would hope the LNC manages to have a candidate page with Mr. Snitker on it, or manages to mention him on their front page on occasion, as we eventually persuaded them to do for Mr. Kennedy. I even hope you find it less work than we did.
And you may rest assured that Massachusetts Libertarians will not urge Floridians to vote for one of Mr. Snitker’s Republican fascist opponents, or his Democratic socialist oponents, rather than voting for Mr. Snitker…despite the unfortunate example of one of our “Libertarian” state chairs up here in New England, who was urging libertarians to support torture advocate Scott Brown.
For the record:
1) I have no problem with the LNC financially supporting key campaigns that offer a substantial likelihood of improving the party’s situation.
2) I have no problem with Snitker’s US Senate campaign, and if it meets some kind of objective criterion of being likely to produce gains or situational improvements for the party, hell, go for it.
That said, last time I looked Snitker was polling at 2.5% in a race that looks tight as a drum — meaning that the cost-per-vote of the undecideds is going to escalate like hell between now and November — and in which any amount of money the LNC might dispose of for candidate support would be a drop in the bucket compared to what Rubio, Crist or even Meek can be expected to spend.
My guess is that Snitker will poll about 1% if he runs a standard LP campaign, and that dumping a million bucks onto his campaign from on high (as opposed to raising it from the Florida grass roots which, if successful, would tie donors as voters to him) might get him up as high as 3-4%. Maybe.
Bob,
I don’t recall George advocating “financial support” from the LNC for Kennedy’s campaign. I could be wrong on that.
What I do recall is George advocating that the LNC publicly recognize Kennedy as the Libertarian candidate for US Senate in Massachusetts.
At issue was the fact that Kennedy got on the ballot for ~$15,000 under the new “Liberty” label instead of spending ~$80,000 to get on the “Libertarian” ballot line (Massachusetts makes it more expensive for “established” parties to get on the ballot by requiring that only voters registered with that party, or as independents, sign petitions — “new” parties can gather signatures from all voters).
@159, a list of goals is not a plan. It’s PART of a plan. The other part of the plan is how you’re going to accomplish the goals.
More to the point, what is LPCA going to do DIFFERENTLY to achieve these goals? Because if it were possible to double our reglibs and SCC members with our current methods, we would already have done so many times over.
My feeling is that we need to create events or at least be an exciting presence at existing events like music festivals and freedom fairs and campus events. I’m not talking about a dreary little black-and-white table full of white papers in the corner of the Upland street fair. I’m talking about color and excitement and audacity. I’m talking about stepping OUT and engaging people in a fun way that grabs their attention. One idea would be to have people willing to dress in (quality) costumes like the founding fathers, for example, and wander around actively engaging people and drawing them in instead of people in t-shirts and jeans sitting glassy-eyed behind a table.
I’m talking about an organized, coordinated and obviously “has-their-s**t-together” presence, not just a couple of random people wearing tricornes and self consciously handing out literature. Yes, that would take some coaching, but it’s certainly doable. I know a few people who do this kind of thing all the time. 🙂
Over the top? Hell yeah, this stuff is over the top, because over the top works in marketing, especially when the basic product is not that flashy. Contrary to what the media will tell you, Pringles are NOT better than sex.
Good grief, all we do lately is bore people to death. We need to get them excited or all is lost.
But all that flash and panache will do is draw them in, get their attention, get them to look closer. We need more than that. We’ve shown them how cool and how excited we are, now we need to KEEP their attention.
So we need an issue like legalization that “real” people care about. Too bad there’s no initiative about something terribly Libertarian like legalizing marijuana coming up in November. Oh wait…!
So anyway, you get the idea. That’s the part of the plan I would like to see — the HOW part.
gp, can you square your opinion of supporting Snitker and your view of supporting Joe Kennedy from National? I agree that the LNC needs to be strategic about which candidates it supports, but I seem to recall your passionately calling for financial support for Kennedy in your home state, despite the fact that he was running as an independent. (Correct me if I mis-recall.)
@158
I am in favor of Floridians supporting Mr Snitker and other local Floridians. Try again.
I am not in favor of people in other states sending money to Florida rather than spending the money on their own candidates, especially based on the arguments you are using. This is especially true of states where local parties are weak. We have been down your road many many times, and it is still paved with good intentions.
Plan B is simple, with a few side details:
1. LPCA’s first goal is to ensure that we maintian our ballot access by having at least one statewide office candidate (US Senate doesn’t count) get 2% in the November election.
2. LPCA’s second goal is to double its registered L and State Central Committee numbers by Election Day 2014 to keep out ballot access for the primaries. That’s 88000 registrations and I’m not sure how many SCCs.
Any questions?
@George
Your statements here seem to be in direct conflict with what you proposed in the New Path agenda.
The following was taken from NewPathForTheLP.org
“What should we do to rise above our challenges?
– Listen to our members and activists, the people in the trenches who are doing the real political work of our party.”
– Recruit and Support Candidates. Focus our resources on doing real politics.”
George, I am one of those “people in the trenches”. I serve on a committee for the LPF. I am vice-chair of my county affiliate, and I am the media director for Snitker for Senate campaign. I volunteer 30 hours per week of my time to the LP. I am doing the “the real political work of our party.” But, you seem to discount my opinions ab initio. Why?
Also, you are opposed to supporting candidates, even though that is a stated mission of New Path. Why?
Can you explain the contradiction between your statements in this forum and the New Path agenda? Just give me a synopsis, I don’t want to buy your book.
@151
Well, if we had known what the votes would be, we might not have wasted any time and money running for Chair, Vice Chair, etc. However, at the point that I might have run for At-Large — I talked with lots of people afterward, and that idea was not raised very little — the expected votes were known. The likelihood of winning was small, and if I had run and lost a different crew of nattering nabobs of negativism would be attacking me for losing twice, as opposed to attacking me for losing once.
I do not see how I could have run and not drained any votes from people I had promised to support. I kept my promise.
Also, if I had won, another group of people would have complained that being Editor/Publisher of Liberty For America would have raised conflict of interest issues. Unlike the other folks, they would have had a legitimate point.
#148, I’ve heard John Famularo started to realize the presidential race bullshit was being piled ever higher and deeper beginning in 1991 when Marrou beat Boddie (who warned everyone about the definition of insanity). To his credit, John did yeoman work helping LNC with computer issues, and serving as Secretary, but retained his skepticism about the LP’s path until his unfortunate death last year.
Adrian,
You write:
“the benchmark of a political party is the candidates they have in office”
That’s one benchmark. It’s not the only one.
The goal of a political party is to implement its policy proposals — all of them if possible, as many as it can if it can’t implement all of them.
The shortest, most direct route to doing so is electing candidates to office who can and will implement those policies.
That is not, however, the only route or even necessarily the one most likely to be open at any given time.
And, of course, there’s the simple, indisputable fact that the vehicle you recommend for getting us down that road is one that has never moved us so much as an inch down it in 40 years of trying. So even if we’re going to emphasize that route, we might want to bop on over to Big Joe’s New and Used Kia dealership to look at other vehicles instead of just putting more money into the lemon we’re driving now.
Shane, Paulie, the LNC pulled into the black in March of ‘07 and has stayed there pretty much since then with a growing reserve. It was the first time we were debt free since ‘02, if not longer.
Thanks.
Leadership should be comfortable with prospect testing and doing what we should be doing like opposing Prop. 14 and supporting candidates.
Hopefully that will be the case this term, as that was part of the key campaign planks of winning candidates including Hinkle and Oaksun.
Paulie, the LNC pulled into the black in March of ’07 and has stayed there pretty much since then with a growing reserve. It was the first time we were debt free since ’02, if not longer.
Leadership should be comfortable with prospect testing and doing what we should be doing like opposing Prop. 14 and supporting candidates.
Carolyn @ 65, agreed completely. In response to your question, a year or two ago the LNC was still trying to get out of the red IIRC, and only now is starting to have some money it can begin to put to uses such as the one I suggested to several people in an email a few minutes ago. I’ll send you a courtesy copy, although you are not on the state or national committees as far as could determine from websites.
@107 – George, I still don’t understand. If you were willing to run for Chair and not consider that a waste of the delegates’ time, I don’t grok how running at-large is a waste of time. Likewise, if you could assemble a slate while candidate for Chair, why couldn’t you at once endorse those you believe in *and* make yourself available? Still comes off as an all-or-nothing gambit, which I find distasteful.
Jeremy @ 61,
Not much time to organize all that immediately upon being elected. But, I’m talking to several folks about a Plan B to turn lemons into lemonade now.
@139
People like you wasted a decade and much of our party’s free resources for that time, by using an obviously ineffective strategy time after time after time.
There are things we can do to build a stronger party, but your proposal is not on the list.
@143
It has been my uniform experience that people who invoke athletic analogies, as a replacement for sound analysis, as opposed using them for a little window dressing, do not have a leg to stand on. ‘swing for the fences’… what a pointless absence of an argument…not to mention being a weak method of getting your ball through the next wicket.
The benchmark of a political party is the size of your voter base. Of course, this statement only works with people who know what ‘voter base’ is.
Fortunately I have assembled in Let Freedom Ring! a list of this old campaigns and how badly they did, with more in my book, and I think I shall need to start reprinting the analysis, so that the educable part of our membership can see clearly how bad your advice is.
John Famularo spent much of his later life telling people about this issue.
But don’t worry…you are not taking the prize for bad advice…that goes to the dimbulb who told the San Francisco County Party not to worry about Prop 14, that the major parties would block it. We are searching to see of that was minuted so that the name can be attached to the guiding genius of an advisor.
With respect to ‘there were not tea parties’, the tea party people as a whole are farther from being Libertarian than are the American people as a whole, on a wide range of issues. Xenophobia, paranoia, and unlimited willingness to fall for conspiracy nonsense are not Libertarian traits.
George
George Whitfield // Jun 7, 2010 at 11:20 pm
Thanks George Phillies for the report on the LNC Meeting. And Tom thanks for identifying the Always Look on the Bright Side of Life LP Caucus. I think that is the one for me.
I nominate Mr. Whitfield for caucus chair.
LAKE quotes Tom Knapp as having said: “It’s not nice to lie, Paulie.
————– The LP’s political director didn’t ‘order’ LPMA state officers to do anything, because he had no authority to order them to do anything.”
p) Again, as I said at the time, I did not lie. Issuing an order does not mean one has the authority to issue an order. For example, police and security guards frequently issue what most people interpret as orders, although they actually have no authority to do anything in those situations except make a request.
Shane // Mar 3, 2010 at 2:55 pm
“Paulie, that’s how I remember it. Tom’s embellishing a bit by stating that I “instantly fired” anyone. It was more like anti-Barr writers instantly quit. I didn’t even actively manage the site and handed it off to an employee.”
59 Thomas L. Knapp // Jun 7, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Don,
Thanks for citing two more truthful statements on my part.
P) It was not true to say that I lied. And Shane is correct. People quit at TPW. I’m not aware of anyone actually being fired. We did have our press credentials pulled, although I for one eventually had mine restored.
Didn’t both major parties oppose it?
Not very much.
Didn’t the minority communities (gays, hispanics, women, etc) oppose it?
We will need more data to know, but the answer appears to be ‘not really’. Besides, in a minority-majority district, TopTwo lets the minority in the majority shut out the local minorities from the ballot.
As I feared: $15K Flushed.Down.The.Toilet.
That much less for a legal challenge.
Who the hell was behind the 60% who supported #14? Didn’t both major parties oppose it? Didn’t the minority communities
(gays, hispanics, women, etc) oppose it? CLP should have been out there sowing the fear:
“What chance do your gay candidates have in the primaries now that the haters in the other party and the independents can vote to defeat them?” Let’s turn the primaries into a circus so that people come to their senses and repeal this shit.
Thomas, the benchmark of a political party is the candidates they have in office. Our highest elected position in the nation is a city council of a medium-size city. In Florida, our highest position is the mayor of a small town.
It could be argued that NOTHING the LP has done has ever been effective. Therefore, are you proposing that we do nothing whatsoever, because it’s failed in the past? By that logic, one could conclude that the best course of action is to disband the party. Or perhaps just become a social club, which I feel is the intent of some within the party.
I say that we need to swing for the fences. The political climate has never been better than right now. There were not tea parties when this tactic was tried in the past. Talking heads on TV and radio were not describing themselves as little “l” libertarians in the past. In the past, we did not have an electorate disenchanted with BOTH major political parties.
Today those things are happening.
This is a unique opportunity in history. If we do not take the risk, there is ZERO possibility of success.
“If Edison gave up after a few failures, we’d still be sitting in the dark.”
And if Edison had stubbornly continued to insist on platinum rather than carbonized bamboo as the filament, or had decided that it wasn’t worth investing in a Sprengel pump to get a better vacuum, same thing.
Phillies is not arguing that the LP should give up. He is, however, arguing that we should move on from failed approaches to new ones.
haha right never double down unless your winning,
Adrian,
Read your history.
This “put all our eggs in the basket of one candidate who’s not doing to badly and insists that he can win” strategy has been tried over and over and over.
It has Failed. Every. Time.
You say you’re tired of being a member of a dysfunctional, ineffective party, yet here you are shouting from the rooftop that the LP should double down on decades dysfunctional, ineffective tactics.
George, your defeatist attitude bewilders me. Thinking like yours will insure that we never achieve viability on the national stage, and I am relieved that you were not elected chair. I have no personal conflict with you, but I believe that your brand of though is the cause of the LP’s stagnation.
Every major breakthrough in human history was preceded by multiple failures. If Edison gave up after a few failures, we’d still be sitting in the dark. How many vaccines failed before Salk got it right? As a child, I fell off my bike several times before I learned to ride.
George, do you know how to ride a bike?
We are already at the legal maximum in state committee aid for our non-Federal candidates.
@135
We have been here before. I urge readers unfamiliar woth this to reach the analysis in Stand Up For Lierty http:/3mpub.com/phillies and the period coverage in Let Freedom Ring! available on the cmlc.org web page.
On the bright side, chronicling what is about to happen will give me plenty of material for Liberty for America magazine LibertyForAmerica.com as the new gang of suspects repeats the catastrophically bad decisions of the old gang of suspects.
As some of my students say, I will in office hours suffer fools patiently, but in lecture I much prefer to make anonymous fools suffer.
As for my state party, we have an all-time record number of people who say they are running for Congress, and we are busy helping them.
@134
This was the 1995-2002 strategy. It failed very badly, even at resources/voter investments well above anything that we can manage in even the smallest of states for a statewide campaign. For example, the Libertarian John Coon campaign put a campaign video recording on the doorknob of every voter, did multiple contacts et tedious cetera. The Libertarian finished behind the lower DR who ran a paper campaign.
The giant campaign strategy did not work because it is wrong. It does not correspond to how people decide for whom they are going to vote.
I did encourage Floridians to support their own candidates. Having people from every state send their money someplace else is like taking a shakey wheel and replacing one spoke with structural platinum, a platinum spoke, incidentally, too thin to support much weight.
“Smith appeared on Faux News” is very bad news for our party, because most Americans other than far rightists who have nailed themselves to the wheel of the Republican ship do not take Faux news seriously as a news source, and they tend to tag our other candidates with the same brush.
Good post Adrian # 134 ! You get it.
George, if we never support candidates the LP might as well be a debate club. I have been a Libertarian since 1992, and I am tired of being a member of a dysfunctional, ineffective party. You seem to desire nothing more than being a big fish in a little pond of insignificant intellectuals. You shrink from a challenge like an abused dog.
Our objective is to restore liberty to America. We will never do that by talking to ourselves. We will never do that by infighting. We will never do that by neglecting and attacking our candidates.
We can only restore liberty to America by getting our candidates elected to high state and federal office. City councils and dog catcher positions are not going to restore the Constitution. If you truly want to grow the party, which I am beginning to doubt, you would support the most viable candidates we have in the biggest races. Winning fixes everything.
We have an opportunity in Florida to change the game. We have an opportunity to, if not win, at least provide the LP with the most exposure they will get in the 2010 election cycle. In fact, Alex was in the Fox News studio in New York yesterday for a interview with Judge Napolitano. He’s doing 2-3 radio and TV interviews and 2-3 speaking appearances per week. He has over 100 volunteers working on the campaign. If you search for the words “libertarian” and “senate” in Google, 6 of the top 10 results are about Alex, including the first three. Why in the world would you object to supporting him?
“of the people who knew us (1 in 6) we are polling at 12%. ”
12% of 17% is around 2%.
The LPNH candidate for Governor, two years back, was at 5%, and he at least had a 3-way race.
Carolyn, you never heard the 2 ideas connected before because I just made it. If the LP & GP had one candidate from EITHER party on each ballot-in CA for example-they could combine their vote in the primary. That would make a three way top tier of dem/rep/PLAS candidates which would probably wind up PLAS v dem or rep as Top 2.
It would then be VERY close in November at a theoretical PLAS 40, combined dem/rep vote 60- going to the dem or rep? We don’t now how that would go.
Brain on Hold @129, correct. No donations on my paypal button either. I do not count the $1 from Tom K. which was basically to test it. & Ron Paul, GOP reactionary got 35 million & Obama, liberal democrat faux progressive got, well gazillions. So, what is your point, the best candidate got the least contributions in 2008?
Alexander Snitker, I wish your candidacy well. I hope you win. In fact notwithstanding what I say, I hope the libs & LP contribute generously to your campaign. So they can relearn over again the lesson. Didn’t you read what Prof. Phillies wrote? It has been tried before. Don’t you remember the Kennedy campaign for Senate last year for example? He polled in upper single digits. Extraordinary circumstances. Wound up with around 1%. Please listen to Prof. Phillies. I have found him to be consistently correct very nearly 100% of the time.
@124 reminds me: in addition to no endorsement or vote from any LP delegate, Milnes has (by his own complaint) never gotten a donation to his presidential campaign.
I was on the ballot in CA LP for prez in 2008.
I also paid by credit card to participate in the LP presidential candidates’ debate at the PA/NJ convention in 2008. Root was there. Well, he’s everywhere, isn’t he?
Thanks, Holtz, for clarifying it. Indeed I have seen that being floated all around, and I’ve also already been asked to do this, and I believe I’ve already declined at least once. Just never heard the two ideas connected ere now.
Here is What George wrote
“We did have Mr. Snitker, who is running in Florida with a very well-organized campaign, claim that he had a serious chance of winning and should be given all resources possible. Snitker is in a four way race, the Florida governor having bolted his party to run as an independent against his party’s presumptive nominee. Historically, the press has mental problems coping with more than one third-party candidate. We have tried Snitker’s proposed approach of throwing all our resources at one candidate repeatedly, most recently in Mr. Badnarik’s 2006 Congressional campaign. Note also the Murray Sabrin Campaign in New Jersey, at least one campaign in Michigan, and arguably one campaign in Massachusetts. The approach has always failed. Mr. Snitker is doing what he can with his resources. It appears to be a good investment for Floridians; others would do better to keep their money in their home state.”
The conditions in the country have changed. We are so close to breaking the two party system. In Florida we did a poll and of the people who knew us (1 in 6) we are polling at 12%. All candidates lost support but we pulled from the Democrat the most. Here is a copy of the letter I gave out when I spoke.
“Why the entire Libertarian Party should fully support the campaign of Alexander Snitker in the 2010 Florida Senate Race.
http://www.Snitker2010.com [email protected]
I wanted to personally write a letter to all the members of the Libertarian party to give you some information and plead my case as to why you should support my campaign. We have never been closer to striking a major blow to the two party system. The U.S. Senate race in Florida has a Libertarian challenging Marco Rubio (R), Gov. Charlie Crist (NPA), and Kendrick Meek (D).
All three are career politicians. All three have shown themselves to be corrupt. With a viable Libertarian candidate, the voters will not overlook the indiscretions of my competition.
In a four-way race, I only need 30% of the vote to win. Let me say that again…30% to tear down the political class. In a poll released on May 27th, I was polling at 12% among likely Florida voters who were familiar with me. With the proper funding, winning 30% of the vote — and winning this election — is within reach.
We are closer than the political establishment and the media would want you to know. The political establishment wants to control the conversation. The media wants to select the candidates. We’re changing the paradigm.
We’ve put together a complete plan to win this election. Email [email protected] and we will send you a copy of this detailed plan.
We have many supporters in the tea parties all over the state. There are other strong groups in Florida that will get behind this campaign when we show them that Libertarians all over the country are behind us. This race has national coverage and is the biggest race in 2010. We already have a debate scheduled for September, and three more are in the works.
We have a core staff that includes a campaign manager, marketing team, media team, events staff, volunteer coordinating staff, research and policy team, regional campaign directors and 100+ volunteers. Our official web site consistently receives more traffic than Meek’s site, and roughly the same as Rubio and Crist – more traffic on some days depending on the news cycle.
A win for the Libertarian party in the Florida U.S. Senate race would deal a blow to the Republican establishment and stop their rising star Marco Rubio. This candidate is the standard bearer for this party and can be beaten. A win for us in this election would give us nearly the same national attention as a presidential campaign. A Libertarian win in Florida will be the catalyst for wins all over the country.
We have the candidate. We have the people. We have the plan. All we need is your generous support.
In Liberty
Alexander Snitker
Libertarian Candidate for US Senate
I know the names of every single person on the calling list, and to those people, and they know who they are, thank you for your efforts, and I ain’t naming names. 🙂
Carolyn, can you translate Holtzspeak into English?
I let my LP dues lapse. Along with my cable tv, weekly take out pizza & auto registration & websites etc.
However I still have a website up& it has a paypal donations button(hint, hint): http://milnes2008.freeservers.com/
Carolyn Marbry, isn’t Mono county where Kit Carson’s daughter died of starvation/hypothermia?
How bad does it have to get before SOMEBODY would be willing to try PLAS?
PLAS (“Progessive-Libertarian Alliance Strategy”) is the name of the fantasy that a presidential ticket could attract the entirety of both the “progressive” vote (~20%?) and the libertarian-leaning vote (13%-20%) if it added a left-leaning woman for V.P. to the presidential ticket of Robert Milnes. Milnes’s web site said he was a candidate for the LP presidential nomination and was candid about his stalking conviction, his history of mental illness, his SSI disability, and his efforts to avoid homelessness. It turns out that Milnes has never been an LP officer or candidate, has never been an LP delegate or had the support of one, and isn’t even an LP dues-payer. Milnes trolls IPR promoting his “PLAS” while insulting the LP and its leaders, and lately says the LP should be abandoned in favor of the Boston Tea micro-Party.
PLAS is a bad idea from the very first letter, if only because libertarians should not cede the “progressive” label to nanny-state leftists. PLAS would also have Libertarians throw away their vote to any Green Party candidate, no matter how socialist, who happens to enter a race before any Libertarian does.
PLAS gives a bad name to some good ideas that are superficially similar, like green libertarianism.
17.3%, holding around 60/40.
But hey, we’re winning Mono County (so far, with one precinct reporting out of 13). Hey, gotta take the silver linings where we find ’em.
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/maps/prop14.htm
What is PLAS? I’m sure it’s something that’s been talked to death here in the past, but I’ve not heard of it, or if I have, not by that acronym.
13% and still about 60/40.
Stocks in robertmilnes.net rising.
Carolyn, how about you? If Prop 14 passes, would you be willing to try PLAS?
For overall percentages:
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/props/59.htm
For county-by-county:
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/status.htm
Right now we’re at 10.6% of precincts reporting, and we’re at 60.1 for, 39.9 against on prop 14.
Brain on Hold, where are you getting this info?
If Prop 14 passes will you be willing to try PLAS?
With 8.6% of precincts starting to report results, Prop 14 is ahead 60.4% to 39.6%.
Meanwhile, out in the real world, and courtesy new Four-Corners Region state New Hampshire:
New Hampshire “Libertarian candidates for state and federal offices will file their candidacy paperwork with the Secretary of State’s office on Wednesday morning. Following that will be a brief press conference at 10:00AM at the Legislative Office Building. Speaking at the press conference will be gubernatorial candidate John Babiarz, US Senate candidate Ken Blevins and others.
http://lpnh.org/“
Michael: “JT, there has already been talk if this passes in CA of it spreading to at least MI and OH, and possibly further, so yes, it certainly can doom all third parties in perpetuity, which is why we’re trying to stop it here and now.”
I didn’t say it couldn’t; I said I don’t think it will. It’s certainly worth trying to stop there, and I never said otherwise.
Tom’s right. I AM on the list, I DID make calls, though not nearly as many as I’d have liked, but if I thought for a moment my participation or level of participation or even lack of participation would be used to manipulate either myself or opinion about me by those running the system, I would not participate again. I doubt Tom and I are alone in that sentiment.
I understand the use of call statistics and competition to try to get people to make more calls, but making that information available to other participants opens the information up to abuse, whether by the admins or by other users.
Doug,
You write:
“I did notice I did not see georges name on the call list for making calls against prop 14”
This is the second time I’ve seen someone identified, without so much as a “do you mind?” as either a caller or non-caller against Prop 14 via LibertyManager.
The site’s privacy policy is unspecified (here it is: “Information you provide to us on this site may be used to contact you. For further information on our privacy policy, [ADD LINK],” but obviously sucks.
I was the person mentioned as a caller and didn’t particularly mind, but damned if I’ll be signing up again until I can know that the people running this thing will respect the privacy of the participants.
JT, there has already been talk if this passes in CA of it spreading to at least MI and OH, and possibly further, so yes, it certainly can doom all third parties in perpetuity, which is why we’re trying to stop it here and now.
Louisiana was the poster child to do it wrong. Washington was the first trial balloon to supposedly do it “right.” Oregon was the second and it blew up. Now California. Who’s next?
Jeremy: “Brian and JT, I haven’t been lacking specifics — on the contrary, I said exactly what I wanted the LNC to do: hit up rich people whose ads could actually make a difference. It’s a plan that has little likelihood of working, but it’s the only plan that has even a chance of succeeding (i.e., actually defeating the bill).”
What Brian said @ 101. “Hit up rich people” isn’t specifics, Jeremy. You can try to contact random wealthy people in Calif. like the founders of Google, but I don’t think they’ll take your calls. And something tells me there aren’t a lot of millionaires in the LP, nevermind a lot of them who each want to sink six-figure donations into opposing a state initiative, even if it’s in Calif.
Jeremy: “And Brian makes a false equivalence between voting for a politician who can’t win and failing to defeat a bill whose success will doom all third parties in perpetuity. It’s just not comparable.”
Sorry, I’m strongly opposed to Prop. 14, but I don’t really think it will “doom all third parties in perpetuity” (I don’t even care at all about the futures of other third parties besides the LP). And I don’t think blaming the new national LP chairman, who has in fact taken an active role against it, is right either.
You’re right, I forgot the except clause, which was a big except. Try again
Mike: Simple math. There were already 13 At-Large candidates. I was already pledged to support four of them — five until Charles Wilhoit withdrew. The four were Ruwart, Wrights, Hill, and Gray, all of whom potentially faced significant challenges.
The lack of votes the prior day, and the defeat of all New Path candidates to date except James Oaksun, who appeared to have benefited from a 110-150 vote shift relative to our other candidates, said at most the people I was supporting had no votes to spare, and there was no sensible reason to suppose I had the votes needed to win. Nor was I hearing support at-convention for a run. So why should I waste the time of the delegates?
James Oaksun was not defeated.
@104
Mike: Simple math. There were already 13 At-Large candidates. I was already pledged to support four of them — five until Charles Wilhoit withdrew. The four were Ruwart, Wrights, Hill, and Gray, all of whom potentially faced significant challenges.
The lack of votes the prior day, and the defeat of all New Path candidates to date, said at most the people I was supporting had no votes to spare, and there was no sensible reason to suppose I had the votes needed to win. Nor was I hearing support at-convention for a run. So why should I waste the time of the delegates?
George, I don’t understand why you and Ernie Hancock did not seek an at-large position. Is the LNC only something good enough to Chair or throw rocks at? Why all or nothing? Is this ego?
Trent @ 89, for what it’s worth, it looks like we may get our wish as far as low voter turn out overall with higher voter turn out in the third parties and those who specifically want to see this proposition defeated.
So I’m still hopeful. I’m still calling my friends, calling people I know who are NOT third party voters and who might otherwise not have bothered voting this time, to get out and vote no on this thing, and they’ve been very supportive.
If by some miracle we do manage to defeat this proposition, credit must go where credit is due, and that’s to the leadership in CA and to the LNC both before the convention and after who pulled together a total of $25k in the eleventh hour, and to Wayne Root who used his considerable media pull to help fight this thing, and to Flood who not only pushed for the additional $15k but has been cracking the whip on the volunteers getting them to call people.
BH@101:
““Doom all third parties in perpetuity”? Are you saying the LPCA should disband when tonight we find out that Prop 14 has passed?”
Seems to me that the game just changes: The field tilts upward some more; so, we grow stronger legs and dig in our cleats.
What “rich people”? It would have taken millions of dollars to move the needle on Prop 14. Unless Hinkle had both a time machine and the Koch brothers on his speed dial, “hitting up rich people” simply was not a serious or actionable plan for him stopping Prop 14 once elected Chair.
“Doom all third parties in perpetuity”? Are you saying the LPCA should disband when tonight we find out that Prop 14 has passed?
Brian and JT, I haven’t been lacking specifics — on the contrary, I said exactly what I wanted the LNC to do: hit up rich people whose ads could actually make a difference. It’s a plan that has little likelihood of working, but it’s the only plan that has even a chance of succeeding (i.e., actually defeating the bill).
And Brian makes a false equivalence between voting for a politician who can’t win and failing to defeat a bill whose success will doom all third parties in perpetuity. It’s just not comparable.
Jeremy: “@73, defeating the Prop isn’t realistic at this point, if it ever was. “Reasonable” measures are going to have the same effect as doing nothing — the Prop passes. What we need now is a Hail Mary — that’s the only shot at defeating it.”
You criticized Hinkle specifically for not taking decisive action on this issue. But you have no specifics about what actions should have been taken that weren’t, other than to say we should have hit up big donors who aren’t in the LP anymore except for Bob Barr. Stomping your foot and saying, “It’s crucial to defeat this…somehow!” doesn’t cut it. It’s extremely difficult to defeat a proposition that has the strong backing of the political machines behind it and is being (falsely) sold as reforming the political process, no matter what you do. But like other Libertarians, Hinkle certainly has tried.
@95 You started supporting me, and then you dumped me for Barr. Then this year you said you were supporting me, and then you dropped me for someone.
For the record, I have been hitting another underexploited market, namely Facebook Ads. I generated somewhat over 800,000 impressions, about 10% specifically to libertarians, and the rest to the general public. Facebook and AdWords ads are another way to spend money at the last moment.
I remember using it about 6 years ago on a Texas race.
Doug, ask Stewart, but it’s my belief that it may not have been ready before now? I could be wrong on that.
For what it is worth I thought the LNC meeting went great. Barr supporter ? I am from Georgia we thought it would be great for our state party. I was wrong but George does not mention I worked on his campaign first two years ago.I voted for Hancock on the first two rounds then Hinkle.
I believe we have a great team and i do believe george is be bitter. I am not sure about this talk about banning George from the party I welcome all who will help the party grow.
I am not sure why we have not been using this http://www.libertymanager.com but this website kicks butt I did notice I did not see georges name on the call list for making calls against prop 14
If anyone wants to see what I think you can go to http://www.crazyforliberty.com you can read about 4 years of my thoughts on the LP
I am ready for the whinning to stop because this is going to be a great year for the LP 🙂
“We need low turnout, heavy turnout amongst third parties and opponents of Prop 14, and low turnout amongst moderates.”
We may get exactly that. Here’s why:
1. Turnout predicted to be low because of no excitement among Democrats for their races. That benefits us because the Democrats haven’t done much visible to fight Prop 14. The Republicans have to figure out their Senate and Governor candidates, so they’ll get a higher turnout, but the GOP has done at least a little visible work against Prop 14.
2. The LPCA phone bank has passed 7000 calls and is still going, and the word is getting out through other means as well beyond the LPCA and beyond F&E. That helps as well.
3. Moderates tend to be low turnout at primaries in general because in the primaries the races pull towards the party extremes, which turn them off, and uncontested races or races where the nominee is pretty much a slam dunk don’t get their attention either. That too works in our favor.
4. Cross-pollination into the tea parties can help as well, since there are a lot of those running for party central committee today, especially in the GOP. They get it on Prop 14 too.
Keep in mind folks, that while dice have no memory, voters can, and Prop 62 was defeated not too long ago 54-46. That’s an intangible.
One other thing: we chose radio because nobody else was doing it, hence a gap-fill; and it had the best reach potential of audience vs. cost, or as I informally put it, most bounce to the ounce.
Trent,
In the props, never assume an undecided is a yes vote. You have a point, but the favor %age is what matters, and that is on the edge of failure, and pushing it over that edge has always been the goal. It’s different than say, Prop 8, where the battle was to increase the favor %age to pass it (which failed). It’s far easier to defeat a prop than to pass one, which was also to our benefit.
We’ve caught a lot of breaks the past week and a half. Whether they all line up to Prop 14 losing and us winning will be determined in about 8 hours or so.
But I still think a 65% range of pass is crazy. I see it much more like 51-52% if at all.
AFT never saw the buy plan. I did. It was quite well covered. Rates vary from market to market and station to station, and mileage varies.
Perhaps he ought to consider circumnavigating a different block for a change as he really doesn’t seem to understand much.
Put into a different perspective, we specifically *didn’t* buy time on KFI because at $1400 for each 60-second spot, the cost was insane, more than double KNX and KABC. So this morning I managed to get on the air during AM rush hour and get a good 60 seconds panning Prop 14 for free. We takes the breaks where we gets them.
@88 LTEs or a radio campaign is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_choice. You have to tell us the opportunity cost of what else that $15K could have been spent on, and you have to factor in how much money was raised by LPHQ’s project-specific appeal on Saturday.
Michael,
I agree–spending the money was wise. And because of the late date that the money was attained from the LNC, radio ads were really the best option. I applaud the LNC and Stewart Flood for approving the money.
I do agree that undecideds break at election time against propositions, but the most recent polling (published yesterday) shows that we’d need them to break 100% for us–and we’d still likely fall short. We need low turnout, heavy turnout amongst third parties and opponents of Prop 14, and low turnout amongst moderates.
#84, I never said exertion was wasted. I said the $15k was likely wasted. That kind of small potatoes radio campaign “brands” nothing. As I said, I think a letter to the editor campaign in all the states newspapers would have been more effective getting out the LP’s position and establishing our “brand.” We have to spend our resources effectively, not blow them on feel-good methods.
@71
Non-sequitur, but probably my fault since I was answering two points in one post.
My comments re: being promoted to management specifically related to Hinkle becoming chair of the LNC, not to CA in any way.
BTW, mutliple LTEs and Op-Eds were submitted to the major dailies around the state and were rejected. Why? Ask them, but as Hayek points out, controlling the propaganda is to control the minds of the people.
In general, undecideds at election time tend to vote no on propositions, not yes.
Anyone who thinks the money spent to fight this was a waste is a moron. Better to fight it now and possibly win than to not fight it now, lose and have a much tougher time convincing folks to fight more later. That much should plainly obvious to anyone who knows anything about fundraising–get on it early and keep on it makes getting more funds later easier, because it takes away the “Where were you before on this?” argument.
Jeremy, every time you dodge the question of what you mean by “decisive action” or “a Hail Mary” or “going all-out” in this context, you lose more credibility.
This won’t be the first setback on the LP’s march toward more freedom, nor will it be the last. The important thing is to keep moving in the right direction. Our biggest obstacle is the very idea (expressed above by Jeremy and AroundTheBlock) that exertion is wasted if it isn’t for the side that wins the contest du jour. Whether you call it Wasted Vote or Wasted Prop-Opposition, it’s still a Fallacy.
BH@81:
“In response to Friday’s appeal by LPHQ to help fund this campaign, I donated $500 to national. We should reward/applaud the Party for doing real and relevant politics in a way that promotes the LP brand.”
Here here!
But please, better sound on Mr. Root next time. The high-pass filter effect made his usually rich voice weak and ephemeral sounding. Nice job overall! (Especially considering the turn around time.)
@73, defeating the Prop isn’t realistic at this point, if it ever was. “Reasonable” measures are going to have the same effect as doing nothing — the Prop passes. What we need now is a Hail Mary — that’s the only shot at defeating it.
I am not a third party leader or officer. Were I one, I would most certainly be going all-out to defeat the Prop, including digging into my personal resources. But I’m too anti-partisan to be a party leader at all — my alliance is more with FairVote than with any of the parties.
We will lose badly, but the money spent on the radio ad (mp3) is well spent. It brands the LP — and its most prominent spokesman, Wayne Root — as favoring voter choice and opposing the politics of pork.
In response to Friday’s appeal by LPHQ to help fund this campaign, I donated $500 to national. We should reward/applaud the Party for doing real and relevant politics in a way that promotes the LP brand.
If Trent is right, the $15000 spent at this late date on radio ads may as well have been flushed down the toilet. If 14 loses, of course, we’ll see fundraising hype about how “the LP defeated Prop.14.” What kind of marketing campaign does one get in statewide Cal. for $15k in radio ads? Heck, I’ll bet one well-written and reasoned letter – cost $0 – appearing as a “letter to the editor” in the the state’s four or five major papers would have many times the impact of $15k in radio ads scattered around. Not to mention what could have been done using internet communication resources.
The ballot language pretty accurately describes the central idea of Prop 14. That idea itself is indeed biased against parties in general and third parties in particular, but the language itself seems somewhat fair.
Again, if Prop 14 passes, libs & greens will HAVE TO try PLAS, or have no candidates for November election. Unintended consequence, Arnold? Ha, Ha!
Brian,
I’ve been predicting 64%-36%, so we largely agree. I think Independents break for it when they read the messaging (which is incredibly biased and unfair).
The exception is if primary turnout is abysmally low. Then only third party regulars and partisan D&Rs will get out to vote, and they might be able to pull of a (stunning) upset.
Prop 14 will win handily, as the undecideds will break heavily for it when they read the ballot text (below). I predict a 65%-to-35% blowout.
Elections. Increases Right to Participate in Primary Elections.
Should the California Constitution be amended to require that all candidates for statewide or congressional office run in a single primary open to all registered voters, with only the top two vote-getters, regardless of their political party preference, advancing to the general election?
Time to correct a couple of misconceptions.
First, LNC never approached LPCA about this because there was no money in the LNC budget to do anything on this. Why? Ask the former Treasurer. The funds allocated over the convention were, to my understanding, recently acquired through fundraising and non-attendee donations. When the LNC helped LPWA in Dec 2008 with their ongoing Top-Two lawsuit, they had to rebudget to cover it.
Second, Wayne has been stumping against Prop 14. He has gotten the big picture on this for a while now. It isn’t fair to him to complain about him not doing what he actaully has been doing.
Third, the latest poll from Survey USA has Prop 14 at 50% favor, 28% oppose, 20% undecided, +/- 2.8% MOE. That’s down 2 more points, and it’s a race now. Projections today are for a third of CA’s 17 million voters to turn out since there is no real activity on the Democrat side (only in the GOP Gov and Senate primaries), so doing the math, 1% of the vote is about 60K-70K votes. I’m making the educated guess that Prop 14 will be decided within 1-2% only, and that this will be no blowout.
JT // Jun 8, 2010:
“……. Convincing people who have nothing to do with third parties now to donate a huge sum of money in an effort to keep third parties on the Calif. ballot isn’t realistic …..”
Lake: especially when alternative political activists were not all that concerned earlier. They even touted anti establishment voting systems (such as IRV) as bright new shiny toys.
After the steer manure of the 20th Century, American citizens are leery of last minute hysterial of little known or even unknown issues.
We have met the enemy and they are us. Besides the main stream media knows that the ‘smalls’ do not spend that much on political advertising.
Jeremy: “What I’m looking for is decisive action; that’s the only thing that’s going to promote third party chances across the board.”
You still haven’t explained what reasonable “decisive action” would be in this context for Hinkle. Convincing people who have nothing to do with third parties now to donate a huge sum of money in an effort to keep third parties on the Calif. ballot isn’t realistic; they really don’t care. As far as stumping for a no vote on Prop. 14, Hinkle organized an effort of third-party activists (including himself) to contact many thousands of Californians about Prop. 14 and urge them to vote no. He’s also been pushing the anti-Prop. 14 Web site created by Libertarian candidate Christina Tobin.
Just a couple questions: Did you donate to defeating Prop. 14? And are you criticizing other third party officials elsewhere for not doing enough against it? Maybe so; I’m just curious.
I’m also curious to know if the issue is so important to the future of the LP, was there a “Defeat Prop. 14” fundraising effort organized prior to the national convention? Let LP members signal whether they think the issue is very important or not. If an effort earmarked for Prop. 14 and aimed at all LP members, including delegates at the national convention, raised only $10,000 dollars, well…that’s not a good indication that most LP members care very much about one state, even if it’s Calif. Perhaps that did happen though. Did it?
@71
You hit the nail on the head.
@68, @69
The LNC Chair is *not* manager of the LNC. That was one of my critiques of Wayne in our debate. That whole approach is guaranteed to fail in a volunteer organization, just as ‘I am here to manage this academic department’ is guaranteed to fail in an academic environment. Therefore, the ‘outside manager’ approach — which, incidentally, often fails big-time in industry — and the rationales around it are wrong for the LNC.
Why didn’t the LNC do things? It pays rather little interest to what is happening in its states. On this issue, a reasonable man would suspect the LNC was subject to exactly the same failure mode that the LPCA was dependent upon, namely it relied on the same (bad) intelligence information.
CM@68:
“Anyone who has ever been promoted to management over a department where she was once one of the “grunts” knows that knowing people and being able to manage them, especially with the change in role and especially if one of them is your former boss, is a challenge.”
Like the LNC is the management of CALP?
Root could still stump against Prop. 14 regardless of what the LNC does. His act could be just that; an act, a show. & the Pauls & Bann Bobb Barr could be too-like Nader & Tobin.
& I would be with Nader & Tobin except I’m too broke & depressed. Ron Paul 35 million Bob Milnes 0. You get what you pay for people & I got zip & kicked to the curb.
Carolyn, you’re right that we shouldn’t be attacking Hinkle for being Hinkle. It’s not like he suddenly turned into an autocratic crazy man after campaigning as a conciliatory moderate. He’s doing exactly what the delegates elected him to do: be Mark Hinkle. It’s the delegates who erred here.
Part of the problem is that I’m not a Libertarian (or libertarian), I’m a third party advocate. My goal is breaking down the corrupt and un-American two-party system. So it doesn’t do me any good if the LP is more unified and friendly than ever before. Plenty of third parties have been successful while nursing internal divisions (for instance, the very successful Socialist Party of the early 1900’s persisted despite bitter disputes between its three leading figures: Eugene Debs, Victor Berger, and “Big Bill” Haywood). What I’m looking for is decisive action; that’s the only thing that’s going to promote third party chances across the board.
By those lights, the Wayne Root people get to say a big “I told you so” on this issue. Root unquestionably came into that meeting raring to go on Prop. 14, spending his own money and advocating that the LP follow suit. Had the delegates elected him chair, Root would probably be out stumping California right now telling anyone who would listen how important a no vote on Prop. 14 is. I have concerns with Root’s integrity and his commitment to the third-party movement, but I have no concerns about his energy. Every third-party leader is going to have to be a Wayne Root if third parties are to have any serious chance in this country. Considering that set of priorities, the LP delegates laid a big fat lemon as far as I’m concerned.
That’s not what I asked. What I asked is why the LNC didn’t approach the LPCA themselves since this is obviously such an important issue.
Anyone who has ever been promoted to management over a department where she was once one of the “grunts” knows that knowing people and being able to manage them, especially with the change in role and especially if one of them is your former boss, is a challenge. For that reason, it’s probably harder for Hinkle to step into the role of Chair than it would have been for any of the other candidates who have NOT served on the LNC and thus have no such baggage. This dynamic is one reason why so many companies hire management from outside rather than promoting from within.
In any case, I think it’s far too early to be so critical and so negative about the newly elected LNC. If they’re truly hellbent on failure, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to point it out. But I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt as well as my support.
@65 Why wasn’t the LPCA here a year ago…? That’s a question with a known answer, which Rob Power supplied us well before the National Convention.
One of the points of electing a former National Committee member to be chair is that he does know the people who have already been on the committee, which in this case was close to half the total membership.
Carolyn, precisely. These are frictions & frustrations & factions that have evolved over years. Among my first contacts with LP was with Geoffrey Neale, then chair. He referred to my proposal as an “alliance” which word I had not thought of. I was hopeful; he must have read it and understood it! So, let’s get on with it. Ummmm, no. That was around 2003-4. By 2008 there was the Ron Paul 35 million debacle. Barr slipped into the LNC like Flynn. Tries to get LNC to endorse Paul & contributes to republican candidates(both of which was called on by George). etc. The rightists get everything quick & easy. Fools like me get put on the back burner AT BEST. I’m fed up, for one.
@50, Hinkle perhaps wasn’t brilliant right out of the starting gate, but then, nobody really expected him to be. Surely not at his first meeting with a cast of characters he doesn’t really know and a gallery full of people kibbitzing and tut-tutting and taking notes with which to slam him later. Hinkle is a very nice, very sensible and gentle man, but he’s not a fireball. I doubt anyone finds this surprising, really.
Just as a mental exercise, imagine any of the other four candidates in the same position, at a first meeting with a hodgepodge of people from the various “factions,” and consider as objectively as you can how well any of them might have fared under the same pressures and the same circumstances. I think you’ll realize very quickly that none of them would have done a lot better. It would have been different, yes, but not necessarily better.
Bear in mind, it’s easy with 20/20 hindsight to say, well, I KNOW Candidate X wouldn’t have said “so moved” when he meant “motion carries,” or Candidate Y wouldn’t have given the prop 14 funding issue to the excomm, or Candidate Z would have stuck strictly to the agenda, or whatever, but the truth is, the first meeting would have been, as it was for Hinkle et al, mostly logistics and putting out fires, no matter who was elected, and I believe it would have gone very much the same.
It’s very likely the outcome, at least on Prop 14, would have been exactly the same, given that Hinkle isn’t dictator-for-life but merely the guy holding the gavel. These decisions were made by vote of the entire LNC.
Y’know, if the LNC continues to be indecisive or weak or inactive, well, then folks will be in better stead to get out their “toldya-so’s” but until then… don’t let one rather impromptu and less than perfect meeting dishearten you or make you feel like all is lost. Give the new LNC a chance to get organized.
@61, yes, the prop 14 battle could very well be the defining moment of Hinkle’s career as chair, and that’s really not fair, coming as it does barely a week after he was elected, but that’s how it goes sometimes.
I still wonder why it is that CA had to come hat-in-hand begging for money from the LNC one week before the vote. Why wasn’t the LNC calling up Kevin Takenaga a year ago and asking him what they could do to help, given how important an issue this is nationally? I’m not asking rhetorically here, I’m genuinely curious.
Since Hinkle is apparently expected to work a miracle singlehandedly in a week, imagine what the prior LNC could have done with half a year or more.
Jeremy: “JT @54, Hinkle should have gone beyond authorizing the $15,000 and orchestrated a plan to get more money pumped into the campaign from outside donors. Here’s the moment to tap all the big-name people who want to use the LP for their own interests: Richard Viguerie, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Bob Barr, etc.”
So a week before the vote on Prop. 14, Chairman Hinkle should have come up with some kind of plan to get people who have nothing to do with the LP or any third party now (except for Barr) to donate enough money necessary to defeat it? And not doing this makes him a weak Chair? I share your view of Prop. 14 and the frustration that it might pass, but laying the blame at Hinkle’s feet is a big stretch, IMO.
Jeremy: “This is the most important issue Hinkle will have to tackle during his tenure as chair, and he needed a home run. He didn’t get one.”
This is definitely a huge issue, but I don’t think you can predict the future. And a baseball player who doesn’t hit a home run in a World Series game may still be a very good player.
Actually, I mis-identified the caucus I was thinking of.
My actual name for it is is the “always scrape the ice off the wings” (sung to the tune of “always look on the bright side of life”) caucus.
UK football fans may get the reference — I’ve just heard it as a second-hand story (from, incidentally, an LNC member and former LP chair).
Jeremy Young@61, “…all the big name people who want to use the LP for their own interests:” A Who’s Who list of CPAC. Their only use for the LP is to suck it dry of wherewithall for the GOP. Why don’t these big names come out on their own initiative long ago against Prop 14? Rightists are insidious & ubiquitous i.e. pricks all over.
JT @54, Hinkle should have gone beyond authorizing the $15,000 and orchestrated a plan to get more money pumped into the campaign from outside donors. Here’s the moment to tap all the big-name people who want to use the LP for their own interests: Richard Viguerie, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Bob Barr, etc. I give Wayne Root enormous credit for dipping into his own considerable pocketbook to bankroll some of this campaign, but Hinkle should have found more people who could and would do so.
Maybe a bit unfair to blame this on the chair, but this is quite literally the fight of the LP’s life. Without California, they have virtually no chance at ever becoming a major party (nor does any other third party, except the AIP — thanks to Paulie for the correction). This is the most important issue Hinkle will have to tackle during his tenure as chair, and he needed a home run. He didn’t get one.
Thanks George Phillies for the report on the LNC Meeting. And Tom thanks for identifying the Always Look on the Bright Side of Life LP Caucus. I think that is the one for me. Since I vote in Florida I am supporting Alex Snitker and since I understand the crucial Prop 14 vote, I contributed to the media buying project.
Don,
Thanks for citing two more truthful statements on my part.
If you ever find that lie, let me know. Here’s another true statement: I won’t hold my breath while you continue to look.
Shane // Mar 3, 2010 at 2:55 pm
“Paulie, that’s how I remember it. Tom’s embellishing a bit by stating that I “instantly fired” anyone. It was more like anti-Barr writers instantly quit. I didn’t even actively manage the site and handed it off to an employee.”
Tom Knapp said: “It’s not nice to lie, Paulie.
————– The LP’s political director didn’t ‘order’ LPMA state officers to do anything, because he had no authority to order them to do anything.”
freedom fest rocks , last year i saw a seminar on how to get away with shit with cops among other things like a sci-fi debate–ayn rand vs heinlein . sure there is far right stuff but in no way is freedom fest mostly right . I say its disneyland for smart folk , a REALLY good time , and Dr Phillies thought it was good enuf to buy a booth at when he was running for Pres , I know cuz i worked it for him. now all of a sudden he thinks its bad? im confused
Thomas L. Knapp // Jun 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Don,
Nice try, but you cite only one of the “dozens” … (right off the bat, well, yeah ……) and on that one you say I said something I didn’t say. (you poor poor spin doctor) Or, to put a Wilson twist on it, “you lie.” (look in the mirror dude)
Thanks for playing. (thx for wasting my time)
Jeremy: “I’m not saying Hinkle did a terrible job. I’m saying an adequate job is not enough given the enormity of what will happen to the LP if Prop. 14 is passed.”
What specifically should Hinkle have done that he didn’t do with regard to Prop. 14?
Jeremy: “I thought the idea was to knock the LNC out of its inaction and make it do what it needs to do to further the party. Whether that inaction is caused by factionalism or misguided “unity” under a weak Chair doesn’t seem to matter much in the final result — either way the LP is in bad shape.”
As Carolyn pointed out, this was the FIRST meeting of the new LNC immediately after the officers had been elected. Perhaps Hinkle wasn’t as prepared as he should have been for it if he won. Nonetheless, I think it’s patently unfair to call him a “weak Chair” at this stage of the game. Talk about a rush to judgment.
If Dr Phillies opposes libertarians doing outreach at FreedomFest because it is “Far Right” then it is clear he has some kind of axe to grind.
FreedomFest has always had lots of libertarian participation, and the conservatives at FreedomFest are friendly to libertarians as allies in support of the free market.
If Dr Phillies prefers to recruit elsewhere than among conservatives – well please do some recruiting, instead of all this kvetching.
I can sorta understand the decision to defer it to the XC by the full LNC. They do have a fidicuiary responsibility to think about, and $15K isn’t pocket change for the LP (Oh, how we wish it was, though!). They wanted to see a buy plan, and I really don’t fault them for that.
What I do find fault with is Mattson voting no after we had all that in front of them.
I think the tipping point may have been when I simply told them that the idea was not to draw up the 20% undecided to oppose, but to draw down another 3% from the favored to oppose. When it was polling at 60% in favor, that effort seemed kinda hopeless, but the new numbers at 52% with +/-3% MOE brought new life and hope to the effort. I don’t think they were seeing it from the “bring the positive down” POV but instead from the “bring the negative up” POV.
As for the effort itself, we pulled together an outstanding effort on such crazy travel times across 4 time zones over the whole time. I don’t think we could have done much better considering the constraints we were all under with travel, comms issues from travel, and so on. We caught a couple of breaks along the way, like Wayne and I being on the same flight to Vegas and everyone not flying at the same time, plus a compelx yet excellently functional roundrobin of communications around the travel, plus the right folks putting it all together from all angles at once.
Kudos to the rest of this team, and I’m amazed and proud of our work: (in no particular order)Kevin Takenaga, Beau Cain, Gale Morgan, Stewart Flood, Wayne Allyn Root, Adrian Galysh, Adrian’s sound guy, Wayne’s media buyer.
a fight that would become moot if Prop. 14 passes.
Not completely. They will then have one of the three remaining non-petition presidential ballot lines in California (due to number of voter registrations), and the petition requirement will dwarf all other states.
I’m saying an adequate job is not enough given the enormity of what will happen to the LP if Prop. 14 is passed.
No one questions that. Those who questioned the allocation in the meeting did so because they thought $15k is a trivial amount in a California proposition advertising battle.
I’m not saying Hinkle did a terrible job. I’m saying an adequate job is not enough given the enormity of what will happen to the LP if Prop. 14 is passed. If you want to see how bad that would be for the LP, look at how desperately the Constitution Party is trying to get back their stolen California ballot line — a fight that would become moot if Prop. 14 passes.
Carolyn, since it was your slate you obviously know a lot more about it than I do, but I thought the idea was to knock the LNC out of its inaction and make it do what it needs to do to further the party. Whether that inaction is caused by factionalism or misguided “unity” under a weak Chair doesn’t seem to matter much in the final result — either way the LP is in bad shape. Hinkle didn’t just need to be good, he needed to be brilliant. He wasn’t, and it didn’t take a genius to see even before the election that he wasn’t going to be.
@36
@33
The LNC did not vote the money. It passed the buck to the ExComm. @36 got this right.
Why was that a lousy decision that fortunately did not bite us in the ass?
As Napoleon said, ask me for anything but time. The issue was on an extremely tight time line. Deferring to the ExComm threw away every bit of the time reserve. If something had gone wrong, so that the ExComm was unable to approve the check Tuesday evening, and you now lose a day of drive time.
Competence is realizing that there will always be more questions, and you need to get off your backsides — not you, Stewart, you have done a superb job on your part of the effort — and decide. Deferring for a day, as Wayne attempted to explain ever so politely, was irresponsible.
With respect to ‘hit the job running’, if one of the complaining folks above had discovered that they were chair, with no warning, well, some confusion would have been understandable. Most of you would have asked the five losers for advice, and we would have given it to you. Mr. Hinkle did not.
You do not have to ask if Wayne would have hit the ground running. There is no question of that. He’s a real executive who does get things done, and mindful that the LNC was taking notes on what he did and how, would have done the right things.
You don’t have to ask if Ernie would have hit the ground running, He did that, oh, fifteen YEARS ago.
The New Path day zero time line is on the record, including some parts for the first tem minutes of the meeting. And, yes, I did recall the ‘must request roll call on procedural issues’ rule.
And Mr. Hinkle? You guys are claiming he had no anticipation of winning, AND no 20 or so hours to do a crash preparation job if he had been sure of defeat until the votes came up? That’s silly.
I look forward to finding out what the IT committee proposes and I wish it well. It was at least received more politely than the Outreach Committee was.
Stewart, please keep up the current good work.
Don,
Nice try, but you cite only one of the “dozens” … and on that one you say I said something I didn’t say. Or, to put a Wilson twist on it, “you lie.”
Thanks for playing.
Looking forward to more Phillies anal probe attempts on the lnc…….pass the popcorn please!
——————————————–
22 LP Pragmatist //
Can I buy a one-way bus ticket for # 19 and # 20
Only if it goes to a place with no internet.
A few more posts on this George story and it will exceed his vote total from last weekend.
LOL is overused on the net, but I really did. One can always count on the peerless Mr. Phillies to call the LNC – any LNC – for being FECless. You can set your cuckoo clock by it.
A few more posts on this George story and it will exceed his vote total from last weekend.
The issue were the LNC members elected from the convention. Mr. Hinkle was not on the LNC via that route before the convention last weekend. Ms Sink-Burris was a Region 3 rep before and now. Region 3 had the wisdom to re-elect her, even though she lost out by just a few votes for the At-Large last weekend.
I can all but guarantee that a lot of this is deliberately a result of Homestead Security/FBI/NSA surveillance & covert operations. Longstanding. Prop 14, Barr’s candidacy & Roots, whether as agents or lackeys or dupes. Arnold for president future developments, Duensing-a radical-assassination attempt. etc.They certainly saw me coming & got me 25 years ago. & I’m 24/7 wondering whether half the things that happen to me are covert operations.
“…so narrow minded that you can’t see what’s really going on…” indeed. Read R.D. Laing. It is quite possible to figuratively strangle people and/or walk all over them without realizing it or actually think you are right and/or doing the right thing. I guarantee most LP rightists think they are doing the right thing when they are actually strangling/suffocating LP revolutionary impulses.
Like I said previously, Prof. Phillies got my attention a few years ago. I noticed he was consistently correct in his observations & actions. & not very appreciated.
Best thing to do is radicals passive aggressively withdraw from LP. Remove yourselves from the disaster area & build BTP. Alienated rads-not LP members, also. That would be more than enough highly motivated, tech savvy activists to win in 2 years.
Start by winning a U.S. Senate seat in AZ for The Nolan this year.
It is positive to be negative on negativeness ……….
Good point, Brian. Discussing different things and reading different views can be invigorating, but it seems like so many people start calling others names and insulting their intelligence to make a point. Perhaps I’ve been guilty of this, but starting a couple weeks ago, I’m trying to break bad habits. Hopefully our party will be around a long time, and I plan to stay in it. I’m hoping to burn as few bridges as possible.
I don’t see any reason not to be civil to others.
Dozens over the past three years, and readily comming to mind, you Doctor Phillies Spin Doctor falsificator:
“The LP is the one and only 21 Century American Peace Party” —- as stated often before ——- and as totally lucidcrus !
and just the tip of the ice berg / straw on the camel’s back ……..
I think this is going to be the best LNC ever!! – Deb Dedmon _ the bright side caucus
Sink-Burris is now the regional rep for Indiana/Kentucky/Michigan/Ohio.
Let’s also remember that Hinkle ponied up $953 so he could campaign against Prop 14 in his district’s special election to replace the State Senator responsible for it: https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2010/05/libertarian-national-committee-rep-hinkle-to-campaign-against-prop-14-in-special-election/
If you want to be so narrow minded that you can?t see what?s really going on then you are certainly free to be narrow minded and sit there drooling like a small child or an old man.
Please be civil, even to the snarky.
“of the 9 people elected last week by the delegation, only 3 were on the old board”
Four, actually: Hinkle, Redpath, Ruwart and Mattson.
Phillies lists Sink-Burris, but I don’t think she’s on the new board, is she?
Dr Phillies’ view of what happened regarding funding California’s fight against prop 14 is slightly out of focus.
We were expending a lot of time discussing the issue. The California representatives and I were asked for information that we needed a day to get to the LNC. We were asked if postponing approval until Tuesday evening would be too late to be of any use. Our answer was no.
The committee did the right thing in deferring approval to the EC. The EC asked their questions, we gave our answers. They then voted to approve the additional funding and the money was in-hand by mid-day Wednesday and the job was done on time.
Would taking 15 more minutes — or another half hour — on Monday have been better? Would it have been easier if another check had been cut on Monday instead of early Wednesday morning? You can argue that either way. The result was the same: California was funded in time to execute the plan.
So no mention of IT? No mention of moving forward with improvements that just about every candidate for LNC chair campaigned for?
To hell with your definition of dominant coalition. If you want to be so narrow minded that you can’t see what’s really going on then you are certainly free to be narrow minded and sit there drooling like a small child or an old man.
We have a new LNC and I see no reason to believe that we won’t all be working together.
For Goodness sakes # 32. The man just sat down in the chair only one week ago. And for what it is worth, of the 9 people elected last week by the delegation, only 3 were on the old board. Love these armchair quarterbacks and would love to see them in action on the LNC.
Don,
If you’re going to call me a liar, you should probably cite a lie that I’ve told.
You haven’t yet.
I doubt you can.
Disagreeing with Don Lake =/= lying.
It was their FIRST MEETING with all new officers and a lot of new faces around the table. I think it’s completely unreasonable to expect them to hit the ground running fast enough to make everyone happy at their first meeting, or to expect everything to go perfectly.
Furthermore, the LNC *did* authorize an additional $15k for stopping Top Two, and Hinkle has been on the phones himself calling people to get out the vote. He’s made over 400 phone calls. That’s not to say Redpath would not have done so, but it’s not like Hinkle’s sitting on his thumbs here.
I’m not saying George’s factual observations are lies or fabrications. They are observations and if they’d been presented in the form of constructive criticism (which would almost of necessity be private communication with those involved) or even in the form of suggestions, they would have been not only accepted but no doubt welcomed.
Instead, this “analysis” comes off as a lot of factionalism and negativity and “see, you should have elected me instead” snark, in spite of the arguably valid observations. This is the very thing we were hoping to get away from with this LNC.
I agree with George. Why is this sort of inaction from the LNC acceptable when it’s Hinkle in the chair’s seat, but not when it’s Redpath? If we’re comparing records, Redpath has done a lot more for the LP than Hinkle has (though Hinkle’s contributions are not inconsiderable either). No one gets a free pass if they fail to do what’s necessary for the continued growth of the party. Top Two in California is the single biggest threat to the LP in years, and Phillies is right to attack Hinkle’s LNC for not doing nearly enough to combat it.
I don’t always agree with George, but I find his posts very entertaining and focused on mechanics of which I’m sure many are unaware.
At my age, that’s pretty helpful.
paulie // Jun 7, 2010:
“Let’s all try to find a way to work together”
Non LP perspective: how interesting that y’all come down on Doctor Phillies for ‘not playing nice’ instead of being an out and out Tom Knapp style liar! ‘Tis a puzzlement!
I look forward to George Phillies nitpicking future LNC meetings, implying that most of the committee is incompetent, and further alienating himself from the bulk of the LP membership. Keep going, George!
Please Mr. Phillies listen to Mr. Milnes! There is no future for you in the LP. Time to join BTP. Do the right thing.
Robert Capozzi @21, good point. I for one do not now what to do about it. But I vill a little tink.
Don’t worry about the CA Prop 14 disaster. The LP & GP will have to choose between having no candidates in November (2012) or trying PLAS. That beats having the usual slate of guaranteed losing candidates in November.
George, if the LP kicks you out, fine. You have a golden parachute-BTP.
& take all your expertise & MONEY with you.
Can you get a pro-rated refund on your LP dues? Ha, Ha!
For what it’s worth… from where I sat at the table, I thought it was a fine first/organizational meeting. Bear in mind we are meeting again in a month.
Those elected won solid support of the delegates. Consequently I am optimistic about the near term prospects, and I am looking forward to working with all (all means *all*) my new colleagues.
$0.02 of the day from Maine
Capozzi , were you in St Louis , if so , sorry I missed you!
Can I buy a one-way bus ticket for # 19 and # 20
Stickin’ with the LP here, but has BTP considered dropping “Boston”? Sounds localized at this point, the Boston chapter of the Tea Party.
FWIW.
EVERYBODY. Quit the LP & join BTP.
I offered to help Nolan win against McCain. I have heard NOTHING!
George, give it up! The LP is a lost cause. BTP is possibly workable. If the radicals can be talked into a few things i.e. become winning politicians instead of Quixotic stereotypes.
We all know what dominant coalition means. Rightists with a suffocating stranglehold over the revolutionary LP. & to be sure if you want any part of libertarianism you are going to need a revolution.
An electorially successful progressive movement is revolutionary. Slow revolution is better than no revolution. Or counterrevolutionary backstepping.
George, give it up! Quit the LP & join BTP.
If FreedomFest is a “far right” meeting, then it is good to see LNC is going to “infiltrate” the event, along with Advocates for Self Government holding a 25th anniversary celebration and International Society for Individual Liberty having a board meeting, with the Atlas Society having held a conference in Vegas the previous week. As long as the outreach includes libertarian social issues, what the heck is wrong with using this opportunity?
The “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” faction. I like it. 🙂
Great, now that song is stuck in my head…
Thank you, Carolyn. Let’s all try to find a way to work together, despite the differences that exist. Count me with the “Nolan faction” as defined by Mr. Knapp: one foot in the radical camp and one foot in the part of the dominant coalition (the “always look on the bright side of life” faction)
As for any procedural difficulties, such as they were, we were all very tired at this meeting, including the folks on the committee who had been busy campaigning just to get or keep their place there. I for one was not able to sit through the whole meeting due to exhaustion, so let’s give them a chance and hope they do some good.
“Wheels within wheels, bindreth.” An F. Paul Wilson fan?
LP Dogmatist: Please don’t paint everyone who was on the New Path slate with this brush.
When Phillies showed this to me, I let him (and the rest of the slate) know in no uncertain terms I did NOT approve of this kind of kibbitzing and that I would not be party to this kind of negativity, not when the party is more unified coming out of this convention that I’ve EVER seen it. I see TREMENDOUS opportunities with this LNC. Would I rather have been on it? You bet. Do have a single iota of ill will toward my erstwhile opponent? Not even a little because he’s going to do a fantastic job, and I will be there in any capacity the LNC needs or wants me to be there to help. Even before the convention was over, I was talking to Rutherford about some of my outreach ideas, so I do not see this as an us-vs-them thing.
The slate is over. So in the interest of unity, I’m asking all of you to stop doing what you’re accusing George of doing — lumping people together into “dominant” or “New Path” coalitions, and take each of us as individuals with our own strengths and weaknesses. That’s how we keep the momentum from the convention going, folks. Not by attacking each other.
I was not planning to say anything since I thought my point had been driven home and that he would opt not to publish it, but since it’s in public, I have to save my good name. I am NOT associated with this.
George, thank you for the detailed report. Despite all the snark, I can’t see a single substantive mis-step that occurred at the meeting.
I agree it would be a mistake to throw LPUS resources into the Florida gubernatorial race, and I doubt the LNC will do so.
Robert’s doesn’t strictly forbid the presiding officer from voting. In an assembly (e.g NatCon) it’s good that the Chair doesn’t debate or make motions, and doesn’t vote except to make or break ties. But on a committee like the LNC, my preference is that the Chair get on the record on all roll call votes.
Phillies ALWAYS has negativity to share , trust e , it is the single biggest factor in why he loses
This is why I left.
Thomas L. Knapp //
Jun 7, 2010 at 12:22 pm
“Wheels within wheels, bindreth”:
at least they all agree that the LP
is the one and only 21st Century
American Peace Party ………
[Yeah, Right, Sure ……….]
Phillies is once again demonstrating the famous “make friends and influence people” that always earn him a predictable 5-10% of the national convention delegates votes every two years for chair/president.
He is truly the perennial gadfly in the LP’s soup, no matter who is at the wheel.
“…is there a “sour grapes” coalition, and what binds them together?”
The Grapes of Wrath, formerly known as the “New Path”. Held together by the glue from Phillies poison pen.
And the drama continues.
Strikes me that these accusations and labels need defining
…what constitutes membership in the “dominant coalition”?
…what the heck is a “look on the brighter side of life” faction, and why on Earth is that a bad thing?
…who’s in the center-right cargo cult, and what makes them cultists?
…is there a “sour grapes” coalition, and what binds them together?
Sounds like Myers may be the latest member of the Rodney King Caucus! So there’s that….
It is positive to be negative about negative things!
Agreed John J @ 2. Let’s build the team.
Negativism is something that, if left unchecked, will infect all of us.
Wheels within wheels, bindreth.
I agree with Phillies that that larger coalition gained rather than lost.
That doesn’t mean that it will hold together, however.
I consider Nolan a gain versus the dominant coalition. He has one foot in the radical camp and one foot in the part of the dominant coalition (the “always look on the bright side of life” faction) that might be peeled away from the other part (the “center right/cargo cult” faction) to make the dominant coalition no longer dominant.
I think you mean sour grapes.
The proper place to address this would be to contact Hinkle directly. We are all in this together…. gee whiz it’s like a pack of wolves waiting to tear someone apart.
Can’t we all just get along? ; )
Lots of criticism for the brand new chair after one session, virtually no praise for anything that anyone did. Sounds like spilled milk Phillies.