Libertarians elected and re-elected to office

From http://www.lp.org/2008-general-election-results/all

Bob Mills Maine Biddeford City Council 301 votes 79.0% reelected

Bruce Reichert Florida Collier County Soil & Water Board Seat 1 ran unopposed

J. Adam Mitchell Florida Collier County Soil & Water Board Seat 4 ran unopposed

Scott McPherson Florida New Port Richey Mayor won May primary

Howard Horowitz Florida Palm Beach Soil & Water Conservation Group 4 ran unopposed

Jack Tanner Florida Lee County Soil and Water Conservation District Seat 4 unopposed

Jonathan Hall California Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District Supervisor 6,964 (72.5%)

Frank Manske California Mount Diablo Healthcare District Supervisor unopposed

Kate O’Brien California Simi Valley Recreation and Parks District Supervisor unopposed

Norm “Firecracker” Westwell California Ocean View School District Board of Trustees unopposed

Tom Tryon California Calaveras County Supervisor, District 4 2,075 (51.3%) reelected

Brian Holtz California Purissima Hills Water District unopposed

John Inks California Mountain View City Council 8,187 (13.7%) multi-candidate preference

John A Buttrick Arizona Maricopa County Superior Court Judge 447,507 (74.9%)
judicial retention election

Peter Schmerl Arizona Green Valley Continental Elementary School Board District 39
unopposed

Fredrick Campbell Kansas Anderson County Attorney 2,118 unopposed incumbent

Tracy Lunquist Florida West Volusia Hospital Authority Group A Seat 1 42,892 (59.0%)

Jeff Hunt Florida Duval County Soil & Water Board, Group 2 148,515 (51.4%)

Mike Helms North Carolina Cabarrus County Board of Education 16,226 (7.0%)
multi-candidate preference

Michael Gilson-De Lemos November 8, 2008

great comments. Some info…

Spence–90% of offices in USA are appointive, only around 3% partisan elective. it’s GOP propaganda to marginalize activists that only elective offices count, so be wary. Plus that’s where you start, in appointive and non-partisan, and also where most work is done. Libertarians in office are historically 1/4th- 1/3rd elected, so they do better, and of which they have their partisan share.

Florida LP , which has relatively few elected positions , is focused on its appointive and non-partisan elected farm team. This goes against national LP policy and follows LIO guidelines, but as you see they have 40% of the LP wins this year, so good for them, they’re meeting their goals. Also, they disagree that a party should just focus on elections as just more right-wing marginalizzing propaganda, but focus rather on citizen democracy. They brought the initiative process to Florida, and use it aggressively. They’re also the only LP that has actually set electoral goals (along with Costa Rica). Libs also tend to lead the boards that they serve.

Finally, Libertarianism is primarily localist, and the role of the person in public office is assistive, not primary to getting things done.

In Florida, we’re actually running out of trained libertarians for the boards. No LP has ever put in more than 1/3rd of its members in office that I know of, and 105 is more stable. The number of pledged and trained libs sets an upper limit.

Ross–Nonetheless, the LP is improving it’s numbers significantly in partisan races. We’re seeing more 20% or better vote numbers in 2 way races than a few years ago, where 2% was common. However, many people running are not really Libertarians and have been doing badly: one fellow had a site filled with Bible quotes and nothing on Libertarianism. This has unfortunately risen in the last few years. People have found issue even with the LP Chair’s campaign site, which they feel implicitly advocates raising taxes.

However, many Libertarians run where others fear to tread, namely safe districts. If you adjust for experience, number of runs, and difficulty of district, they’re doing about what one might expect. Democratic leaders have even urged their party to copy the Libs and focus less on wins than breaking up the districts and getting the message out there, that is, to think strategically, not just tactically.

Trotsky–Libs are basically opening school choice and funding free education with more voluntary means in school boards, and kicking out the old-boy network and getting people focused on voluntary methods to better the environment of the Soil Boards. I’ll send some articles along as soon as I have them. But in Florida they’ve brought in home schooling and charter schools and use tax efficiencies to fund college scholarships for basically anyone; and gotten rules removed that made it difficult to create private conservancies and removed a lot of back-firing laws that harmed the environment–while kicking out a good part of the old-bot legalized pollution network where they can that had a death grip on these boards. The florida GOP puportedly circulated a memo that it had to get liberytarians off the Soil b Boards as they were worse than greens because they used free-market arguments against ‘reasonable pollution for the public good’ and ‘would bankrupt the state with suits for pure water.’ Uh-huh.

In sum, most state LP’s could do much better by following the manuals and policies dumped by the current LNC but used by Florida and CR. In fact the Greens spent a lot of time studying the LIO and LP manuals, which were posted at their strategic site, Nader told them to study the Libertarians without the ‘two-steps forward and one back’ mentality of some right wing-background LP officers, and incorporated into their strategy accordingly, very ironic. But Libs are still doing OK given what they’re trying to do, and some like Florida are spot on. given their stated goals. For more on the Florida viewpoint, see http://www.floridaliberty.uni.cc

Hope this helps. Keep up the interesting comments. Thanks.

11 Comments

paulie cannoli Post author | February 14, 2009
Bob, I don’t think the national LP, whose list I just copied here, was talking about your voter registration status in putting you on this list.
This list is a record of their list; it’s not a list that I am trying to update and maintain. It’s post from way back in November on a blog where I and others (but at the moment, mostly me) are putting up about ten new posts every day.
Bob Mills February 14, 2009
I do serve as a at-large representative (as does a Republican) for the Maine Libertarian Party which is an unofficial and unrecognized party here in Maine.
We both support the independence theories of the party.
Bob Mills February 14, 2009
I am not a registered Libertarian. I am a registered Democrat. I was elected to the City Council in 2007, I ran for York County Register of Probate in 2008 garnering almost 46,000 votes. I will not be running for re-election to council until this year (2009)
Please correct your data.
kclibertarian November 8, 2008
Fredrick Campbell (KS) was a partisan race
He ran with the Libertarian Party label (L) after his name and was on the ballot due to being chosen by the LPKS.
Michael Gilson-De Lemos November 8, 2008
SECYJC–Somehow missed the thumbs up feature. Will do.
Michael Gilson-De Lemos November 8, 2008
great comments. Some info…
Spence–90% of offices in USA are appointive, only around 3% partisan elective. it’s GOP propaganda to marginalize activists that only elective offices count, so be wary. Plus that’s where you start, in appointive and non-partisan, and also where most work is done. Libertarians in office are historically 1/4th- 1/3rd elected, so they do better, and of which they have their partisan share.
Florida LP , which has relatively few elected positions , is focused on its appointive and non-partisan elected farm team. This goes against national LP policy and follows LIO guidelines, but as you see they have 40% of the LP wins this year, so good for them, they’re meeting their goals. Also, they disagree that a party should just focus on elections as just more right-wing marginalizzing propaganda, but focus rather on citizen democracy. They brought the initiative process to Florida, and use it aggressively. They’re also the only LP that has actually set electoral goals (along with Costa Rica). Libs also tend to lead the boards that they serve.
Finally, Libertarianism is primarily localist, and the role of the person in public office is assistive, not primary to getting things done.
In Florida, we’re actually running out of trained libertarians for the boards. No LP has ever put in more than 1/3rd of its members in office that I know of, and 105 is more stable. The number of pledged and trained libs sets an upper limit.
Ross–Nonetheless, the LP is improving it’s numbers significantly in partisan races. We’re seeing more 20% or better vote numbers in 2 way races than a few years ago, where 2% was common. However, many people running are not really Libertarians and have been doing badly: one fellow had a site filled with Bible quotes and nothing on Libertarianism. This has unfortunately risen in the last few years. People have found issue even with the LP Chair’s campaign site, which they feel implicitly advocates raising taxes.
However, many Libertarians run where others fear to tread, namely safe districts. If you adjust for experience, number of runs, and difficulty of district, they’re doing about what one might expect. Democratic leaders have even urged their party to copy the Libs and focus less on wins than breaking up the districts and getting the message out there, that is, to think strategically, not just tactically.
Trotsky–Libs are basically opening school choice and funding free education with more voluntary means in school boards, and kicking out the old-boy network and getting people focused on voluntary methods to better the environment of the Soil Boards. I’ll send some articles along as soon as I have them. But in Florida they’ve brought in home schooling and charter schools and use tax efficiencies to fund college scholarships for basically anyone; and gotten rules removed that made it difficult to create private conservancies and removed a lot of back-firing laws that harmed the environment–while kicking out a good part of the old-bot legalized pollution network where they can that had a death grip on these boards. The florida GOP puportedly circulated a memo that it had to get liberytarians off the Soil b Boards as they were worse than greens because they used free-market arguments against ‘reasonable pollution for the public good’ and ‘would bankrupt the state with suits for pure water.’ Uh-huh.
In sum, most state LP’s could do much better by following the manuals and policies dumped by the current LNC but used by Florida and CR. In fact the Greens spent a lot of time studying the LIO and LP manuals, which were posted at their strategic site, Nader told them to study the Libertarians without the ‘two-steps forward and one back’ mentality of some right wing-background LP officers, and incorporated into their strategy accordingly, very ironic. But Libs are still doing OK given what they’re trying to do, and some like Florida are spot on. given their stated goals. For more on the Florida viewpoint, see http://www.floridaliberty.uni.cc
Hope this helps. Keep up the interesting comments. Thanks.
SEXYJC November 8, 2008
In my latest article I name all The Libertarians that won seat in Florida as well as having the latest Presidential results:
http://www.nolanchart.com/article5411.html
click on thumbs up if you like it
Catholic Trotskyist November 8, 2008
I understand the influence that libertarians can have on school and hospital boards (a detrimental influence for the most part, I might add). But how would a libertarian exactly influence how a water district might be run differently?
Ross Levin November 8, 2008
That’s it? Seriously?
paulie cannoli Post author | November 8, 2008
The Greens appear to have done better in this department this time, despite fewer candidates and fewer votes for their presidential ticket:
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2008/11/greens-elected-and-re-elected-to-office/
Both have done better than this in past years as far as number and level of candidates elected.
Spence November 8, 2008
Hah…. all nonpartisan offices.

Comments are closed.