Randy Taylor (State House) and Matt Schnackenberg (US House) withdraw from their races.
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Dear Supporters, Activists, and Citizens:
A lot has changed since I first declared my candidacy for Florida House District 69 in August 2013. Today, I announce my withdrawal as candidate for this seat.
So much sacrifice has been given from such limited resources. The core of our Party is being stretched and the return on investment for our candidates, activists, and volunteers has not met even our most conservative expectations. In many regards, the voters – more than anyone – have sent us a mixed message where they call for change, show disgust toward the other two parties, and yet they do not change the way they vote. My concern is that fear rules over more objective assessment of candidates and the issues which they represent.
My heart sank on March 11, 2014 when I watched the returns for Lucas Overby, a man who had dedicated so much and who saw the bulk of our local resources committed to him. What I saw was a statement about our voters, not our candidates. However, I would be ignoring a real concern of mine in the lack of support coming from LP National. It is worthy of criticism regarding all of our candidates and I wish them all the best of luck moving forward, as I much as I wish for LP National to have the vision and resources to actually help our candidates and not treat our campaigns as DiY projects.
I am humbled by those who did offer their support and effort for my campaign as well as those few who committed financial resources, but I cannot ask this handful of people – some of them family and friends – to give their all for what would be a disappointing result.
I will live to fight another day and I will be ever-vigilant to the cause of liberty. I may be withdrawing as a candidate, but I never withdraw from defending what is right.
I would like to thank a few people: Jote’ Thompson for being the one to ask me if I had ever thought of running for office; Karena Bowers Morrison for being an insightful advisor; Lucas Overby for sharing his knowledge with me; Paul Favata for stepping up to be my campaign manager; volunteers like G. Jasuwan, Vedran Delic, and Ernesto Feliciano; and, last but not least, my wife and my entire family for believing in me. Each and every one of you are my friends and I stand ready to assist you in your own projects and needs, just as you were there for me.
May the true light of freedom shine on us all so that our Republic may indeed improve and evolve for the growing and diverse needs of all the citizens of our nation.
Yours in Liberty,
Randy Taylor
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Matt Schnackenberg
8 hours ago · Edited
With this quarter’s financial paperwork I will be resigning my candidacy for 2014. This decision is a tough one, but I know I will not make it to ballot even if I continue.
Now this does not mean this is the end of the road. This was just round one. A round to learn the process and needs to run a candidacy. While I greatly was hoping to make ballot at the end of this round, not making it is far from a lose to me. I have gained new allies, supporters, and pushed liberty forward. This is an overall victory that cannot be ignored.
This moment moving forward shall be entirely focused on the 2016 election. All funds and tools will be saved and transferred towards that goal. I will be on the general election ballot in 2016, mark my words.
As for the campaign page, it will continue to be used to announce events and projects I am involved with. Feel free to use any announced projects in your own LP affiliates and with fellow liberty activists.
Thank you everyone for your continued support. I look forward to working with many of you to advance liberty.
In Liberty,
Matt Schnackenberg
Yes, hopefully they will have more candidates in 2016, especially with the national convention there.
Randy Taylor obviously has little understanding of how campaigns work. This isn’t a failure of Lucas Overby or the LPF, it’s a failure of Randy Taylor.
Good to hear that Matt Schnackenberg is continuing on to 2016. That’s a positive.
As far as national’s involvement in local races, I actually do thing national should pick a few two-way races and funnel some money in, especially if it’s a case where a good result would ensure the state party ballot access. Otherwise, they should focus on the Presidential ticket. One thing I will say is that when a Presidential candidate or member of the national leadership is in an area giving a speech or interview, they should take time to promote local candidates. Think about major party candidates: when Mitt Romney’s campaigning in Indiana, he’s going to take a second and mention Richard Mourdock for Senate and maybe Susan Brooks for congress or whatever. They always do. It’s not too much to ask for our presidential ticket & our national leadership to do the same.
Exactly.
Sorry to hear about candidates dropping out. It happens, but I’m never happy to hear about it.
A local campaign that wants national support, be it from the National party officially, or just from Libertarians in other states, needs to show that they already have local support and fundraising. Much like a banker is someone who will offer you an umbrella only when it’s not raining, political donors will only give money to candidates who are already getting money.
Andy Craig – I agree. Some people expect handouts to campaigns from LNC but there are too many campaigns for us to rationally decide which ones should get funding (as well as many other things that needed to be funded at national), and if we were to fund them all it would be so little per campaign as to be laughable.
For most of us, we have a one in three chance of getting elected. That’s better then the lottery.
If a Congressional campaign has to rely heavily on volunteers from outside the congressional district, there should be zero expectation of winning an election.
As a first-time LP candidate myself this year (WI Secretary of State), I’m curious about all this “National should help more!” griping. Aside from timely sharing of data, what, exactly, do people expect the LNC to do in a Congressional race? I think these people don’t have a realistic understanding of how even major parties divide labor between local/state/national. National has two jobs the way I look at it 1) ballot access 2) the Presidential campaign. If your Congressional campaign isn’t getting as much grassroots support as you’d like, that’s not Wes Benedict’s fault.
What about the 50k sent to Ed Coleman last term? I don’t think it was a good idea, but it happened. This term we debated (or are still debating – it was punted to the email list, but has yet to be discussed since then) funding candidates in Alaska.
Exactly.
Anyone who can read and has half a brain knows that the National LP can not directly fund or otherwise help any candidate except the Presidential candidate.
Also anyone with a half a brain knows someone with no public record can get more than 8% in a three way race.
Overby did well considering the circumstances and the whining from the many children shows that they have a lot of growing up to do.
As an outside observer, I was thrilled by Overby’s results. I didn’t see them as “disappointing” at all. If people were expecting him to win, and moreover if people thought him winning was the only way his campaign “mattered” or could count as a success, then they didn’t have realistic goals to begin with. Unrealistic goals always leads to burnout. Viewing anything short of winning elections as a failure, betrays a lack of understanding of how third parties actually work in our system. Not that “running to win” isn’t important, but shifting the terms of the debate and winning the long-term battle of ideas is how the LP really effects change. If in every statewide and Congressional election, the LP pulled results in the same range as Overby (and Sarvis), then we’d see more substantive concessions from both major parties to libertarian concerns than we’d get from some watered-down psuedo-libertarian getting 15% in a Republican primary.
Me too.
That’s a great example of why its a bad idea to make wildly unrealistic claims about electoral performance. Overby was gonna win. When he didn’t even come close, Mr. Taylor’s “heart sunk,” and now he’s heading for the door.
What’s this? Libertarians giving up? Maybe if the state leadership didn’t hype Overby’s candidacy, kept realistic expectations, and didn’t mobilize the whole freaken state organization for one congressional campaign, maybe they’d still have those candidates. We should be focusing on local races and building up from that.
I’m sorry to read this.