United Liberty

Jeremy,

I hear your frustration. However your condescending tone in this blog post — which I will charitably assume is due to your completely understandable impatience with the lack of greater progress toward freedom, and not just the way you normally interact — makes it really tempting to respond to you in kind, if I bothered to respond at all.

But I’m going to resist the urge to do that, and instead will attempt to address your concerns in a straightforward manner as an elected leader and longtime activist in the Libertarian Party.

Here then, point by point, are my thoughts on the issues you’ve raised:

(1) “I want to love the Libertarian Party. I really do. It’s the only political party out there that is anywhere close to my beliefs.”

So if you abandon the LP, what will you do? Support another party that you love even less? Don’t affiliate with any party? Not vote? Wouldn’t that essentially be doing something you recognize as less than perfect, and do only because you don’t see a better alternative? Why then does the LP have to be perfect enough to “love”, and not merely better than the alternatives, which you seem to be saying it is? I don’t know any Libertarians, myself included, who wouldn’t change something about the party. We support it not because we think it’s perfect, but because we recognize that those who support freedom can be more effective if we work together. A party with an explicitly pro-freedom mission seems like the natural place to do that.

(2) “…the Party, and the campaigns, are horribly mismanaged. Look back to this year’s Libertarian National Convention in Las Vegas, where the race for party chairman was nearly won by NOTA—None of the Above.”

Actually NOTA *did* win a vote for chair. The two candidates who lost that vote were disqualified, and we ended up with a different chair who wasn’t beaten by NOTA. To me this was not a failure, but a success. It demonstrated that the Libertarian Party of the United States remains a strongly grassroots, bottom-up organization — when neither of the two leading candidates for an office are acceptable, we *should* toss them both out and demand new candidates. Wouldn’t it be great if national politics worked more like that?

(3) “Look at the video ads for Gary (Johnson), which look like they were designed by an intern with Windows Movie Maker.”

Quite possibly they were. You’ve got to realize that alternative party campaigns are typically underfunded and understaffed. Since I’m writing this on Election Day, it’s a bit late now for 2012, but my suggestion for next time is that if you feel you can do better, design your own ad, for Gary Johnson or whoever. The freedom movement could use more talented video makers, and you don’t have to be part of a campaign in order to do it. Gary Johnson’s website ( http://www.GaryJohnson2012.com ) features ads produced independently by volunteers, as well as those designed by people actually with the campaign. Just do it and submit it, or if a candidate doesn’t want to use it, you can still post it to YouTube or put it on your blog or whatever.

(4) “…while Gary himself has done beyond fantastically in the debates he’s been in and getting attention on Stossel and other shows, the party and campaign management have been disgraces.”

In one sense, I’m sure that’s true. Virtually every political campaign I’ve been connected with in any way, has been horribly disorganized and mismanaged from my point of view. It seems to be kind of the nature of the beast. So expecting the LP to be much better on that score may not be very realistic. At the beginning of this year I went and spent a week in Iowa volunteering for Ron Paul. Media reports were saying he had the most effective and best organized ground operation there, and that was quite likely true. There were multiple offices around the state and lots of dedicated Paul supporters, but nevertheless there was a tremendous amount of inefficiency, poor coordination, etc. I couldn’t get the most basic information out of the official campaign about where I should go, how I could best be of use, etc. The independent volunteer offices seemed to be accomplishing the most, but with little help from the top. My general observation has been that the “professional” consultants and managers at the top of campaigns tend to want to keep everything on a tight leash, not recognizing that unleashing grassroots energy for a candidate by empowering people to go out and do their own thing to support will ultimately do more good, even if it’s often not “on message”. I think Ron Paul himself understood this, but that many of the people around him that he trusted to make campaign decisions did not. I have certainly seen and heard things about the Johnson campaign that I think were mistakes or could have been handled better. If you have specific feedback you’d like to give at some point, I’d be interested in hearing it. We will be sitting down post-election at some point and having this conversation with the folks who ran the campaign.

(5) “…the party doesn’t seem to be doing much to help him.”

The biggest single obstacle that presidential candidates outside the two-party cartel face is ballot access. Without the LP’s pre-existing ballot access in many states, its network of volunteers and paid petition-signature-gatherers, and the money the party spends on this (typically in the neighborhood of $1 million, I believe), Gary Johnson would not be on the ballot in 48 states (49 counting Michigan where he’s a write-in candidate) plus D.C. Running on his own as an independent, he’d be lucky to be on in half that many. The nearest closest alternative competitor, Jill Stein of the Green Party, is only on in 39 states. Independents without a huge war chest have a tough row to hoe: “Rocky Anderson has taken an unusual approach, seeking the nomination of a variety of parties from state-to-state. He has achieved ballot access success on the ticket of the Justice Party in several states, the Natural Law Party in Michigan, the Oregon Progressive Party, as well as gaining the nomination of independent parties across the country. The fight to get on the ballot continues.” ( http://ivn.us/2012/09/10/rocky-andersons-fight-for-ballot-access/ ). Despite seeking ballot access help wherever he could get it, as of Oct. 5, Anderson was only looking at being on in about 27 states (see http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2012/10/rocky-andersons-ballot… ). So one would be unwise to discount the Libertarian Party’s importance in this regard. Also, wherever Gary and his running mate Judge Jim Gray have been campaigning, the core of his support has been local Libertarian activists with state and local affiliates. That was certainly true here in the Bay Area. Many of the people who came out to the events I took part in for them, at Berkeley, Oakland, and Stanford, and helped organize those events, were other area Libertarians I recognized.

(6) “Gary Johnson should easily get a million votes this year. If you can’t do that, LP, then I’m done.”

If everybody took this attitude — if all prospective Libertarian supporters simply said “If the rest of ya’ll can’t meet some minimum threshold *without* my help, then forget it” — I think you can imagine the result. Nothing would get accomplished. If Gary Johnson does get 1 million votes or more this year, it will be because lots of dedicated Libertarians and others rolled up their sleeves and plunged in to help, not knowing what the result would be. They didn’t just sit back and wait for others to build a strong foundation before getting involved. Many people find it psychologically easier to get onboard an effort that’s already going strong, but there is also personal satisfaction to be had in being an early adopter and getting onboard with something *before* it’s popular. More importantly, there’s gratification to be had in knowing that you did the right thing, regardless of whether the overall effort fully succeeds.

(7) “…what about that Senate candidate in Missouri, Dines? He doesn’t even have a website up and running! He’s just running around smoking pot with his shirt off! That’s not campaigning, that’s horsing around! If you want people to take you seriously, LP, then you need to take yourself seriously.”

That would be Jonathan Dine ( http://www.jonathandine.com/why-im-running/ ). Why didn’t he have a website? Probably because he didn’t have enough money or help with his campaign. Again, a lot of this depends on other people like yourself stepping up to the plate and pitching in. Smoking pot? So did Gary Johnson. So did Barack Obama (the hypocrite). Posing shirtless? Why not? He has a nice body. It will probably get him some votes. The idea that one can’t be “serious” and do stuff like that is how politics *used* to be understood, but politics is changing. Whether you are serious about your ideas has zero to do with what you’re wearing. Growing numbers of voters are looking for people who obviously *aren’t* career politicians, aren’t part of the system, to represent them, because the status quo is failing. Going around with a marijuana leaf sharpie drawn on your chest, rather than looking like another D.C. suit-and-tie is a good way to demonstrate that you aren’t just another politician. It also reflects important libertarian values of individual freedom — that people have the right to dress how they want, and the right to put what they want into their own bodies.

(8) “Enough with these strange conspiracy theories of ‘cabals’ trying to take you over.”

As should be clear from my comments about ballot access, the Libertarian Party is a valuable property. Lots of people *would* like to take over the LP if they thought they could. It’s happened to other parties. The Reform Party started by Ross Perot got taken over by Pat Buchanan and his supporters until it largely imploded. Sure this can lead some people to be excessively paranoid, and many conspiracy theories about cabals and stuff are just that. But the threat is real enough, and better to be too vigilant against it than not vigilant enough.

(9) “Get people elected to local offices first…”

I more or less agree in theory, but it’s easier said than done. Lots of us are working on it. I’ve run for local office four times myself. But there’s room for a variety of approaches. Campaigns for higher office often draw media attention and reach the politically apathetic and disconnected in ways that local campaigns don’t, which exposes more people to the movement and gets more people involved, thus creating more activists who will run for local office or support those who do. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

(10) “…for the love of the baby Jesus, stop stop stop talking about anarcho-capitalism. No one cares. Just talk about libertarianism in the broadest of terms: Free market economics, social tolerance, no wars, and less government (and taxes!) overall.”

Historically, great social and political changes have most often been brought about by radicals. Moral clarity attracts people to the cause, especially young, idealistic people who represent the best hope for real change. What’s more compelling, someone who says “Let’s get the slave-masters to treat their slaves a little better,” or someone who says “Slavery is wrong, and it must be ended now!”? The fact is that anarchy (sometimes called “anarcho-capitalism” to distinguish it from the beliefs of others who call themselves anarchists but who want a society that would necessarily require the initiation of government-type force in order to achieve it) is actually the purest form of libertarianism. Whether anarchy would be sustainable or whether minimal government would be more reliable in that respect is a matter that reasonable libertarians can debate, but telling the Libertarian Party not to talk about libertarianism is not a good approach, imho. Remember, no party is likely to reflect what you believe 100% anyway. Better to have a Libertarian Party that reliably and consistently advocates libertarian solutions, and never advocates non-libertarian solutions, making it clear that anything less than a truly free society is a step in the right direction but not the ultimate goal, than to have a Libertarian Party that waters down or hides its message in order to pander for votes. The Republican and Democrat parties didn’t start out as the corrupt, statist parties dominated by statist career politicians that they are today. They got that way gradually. How? The people involved in those parties didn’t make sure their organizations remained committed enough to principle, and they allowed themselves to be slowly taken over by people more in it for the money and the power than for making a better world.

(11) “…if you can’t get even one million [votes for president in 2012], then that’s it. I’m done. I’m going to look elsewhere to advance liberty, because you’re not it. I’m not going to waste my time and my hopes on you.”

Supporting the Libertarian Party and being an activist in some other area of the larger freedom movement aren’t mutually exclusive. Voting Libertarian takes relatively little time or effort, and being an LP member takes relatively little money [$25 a year to join the national party as a dues-paying member (visit https://www.lp.org/membership ), maybe around 2-3 times that if you want to also join your state and local affiliates]. I often advise people not to get their hopes up too much, because that causes burn out. The cause of freedom — real freedom — is one that human beings have been struggling toward in fits and starts for thousands of years. I’m in this for the long haul, because I am serious, and I would rather see my party lose elections than lose its way, because you can always come back and win the next election as more people come to realize the truth of what you advocate and see that you have a track record that convinces them you mean it. But once you lose your integrity, lose your reputation, lose control of your organization to the career political types who will run it for their own interests from the top down, then you’re pretty much screwed.

Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee

Starchild, I do love your response, but Jeremy does make some valid points as well. I’m a bit frustrated too. I want more of a choice. I want to see what the Libertarian Party plan is to advance their cause in the future. The only Libertarian Canidate on my election ballot was Gary Johnson. How can this be changed?

Equally as frustrating to me was the behavior of some of the Gary Johnson and even Ron Paul supporters on the yahoo blogs. I know it is good to express one’s beliefs, and the Libertarian Party has no control what their supporters do or say, but the language/tone of their comments sounded like they were coming from the far left/far right loons that are dictating their party’s policies. Those kind of posts are part which has put a wedge between the Republican party and myself and is why I am looking elsewhere—well also that I am becoming more and more socially liberal everyday while staying fiscally conservative.

Freedom For All

Well he made the million mark, but unfortunately not more. One huge problem is that people bought into how incredibly important it was to vote Obama or Romney for the very survival of the Republic crap. Looking at my state of NH Johnson received 8260 votes, just 1% of the vote. However the Gubernatorial and 2 US House candidates all garnered 4% of the vote. The Libertarian candidate for governor got more than twice as many votes as Johnson did (19K vs 8K). Johnson was listed first on the ballot, with the governor slot right below him, yet 11,000 people thought it so important to really throw a vote away (41K+ win for Obama so whatever you chose to do didn’t matter) that they did R or D for president but not for the other offices. If you are a pretentious GOP prick who assumes all Lib votes should go to them you can honestly say that Libertarians cost Rep Frank Guinta his job. Now imagine how many other people across the country did the same thing; voted for the Obamney ticket because of the Earth shattering consequences but went 3rd party down ticket. Extrapolate based on the real returns that ranged between 1 to 3.5% with this fudge factor of 4 or so and Johnson is easily at 5% nationwide. A better run campaign could have got the message out earlier and better, I completely agree with that idea. The ‘be the 5%’ campaign was genius I thought, and he should have pulled the trigger on that at least two weeks earlier. Also whoever was running his super-PAC should have to give all the money back. From what I understand they concentrated on robo-calls in Ohio, the least effective tactic in the state the big dogs were spending the most money on. Had that money, time and effort been spent in ‘safe states’ where there are huge swaths of people who know their vote doesn’t count and their voices are not heard, we could have seen really big numbers. If a pre-election poll showed that 10% of the electorate in Alabama or Oregon was thinking Johnson that would have been a real story that could have built its own momentum. In southern NH I saw 2 Johnson signs, mine and one on a roadside in the next small town over, nothing else. I would say his name and people would just give me the blank stare. I think the campaign lacked the necessary focus, and before Starchild gets up on me, we had another baby in July so my money and my time for sign waving were extremely limited. If he is going to run in 2016 we will see what I can do. But so much more could have been done this year, and that is what sucks. I was screaming about the Missouri thing. Dropped in your lap, a ‘TEA Party’ candidate running against an unpopular incumbent opens his mouth and proves he is an idiot. Now you are the LP with the greatest chance in a decade to win an actual seat in the national government. Shake the couch cushions, call in any marker, have someone throw a legal smoke signal to this libertarian super PAC to do something. Show the people of Missouri that there is another candidate who has the same small government bona fidas and isn’t a theocratic idiot. All wasted opportunity in my opinion.
But that leads to the next problem, which as Jeremy perfectly points out, what about the public perception of the LP and libertarianism in general. I blog, and personally I always thought I could do more for Johnson writing about him than I could waving a sign. I called my blog “Libertarians: Crazy, Naive or Just Like You?” to fight the notion that we are tinfoil hatters and that if we could better articulate a limited government pro-liberty message, in the most general terms, we could show people that we are not a cult, and that maybe they could see themselves supporting a libertarian candidate or position. So how has it worked out? My Google/search engine traffic for just the last week leading to this election:
>gary johnson crazy
>gary johnson review
>gary johnson is crazy
>are libertarians crazy
>gary johnson criticism
>gary johnson reviews
>is gary johnson crazy
>”pro-life libertarians” “gary johnson”
>everyone thinks libertarian are crazy
So ‘crazy’ and ‘libertarian’, at least in my little corner of the universe, seem to go together in much of the public’s perception. That means that people somehow got enough information about Johnson to ask the question ‘Is he crazy?’ and I seem to be one of the last bulwarks to convincing you that that is not the case. That is a scary proposition. So how do we start to change perception? Even if we could somehow push the An-Caps towards the back of the pack we would still have the 9-11 Truthers, anti-vaxers, Alex Jones and Jesse Ventura types who find their way into the tent. I would like to be part of a conversation with people about improving our lives by limiting the size, scope and power of the state, yet that gets drowned by one set of jackasses screaming about chem trails and another set hurling around ‘not a true libertarian!’ because I might be willing to concede that change will be incremental and part of a compromise in which I am not 100% happy. I supported Johnson because he appealed to me from the beginning. He could have run a much better campaign, and if he prepares to run a real campaign the next time around he can make a real impact, because he is actually good. The LP should spend the next year on outreach and media to show people that there is another path, someone who can make the limited government, pro-liberty case without the anti-gay, anti-Mexican, bomb everybody, and just-behave-damn-it-in-case-Jesus-shows-up baggage. Real professional runs with good candidates using social media to the hilt in 2014 paves the way for real change. The GOP brand is hanging by a thread, and the Santorums of that party are going to jerk it in the wrong direction, that is a given. There is opportunity, lets hope the LP can take advantage.