[Lnc-business] [Lnc-discuss] Introductions and personal goals for the 2014-2016 LNC term

[Daniel Wiener]

Hello everyone.  For those who don't already know me, you're probably
better off that way.  Still...  I'm Daniel Wiener, and I'm an electronic
engineer working in both digital circuit design and embedded software
engineering.  I've been an LP member since 1972, and this is my third term
as the California/Region 4 representative to the LNC.

Over the years I've busied myself in a variety of roles:  I worked on John
Hospers' Presidential campaign and was the first editor of the California
LP newsletter.  I served as Treasurer of the California McBride for
President Campaign in 1975-76; Treasurer of the Libertarian Party of
California in 1976-77; Treasurer of the Ed Clark for Governor Campaign in
1978; and Treasurer of the Committee to Nominate Clark for President in
1980.  I was the LPC Southern California Vice-Chair in 1979, and then LPC
State Chair in 1979-1980 when the Libertarian Party mounted a massive
registration drive (about 80 thousand new registrants) to achieve ballot
status in California.  I was also the LPC Secretary in 2004-2006.

As far political campaigning goes, I was a Libertarian Party candidate for
California Assembly in 1980; for State Senate in 1982; and for Congress in
1986.  I helped elect my wife Sandi Webb to the Simi Valley City Council in
1990 and re-elect her in 1994.

The Libertarian Party has endured a lot of ups and downs over the past 42
years, and I've often felt frustrated by the apparent lack of progress.
But I've also learned to cultivate patience; Change simply does not happen
overnight, no matter how urgently we think it needs to.  It can often take
decades.  Despite the many harmful trends we see in our country, there are
also many favorable trends which libertarians can claim a good deal of
credit for.  Our ideas are entering the mainstream, even though they still
represent a minority of the populace.

My goal is to keep pushing libertarian ideas and growing the Libertarian
Party until we finally reach a tipping point and become the new political
paradigm.  We are resource-limited, which is the main thing preventing us
from taking advantage of some huge opportunities.  I want to increase
Libertarian Party membership, by prospecting to target audiences such as
newly-registered Libertarian voters and taking advantage of all the new
social media and Internet channels.  I want us to run libertarian
candidates for non-partisan local offices and elect them, while also
running quality candidates for higher partisan offices to impact those
races and garner earned media for our policies.

One of the major lessons I've learned from my experiences is that there's
no magic wand in politics.  Libertarian Party members are full of bright
ideas and master plans for electing our candidates and remaking society,
then get upset when their plans aren't magically implemented.  But
successful politics involves a lot of infrastructure and money and (above
all) hard work, much of it behind the scenes.  Rhetoric and wishful
thinking won't cut it.  So my other main goal is to support our staff and
all the unglamorous but essential work they do at our headquarters;
carefully manage our budget and prioritize our expenditures; and improve
our underlying financial foundation.

Daniel Wiener



On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 10:20 PM, Nicholas Sarwark <chair at lp.org> wrote:

> All,
>
> I would appreciate it if you could take a couple of minutes and send
> an email to this list with a brief introduction of who you are, your
> history within the Libertarian Party, and what you would like to
> accomplish in this term on the LNC.  I would like to address our goals
> as a group at the September meeting, and I thank Dr. Lark for starting
> that discussion, but I think it's also important to get to know each
> other as well.
>
> I'll start:
>
> I'm Nicholas Sarwark, former Chair of the Libertarian Party of
> Maryland, former (as of tonight) Vice Chair of the Libertarian Party
> of Colorado, deputy public defender, former computer guy, husband and
> father of two kids.  My goals for this term are: (1) to put out a
> consistent Libertarian message that will appeal to millennials and
> unaffiliated voters and contrast the Libertarian position with people
> like Rand Paul in a way that will allow us to pick up voters if/when
> he is eliminated from the GOP contest and (2) do whatever I can to
> assist with the success of state affiliates and candidates.  My belief
> is that if I can accomplish those things, revenue and membership
> numbers and convention attendance will increase as well.
>
> -Nick
>
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>



-- 
*"In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we
guess it (audience laughter), no, don’t laugh, that’s the truth. Then we
compute the consequences of the guess, to see what, if this is right, if
this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare
the computation results to nature or we say compare to experiment or
experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works. If it
disagrees with experiment, it’s WRONG. In that simple statement is the key
to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it
doesn’t matter how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is.
If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”*
-- Richard Feynman
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