[Lnc-business] Email Ballot 2015-07: Oklahoma petition drive - v2

Tue Jun 23 04:36:59 EDT 2015

    I heartily concur with Norm's sensible nay vote. For forty-four years, our irrational focus on electing libertarians to high office has prevented us from having much influence in American politics. (I'm talking about the NLP, not libertarian ideas, which are spreading in spite of our efforts)  Why are we so intent upon illustrating Einstein's definition of insanity?  Why do we do the same thing over and over again, yet expect different results this time?
    But Scott has done us a service and come up with some fresh new magical thinking that we should all rally around.  After 21 dismal failures, we can succeed in 2016 if we just care about electing libertarians and make a concerted effort to maximize ballot access in December by running fewer candidates for unwinnable offices and campaign by mudslinging ethical issues on the local level.
    Professor de la Paz, from Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress made a great suggestion to the constitutional convention there in 2076.  He suggested that legislators ought to pay for their proposals with their own money. I suggest that every yes vote on this question should pony up five to ten thousand dollars to pay for Oklahoma's ballot access.  Leave the members' contributions for more effective ways of promoting liberty NOW. (thank you, Sharon Harris)
     The Republicans and Democrats really enjoy watching us grasp at high offices.  As we learn how to leap higher and get a taste of it, they chuckle, then raise the carrot just out of reach again.  The next time I leap up, I'm going to ignore the carrot and kick them in the short hairs.   We reformers should not be trying to get our hands on the levers of power, we should be figuring out how to shorten them and make them less powerful. 
Ron Windeler
rowindeler at aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott L. <scott73 at earthlink.net>
To: 'lnc-business' <lnc-business at lp.org>
Sent: Mon, Jun 22, 2015 6:14 pm
Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] Email Ballot 2015-07: Oklahoma petition drive - v2

I applaud Mr. Olsen for having the guts to send the e-mail below to the Chairs of the RNC and the DNC via the LP’s web site.

Those LP leaders and members who care about ballot access have done an excellent job over the past 44 years of maximizing our ballot access in October of even-numbered years with the meager resources that we have had available.

 However, there has never been a concerted effort to maximize ballot access in December of even-numbered years.   A possible explanation for that is that it would likely entail running fewer candidates for unwinnable offices, and probably having some statewide candidates campaign on issues that are tangential to the LP Platform.  That doesn’t mean campaigning as an

anti-Libertarian, but it might mean campaigning on ethics issues that are not explicitly libertarian.

Mr. Olsen’s comments about actually getting candidates elected to public office are right on target.   But our members won’t care about electing Libertarians to public office until the LNC cares about it.

Total number of elected Libertarians = 151

Total number of elected offices in the USA =  circa 500,000

   Scott Lieberman

From: Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of Norm Olsen
 Sent: Monday, June 22, 2015 2:50 PM
 To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org
 Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] Email Ballot 2015-07: Oklahoma petition drive -v2

Nay!

I have true sympathy for states which are afflicted with nasty ballot access laws.  This vote is not a vote against Oklahoma or any other state so afflicted.

I vote against the unofficially adopted policy of this committee that 50+ state ballot access for our presidential candidate is the primary and sole objective of this committee.  I write this as expenditures other than ballot access are carefully scrutinized and maximum frugality is demanded; and even then are often rejected.   But when it comes to 50+ state ballot access, nothing is too expensive; frugality and cost/benefit analysis goes out the window.  Major fundraising efforts are implemented, major donations made, and many volunteers are recruited to work the malls.  Also, ballot access funding requests routinely get approved by huge majorities, usually  16-1.  I am unaware of any that have failed.

Used to be that Libertarian principles were considered to be extreme; but now they are being adopted as law everywhere.  Libertarian registration is increasing in many of the states in my region; 10% annually for three years now in my home state of Colorado.  Yet at the same time, membership and revenue of our organization is shrinking, and  this effect has been quite dramatic in recent months.  The focus on ballot access does not appear to be providing the success upon which volunteer organizations like ours need to grow.

It is time to reconsider strategies.  While ballot access is a valid endeavor for a political party, the BIG BIG question remains:

    Is this the very best use of our very limited (and currently dramatically shrinking) resources?

While ballot access is a valid objective for any political party, the unilateral focus on ballot access is causing us to ignore organizational strength.  And it is lack of organization strength that underlies the ballot access issue.  (Catch 22 if you will.)  Curing the ballot access problem is best achieved by building the organization strength of the individual affiliates.   It cannot be denied that ballot access is an important ingredient to building a state affiliate or local affiliate.  However, ballot access cannot guarantee that an organizationally strong affiliate will emerge.

Our emphasis needs to change; the scope of our activities broadened, and our resources put to the very best use possible.  Building organizational strength needs to gain our primary focus; ballot access should be only a judiciously applied part of this larger objective.

Norm

PS> One might say politics is about running candidates.  However, this applies only if, at least occasionally, some of those candidates actually get elected.  Running candidates when none ever get elected is not politics.  To actually elect a candidate takes three things: organization, organization, and more organization.

    Norman T Olsen

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