[Lnc-business] Membership trends

Tue Jul 14 17:05:02 EDT 2015

I am replying on lnc-business because some State Chairs get mad at me when I post opinion e-mails to the State Chairs e-mail list.

This is in reply to Mr. Ludlow’s comments that I made red below.

I understand the Barack Hussein Obama campaign committees are not political parties, but they are close enough to that definition for government work.

http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/15/exclusive-obamas-2012-digital-fundraising-outperformed-2008/

“The total number of donors to the campaign also increased in 2012, the adviser said. In all, 4.4 million individuals gave to the Obama re-election bid, up from 3.95 million in 2008.”

There is no shortage of people who would donate to the LNC, Inc., to our state affiliates, and to our candidates if we can prove that we can elect our candidates to public office.  In other words, most donors want concrete results, 

as opposed to chest-thumping media releases and social media posts.  

Advocacy groups measure their results by how much good legislation they can get Republican or Democrat politicians to pass (1), but political parties measure their results by how much good legislation their own elected officials can pass. 

   Scott Lieberman    Region 4 Alternate, LNC

1.  Or how much bad legislation they can get Republican and Democrat politicians to defeat, obviously.

  _____  

From: Statechairs [mailto:statechairs-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Ludlow
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2015 12:12 PM
To: David Colborne
Cc: State Chairs
Subject: Re: [Statechairs] Membership trends

Brett,

For sake of not getting to tangential, I'm going to back this up just a little bit.  I started by saying I was trying to formulate a mathematical point specifically as to avoid strategizing blindly.

My only real point is that without first examining the general trend of data [the political party membership] across the spectrum, it's impossible to say how the LP is actually doing.  I appreciate someone illustrating voter registration, but I would argue that this in itself is still not an Apples to Apples comparison (especially as I think the same voice pointed out that we're actually going better? than the other two parties in his regard).

I appreciate that we're selling the "product" of candidates, but David essentially makes my point for me with his soda analogy.  If people believe soda is not to be drunk then it's very possible there is nothing you can do to make them buy it.  So maybe start selling juice instead (incidentally coca-cola has a massive gatorade-esque and water market now).  My desire to break from the analogy of candidates being products is simply that they're all coke if you will.  You can change the recipe any which way you want to, but it doesn't change the fact that they're still sugary beverages that people probably shouldn't touch.

I'm suggesting that as a mathematical/statistical reality, perhaps (not for sure - I have no idea) people DON'T want to join political parties - period.  Perhaps they're not interested in shelling out cash for the empty promise of a political party.  Perhaps it has nothing to do with how many changes you make to the soda if people genuinely DON'T want soda.

That's not to say the LP should fold any more than the Ds or Rs would - not at all.  But it's to first consider that perhaps growth should not be the absolute focal point.  ...and I'm making that purely as a data argument, not a philosophical one.

The short is that I really don't know.  But from the lack of data available, I can conclude that nobody else does either and this presents a problem to me from a strategic POV.

-Kevin

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On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 1:56 PM, David Colborne <david.colborne at lpnevada.org> wrote:

Absolutely we're selling a product. That product is libertarian political candidates. Support us and we'll put more product on the shelves. 

The issue here is a lot of people are starting to view political parties like "soda" (or "pop", depending on the region you're from). There are still plenty of people buying soda (and political party candidates), but most everyone agrees it's unhealthy and we need to drink less of it. So, how do you get people to keep buying soda? Similarly, plenty of people support political parties - Fox News' entire business model is predicated on the idea that there are 'Republicans' and 'Socialists', while MSNBC assumes that there are 'Democrats' and 'Corporatists' - but most people want more direct involvement in the selection of their candidates from 'farm to shelf' than party machine politics have traditionally granted. 

So, how does the LP capitalize on that, and how can National benefit from that capitalization? That's the open question. What helps keep me engaged, at least, is that I can 'punch above my weight' in the LP. If I tried to join the Republicans or the Democrats, the odds of anything I say or think or so being worth anything to anyone are considerably lower than they are in the LP since there are a lot of old power structures in there that literally have to die out before fresh blood can step in and do anything useful. Additionally, the ideology behind the LP is much closer to my personal ideology than anything offered by the Republican or Democratic parties.

I can't imagine I'm the only one that wants to participate in politics without being surrounded by a bunch of old retirees. I could be wrong.

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On Jul 14, 2015 11:28 AM, "Kevin Ludlow" <ludlow at gmail.com> wrote:

Brett,

Great to hear from you.  We spoke rather extensively last year at national.  I want to state up front that I'm only approaching this from a mathematical point of view.

>You are correct, people are leaving the major political parties which means the LP should be increasing in size dramatically

This is a false assumption.  There is no evidence I could possibly fathom that would suggest because people are leaving major political parties they would naturally come to the LP.  Maybe people hate ALL political parties (they'd have really good reason to IMO).

> Lets assume for a moment that everyone is leaving politics, that does not give us an excuse for our membership numbers. If this was a business and people were no longer subscribing to our services, that means we need to work harder and launch new products and services or we would be out of business.

This part I agree and disagree with.  The fact is that it DOES give us an excuse.  If numbers are down across the board then they're down across the board.  This is the difference between a product and an ecosystem of products.    ...or in our case the entire political apparatus.  That said, I DO agree that launching newer products and services is how those companies adapt into the future.  Unfortunately I'm not sure that analogy continues to hold much water in the case of a political party because after all, we're NOT selling products.

Anyway, I don't have the data so I can't conclude one way or the other.  However, if national trends for political party membership is down, then it stands to reason very plainly that ours would be down too.

-Kevin

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On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 1:19 PM, Brett H. Pojunis <brett at pojunis.com> wrote:

Hi Kevin,

You are correct, people are leaving the major political parties which means the LP should be increasing in size dramatically. Additionally, most states are realizing organic increases in registered voters. The LP should be in a completely different place.

Lets assume for a moment that everyone is leaving politics, that does not give us an excuse for our membership numbers. If this was a business and people were no longer subscribing to our services, that means we need to work harder and launch new products and services or we would be out of business.

I wouldn't care one bit if the LNC and National office were trying new things but they aren't. All we get is justification for their poor performance. 

Kevin since you are new I want to make sure that you know I am not sitting here complaining, I have offered to help out many times and it falls on deaf ears. As a full time Chairman in Nevada and someone who cares about the National Party I want to help and I have the time and ability to do so. 

Brett H. Pojunis
Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Nevada
The Political Party - Founder
1771 E. Flamingo Road, Suite 201 A
Las Vegas, NV 89119
702.763.9301 | Office (direct)
702.325.7426 | Las Vegas Mobile
202.505.3606 | Washington D.C. Mobile
brett at pojunis.com
www.LPNevada.org

www.PoliticalPartylv.com

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On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 11:07 AM, Kevin Ludlow <ludlow at gmail.com> wrote:

I'm a little new to this thread, but with respect to the original in-line image, has anybody taken the time to compare this again membership trends in the two major parties - or even the Greens for that matter?  Every Gallop article I read suggests people are leaving political parties in droves; I believe I read yesterday that 41% of Americans now identify as independents.

Without comparing against national trends for ALL political parties, I can't really see how this discussion can exist.  We could be exactly inline with US trends or even above them for that matter.  Sincere apologies if this has already been done.

Thanks much.

Kevin Ludlow

Region 7

Inline image 1

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