[Lnc-business] report on Oklahoma visit

Tue Dec 15 22:01:22 EST 2015

I agree with everything in Mr. Ludlow's e-mail except the 2 sentences I made
bold.

Winning local elections is moderately difficult.  Winning state or federal
elections is quite difficult unless you know exactly what you are doing, and
you have the ability to remain focused on one goal for months at a time.

The only legitimate purpose of a political party is to win elections, since
doing anything other than that reduces the number of elections that you will
win.  Obviously a political party can engage in voter registration drives,
since I don't think your standard non-profit organization is allowed to do
that.

But even voter registration drives are not an end in themselves: they are
only a means to winning elections.

I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out why so many LP
members are so reluctant

to concentrate on winning elections.

  Scott Lieberman

  _____  

From: Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of
Kevin Ludlow
Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2015 11:21 AM
To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org
Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] report on Oklahoma visit

In what seems to be a growing trend for me, I want to express my complete
agreement for what Mr. Tomasso has written here.  He has presented a much
kinder version of what I wrote paired with a much more condensed version of
what Mr. Katz wrote.  It really hits some good points (as did Mr. Katz
before him).

I want to clarify that at no point in my writing was I attempting to imply
--in any way-- that the LP should ever be disbanded in favor of activist
groups.  As Mr. Tomasso accurately points out, sometimes the LP is the only
player in town seeking goals of liberty.  That's a wonderful thing.  But as
I presented numerous examples of and he further articulates, we don't
generally compete well within the activism ecosystem.

I hypothesize this is the case because our focus tends to be split in two
(or more) different directions.  On the one hand we want to play politics
with the bigger parties and think we'll get candidates elected without any
real strategies of doing do.  On the other hand we want to be activists
without any real direction of what to support.  In my opinion this leads us
to do both rather poorly.  What I am really trying to impress upon this
group through these observations is that I truly believe our efforts are
going to become less and less supported by the newer generation.  I cited
numerous anecdotal examples of this from campaign volunteers I had in 2014
and hear it frequently from people my age in LPTexas.  

The people that I work with in the so-called millennial generation are some
of the brightest and most motivated people I know.  Technology has enabled
them with the means to connect and they know how to do it - very well.
Unfortunately (for groups like the LP), they are NOT patient people.  And
frankly, why should they be?  Taking that point seriously, this is why the
landscape is changing so drastically.  If I go back to the newsletters
debate yet again, it's not just a function of the cost being what it is,
it's also a function of the information being 3-4 months old by the time
anybody reads it.  While many people on the LNC may see that as "just the
way it is", it is not tolerated by the younger crowd - at all.  I quite
honestly am uninterested in information that is 3 days old, never mind 3
months old.  Anyone is welcome to scoff at that, but that's the way it is
now and it's only moving towards shorter and shorter tolerances.  So as a
consequence to this an entire group speaks very poorly of us.  For another
reference point, take a look at the almost comical amateur quality of our
website (apologies to the many hurt feelings that evokes, but let's get past
that and pretend we're Libertarians where capitalistic successes actually
matter).  Compare it to gop.org or dnc.org if you'd like.  This is a huge
deal for building new members.  

To Mr. Tomasso's final observation, even the people that build themselves
into a position of becoming "successful candidates" are likely to run as
Democrats or Republicans depending on their area.  And why?  Quite simply
because they cannot win as a Libertarian and so they don't try.  We have no
path for helping to put them into office; winning elections is not a focal
point of the LP as far as I can tell.  Yes it's great that they focus on a
message of Liberty, but how does that help the brand of the LP?  I contend
it does not.

My point is simply that if we're not going to get people elected to higher
level offices and we're not going to do as good a job with our activism as
local activist groups can do, then what does the future of the LP look like?
More importantly, what does it look like when the newer generation starts to
take over?

I don't see any real specific long-term strategies for winning elections,
much less ones that are conscious of what the landscape looks like in say
2020 or 2024.  I remain dumbfounded that there exists a faction of people
who do not believe the purpose of our political party is to win elections.
It needn't be the ONLY goal of course, but to learn people believe it
shouldn't be a goal at all - yikes.   

Please really do consider the fact that political parties were born out of
the need to organize in order to accomplish a set of goals.  50 years ago
there was really no better way to do this and so a group was formed, had a
general direction and pushed forward.  This is not the case any more.  I
don't need a political party to accomplish my goals as I can simply find a
coalition of people on the internet and we can proceed forward.  So if we
don't cater to the ONE thing we have over an activist group then I can't see
why younger people would want to work with us.  They can turn to any number
of activist groups to accomplish their goals and can do it much faster and
historically with much more success.    

So to wrap this up, I would really like to encourage the LP to start
considering this reality.  Just like any corporation needs to adopt for the
future through new innovations, risks, and actionable strategies, I believe
so does the LP.  "What we've always done" is not going to work for much
longer.  Young people ask me all of the time why they should join the LP.
If I can't honestly tell them it's to work on changing legislation from the
inside (eg: elected officials) then I'm not really sure what I can tell
them.

Thanks for your continued time and attention on this topic.

-Kevin Ludlow 

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On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 8:13 PM, Rich Tomasso <rtomasso at lpnh.org> wrote:

Nice to see a strategic discussion on this list.

Good points have been made here, I want to offer some quick observations
now. These should probably be spun into separate threads.

Activists and volunteers don't care so much about labels, and in too many
cases, the LP label has baggage. If you're in a state where the LP is the
only liberty game in town, great. If you have competition in that realm,
then we don't always compete so well. I'm not sure why, I think there's a
lot of institutional inertia and our marketing tends to be more intellectual
than action oriented.

We do have more restrictions as a political party than many other groups.
That's one reason December ballot access is more important for the long-term
than October ballot access. For many affiliates it's like night and day. For
my own affiliate the petitioning requirement keeps away more candidates than
anything else. Party status in general would make life an order of magnitude
easier and better.

Building the bench is very important. When someone around here says they
want to run for state office next year, we tell them to run for local office
this year. If they want to run for Congress next election, we tell them to
run for state rep first, and prove you can run a campaign. At a minimum they
should do major work for another campaign this election. They may not like
it, but it serves to instill the idea that a winning campaign is a lot of
work and you can't do it just with a website and winning smile. Show the
support base you are serious about running for real. In my state we've spent
the last 12 years training activists and plenty have served on state-level
boards, several of them are now state reps and a few state senators. Most of
them choose to just run under the most popular party in their district, but
they run on a libertarian (sometimes even an anarchist) platform, and win.
Our message is popular, it's the packaging that needs an overhaul.

~Rich
 Region 8 Rep

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