[Lnc-business] Contract with campaign?

Starchild sfdreamer at earthlink.net
Mon Aug 29 01:49:53 EDT 2016


	Trying to "extract advantage" from our candidates, Dan? I hope no one here sees that as the objective. It is in the interests of Libertarian candidates that their donors join the Libertarian Party – more LP members means a stronger party, and a stronger party is able to do more to help Libertarian candidates. 

	But if a candidate needs that reason to support the LP, something is wrong. Libertarian candidates should naturally want to support the Libertarian Party, unless the party itself has gone wrong. If there comes a point where the LP is no longer seeking a world free of government aggression, sooner rather than later, Libertarian candidates should speak out and make that clear, and in their roles as members of the party, fight to help get it back on track. 

	More fundamentally, we don't want an us/them situation – we want our candidates to be part of the "us", with the principles and values that naturally entails. The 45 years of effort that Nick speaks of to earn ballot access has been part of a struggle for freedom, and the efforts of all those whose work has made it possible – those in the larger libertarian movement who have made the culture more fertile soil and the minds more prepared for the ideas we as a party are trying to advance, as well as those in the Libertarian Party, and certainly the candidates themselves – deserve nothing less than for us to make damn sure that each candidate who represents us believes in the libertarian ideas we've been fighting for. We are together for freedom, or we are together for nothing.

	Like the members of the Libertarian National Committee being responsible and accountable to LP members, Libertarians being responsible and accountable to the political parties on whose ballots they are listed is a good thing. Because when some of those candidates become officeholders, we want them to be used to accountability and transparency and bottom-up governance. This will help inoculate them against the natural effect that being in public office has on most people, which is to make them more used to being in charge, i.e. having power. And power as we know corrupts. 

	There will also of course be pressures from their statist colleagues to get with the statist program in various respects, via compromises and accommodations both large and small, pressures to pander to special interests to raise money for reelection, etc. Rather than joining ranks with the politicians addicted to power and beholden to special interests, we want our candidates to come to the dance already taken (with a nod to Caryn's analogy about the girl left waiting to dance). In contrast to the governing establishment culture of top-down power, we want Libertarian candidates who become officeholders to spread a culture of bottom-up accountability and transparency. To me this is not about trying to get something from our candidates, it is more like arming them for battle. 

	In short, I believe we want with our candidates not a contract that skews toward one "side" or the other, but a contract that "skews" toward advancing freedom. A contract negotiation should be, and I hope is, approached by both candidates and party chairs with that objective in mind. If a party and its candidates are quibbling over mailing lists, it's a bad sign. If we are selecting good candidates, the Libertarian Party should want to share our database with our candidates, and unless the party has strayed from its founding principles, the candidates should want to share their political contacts with the party, since we're all family, all part of the same team. If we're not selecting good candidates or we have gone astray, then we should do something about that. 

Love & Liberty,
                                   ((( starchild )))
At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
                                (415) 625-FREE


On Aug 28, 2016, at 9:20 PM, Daniel Wiener wrote:

> Attached below are some emails I exchanged with Nick back in February on the subject of a Presidential Campaign Contract.  Unfortunately nothing got done back then.  What I would have liked to have happened is that the LNC should have a adopted a very reasonable draft contract, which did not try to extract every last ounce of advantage from our eventual Presidential candidate.  We would have then pre-signed the contract and urged all the Presidential candidates to do likewise prior to the convention.  If they refused, delegates could have taken that into account.  If they objected to some provisions and insisted on certain changes, we could have considered those specific objections and if necessary revised the contract.
> 
> Instead we have the current situation: Still no signed contract three months after the convention.  50-state ballot access is almost complete, and we've lost most of our leverage.  The Johnson/Weld campaign is accumulating a hundred thousand donors.  Will we have access to all that information?  What do we do if they refuse to provide it to us?
> 
> Dan Wiener
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Daniel Wiener <wiener at alum.mit.edu>
> Date: Sat, Feb 20, 2016 at 10:17 PM
> Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] Proposed Presidential Campaign Contract
> To: "lnc-business at hq.lp.org" <lnc-business at hq.lp.org>
> Cc: Oliver Hall <oliverbhall at gmail.com>
> 
> The Libertarian Party's database of membership and contact information is one of our "crown jewels".  It is highly proprietary data which would cause us enormous damage if it were to somehow leak into public view or hostile hands.  That's why we have to insist on the use of a bonded third-party mail house, thus shielding it even from our Presidential candidate, to avoid the risk that some campaign staffer or outside contractor might accidentally or intentionally compromise its security.
> 
> But the same logic applies in reverse.  A prominent person seeking our Presidential nomination may start with his own large following, accumulated over many years via business or political or celebrity status.  That data constitutes his own "crown jewels", and its security is just as important to him as ours is to us.  Why should he entrust it to the LP?  If we want to market the LP to his pre-existing list, we should have to go through the same hoops (e.g., bonded third-party mailing house) that we demand when he wants to market to our pre-existing list.
> 
> Hey, if a candidate is willing to gift the LP his pre-existing list, that would be wonderful.  But it shouldn't be a contractual condition.
> 
> And yes, we bring ballot status to the table.  But the candidate brings his presumed political skills to the table, along with a willingness to campaign full time as our Presidential nominee.  That's the more proper comparison.
> 
> It boils down to this:  We need to propose a Presidential Agreement which most if not all of the Presidential candidates, along with objective observers, will consider reasonable and fair to both sides, not one which disproportionately skews towards the Libertarian Party.  That's the only way that we'll persuade the 2016 candidates to buy into it, and that's the only way that we'll be able to convince the convention delegates to add this requirement to the Bylaws for future elections.
> 
> Dan Wiener
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, Feb 20, 2016 at 10:40 PM, Nicholas Sarwark <chair at lp.org> wrote:
> Yes, a candidate comes to the table with a list that may have been
> developed over some period before he/she announced for the LP
> nomination. But the LP comes to the table with ballot access earned
> over 45 years. We should get the whole list if the candidate gets our
> whole list.
> 
> All inquiries about the Libertarian Party Presidential candidate
> should be given to the LP for an opportunity to convert them to a LP
> member, regardless of whether the inquirer asks specifically about the
> LP or not.  This should not preclude the candidate from also
> responding to the inquiry, or even for there being a day or two
> between the candidate's response to the inquiry and the LP's response.
> 
> -Nick
> 
> On Sat, Feb 20, 2016 at 8:54 PM, Daniel Wiener <wiener at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> After reviewing the proposed Presidential Agreement which Nick sent out earlier tonight, I have several suggested edits: 
> 
> 3(c)(ii):
> 
> Upon signing this Agreement, the Candidates and Campaign Committee shall promptly provide to the LNC their "campaign" lists, i.e., their most current lists of contributors, inquiries and volunteers and the mailing and e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of those persons, and their "media" lists, i.e., their most current lists of media contacts and the mailing and e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of those persons.  This requirement shall only apply to names on those lists which were obtained after the Candidates announced that they were seeking the LP nomination. The Candidates and Campaign Committee shall provide to the LNC promptly as and when they are received, and at least weekly, any additions or updates to those lists. The Candidates and Campaign Committee intend that these lists shall be added to and merged with the lists owned and maintained by the LNC, so that the LNC shall have the unrestricted ownership and use of the lists in the future in order to advance the interests of the LP. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Candidates shall retain a limited license to use those lists following the Campaign for their own personal noncommercial use insofar as such use does not conflict with Libertarian Party objectives. 
> 
> 3(c)(5):
> 
> The Candidates and Campaign Committee shall direct all inquiries about the Libertarian Party from interested voters, media representatives and others, to telephone numbers, mailing and e-mail addresses and persons designated by the LNC. 
> 
> 
> My rationale is that I don't think it's reasonable to demand a Candidate's entire list of contacts and supporters, many of which were accumulated long before that Candidate sought the LP nomination.  But once a Candidate has announced a run, all subsequent contact information should be fair game for the LP.
> 
> It's also unreasonable to limit the Candidate's use of such data to "personal non-commercial use".  Candidates should  be able to freely utilize all of the data which they themselves collected, unless there is a direct conflict with LP objectives (e.g., using that data to help another political party or other non-LP candidates).
> 
> Finally, Candidates and their Campaign Committees should be able to respond to inquiries about themselves without having to redirect those inquiries to the LP, unless the inquiry is specifically about the LP.
> 
> Dan Wiener
> >
> > On Sat, Feb 20, 2016 at 4:54 PM, Nicholas Sarwark <chair at lp.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> As mentioned, the attached contract incorporates almost all of the
> >> proposals suggested by Mr. Hall.
> >>
> >> -Nick
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Lnc-business mailing list
> >> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> >> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
> 
> <Proposed Presidential Candidate Contract - with Special Counsel recommendations.pdf>
> _______________________________________________
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