[Lnc-business] EPCC - Paladin Strategies - Fwd: RE: Omaha Un-Convention Proposed Logo Copyright Question

[Wes Benedict]

Dear LNC:

I recently sought advice from Jim Lark in his role as chair of the 
Employment Policy and Compensation Committee, and he indicated that I 
should bring this matter to the attention of the LNC.

At the April 15-16, 2017 LNC meeting in Pittsburgh, a company, Paladin 
Strategies was considered for hire. From the draft LNC minutes, there 
was a motion  "to allow the Chair to initiate a contract with Paladin 
Strategies to create a general messaging strategy for up to 6 months." 
That motion failed 4-10.

In any case, before the vote, when various LNC members asked the body 
who the firm was or who were some of their other clients or projects, 
the responses were along the lines of "we don't know or we can't 
disclose due to non-disclosure agreements".

I was surprised that no one spoke up and mentioned that Paladin 
Strategies was a firm working on the "Omaha Un-Convention". The excerpt 
from an email received below discloses that fact.

Perhaps others mentioned in the email below are bound by non-disclosure 
agreements or did not notice the connection, but I am not bound by any 
on-disclosure agreement with Paladin Strategies or the "Omaha 
Un-Convention" event. Therefore, I feel obligated to disclose the 
situation.

I am not familiar with Paladin Strategies beyond what has been in emails 
about the Nebraska event and what occurred at the LNC meeting as far as 
I recall. They very well may be a fine organization. As a former 
management consultant myself, I'm acutely aware it's not uncommon for 
staff members to be uncomfortable about bringing in outside consultants 
for services. Here I am on the other side of that equation. Before the 
LNC meeting, I did inform the chair that I was not particularly in favor 
of the LNC hiring consultants for messaging for various reasons and the 
chair suggested it was not a good idea for me to bring that up in the 
LNC meeting. I agreed with the chair that it was not a good idea for me 
to bring up my opposition to hiring the consultants at the LNC meeting.

I'll also mention that recently one of my staff members told me they 
were recently offered to provide training at the Nebraska event as well 
as to have expenses paid for that staff and staff members' family to 
travel to attend the Omaha Un-Convention.

In bringing this matter to the LNC, I wish to emphasize that I am not 
alleging any untoward behavior.  As a matter of proper procedure I 
believe it would have been appropriate for those LNC members with 
knowledge of Paladin Strategies and its association with the proposed 
Nebraska event to provide this information to the LNC during the discussion.

> > Subject:
> >
> >     RE: Omaha Un-Convention Proposed Logo Copyright Question
> > Date:     Thu, 6 Apr 2017 11:23:07 -0500
> > From:     David Demarest <dpdemarest at centurylink.net>
> > To:     'Wes Benedict' <wes.benedict at lp.org>
> > CC:     'Nicholas Sarwark' <chair at lp.org>, 'Robert Kraus' 
> <robert.kraus at lp.org>, 'Brett Bittner' <brett.bittner at lp.org>, 'Vohra 
> Vohra' <vicechair at lp.org>
>
> <snip>
>
> Joe Hedlund, our Publicity Committee Chair, is about to launch an 
> aggressive and carefully targeted publicity and branding campaign that 
> leverages the services of Paladin Strategies, the political messaging 
> strategy firm built on skills of John Engle and Mike Fishbein. Paladin 
> is the same pollical consulting firm that Larry, Trent and I have 
> selected and will present for LNC approval in Pittsburgh to proceed 
> with the targeted messaging technique strategy goal of the EFC 
> committee. John and Mike will have a significant role in our event at 
> multiple levels, including workshops, seminars and publicity messaging 
> strategies. While Paladin is a for-profit firm, Mike and John and 
> their liberty-conscious pricing approach continue to impress me as 
> dedicated Libertarians that share my primary Libertarian motivation - 
> freedom, nothing more, nothing less.
>
> <snip>


Wes Benedict, Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314
(202) 333-0008 ext. 232, wes.benedict at lp.org
facebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership