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

Mon May 8 22:44:31 EDT 2017

I agree with my colleague that we need to do a better job of
differentiating "what is the content of the message?" from "how shall we
deliver the message?"  I often think that our discussions blur these too
much.  I agree with almost all of Mr. Demarest's comments.

On the question of conflict, I have two thoughts.  First, to the question
of how dealing with the same vendor on behalf of two organizations can be a
conflict: if, in both organizations you are a decision-maker, and in at
least one, you are negotiating, the door is open to make trade-offs between
the contracts.  Note that I am not, of course, accusing my colleague of any
such thing, but that is why, in my opinion, it would be a reportable
conflict.  If you have not contracted on behalf of either organization,
then I think it is less reportable.  Second, I think we ought to have some
guidance as to what conflicts need, and need not, be reported.  There are
many items on our conflict list (including some of mine) that I am not sure
are conflicts, and that seem to be there largely out of an abundance of
caution.  I have no objection to abundant caution, but it does concern me
that, if our inclination is to just report it all without thinking through
why a conflict may exist, we may easily miss something that should be
reportable.  If we had some clear guidance as to what sort of thing is a
potential conflict, we could fix both problems.  RONR provides little
guidance on this matter, but perhaps we could refine our policy on it with
some advice of counsel.

Joshua A. Katz

On Mon, May 8, 2017 at 9:34 PM, David Demarest <dpdemarest at centurylink.net>
wrote:

> Wes,
>
>
>
> Thank you for bringing up the conflict of interest question regarding
> Paladin Strategies. Frankly, the thought had not occurred to me. During the
> conflict of interest portion of the April LNC meeting, I did seek the
> advice from an LNC friend regarding the question as to whether my promotion
> of the "Omaha Roads to Liberty Un-Convention” could be considered a
> conflict of interest. The answer was an emphatic "No" so I promptly forgot
> it.
>
>
>
> Under separate cover addressed to Alicia, I will offer possible conflict
> of interest scenarios in the following three areas:
>
>
>
>    1. I am promoter of the Omaha Roads to Liberty Un-Convention, a
>    non-profit event under the legal and financial responsibility of my “2017
>    Omaha Un-Convention, LLC” corporation
>
>
>
>    1. I have had verbal and email discussions with John Engle and Mike
>    Fishbein of Paladin Strategies about their availability to speak at the
>    Omaha Un-Convention and provide their advice on event publicity. We have
>    not agreed on any specifics yet since the event is 8 month away. Paladin
>    Strategies has done no work yet for the Un-Convention nor has any
>    compensation been discussed although I will certainly be offering to cover
>    their travel and lodging expense.
>
>
>
>    1. I have offered some LNC members and LNC staff the opportunity to
>    speak at the Un-Convention and have suggested arrangements to cover their
>    travel and lodging expense
>
>
>
> That being said, I am puzzled as to where the conflict of interest concern
> arises from. Paladin is a partnership with previous clients. I have not
> signed or been asked to sign a non-disclosure on behalf of Paladin. I
> believe the question of previous clients was raised but the response as I
> recall was general in nature for obvious reasons and no contract had been
> signed.
>
>
>
> Once the objection to the partnership nature of Paladin Strategies was
> raised at the April LNC meeting, on top of our understandable stress and
> exhaustion following social media and committee elections as Caryn Ann has
> pointed out, I was certain our motion would fail and saw no point in
> pursuing further discussion.
>
>
>
> That being said, I believe in transparency perhaps to a fault in the eyes
> of some. I have not been reticent in advertising the subject matter
> referred to in the above three conflict of interest declarations to any and
> all that would listen. However, the quoted email was sent just to LNC
> members I thought would be interested.
>
>
>
> I would ask the question: What does the content of the motion that was
> defeated 4-10 have to do with the content of the original motion to solicit
> bids from political consultants. Was anyone on the LNC operating under the
> illusion that we were soliciting bids from political consultants for any
> purpose other than seeking their professional advice on applying messaging
> technique strategy to facilitate presenting our excellent Libertarian
> message in a manner that connects more effectively with the broader
> audience?
>
>
>
> From my personal perspective, our heated discussions and concerns both pro
> and con about “dumbing down” our message entirely miss the point of what
> Paladin Strategies has to offer. Our fixation on changing or not changing
> the content of our message continues our focus on hitting the broader
> audience over the head with where we are coming from. It is not surprising
> to me that our messaging success rate has been limited to less than 50% of
> the LP and maybe 15% of the broader audience. I am concerned that we will
> never connect effectively with the necessary higher percentage of the
> broader audience until we change our messaging strategy to focus on where
> they, the broader audience, are coming from in their struggle to adapt to
> the quicksand of the current status quo.
>
>
>
> Focusing on where they are coming from requires using leading questions
> instead of the message bomb to connect with them emotionally first by
> putting ourselves in their shoes, not forcing them to step into our shoes.
> Through careful targeting and testing of our leading questions, we can find
> out what their concerns are about the status quo and get them to think
> about how they would like to change the status quo to better address their
> immediate concerns. This may plant a seed of doubt in their current statist
> beliefs and prompt them to ask how Libertarians would address their status
> quo concerns. That is when the real discussion of Libertarian principles,
> goals and courses of action starts to which we can each lend our personal
> version of our Libertarian principles.
>
>
>
> Thoughts?
>
>
>
> ~David
>
>
>
> Dec 28-Jan 1 Omaha Roads to Liberty Un-Convention
>
>
>
> ~David Pratt Demarest
>
> LNC Region 6 Representative (IA, IL, MN, MO, ND, NE, WI)
>
> Secretary, LPNE State Central Committee
>
> Cell:      402-981-6469 <(402)%20981-6469>
>
> Home: 402-493-0873 <(402)%20493-0873>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of
> Wes Benedict
> Sent: Monday, May 08, 2017 11:20 AM
> To: Libertarian National Committee list <lnc-business at hq.lp.org>
> Subject: [Lnc-business] EPCC - Paladin Strategies - Fwd: RE: Omaha
> Un-Convention Proposed Logo Copyright Question
>
>
>
> 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 <(202)%20333-0008>, wes.benedict at lp.org
> facebook.com/libertarians @LPNational Join the Libertarian Party at:
> http://lp.org/membership
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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>
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