[Lnc-business] Email Ballot 2017-10: Donation to the Mark Wicks campaign

From Jeff Hewitt hdigger2004 at aol.com
Mon May 15 18:11:00 EDT 2017


Anytime we get a candidate who is in a special election for a congressional seat and gets in a televised debate and conducts himself well and actually wins that debate then our party benefits. Measurably so. Mark Wicks deserves our support and I hope this sends a message that we welcome his effort, as well as others in the future. I vote "yes" to allocate $5000 to his campaign. Jeff Hewitt Region 4 representative LNC.



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On Monday, May 15, 2017 Arvin Vohra <votevohra at gmail.com> wrote:

I vote yes.


On Mon, May 15, 2017 at 4:28 AM, Alicia Mattson <agmattson at gmail.com> wrote:

I am still on the fence for this vote.

There are some very positive things.  Mr. Wicks got into the debates and did well.  He put more money into the race than just a filing fee.  He raised a little more money than what he put in.  He mentioned that he wished to use the money for online ads, and I asked if the ads were ready.  I heard through the grapevine that a volunteer I know to be particularly talented with photography and video has completed some ads for him.

One thing I am confused about is the plan for using the $5,000.  If it were a larger amount of money, and there were more time in which to use it, perhaps the budget could be rough.  But with so little time to use the funding, there ought to be a definite plan for every penny.  The first info we received from the candidate was that online ads were the plan.  Then I saw on Facebook an ad to raise money for purchasing voter data, which volunteers would use for phone calls and text messages...then someone (not the candidate) emailed us to say that the funds were for voter data, not online ads.

I am still quite skeptical that an $11,600 budget can get traction at the last minute when the other parties are pouring so much money into the race.  Special elections are different creatures, often different demographics for the turnout, only one race being talked about in the media...but it also means the two major parties are not spread thin with races in other states and can put a lot of effort into this one race.

The LNC has limited funds.  I also voted against the deficit budget that was adopted, and would like to not spend as much as was budgeted.  

We are not able to put money into every candidate's race, so that means we have to choose races where we think our funds will provide the best value.  Those choices are usually made based on the circumstances, rather than directly based on the candidate.

What I've not yet heard is what makes this race different from any other randomly chosen Libertarian Congressional candidate.  Every candidate hopes to win, but it hasn't happened yet at the Congressional level.  Why should we expect to see results here that are better than the typical performance of a Libertarian running for Congress against both a Democrat and a Republican?  What is different enough that warrants us to deficit spend?

I think the money we invested into Mr. Miller's Texas ballot access race for railroad commissioner likely made a difference, as he retained by a slim margin, avoiding the need for a very expensive petition drive later.  He had endorsements from several newspapers, but the result was still within the range of a fairly typical outcome for a partisan L-branded candidate.  So while Mr. Wicks has some good reviews from the debate, and a media outlet calling him the winner of the debate, I'm not convinced that's enough to substantially improve his numbers.  This is not a ballot access race, and general goodwill as a result doesn't make this campaign particularly unique.

-Alicia




On Tue, May 9, 2017 at 11:18 PM, Alicia Mattson <agmattson at gmail.com> wrote:

We have an electronic mail ballot.


Votes are due to the LNC-Business list by May 19, 2017 at 11:59:59pm Pacific time.
 
Sponsor:  Sarwark

Motion: that the LNC contribute $5,000 to the Mark Wicks for Congress campaign

-Alicia




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-- 

Arvin Vohra

www.VoteVohra.com
VoteVohra at gmail.com
(301) 320-3634

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