[Lnc-business] Email Ballot 2017-16: Joe Buchman Donation

Sat Jul 15 13:44:59 EDT 2017

Where is George Santayana when you need him?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Santayana

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Santayana>

Oh, I guess he can’t be bothered right now.

But, he was right.  Those who cannot remember the past ARE condemned to
repeat it.  Or won’t remember it.

Here we go again.  The LNC, which has unfortunately limited resources, now
can barely wait to give away funds to almost any candidate for public
office who comes along.  Who could not see this coming?

I am, and plan to continue to be, a pretty consistent “No” vote on LNC
subsidization of campaigns.  The reason is that there are more important
matters to which the LNC needs to devote its resources.

But, first a step back.  I see the role of the Libertarian Party in the
current political system in the United States largely as being a protest
political party.  I don’t like that; but, objectively, it is what I observe.
I want that to change.  I work hard and give a lot of money, including to
the Joe Buchman Campaign, to change that.

I will again state (and I do not mean to sound negative, but forthright)
that the Libertarian Party will not be an electoral success in the United
States until we have some form of proportional voting system(s) in the
United States.  That is why I am on the Board of Directors of FairVote, as
well as on the LNC.

Until then, the LP should work to change the election system (which it does
way too little of, in my opinion) to allow the US to become a multiparty
system, and, in turn, the LP would become a major party in the US.  In the
interim, we should strive to be the best and biggest minor party in this
nation by running as many non-embarrassing candidates for public offices at
all levels of government as possible.

Yes, there is some progress over the years to report for the LP.
Unfortunately,
downdrafts in our fortunes have historically frequently occurred and are
largely outside our control.  And, I do not agree with the “Build from the
Bottom Up” theory of party development that emphasizes “winnable” lower
level races for public office.  I don’t buy it in theory and, as of today,
there is 45 years, 7 months and 4 days of evidence that says it is working
far too slowly, if it is even working at all.  I don’t see how we can
sustain a national political party with people running only for local
offices.

There have been numerous instances of bad LNC candidate funding decisions,
but certainly the biggest was for the Ed Coleman Campaign for Indianapolis
City/County Council in 2011.  The LNC gave $50,000 to that campaign.  I
voted to Abstain only because the vote went around the table the other way
and was already decided.  I’ll admit that I took the path of least
resistance there, but I would have felt impelled to vote “No” if Alicia
Mattson had come my way first.  Mr. Coleman incurred a large electoral loss
and left the LP shortly thereafter.

Fifty-two weeks ago tomorrow, I told the LNC at our Las Vegas meeting that
contributing $10,000 to the John Moore for Nevada House Campaign would be
“throwing money down a rat hole.”  Afterword, I felt angst that perhaps I
spoke too harshly.  In retrospect, if anything, I was too kind.

There are other examples, but I won’t belabor the point.

As to the argument that we need to give money to our candidates’ campaigns
in order to help persuade the older parties’ politicians to come over to
our camp, all I can say is that I profusely welcome them to the LP, but
they had better come over with their eyes wide open with knowledge gained
beforehand as to what they will be up against.

Some may state that we can afford the $5,000—it isn’t that much money.  That
is the argument used by advocates for government subsidization of public
broadcasting.  And, it will only stimulate contribution requests from many
more candidates going forward.

I think we have more pressing needs, including finishing the Ohio petition
drive and helping the Tennessee and Alabama parties achieve ballot access.  We
should help the Georgia party knock down that state’s egregious
non-statewide ballot access restrictions, and there will be petition drive
needs in 2018 to maximize the number of candidates that we can run
nationwide next year.

The LNC could give funds to FairVote (Conflict Statement:  I am its
Treasurer) or other organizations that are working to change the US voting
system to make it welcoming to more than the two older parties.  That is
what would really make our candidates electable far and wide.

And, although I do not favor prepayments on the LNC building mortgage, even
that would be a better use of funds for the long term viability and
strength of the Libertarian Party.

Joe Buchman is a long, long time dear friend of mine.  I love the guy.  It
appears he is doing a great job with his Campaign for US House, Third
District, in Utah.  To say I wish him the best in this endeavor is an
understatement.  But, he is almost certainly not going to win this
election, and we should employ our limited funds for other purposes.

Until the LNC is much more flush with cash, we need to cease contributions
to our candidates’ campaigns and allow our members and friends of the LP to
do that directly.

We need to stop this.  The time to stop it is now.  I vote “No” and ask my
fellow LNC members to do the same.

Thank you.

Bill Redpath

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 11:01 AM, Caryn Ann Harlos <carynannharlos at gmail.com
> wrote:

> I vote Yes.
>
> On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 3:36 AM, David Demarest <dprattdemarest at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I vote YES.
>>
>> Salut to Dr. Joe Buchman!
>>
>> ~David Pratt
>>
>> Freedom, Nothing More, Nothing Less
>>
>> ~David Pratt Demarest
>> LNC Region 6 Representative
>> LSLA Vice-Chair
>> LPNE SCC Secretary
>> LPRC Board Member
>> LPRC Nebraska State Coordinator
>> Roads to Freedom Foundation, Founder
>>
>> On Jul 15, 2017 3:16 AM, "Alicia Mattson" <agmattson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> We have an electronic mail ballot.
>>>
>>>
>>> *Votes are due to the LNC-Business list by July 25, 2017 at 11:59:59pm
>>> Pacific time.*
>>> *Co-Sponsors:*  Harlos, Bilyeu, Demarest, Starchild
>>>
>>> *Motion:*  for the LNC to contribute $5,000 to support the
>>> Congressional campaign of Joe Buchman (Utah)
>>>
>>> -Alicia
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lnc-business mailing list
>>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lnc-business mailing list
>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> *In Liberty,*
> *Caryn Ann Harlos*
> Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
> Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
> Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org>
> Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
> <http://www.lpcolorado.org>
> Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
> <http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>
> Chair, LP Historical Preservation Committee
>
> A haiku to the Statement of Principles:
> *We defend your rights*
> *And oppose the use of force*
> *Taxation is theft*
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing list
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20170715/cf355c13/attachment-0002.html>