Steven, Thanks for a good dose of info!
One correction: ----- 2.a. Constitutional Party was formed by '04 LP POTUS candidate Aaron Russo back in '88. Very slick materials. Very good platform, but seemed to have nothing but money, no activists. The party went away as quickly as it came. ----- It wasn't the Constitutional Party, it was the Constitution Party. It was founded in late 1994. I was one of its first members. I had requested an information packet from the LP in 1992, but hadn't thought much of it -- it included a quote from renowned purist David Bergland on it which, oddly (I had no idea who he was), struck me as far too impure for my tastes: "Not libertopia, just better." So I forgot about the LP. I responded to an ad for the Constitution Party in the December 1994 or January 1995 issue of Liberty magazine, and before I knew it I was "Missouri State Coordinator." I'd never done anything like that before, but with the help of former Michigan LPer (the late and much lamented) Karen Scarborough, I started organizing. I published a print newsletter for the party's 40 or so members in Missouri, and set up an organizational meeting in my hometown at the time (Springfield, Missouri). The meeting had about 25 attendees, which the local political reporter told me was more than he'd ever seen at such a thing. The reason for the "high" attendance was that it was five days after the OKC bombing ... and my scheduled guest speakers were militia bubbas. Most of the audience who weren't militia themselves were gawkers, geeks ... or LPers. The Constitution Party fell apart over the course of that year, after Russo went off to make "Mad As Hell" and left it in control of a board who appointed a weird (UFO and satanic/masonic conspiracy raver) shortwave radio host named Bill Cooper as chair. Within a month, he'd destroyed the thing. He got shot a couple of years ago. In the meantime, the Missouri LP executive director (Bill Johnson, who later moved back to Alabama, went Republican, got elected and unelected to local office, and eventually became first manager for and then a bureaucrat in the administration of governor Bob "Jesus wants a tax increase" Riley), and L. Neil Smith (one of whose articles I'd reprinted in the CP newsletter) bludgeoned me into taking another look at the LP. Oh, and the US Taxpayers Party stole the name "Constitution Party" in 1998. Whew. Long story. ----- My own first impression is that the BTP is destined to be little more than a radical libertarian caucus within the LP. That is fine, and I should be honored to be considered a member. ----- I hope you choose to be one. Where the BTP goes will be up to its members, not me. I'm just building the bandwagon. They get to drive it. ----- To my knowledge, the LP is definitely in need of a good radical caucus, just to keep the party in line with our values! ----- Actually, the Libertarian Party Radical Caucus is starting up again as well: http://lpradicals.org ------ That said, there is no reason the BTP can't run POTUS candidates in the future in easy ballot access states. Especially if the LP continues down the republican lite path. ------ That's the stick. There need to be carrots and peace offerings as well. I've made my own proposal about that whole thing at: http://bostontea.us/node/15 Yours in liberty, Tom Knapp ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
