> Chuck seems to be ignoring my quesitons about what he's doing to > help build a support structure within the LP to help it's > candidates by giving them mailing lists, etc. instead of just a > handshake while saying "good luck".
If I responded to every message I'd be in endless debates instead of actually accomplishing things. Lack of response does not mean I agree with whoever asked me a question of conceded a point. To address your questions specifically: Last term on the LNC I introduced a motion to hire a political director and was one of only 4 LNC members to vote for it. I made hiring a political director part of my platform for Vice-Chair and still plan to make it happen. Bill Redpath also made it part of his central platform. The LNC will hire a full time political director before the end of the term. Although I support the Libertarian Leadership School, which provides candidate training through the LP website, I also have been working to get other candidate support materials such as the Success '97 and Success '99 seminars restored to the LP website. I've been lobbying the LNC to launch a project providing states with start up capital for Executive Directors to get fundraising and political activity in place to an extent that it will be self-funding. There has been a lot of resistance to that idea, and I don't think it will happen this term. Another part of my platform was utilizing volunteers more instead of being a completely donor based organization. Again, there has been resistance from headquarters and the LNC. In this case I went around the LNC and planted the idea in a few lawyers I know in the libertarian movement, which sparked a new group where libertarian lawyers in state parties can pool their legal knowledge on cases of interest to candidates and state parties. Eventually I'd like to mind the LP database occupation fields to identify all the lawyers and invite them all to participate. If it works (and I'm sure it will), the same method can be applied to CPAs, programmers, etc. I'm a big proponent of ballot access. As Chair of the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania I'd been exploring numerous diverse strategies for improving ballot access, including building a permanent coalition with all the minor parties in the state (Libertarian, Constitution, Green, Reform, Nader, Prohibition, etc.). We lobbied the legislature with our bill, the Voter's Choice Act, and initiated several lawsuits. This has been backed up with media activity, rallies, and a unified strategy for encouraging minor party votes (though not unified candidates). At the national level I've supported expenditures for ballot access early when it's cheap rather than waiting until the last minute and paying double or triple. We also need to be smart in ballot access choosing the strategy that is most cost effective over the long term (petitioning, lobbying, or litigation) on a state by state basis. Ballot access is of course the best support we currently give our candidates. In Pennsylvania we have 35 libertarians currently serving in elected partisan office. Most of them were recruited by me in a letter sent to all party members telling them exactly what offices were up for election in their precinct by mail merging their addresses with information from the census bureau website. We regularly run training seminars at our state conventions. At the national level I've been involved with college organizing by trying to reach out to the 100,000 self-identified libertarians on FaceBook. I launched a website detailing a step by step process for doing this at a cost of $0 -- all it takes is volunteers. College students are a great resource for campaign volunteers. If we had a libertarian presence at every college in America, candidates would have a much easier time distributing yard signs, manning polls, stuffing letters, etc. In 2004 I ran for U.S. Congress in an open race. I participated in 5 televised debates with my Republican and Democrat opponents, 4 newspaper endorsement meetings, and numerous other events. $3,000 was spent on yard signs distributed around my district. I ended up getting the usual Libertarian 1.5%, but I learned a lot about campaigning. This year I've followed several campaigns very closely. I was on the phone about 3 hours a day with various people promoting the Smither campaign in the 2 week period preceding the Republican endorsement meeting. I've been promoting our likely win Vermont state representative races online, to my Pennsylvania friends, and to the Republican Liberty Caucus. I'm a monthly pledger to the Badnarik campaign. I have worked closely with Sean Haugh and Shane Cory on the candidate tracker project. In its initial stage I suggested a lot of the criteria that eventually made it into the candidate tracker formula. Later I provided Sean Haugh with FaceBook URLs for 150 candidates and MySpace URLs for quite a few. In the process I identified many candidates the national office was not aware of. Then I got the national office to promote the Facebook opportunity to our libertarian candidates. FaceBook created a profile every candidate for U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate, and Governor and lets anyone friend them. They use the number of friends as a poll. I made sure all our candidates were aware of the opportunity and how to access their profiles. The few Libertarians who actually took advantage of that opportunity (about 10 out of 150) are polling phenomenally. Badnarik is polling 70% for example and the others are all 2nd in 3 way races. These polls of college students all around the country have been used by libertarian candidates as justification for letting them into debates. I've also been a proponent of the Ballot Base software, which will provide a nationwide voter ID database to all candidates within two years. It is currently in testing stage deployed in some districts of Texas, California, Vermont, and Colorado. This is the future of the party. Since 2002 I've worked the polls primary day and election day every election all day long (except this year's primary day unfortunately). I'm already committed to work the polls this election day for a Libertarian candidate for state rep in my area. Every Libertarian should take off work to work the polls on primary day and election day. Eventually I'd like to see us build up a grassroots organization from the precint level. We need two captains in every precinct in America to stand at the polls all day handing out the Libertarian Party slate card and get out the vote calling people who haven't voted yet. They should know everyone who votes by face -- the Democrat and Republican precinct captains in my area do. That's the real support the major parties have that we don't. If we had precinct captains everywhere, qualified candidates would be beating at the door to run as Libertarians and we would have a real choice finding the best person to represent us. This is already being done in certain places (areas of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California). I certainly support sharing mailing lists with candidates, assuming FEC law under the BCRA allows this. I haven't looked at that particular provision lately, but it's probable that sharing mailing lists would be an in-kind donation to the campaign unless market rental value is paid. Generally I prefer renting mailing lists to giving them away because our database and mailing list is our most valuable resource as a political party and we have to be very careful about it not falling into the wrong hands (we've had several libertarian candidates who defected to the Republican or Democrat parties after their campaigns, and we don't want them to take our mailing list with them). If there is anything else you think I can do to help candidates in my individual capacity or through the LNC, please let me know. > He's also ignored my question about why the EXTREMELY > IMPORTANT pledge is suddenly missing from the membership cards. Last time membership cards were printed there was no expiration date listed. I personally criticized staff for that at great length. It was a much bigger omission than the pledge and I'm glad it was corrected this time around. Anyone who was issued a membership card has signed the pledge. I see no reason why it should additionally be put on the card or tatooed to their forheads or stapled to their pants. The Libertarian Party is not a religion. Chuck Moulton Vice-Chair, Libertarian National Committee ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian Yahoo! 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