I discovered a long time ago that I am a Libertarian because of Libertarian principles, and it is still my responsibility to listen to what people say and see what they do...their proclamation that they are Libertarian is not a shortcut...Enough said, other folks clay feet are an education.
________________________________ From: george_phillies <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 3:41:30 PM Subject: [Libertarian] I Accuse by George Phillies The Barr 2008 Libertarian Presidential Campaign raised nearly one and a half million dollars. It spent barely 4% of its income on anything that resembles classical public outreach. That includes $12,618.88 to its book publisher. It spent under 1% of its income on actual press advertising, counting google.com. 1% is a tenth of what it spent on rent of real estate and office furniture. 1% is a tenth of what it spent (or still owes) on a web page. 1% is considerably less than it spent on limousines and town cars. To add injury to injury, unlike all past Libertarian Presidential campaigns except it seems Ron Paul's, the Barr campaign is refusing to share its list of donors with the Libertarian National Committee. In my opinion, one cannot avoid the conclusion that the Barr campaign was nothing except a scheme to transfer money from Libertarian donors to Barr's Republican cronies and a few libertarian hangers-on. That's the campaign our party's establishment gave us. Bob Barr may have promised a Presidential campaign, but the delivery was a bit different. Here is the record of his spending, based on our reanalysis of the Barr 2008 FEC campaign reports. Some minor expenditures have been left out. The campaign spent $1.4 million, more or less every penny that it raised. The issue is where Barr 2008 spent its money, including $160,000 that the campaign owed at the end of the year, not to mention money owed American Express. In short: One per cent of campaign spending went for advertising the candidate to the general public via Newsmax, Google, and newspaper ads… Three more percent went to activities such as a campaign book that could have helped spread the word. Around $100,000 went to the web site. A hundred grand went for renting real estate, with over thirty grand additional to rent and buy furniture and office equipment. Direct mail demanded a seventh of funds raised…about $200K. A third of a million dollars — a quarter of funds raised — went to pay people, not counting the hundred grand paid to consultants and the like. . Direct mail demanded a seventh of funds raised…about $200K. Some people eccentrically think that campaigns are about advertising, so here is everything that might be called general advertising and so reported. Add it up: one percent of the campaign's money went for broad-market advertising, and another three percent was for advertising of some sort: Advertising: Signs by Tomorrow Signs $17,337.9 Bumpersticker. com (bumper stickers, promotional items) $9983.75 NewsMax Advertising $6250 Commercial Signs $2993.92 Dr Don's Buttons (buttons and items) $1261.67 Zazzle.com T-Shirts $1194.55 Charleston Gazette $1000.92 Google, Inc. (Advertising) $796.99 B&P Promotions Advertising $657 Equipity.com (Book Publishing) $12,618.88 That's being very generous to count it as 4%, because I am including over 12 grand to a book publisher for the Barr boom, 10 grand for bumper stickers (which are widely understood to be primarily effective at inciting the faithful), and an amount for lawn signs that were in fair part sold to supporters. Honest-to-goodness orthodox advertising including Google adwords and Newsmax (a far far right Internet news outlet) were 1% of the campaign budget. Just for purposes of comparison, even the Boston Tea Party presidential campaign spent $327.83 to advertise on Google. As you might guess, this constituted a much larger percentage of their campaign budget. A third of a million dollars — a quarter of funds raised — went to pay people. That does not include various debts to people, starting with $47,000 owed to James Bovard for making, it is widely rumored, significant contributions to the invisible Barr books. Here are the people People: Liberty Strategies Contract Services $62,500 (Bob Barr's firm) Doug Bandow $52,644.11 Shane Cory $42,000 James Bovard (Authoring Fee) $30,000 Robert Stuber Fundraising consultant $24,000 Steve Sinton Field Consulting $20,000 Andrew MacPherson $16,074.28 Russ Verney Political Consulting $14,387.56 Mike Ferguson Field Consulting $13,812.03 Stephen Gordon Field Consulting $12,857.97 Ashley Petty (field consulting) $11,474.5 Angelia O'Dell (ballot access) $9244.5 Jake Witmer Ballot Access $3846.96 Robert Zinzell Political Consulting $3750 David Beiler (Field Consulting) $2399.11 John Seewoester Field Consulting $2125.5 Barry Fiegel (field consulting) $1875 Karen Neal Ballot Access $1828 Jason Pye (Field Consulting) $1664.22 Rob Armstrong Field Consulting $1536 Joseph Carter Field Consulting $1436 Robert Jackson In-kind: Travel Expenses $1190.46 William Greene Creative Fees $1000 Nena Bartlett Field Consulting $678 Jeff Becker Ballot Access $514.75 Hudson Phillips Graphic Design $450 Stephen Thomas Field Consulting $393 Dianna Dickerson (Field Consulting) $358 Bob Bastress (ballot access) $350 Billy Bryant (Field Consulting) $343.5 Robert Benedict Political Consulting 312.84 Stephanie Stevens Field Consulting 298.5 Cheryl Wesley (Field Consulting) $240 Todd Wentz Field Consulting $215 There were also people hired via consulting houses, another $109,000 or so of them: Consulting firms: Advocacy Ink…$46841.01( media consulting and public relations) Promotions Direct advertising and promotional items $13093.1 Olympic Consulting Ballot Access and political consulting $13,000 National Ballot Access Ballot Access $12818 Professional Data Services Compliance Consulting $8803.34 PrimeOne Political Consulting $7999.98 Pulse Opinion Research LLC Polling $4750 Blue Aster Media (Field Consulting) $991.46 Imaging Arts Charleston (photography) $673.81 Small Government Solutions Direct Marketing $400 Winning Edge International Telemarketing $240 (this appears to be Wayne Root's telemarketing house) The Barr campaign spent almost twice as much on office rent — over $100,000 — as on general advertising, and that does not include office furniture: Real Estate Rent: The Paces Foundation, Inc Rent and Utilities $55,769.4 Post Corporate Apartments $33302.29 Lisa Franzman $13757.23 Mansour Center $6819 Electric, INC Building Repairs $2175 Office furniture? Now we come to office furniture and supplies. There's also some office equipment hiding on the electronics entries, at which point the office furniture spending nearly matched the spending on advertising. Office Furniture: Aaron Rents…$32220. 7, of which $3392.27 has been refunded, plus $835.28 for "furniture". Office Equipment 6766.73 Office Supplies $8272.14. Targeted outreach was done via electronic and direct mail efforts. The electronic efforts included over $130,000 in spending (in addition, Terra Eclipse is owed another thirty-five thousand and change), including Electronics: Terra Eclipse IT and Transaction Fees $68,644.86 Thru Tech IT and office equipment $36,486.31 Campaigner Pro (software) $14,242.74 RackSpace IT $6370.49 Cbeyond Communications (telephone) $4091.06 AT&T Mobility (cell, telephone) $2698.15 Salesforce Software $2,655 Charter (cable/internet) $2236.55 Verizon Cell Phone $546.86 Dell Computers Computer Monitor 240.44 Comcast (cable/internet) $46.26 Direct mail is a fundraising tool; it also serves to frame issues. Mailing and shipping also puts your materials in front of people. Here is the mailing effort, nearly $200,000 of it: Mailing and items: Gillis Express (Mailing Direct Marketing) $39723.14 All Points Packaging $35649.69 Press Well Services Direct Marketing $26220.18 MDI Imaging & Mail Direct Marketing $16130.75 USPS Postage $15,166.21 List Services Corp. Direct Marketing $13,757.23 Schlesman Enterprises Direct Marketing $12,857.71 Integram (Direct Marketing) $12,513.35 Positive Press Direct Marketing, Printing $12,028.37 UPS Shipping $7492.6 with a $288.25 refund FedEx (shipping) 5349.13 Direct Mail Processors (Direct Marketing) $2503.42 Sir Speedy Printing Centers Printing $1492.93 Milner, Inc printing $1100 Daily Printing & Graphics $795.5 NextDay Flyers Printing $717.26 C & E Printing $442.4 Small Government Solutions Direct Marketing $400 Those mailings went to mailing lists. Here are the places from which lists were rented: Basic Media, Inc. $2000 <– Ron Paul right wing list Deiner Consultants $2400 <–conservative Christian mailing lists; apparently advises the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (say internet searches) Capitol Hill Lists $838.32 <–conservative political mailers, says their web site C&P Lists $235 <almost no info available on this Asheville, N.C. operation) The candidate went to Denver to receive the nomination. Denver Convention Booth/registrations $2761 More than $40,000 was spent on legal services, including: McKenna Long & Aldridge $16,931 (and $38,000 owed) Orrin Grover $6000 State Ballot Access Fees $5750 James Linger $5350 Drew Shirley $5015.31 Samuel Stretton $3200 Matthew Sawyer $2262.5 Varallo Incorporated Court Transcripts $977.83 Robert Karwin $350 It costs money to collect money. $34,000, under 3% of funds received, spent on various types of transaction expenses: Transaction Fees PayPal $29,147.33 Visa/MC Merchant Account 3999.18 American Express: $482.76 Donor Town Square $425 CentraBank $308.31 Georgian Bank $286.75 Finally, you can send the candidate out on the hustings, where he can give speeches, excite the faithful, and support local candidates. Travel money and events came to a quarter of a million dollars, close to five times what was spent on advertising. Oh, yes, a funny thing happened on the way to the FEC. In earlier reports, payments to limousine companies are categorized as "limo services", but in later reports, they are equally legitimately categorized as `travel expenses'. Travel Expenses $206,583 Limo Services $38,106.82 <– we sorted out the limo and town car companies Events $15,738.48 Meeting Expenses $10,855.41 Thrifty Rental Car $1097.73 Citizen Outreach (conservative event) $2500 Freedom Festival (conservative event) $1250 The above list of numbers do not include the following campaign debts as seen in FEC filings at campaign's end. James Bovard $47,000.00 Authoring Fee McKenna Long & Aldridge $38,414.69 Legal Fees Terra Eclipse $35,566.87 IT Russ Verney $15,000.00 Political Consulting Doug Bandow $6,466.05 Political Consulting Dr. Robert B. Stuber $4,000.00 Fundraising Consulting Mr. Steve Sinton $4,000.00 Political Consulting Wayne Allen Root $3,297.81 Campaign Expenses Campaigner Pro $2,675.00 Software All Points Packaging & Distribution, In $1,149.42 Online Order Fulfillment Press Well Services, Inc. $878.06 Printing Lisa Franzman $802.77 Rent [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
