Libertarian Party Inside Baseball Politics Thread

[StateBoiler]

Libertarian Party of Indiana we have affiliated 16 new counties so far this year with 4 more coming in February. That gets us up to 43 out of the 92. I've become a county party chair in one. Was quite the jumping hoops for paperwork to file. Had to file paperwork with the state, register with the IRS, start a bank account for the party, organize a convention which for purposes of starting the party could only be state party members inside the county.

[Flyersfan232]

why not run cohen in the sc gov or senate race?

[Former President tack50]

Libertarian Party of Indiana we have affiliated 16 new counties so far this year with 4 more coming in February. That gets us up to 43 out of the 92. I've become a county party chair in one. Was quite the jumping hoops for paperwork to file. Had to file paperwork with the state, register with the IRS, start a bank account for the party, organize a convention which for purposes of starting the party could only be state party members inside the county.

Good luck on any future political endeavours!

[StateBoiler]

Podcast of Spike Cohen talking about the successes and failures of the Jorgensen/Cohen campaign.

https://wearelibertarians.com/css-spike-cohen-on-the-successes-and-failures-of-the-jorgensen-cohen-campaign/

[Canis]

Is that libertarian on the Riverside County board of supervisors still there or still a Libertarian? iirc he's the libertarian representing the most people in elected office last I heard he was being super anti lockdown and got accused of sexual harassment https://www.pe.com/2020/12/10/riverside-county-supervisor-jeff-hewitt-accused-of-sexual-harassment

[StateBoiler]

Another Libertarian state legislator I didn't know about, albeit party switch.

From BAN:

MAINE LEGISLATOR REGISTERS AS A LIBERTARIAN

On December 14, Maine state representative John Andrews changed his registration from "Republican" to "Libertarian". He had been re-elected in November 2020 as a Republican. He has been in the legislature since 2018. He is the first legislator to join the Libertarian Party at a time when the Libertarian Party is not a ballot-qualified party in that particular state. Other legislators who switched mid-term to the Libertarian Party, in Nebraska, Nevada, and New Hampshire, always did so only when the party was qualified. The Libertarian lawsuit to regain its qualified status is pending in U.S. District Court.

Couple weekends ago I went to Fort Wayne's county's Libertarian Convention and talking there was a city councilman from a Fort Wayne suburb city that had switched from R to L late last year. Democrats do not exist at all in this city's politics - Republican mayor and was a Republican 5-0 city council sweep - so the Libertarians now enjoy 2nd-party status there. He'll serve until end of 2023 when he faces election again.

[StateBoiler]

Another BAN:

Wyoming Representative Marshall Burt (Libertarian-Green River) has introduced HB 160. It changes the law on the order of candidates on the general election ballot. Current law puts the nominees of the party that got the most votes in that county for U.S. House on the top line, followed by the nominees of the party whose nominee for U.S. House came in second, and so on. Independent candidates are always listed last.

The bill changes this, so that every candidate has an equal chance to be listed first. Order would be alphabetical, but there would be a random rotation of the letters of the alphabet for that purpose. Thanks to Andy Craig for this news.

[StateBoiler]

Podcast with the next State Party Chair of Indiana, Evan McMahon.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/23FyVngb6MvSFEtIxYPGxf?si=-tOgmVyPT3yAHx2c56uFWg

[StateBoiler]

https://m.youtube.com/user/LibertarianParty/featured

Libertarian Party TV channel on YouTube with regularly created content. There's a weekly Candidates show, they've started an affiliates show, if you want to watch the livestreamed LNC meetings they're archived. They also have a Spanish-language weekly show geared to Hispanics.

[Canis]

Podcast with the next State Party Chair of Indiana, Evan McMahon.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/23FyVngb6MvSFEtIxYPGxf?si=-tOgmVyPT3yAHx2c56uFWg

Wow, it's awesome how organized the IN LP is getting it seems like it's one of the most organized third parties in the country! If you ever run for office Boiler let us know! Seems like the party going really hard on organizing and winning local elections and getting a few libertarians elected in the state assembly and house which is a pretty difficult task but Wyoming electing one shows it's possible especially if you go after uncontested seats. Ideologically I agree with libertarians on a little less than half of all the issues but I'm in favor of reforming our democracy and allowing other parties to be relevant so if you can make a difference in IN go for it.

[StateBoiler]

Podcast with the next State Party Chair of Indiana, Evan McMahon.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/23FyVngb6MvSFEtIxYPGxf?si=-tOgmVyPT3yAHx2c56uFWg

Wow, it's awesome how organized the IN LP is getting it seems like it's one of the most organized third parties in the country! If you ever run for office Boiler let us know! Seems like the party going really hard on organizing and winning local elections and getting a few libertarians elected in the state assembly and house which is a pretty difficult task but Wyoming electing one shows it's possible especially if you go after uncontested seats. Ideologically I agree with libertarians on a little less than half of all the issues but I'm in favor of reforming our democracy and allowing other parties to be relevant so if you can make a difference in IN go for it.

Thanks. I'll probably run for county council next year. I don't expect to win, but I can use that for name value to run again for the county council at-large seats in 2024 where the straight ticket voting does not apply. If I'm the only non-R on the ballot, it gives me a plausible path to finishing 3rd of 4 (you vote for 3).

Right now I'm a county party chair and I need to grow my county party. Thinking of the how is so far a struggle. We practice party membership, which is something Republicans and Democrats don't do. Your party membership in effect is which party's primary you choose to vote in. Well, we don't have access to the primary per state election law. So I'm going to do some community events in the summer when stuff opens up hopefully and just hold conversations with people. I've already talked to a bunch of people that are supportive, but for longer-term stability of the party in the county I need more party members.

I really feel there's an opening here because the Democrats in this county have no visible presence. In 2020, they did not run a single candidate for county office. In 2018, they had 1. My strategy to "grow the party here" is to start off we have to replace the Democrats as the established #2. So one reason I am running in 2022 for county council is I want to be able to state we have more candidates running than the local Democrats do.

In our most recent governor's election, the Libertarian finished ahead of the Democrat in this county as he did in about a third of the state's counties. There's circumstances of course for why that was that probably won't play a factor in future races, but the ballot access race for Indiana politics is the Secretary of State election in 2022. According to what Indiana state law says, one seat on the election board is reserved for each of the top two-placed parties in the most recent Secretary of State race. So if we finished ahead of the Democratic candidate in our county for Secretary of State in 2022, we would hold the seat on the election board for the next 4 years, not them. I've talked to some friends that are Republicans and told them this, and they're "oh yeah, I'll vote for your guy for Secretary of State", so when campaigning in 2022 I'll make sure to state that. (We need 2% statewide in the Secretary of State race to retain our universal ballot access for the next 4 years, we've been able to do this consistently since 1994. If we somehow got 10%, we would get access to a primary. Word is Donald Rainwater, who ran for Governor in 2020 and got 11.4%, may run for Secretary of State to use his name value.)

[Canis]

Podcast with the next State Party Chair of Indiana, Evan McMahon.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/23FyVngb6MvSFEtIxYPGxf?si=-tOgmVyPT3yAHx2c56uFWg

Wow, it's awesome how organized the IN LP is getting it seems like it's one of the most organized third parties in the country! If you ever run for office Boiler let us know! Seems like the party going really hard on organizing and winning local elections and getting a few libertarians elected in the state assembly and house which is a pretty difficult task but Wyoming electing one shows it's possible especially if you go after uncontested seats. Ideologically I agree with libertarians on a little less than half of all the issues but I'm in favor of reforming our democracy and allowing other parties to be relevant so if you can make a difference in IN go for it.

Thanks. I'll probably run for county council next year. I don't expect to win, but I can use that for name value to run again for the county council at-large seats in 2024 where the straight ticket voting does not apply. If I'm the only non-R on the ballot, it gives me a plausible path to finishing 3rd of 4 (you vote for 3).

Right now I'm a county party chair and I need to grow my county party. Thinking of the how is so far a struggle. We practice party membership, which is something Republicans and Democrats don't do. Your party membership in effect is which party's primary you choose to vote in. Well, we don't have access to the primary per state election law. So I'm going to do some community events in the summer when stuff opens up hopefully and just hold conversations with people. I've already talked to a bunch of people that are supportive, but for longer-term stability of the party in the county I need more party members.

I really feel there's an opening here because the Democrats in this county have no visible presence. In 2020, they did not run a single candidate for county office. In 2018, they had 1. My strategy to "grow the party here" is to start off we have to replace the Democrats as the established #2. So one reason I am running in 2022 for county council is I want to be able to state we have more candidates running than the local Democrats do.

In our most recent governor's election, the Libertarian finished ahead of the Democrat in this county as he did in about a third of the state's counties. There's circumstances of course for why that was that probably won't play a factor in future races, but the ballot access race for Indiana politics is the Secretary of State election in 2022. According to what Indiana state law says, one seat on the election board is reserved for each of the top two-placed parties in the most recent Secretary of State race. So if we finished ahead of the Democratic candidate in our county for Secretary of State in 2022, we would hold the seat on the election board for the next 4 years, not them. I've talked to some friends that are Republicans and told them this, and they're "oh yeah, I'll vote for your guy for Secretary of State", so when campaigning in 2022 I'll make sure to state that. (We need 2% statewide in the Secretary of State race to retain our universal ballot access for the next 4 years, we've been able to do this consistently since 1994. If we somehow got 10%, we would get access to a primary. Word is Donald Rainwater, who ran for Governor in 2020 and got 11.4%, may run for Secretary of State to use his name value.)

If you don't mind sharing which county do you live in? with a county-level race if your county pretty small and your network well you may have a good chance of winning the race people care about party affiliation a lot less for local-level races than state and federal races. You also have way fewer people you need to reach out to. Good luck boiler maybe in a year or 2 you'll be county councilman boiler!

[PSOL]

So the Kentucky Libertarians have found themselves in hot water by conflating vaccine passports with the Holocaust

[politics_king]

So the Kentucky Libertarians have found themselves in hot water by conflating vaccine passports with the Holocaust

Lol

[Badger]

So the Kentucky Libertarians have found themselves in hot water by conflating vaccine passports with the Holocaust

Now this sounds like the lp we have all come to know and roll our eyes at.

[PSOL]

The conflict between the Mises Caucus aligned versus the moderate minarchists in New Hampshire has reached new heights.

...Start your own Party, if you wish, free from the perceived limitations of the Libertarian Party... You have an amazing capacity to grow your numbers without being burdened by the constant struggle of being affiliated with a Party that does not agree with your goals or methods...

... To this end, we have established a new interim set of Bylaws and Platform and instituted a new Executive Committee to work with me in the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire.  To those who wish to rejoin us, previous membership payments will be honored, however there is a requirement to sign a new oath and review the interim Bylaws and Platform and affirm you can agree to abide by them...

Per Jilleta Jarvis, will be no new posts on social media until the end of the weekend.

The oath in question

“I will not advocate or endorse the initiation of force as a means to achieve political or social goals.  I will advocate for the freedom from oppression and coercion for all New Hampshire residents and affirm that as Libertarians we condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant.”

This news has not been received well within certain segments of the Libertarian Party, mainly the Mises Caucus. Since the 2020 elections, there’s been a lot of conflict between the leading centre faction and the right faction in the party, especially on where the party is heading. There’s an up flair of division on who’s a true Libertarian and who’s an entryist wrecker.

The Libertarians have successfully dealt with factional infighting beforehand; a rivalry between Ancaps and Statists since 1974, the attempted takeovers by actual Nazis in the 90s and 2000s, and kicking off the Paleocons and Objectivists. This is another one of these moments.

Personally, I would try to wholesale kick the Mises Caucus out of the party before they organize for an outright rebellion. The Libertarians are in a better place than the Green Party, but chapter coups and countercoups and major defections are always a dangerous game. Now, in light of all this, I’m in no way saying the Libertarian Centre faction should try and achieve uniformity. They ultimately cannot do so and they won’t have the numbers to survive this harsh electoral law regime setup by the duopoly. Indeed, that’s why I think the action should be a joint decision by the “pragmatists” and LPRadical. The leading Minarchist faction now must boost up relations with the AnCaps in order to avoid making this a civil war.

I don’t know how you all in the party want to cover this, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the strategies this mod team here takes are probably for the best. For each blue a red must go soon to appear impartial, for each Hoppean chapter a statist socialist must go. I think now is the best time to get rid of the small socialist faction to appear impartial.

The rest of Atlas, enjoy seeing more antics by Darryl W. Perry.

[PSOL]

It has come to my attention that the Mises Caucus has acted very similarly to the Green liberals in suppressing candidates running in races to prevent a “spoiler” to Republicans, nevermind most third party candidates choose not to run in most competitive races. Seems like not only do they virulently make a fool of the Libertarian party, but they are actively working to destroy it from within.

Purge them, purge them all. The Ron Paulite menace must be totally eradicated

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Per Jilleta Jarvis, will be no new posts on social media until the end of the weekend.

This deserves infinitely more context than "Mises Caucus Bad!"

Basically, there were elections for statewide LP positions in New Hampshire and the Mises Caucus swept nearly all of the available elected positions, including a majority of the executive committee and control of essential party functions including, of all things, control of the party Twitter account. The new holder of the Twitter account so enraged the national chair that he backed the NHLP chair in unilaterally kicking out basically the entire elected apparatus including the ExCom. The pretense was that the ExCom had expelled a member and was about to kick out all non-MC members but even the expelled member herself says this is nonsense.

The execution here was so bad that even a huge portion of non-MC libertarians are on their side. Obviously the state chair of a party can't just seize control if she doesn't like the person appointed to run the Twitter account by the duly elected party officials. If this is the best the anti-MC forces in the LP have to offer then the MC will have total control of the national party soon enough.

It has come to my attention that the Mises Caucus has acted very similarly to the Green liberals in suppressing candidates running in races to prevent a “spoiler” to Republicans, nevermind most third party candidates choose not to run in most competitive races. Seems like not only do they virulently make a fool of the Libertarian party, but they are actively working to destroy it from within.

Purge them, purge them all. The Ron Paulite menace must be totally eradicated

No, the MC is against running spoiler against the absolute best candidates from the major parties, regardless of partisan affiliation. At least on the statewide level the NHGOP has a significant number of actual libertarian legislators (and there used to be a few Democrats too), so the NHLP should prioritize running in races where neither party's candidate is remotely libertarian. It makes zero sense to devote resources to running against the tiny minority of major party candidates that are actually significantly better than average when we could focus on the overwhelming majority of races where both candidates are terrible.

That's just called being pragmatic. If Bernie Sanders was somehow in danger of losing his Senate seat would it make any sense for Vermont social democrats or socialists to go all out on a third party challenge that would almost certainly result in one of the most public promoters of such ideas being replaced by a generic Republican? Perhaps in a world where there were dozens of Senators to the left of Bernie or where the Socialist Party actually had a strong recent history of winning elections, but otherwise they'd clearly get further by targeting the likes of Cuomo or Feinstein instead.

[StateBoiler]

Per Jilleta Jarvis, will be no new posts on social media until the end of the weekend.

This deserves infinitely more context than "Mises Caucus Bad!"

Basically, there were elections for statewide LP positions in New Hampshire and the Mises Caucus swept nearly all of the available elected positions, including a majority of the executive committee and control of essential party functions including, of all things, control of the party Twitter account. The new holder of the Twitter account so enraged the national chair that he backed the NHLP chair in unilaterally kicking out basically the entire elected apparatus including the ExCom. The pretense was that the ExCom had expelled a member and was about to kick out all non-MC members but even the expelled member herself says this is nonsense.

The execution here was so bad that even a huge portion of non-MC libertarians are on their side. Obviously the state chair of a party can't just seize control if she doesn't like the person appointed to run the Twitter account by the duly elected party officials. If this is the best the anti-MC forces in the LP have to offer then the MC will have total control of the national party soon enough.

Not aware of what went on this past weekend other than I saw a post on Facebook from an LNC alternate representative from my state saying he was heavily disappointed in the decorum. I did see Richard Winger publish something at Ballot Access News (which is odd for him to post on internal party matters) and had 200 posts, which I'd not yet brought myself to read.

First, like I was telling PSOL in the 3rd party thread when it came to the American Solidarity Party's Twitter, who controls an official Twitter account and what he or she posts should have heavy internal vetting before it ever gets published. In my opinion it's no place for even a person's opinion because how do we know that opinion represents the party? The only opinions that should ever be posted acting as if it speaks for the entire organization should be the equivalent of a party resolution that carries a majority of the operating committee and nothing less.

Second, the Mises Caucus are best understood as the Libertarians' Tea Party or Sanders supporters crowd of their real enemy is not the other political party, it's the moderates in their midst that compromise. As far as Libertarians are concerned, the real philosophical argument is one of direction vs. destination. Direction Libertarians say every incremental improvement toward greater personal liberty is a success with the acknowledgement it's going to take many many years to get to where they want. Destination Libertarians are "why should I wait? I want greater personal liberty now!" and are less likely to compromise. You can see how the direction libertarians piss the destination libertarians off.

The Mises Caucus's real goal is to get the national party leadership. Their candidate lost the 2018 race to Nicholas Sarwark's 3rd term and in 2020 to Joe Bishop-Henchman. Not sure if Josh Smith plans on running again in 2022 or not. I know one candidate is Angela McArdle who is presently the Chair of the Libertarian Party of Los Angeles. If what Lustration says is true, does not reflect well on JBH.

[StateBoiler]

Good comment discussion of events here: https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2021/06/nh-libertarian-party-chairwoman-unilaterally-dissolves-and-replaces-executive-committee-bylaws/

Thomas Knapp and George Phillies are longtime party activists.

[TrumpBritt24]

Unrelated, any LP big names showing interest in running for any offices yet? LP and GP pretty quiet as of late.

[PSOL]

State chapters in Colorado, Connecticut, and New Jersey are condemning the state party coup and calling for a return of power to the executive council by JBH.

It’s clear that a good chunk of centrist Libertarian party members will be voted out of office come 2022. This is a major victory for the Mises Caucus, but I doubt they take hold of the party without serious deals and alliance building against the “pragmatic” Caucus.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Spike Cohen and Justin Amash both came down on the side of the "official" (MC) party so it looks like JBH and the establishmentarians are going to lose on this one and might even get replaced. MC momentum is stronger than ever.

For reference, here's a map of how the elections for statewide positions have gone. Gold is MC majority, blue is anti-MC majority, red is mixed and brown is for states that haven't voted yet.

[PSOL]

Where are the LPRadicals particularly strong in? Do they have a position on the whole hullabaloo with NH?

For extra memes, answer it for the socialists.

[PSOL]

JBH resigns as LNC chair