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Earlier this week I received an informative letter from Wes Benedict, the current executive director of the Libertarian Party of Texas. It covers several different topics, including candidate recruiting for the upcoming 2008 elections, the recent “Roundup Tour” of 25 Texas cities, the effects of the Ron Paul campaign, next year’s national convention, and the usual appeals for donations and membership renewals. For any aspiring Libertarians out there who may want to run for an office or simply request more information about the Texas LP, please contact the state party at www.tx.lp.org. Meanwhile, you can read through the latest update letter below:

Dear Texas Libertarian:

The candidate filing deadline is rapidly approaching, and so is our party’s end-of-year campaign finance reporting date.

Please return your Candidate Preference sheet and make a financial contribution today as well. If you aren’t yet a member, now is a great time to join.

Our 2007 fundraising is right on track for the first three quarters. We need a strong final quarter to meet our budget.

Our revenue budget for 2007 is lower than 2006 because typically it’s easier to raise funds in even-numbered years, which are election years with lots of candidates that generate excitement.

However, if by some chance we’re able to beat our 2006 revenue in 2007, that would be significant news and prove to the public and ourselves that we are experiencing strong growth.

(For those of you following the Ron Paul for President campaign, you probably know what I mean when I describe how fundraising success builds excitement and attracts media attention. It wasn’t what Ron Paul did with the money that made news, it was the fact itself that he raised so much money.)

I have a feeling we might surpass the 2006 level because recently our State Chair, Pat Dixon, started working the phones to raise large donations so we can hire a third staff member for 2008.

We’ll be busy in 2008 with lots of campaign activity going on, and with a third staff member we’ll be able to provide more service than ever to our candidates and county organizations.

Additionally, I’ve served as Executive Director for over three years now, and I might be leaving after the November 2008 elections. I want to have plenty of time to train new staff to ensure a smooth transition should I return to the private sector.

Whether or not Pat succeeds in raising enough money for a third staff member, we still need your financial help. Please send in the reply sheet with your contribution.

Candidate Recruitment

Thanks to our highly successful “25-City Candidate Roundup Tour”, our candidate recruitment is going strong. We’re already ahead of where we were at this time two years ago. We have over 40 candidates confirmed. But our goal is 250 candidates nominated in 2008 (we had 168 in 2006), so we have a long way to go.

Will you be a candidate? Running for office is one of the most effective ways to help build our party and get our message of more freedom and less government out to the public.

While some of our candidates run full-fledged campaigns geared at winning, other candidates don’t have the time or resources to run a big campaign.

That’s okay. We need you to be on the ballot even if you can’t spend a single dime on your campaign. If you tell us you’re willing to be on the ballot, but you won’t be able to run an active campaign, that’s fine. If someone else with bigger intentions comes along, we’ll let you know in case you want to step aside for that person.

If you want to see how having lots of candidates helps us, go to the “In the News” page on our website. You’ll see hundreds of news stories from 2006. These news stories covered our candidates all over Texas. Some of the stories from the beginning of 2006 were simply reporting on the fact that we had so many candidates.

Most of these candidates did not run active campaigns, but many of them were still covered by the media. They often had an opportunity to get a quote about liberty into the newspaper that they would never have gotten if they weren’t candidates.

The deadline to file is 5 PM on January 2, 2008, so tell us right away if you’re interested so we can get an application to you. Just fill out the enclosed candidate preference sheet.

Results of 25-City Candidate Roundup Tour

Our 25-City Candidate Roundup Tour was a big success and I’m exhausted! Pat Dixon and I visited 25 Texas cities in nine weekends and met with over 300 Libertarians and newcomers.

Pat has a full-time job, yet he took nine weekends in a row to travel all the way from Beaumont to El Paso, as far north as Amarillo and south as Brownsville, and lots of places in between. Texas is a huge state!

At these meetings, we explained the Libertarian Party and our party’s progress over the last several years. We answered many questions, and distributed a lot of literature and bumper stickers.

Many of the people who attended told us they really appreciated our visit, and often several people would stay after the meeting and discuss how they could improve their local organization.

We were especially pleased that we came across two more elected Libertarians we previously did not know about.

We met Larry Bush at our Temple (Bell County) meeting and found out he was elected to the Jarrell City Council on May 12, 2007. And, from a phone call to invite folks to the Amarillo meeting, we found out Brett Hall is currently serving as president of Miami Independent School District, and was first elected to the Miami ISD Board in November 2001.

I think this Roundup Tour was a great way to promote and strengthen our party throughout Texas, and I hope we’ll be able to do it again in future years.

An Update on the Ron Paul Campaign

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This essay by Jamie Austin explores the issue of whether or not there is a significant liberal bias in the news media. For the most part, I actually agree with it, although I probably would not have 20 years ago. With the relatively recent rise of (mostly conservative) talk radio, the Faux Fox News network, and the panoply of diverse views from Internet sources, the idea that news media as a whole is dominated by liberal bias has become rather stale.

Liberal Bias in the Media is a conservative catch phrase with users as diverse as radio personalities Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, television pundits like Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough, and even politicians such as Richard Nixon and George Bush. It’s a common phrase that is grossly misunderstood and exaggerated. First, what does it actually mean? Using a handy reference tool called a dictionary, namely the Fourth Edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the phrase can be broken down into its individual components as follows:

a. Liberal: Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
b. Bias: An unfair act or policy stemming from prejudice.
c. Media: A means of mass communication, such as newspapers, magazines, radio, or television. The group of journalists and others who constitute the communications industry and profession.

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The Libertarian Party products store LPStuff.com seems to have significantly expanded their selection of merchandise since I posted about them last month. This convenient e-commerce site has now added holiday greeting cards to its line of offerings, along with many other new items such as banners, necklaces, pendants, and an ever-growing variety of t-shirt designs. The latest email announcement from LPStuff.com is reprinted below:

We all love the holiday season: a time when everyone is joyous and willing to extend an act of kindness. The world seems to come alive with millions of lights and decorations hanging from windows to lawns.

As we try our best to be with distant friends and family during the holiday season, sometimes it just doesn’t work. A greeting card is a terrific way to send your holiday wishes far away.

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Elizabeth Brooks, the Volunteer Coordinator for the national Libertarian Party, is encouraging members to assist in Get Out The Vote (GOTV) efforts by using the party’s relatively new Ballot Base system. Ballot Base is an organized database of registered Libertarian voters that facilitates campaigns by allowing volunteers to place calls to people who are likely to vote for Libertarian candidates and reminding them that they need to go out to the polls on Election Day.

This year, the LP is awarding prizes in the form of gift certificates for LPStuff.com to the top callers. Details of this email notification on GOTV efforts are published below:

Dear Libertarian,

As you may know, this is a critical time of year for the Libertarian Party. The main objective of the Libertarian Party is to get Libertarian candidates elected to office!

On November 6, 2007, we have the opportunity to do exactly that. There will be state legislative elections, citizen initiatives, and a variety of local offices on the ballot. We must ensure that our candidates are successful this year!

One of the easiest ways to do so is to use our most efficient tool for helping Libertarian candidates: LP Ballot Base.

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Shane Cory has sent out another letter informing us about the current status of the ballot access situation in Oklahoma. Apparently state legislators, in their continuing attempt to suppress any hint of opposition to the two-party system, are proposing even more unfair, unnecessary laws that would prohibit paying petitioners on a per-signature basis. This could become a problem for us because petitioners are normally paid according to their performance rather than a strictly time-based system. Having to pay these kinds of workers on a per hour basis would make it less likely that they would be motivated to actually collect signatures for us. Of course, this is exactly what the State is hoping for because it means that the chances of there ever being more than two parties on the ballot will be reduced even further.

Meanwhile, the petition drive by Oklahomans for Ballot Access Reform (OBAR) continues, and still needs significant funding in order to reach their goal of 100,000 signatures. Anyone who actually gives a flying horseflip about the opportunity to vote for candidates other than Republicans or Democrats is encouraged to donate, as success by OBAR would help all third parties and independent candidates, not just the Libertarians. Shane Cory’s explanation of the details regarding the Oklahoma ballot access issue is reprinted below:

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This article by Jamie Sue Austin highlights some of the problems with “voting irregularities” during the 2000 presidential election. Although this essay seems to have been written before the 2004 election, some of these same issues resurfaced, but the reports were mostly centered around the state of Ohio rather than Florida.

The 2000 Presidential election brought with it a scandal not seen since 1876. There were countless accusations of voter disenfranchisement, police intimidation, and an arduous recount complete with court proceedings. Thousands of people packed into the polls on November 7th, 2000. Many would be turned away because their names were on the “scrub list” given by the company ChoicePoint to Florida officials (Palast 22). Florida hires a private company to clean voter registration roles of ineligible voters. It is the only state to do so. The list was supposed to be composed of past felons, but included many people with similar names, most of whom had never committed a crime.

Still others would not make it to the polls at all. Road blocks were put up in some communities that prevented voters from getting to their designated polling place. Police harassed people as they traveled to the polling areas. Then there were the votes themselves to consider. Almost 90,000 voters were disenfranchised by the “scrub list”. This by itself is a significant number, but not nearly as impressive as the 179,855 ballots that Florida’s official did not count at all. (Palast 13, 62.)

That’s right. 179,855 ballots were not counted. These spoiled ballots far outweighed the 537 vote difference that elected our President but were largely ignored. Exactly how do 179,855 ballots go bad? It didn’t have so much to do with the voters themselves but the machines that were used. Some machines were programmed to spit out incorrect ballots so that voters could correct them. Some were set so that these ballots were eaten by the machine, never to be counted. Sometimes the mistakes were as simple as both writing in the name for the candidate and punching the hole for his name on the same ballot. In areas that vote primarily Democratic machines were set to eat incorrect ballots, while machines set to reject them were stationed mostly in areas that vote Republican (Palast 64.)

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Yesterday Wes Benedict sent out an email that answers questions that some of us have had regarding the 16 proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution that are supposed to appear on the ballot for this year’s general election on November 6, 2007. Our state LP has taken official positions on 10 of the possible amendments, while low enthusiasm and lack of consensus seems to have prevented them from taking positions on the remaining six.

There are four of these (7, 10, 11, 14) that I will definitely be voting in favor of; they will generally increase freedom for some people and reduce unnecessary government functions, albeit in a very small way. Number 11 would be especially beneficial because it will allow us to find out how our state representatives actually voted on all bills that reach the final floor vote in the legislature.

The remainder of the proposals seem less impressive. A few of them are clearly undesirable because they will increase government spending and potential debt, and will also likely lead to future tax increases, which of course reduces our economic freedom. Most of the others are difficult to determine positions on because it is unclear whether their net effects will be favorable for us or not. In many cases, the ballot language suggests that there will be some tax reductions or exemptions, but the overall effect would simply favor certain special interests and shift the tax burden from one group of people to another, which does not exactly fit with our ideas of fairness or liberty.

Therefore, following my usual procedure for elections such as this, I will probably default to “no” votes for all but the four most desirable proposals cited above. Alternatively, we could simply abstain from voting on the ones that we really don’t care about or in cases where the ballot language makes the true effects of a proposed amendment difficult to understand.

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LPStuff.com, the Libertarian Party merchandise site that I mentioned earlier, has updated their stocks again. This time they have released some nice looking T-shirt designs and are now giving us the option of custom orders where we can choose our own designs and messages for the shirts. There are also customized ordering options available for other materials such as business cards, bumper stickers, flyers, yard signs, and other useful supplies for Libertarian Party candidates.

27 colorful shirt designs are now available at LPStuff.com. This selection makes it easy for you to find a message that will fit your personality and express your Libertarian principles. It is an ideal way to help spread the Libertarian message of freedom and personal responsibility.

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This article by Aaron Turpen, who is the editor of the Utah Freedom Activist Newsletter at http://www.utahfreedomactivist.com, highlights the problems with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which I like to think of as “No Child Learns Better” for its failure to substantially improve the American educational system.

As Libertarians who believe that individuals should actually manage their own lives without the need for government interference, we see the current government-controlled school system as being at least partially to blame for why many Americans are stupid and continue to live in blissful ignorance while spending their money on all sorts of frivolous nonsense. Hopefully, as more people begin to understand that State-controlled monopolies on education do not work and are actually holding back the true potential of the American people, we can begin to seriously explore other alternatives and allow parents to choose the ones that they believe are the most effective.

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Shane Cory from the national Libertarian Party released an urgent update today on a somewhat unexpected opportunity for ballot access in Oklahoma. Normally, this state’s ridiculously unfair ballot access laws make it nearly impossible for anyone other than Democrats or Republicans to field candidates and actually have their names appear on the election ballots. However, a generous donor has pledged some $60,000 in contributions toward a group called Oklahomans for Ballot Access Reform (OBAR) that is trying to place an initiative on the ballot that would substantially lower the current ballot access barriers and give all parties a fair chance at providing voters with meaningful choices at the polls.

The contributions are needed in order to pay petitioners and collect enough signatures within the legally allotted time period for getting an initiative on the ballot. The Libertarians and other “third party” organizations still need another $20,000 or so to ensure that the required number of signatures will be collected before the deadline. Therefore, those of you who are involved with ballot access issues or are simply tired of the same two parties dominating the political process over and over again should consider making a contribution towards our efforts. Here is the text of Shane Cory’s letter.

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Although many people like to think of the United States as a “democracy”, the American political system has never been truly democratic. One important example of this is the electoral college system, where it is possible for candidates to win elections even though they were not really elected by the majority of the people. This article by Scott Burton, who was an independent candidate for U.S. Congress in 2006, provides a good overview of the electoral college system, explains why it is flawed, and suggests some possible reforms that would make the system more accurately reflect the intent of the voting public.

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This article by Aaron Turpen of MilitantLibertarian.org points out some of the problems with the McCain-Feingold act that was passed back in 2002. While the style of this piece might seem a little “ranty”, I agree with the general gist of it.

In general, campaign finance “reform” has done nothing to stop political corruption and is actually hurting independent candidates and alternative parties like ours by severely restricting contributions from individuals. Meanwhile, the Big Two parties continue to get around the laws by funneling millions of dollars through their PACs (Political Action Committees) and other affiliated organizations. These stupid laws need to be repealed and full rights of political free speech should be given back to the people.

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New supplies have arrived at LPStuff.com, an e-commerce site that sells Libertarian Party merchandise and other libertarian-themed items. The most recent arrivals include Christmas ornaments printed with the LP logo, two new sizes of Libertarian Party coffee mugs, and new shipments of books, including the original hardcover edition of Harry Browne’s Why Government Doesn’t Work.

This is a good opportunity for us bum marketing enthusiasts and other money-making aficionados who have libertarian leanings to support our cause, as a portion of the item sales helps to fund the LP and other related organizations. Meanwhile, I am hoping that the site eventually sets up an affiliate program of some sort that would allow commissions for referred product sales. This would allow people like me to support the cause of liberty and make some money at the same time, which of course is one of the primary objectives of any Libertarian Internet marketer!

Until then, we can read the content of the latest email below and also check out the LP Stuff Forum, where we can register our opinions and suggestions with the current staff of LPStuff.com.

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One of the ways in which we Libertarians can have an impact on the political process is by writing letters to the editor and getting them published in various newspapers or other media outlets that allow it. This is one method in which we can get our message out to the public, particularly the non-tech savvy part of the public that still relies on newspapers and other traditional print media as their main source of political news and information.

However, many people may not realize that writing letters to the editor requires a certain amount of skill, and not just anyone with an opinion is able to write them well enough to pass editorial muster and actually have them published. Although it is by no means a substitute for competence in basic writing skills, this article by James C. Hess provides us with a pretty good primer on how we can recover this “lost art”.
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This commentary by Joel D. on the recent seizure of margarine from a Wal-Mart in Quebec highlights the connection between stupid laws, black markets, and government inefficiency. After procuring the rights to publish this article, I did a little research on this story and discovered that there is a silly law in Quebec that prohibits manufacturers of margarine from making the color of their products appear too much like the color of natural butter. Apparently it was this “butter colored” margarine that prompted this seizure of some 72 tubs of Becel margarine back in 2005. Joel’s observations on the issue seem pretty funny in this instance, but they also remind us of the insane consequences of attempting to ban the peaceful use of substances that people actually want to buy.
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