As I sit here, I’m only about ten hours past having left the convention, and I can’t describe how jazzed I am by the experience of being surrounded by so many dedicated, involved, and quickly rising candidates, deligates and volunteers.

There are many reasons why running for office is in itself a success story for the Libertarian Party. First, it gives Libertarian voters an opportunity to let politicians know that they do not have to vote for the lesser of two evils (democrats or republicans,) and that they have ideological colleagues willing to get on the ballot to represent their ideology. Second, as mentioned previously, being on the ballot ensures continuity for the Party as this increases our chances of remaining an official political party in the state. Although there are many more reasons, here is my third and last one. More and more people will know about the Libertarian Party as they look at their voting ballot and see a name followed by something they had never seen before, Libertarian.

I am proud to be a Libertarian. I have met candidates that cover the whole spectrum; Hispanics (as myself), Caucasians, African Americans, gays, straight, fiscal conservatives, social liberals, and many more. We all, however, have one thing in common; we agree to disagree peacefully and without forcing our ideals on others through the use of government power.

There are 6 statewide 2-way races. (These are all judicial races against a Republican.) The 5% required in at least 1 statewide race is therefore a slam dunk this time around.

There are at least a dozen races where the Libertarian candidate may determine who wins the general election. There was one such election in 2004. House Seat 50 was swung to a Democrat and away from an incumbent Republican who had claimed to be fiscally conservative, but turned out to be a tax-and-spend big government Republican.

In 2002 an LP candidate ran to the left of an incumbent Democrat to defeat her reelection bid. (She had shafted the LP by killing a ballot access bill that she had previously claimed to support. The ability to run to either to the left or the right gives Libertarian candidates a lot of flexibility when it comes to making trouble for the other candidates.)

This year we rated all Texas legislators so that we would have more detailed information about who we should target for defeat. We want to demonstrate in 2006 that we can hurt Republicans who are not fiscally conservative enough and Democrats who fail to protect individual freedoms.

If I’ve studied correctly.

I’m not a Libertarian, but will vote for them if I need to. One out of 187 is needed to put the LP on the map for a long time.

That’s not losing.

That’s progress.

Michael Badnarik is definitely a serious candidate. Check out his website at www.badnarik.org

Best regards.