Nobody is pretending starting a new party is easy. But the fact of the matter is that since the LP’s inception, liberty has gone in a negative direction and government has only grown. Perhaps this is because moderate libertarians are forced to choose between a party at the most radical extreme of their quadrant or the moderate authoritarians in the major parties. It is my strongly held belief that the longer I waste time in the LP, the less I am doing to help liberty actually materialize in this country. It’s a lost cause, and history indicates that the LP makes it worse by marginalizing the libertarian voice.

I strongly disagree that the point of the LP or any libertarian party should be to just put up a good fight, grab people’s attention at whatever cost and appeal to the few fringe niches who can be evangelized to a radical ideology which holds at its core the thesis that the government is the primary evil in society and should be abolished. It is only because of the LP’s history of failure that it is forced to accept this as the only realistic goal. While the LP’s failure is not entirely its own fault, David Nolan and the founders made pretty clear from the beginning that politics was not the point. No wonder we missed the boat.

A new party would have to be organized incredibly well before it launches and must blitz the public with every resource and technology possible. Most “third parties” are usually one person writing a platform and launching a website for their own vanity. A party with all the basic technological and organizational infrastructure built before it goes public has a better chance at growth and organization. New technologies enable access to the attention of the whole world – I believe the opportunity for a third party to rise out of the Internet is waiting.

A new party has to have enough principle and definition to attract a core, but must be realistic and speak to the needs of the average person to grow beyond a nobody third party. It also must focus on winning local, state and federal (House of Representatives) partisan races first and completely organizing on a national level before running a presidential candidate. By remaining realistic in the electoral goals, the party can be taken more seriously by the average person, especially if a precedent of winning can be established before stretching people to imagine your party winning the presidency. Presidential candidates are good for attention, but actual elected officials are even better if you are focusing on building the party up in the long term. And they also can actually be enacting real libertarian policies, unlike a guaranteed-to-lose presidential candidate.

The LP does not fail because it is “radical,” although that is the root of the cause. It fails because it always loses and everyone who has ever heard of the LP or seen us on the ballot pretty much knows that. Between the radicalism and catch-22 of always losing, naturally, organizing ballot access, recruiting volunteers willing to work for quixotic campaigns, getting media attention, etc. is difficult. A new party benefits by having a clean slate, even though it starts further behind parties with established infrastructure and organization like the LP. It also has the vantage point where it can look back at all the things that the third parties have done right and wrong and can learn from them, avoiding their mistakes.

Naturally everything hinges on money, which will be the real test for the new party, though. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens in the long term, but I definitely think its time that a new party rises and eventually replaces the LP by making up for all the ground the LP has lost.

Whatever the problems you perceive in the LP, it has already done some of that bricks and mortar stuff, such as securing a place on a couple of dozen state ballots.

You can see the barriers you will be up against here.

http://www.ballot-access.org/2006/120106.html#12

If you have never petitioned or hired petitioners, let me reassure you that both are a lot harder than you might think.

Among other things, we constantly get run off by security guards and cops even from places where we have a legal right to petition firmly established by law. Overwhelming public indifference, apathy, and some hostility and the difficulty of getting people to stop turns off many novice petitioners.

Stupid comments and overall dullness from many members of the public in response to being asked to sign can be quite frustrating.

Hiring petitioners presents another set of problems. Most people who are not experienced petitioners flake out, partially for the reasons listed above.

Others, who would do well at it, just don’t like it. Others yet who would do well at it hate politics. Or, they are already good at sales and have a steady sales job or busineness elsewhere.

Many people don’t realize that petitioning can generate enough income to make a decent living.

However, with such a limited number of people who succeed at petitioning, it is often best to hire experienced petitioners – which involves travel expenses – rather than hire locally (much less rely on volunteers, which hardly ever works).

Of course, most people don’t like to travel full time, and even many of the ones that do either would not be good petitioners or choose not to petition for the reasons explained above.

Of the remaining people who are decent and willing petitioners, most have a personality which makes them a nightmare to deal with for the manager/coordinator. It is precisely this personality strength/weakness profile which makes them disinclined to take steady jobs with more management and regular hours, willing to travel a big chunk of the year,
capable of finding spots to work despite all the hassles, and willing to approach strangers and put up with all the apathy, rejection and hostility.

Of course, ballot access is just ONE of the many barriers you will face in starting a new party.

It all comes down to the brick and mortar catch 22:

Lack of name recognition

Lack of money

Lack of winning track record

Lack of media coverage

Lack of votes

These are self-reinforcng barriers. Being more moderate does not overcome these barriers by itself. In fact, it might leave you with a smaller base of dedicated ideologues willing to make up for their lack of numbers by working harder for a cause they believe in fanatically.

What’s happened to the moderate Reform Party since Perot pulled out his money?

What success have the Moderate Party or Independence Party achieved?

ETC.

Not that I have any objection to you starting a new party. Go for it. If nothing else it will teach you to appreciate just how difficult a task that is, and why the LP’s apparent lack of success has a lot more to it than just our radical views – that in fact it is not mainly about that, and the radical views may even be working in our favor.

MMJ/recreational legalization/stop the drug war IS an issue that gets quite a few votes, which are easy to get because no one else wants them and because they care about their issue.

Again – the issue is not MOST Americans, it’s the most Americans who want an alternative, and are mad enough at the bigger party lack-of-choices to seek an alternative
radical party.

Some people may end up seeing Kubby as just a pothead no matter what he says, although I think that a large perecntage of Americans will be able to overcome that impression as the campaign gets serious. Of the ones who can’t, I believe that we would have very little chance at their vote anyway, no matter who we run.

But people are not monolithic. Kubby’s work in drug reform will bring in a lot more people than we would otherwise get to vote for us. If he turns some confused Republitarians away from the party, all the better. If he is able to build on his energy, experience, and connections in the drug reform community I believe he can make significant inroads into the anti-war and immigrant/immigrant-friendly communities, environmentalists, and others.

Phillies is antiwar too, but is a lot less likely – due to personality and base issues – to make as much headway as Kubby would be capable of making in the antiwar movement, to take just one example. Phillies’ stance on immigration will hurt the coalition-building that will need to take place with the left/libertarian border to make significant inroads for the LP.

I believe Kubby could easily have the best LP showing ever – if the LP just has the good sense to nominate him.

Most people won’t look at Phillies at all. A few will. They’ll see a “white and nerdy” professor. Conservatives won’t like him because he’s antiwar and socially liberal on most issues, and the left/libertarian border will be less receptive because of his immigration stance. He does not have an automatic base outside the LP as Kubby does and he has a less engaging personality. This will severely linit his ability to build a coalition, as Kubby can starting with a solid base in LP and drug reform, and using it to expand through co-members in the immigration freedom, peace and environmentalist communities. But without the first non-LP building block, it is a lot harder to build a structure.

What little of the public will hear of Phillies will notice that he is an extremist (let’s be honest, we all are). His non-verbal communication signals will not be doing him any favors. Being highly educated did not do all that much for John Hagelin of the Natural Law Party. In any case, practical politics is a game of building brick by brick: one on top of another. Phillies wins the nomination, he has one brick, the LP. Kubby wins he has the LP plus a solid constituency in the drug policy reform movement, which is bigger than the LP. Having two “bricks” makes it a lot easier to add a third, and so on. I see Phillies most likely stuck at brick one, which is where LP candidates have typically started and finished.

It is not a candidate who will win and govern the country.
We don’t have to play that part because people already know we’re pretenders when we do.

The product we are selling is protest and rebellion against the system, but in a focused way. The other product we are selling is the idea of liberty itself, and a vehicle to help promote that idea, building itself along the way gear by gear.

To sell something like that, you need someone somewhere in between Wana Dubie on one extreme and Phillies on the other; someone like Kubby.

Wana Dubie might be OK for VP, “Kubby-wanna dubie” has a catchiness to it, but on the other hand it probably might be better to bring some balance to the ticket and bring in someone from a different side of the party for VP.

I think Phillies’ relentless seriousness kinda hurts him.

I would recommend lightening up his image a little and having some fun with it.

Think something along the lines of Weird Al “White And Nerdy,” have fun and be creative with it. A lot of times a guy who can laugh at himself and turn a weakness into a strength can be better received.

If you can get non-libertarians to pay attention to it for the entertainment value, like Loretta’s boobs and (no) panties sagas, or Kubby’s South Park Ad from ‘98

http://www.dougscribner.com/thirdwheel/video/SouthParkAdDSL.wvx

which won a Pollie award

http://www.dougscribner.com/thirdwheel/success.htm

And THEN use it to then segue into serious issues, I think you can reach a lot more people than if you’re just all boring and serious all the time.

There’s two approaches to take with this one: one is to let it hobble you and the other is to turn it to your advantage as a candidate. Here in Alabama, Loretta Nall did the latter, starting out with the same “problem” as Kubby has. Read all about it in her “Year in Review” blogpost linked above.

The best chance we have of expanding our LP base is with the Kubby campaign

1) He has the best lead on a constituency that has for the most part not been voting LP but is not being well-served by anyone else. So is ripe for conquest.

2) He has a solid fundraising base in the non LP drug policy reform community. That plus LP is a lot more solid base to reaching out to build a larger coalition. Being pro-immigrant helps with the groups we would like to chip away at to bring in to this coalition: immigrants and supporters, of course, but also peace activists, environmentalists and others. At the margin, being pro-immigration will help with all these voting blocs.

Making the LP grow significantly in a direction it has neglected, and therefore has a lot more room for growth – particlularly given that the low-hanging fruit on the right has been picked, that conservatives are generally less inclined to embrace change – including change parties – than left-constituencies like youth and immigrants, and that the overall trends in American politics right now have the left moving marginally in a libertarian direction and the right marginally authoritarian as evidenced in articles such as “Liberaltarian”

http://lastfreevoice.wordpress.com/2007/01/03/liberallibertarian-alliance/

and “Red State Fascism” on LewRockwell.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/red-state-fascism.html

The same problem was with Doug Stanhope – no matter how reasonable and well-spoken his personal politics are, the major parties would strike at the opportunity to permanently discredit the LP - the Right could label him as the “destroyer of family values,” the Left could label him a “misogynistic pig” and the LP will be permanently labelled “the party that ran the Girls Gone Wild guy.” It just sounds like a joke, even if we might gain short term benefit by appealing to the lowest-common-denominator Eric Dondero types.

The Eric Dondero types’ support for Stanhope is likely misplaced.

From Stanhope’s wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Stanhope

A self-confident drug user, libertarian and agnostic, Stanhope’s humor can convey nihilism despite life-celebrating enthusiasm. He frankly describes ‘deviant’ sexual activity and sometimes gruesome personal stories gleefully, blurring the lines between an “adventurous spirit” and full-blown “sicko”. Stanhope violently opposes the gradual erosion of American civil liberties, particularly in his recent performances such as Deadbeat Hero.

Often subject to large-scale walk-outs by his American audiences, Stanhope admits “People will leave. I go on stage, it’s like I’m leading you into battle—you’re not all going to be here at the end.”

Presidential campaign

Stanhope had announced on July 9, 2006 through his website that he would run for president in 2008 as a Libertarian. However, after consulting political advisors, he has stated on his website, “... officially – I am reconsidering my presidential run while my exploratory team looks into the viability of such an endeavor.” He explained that he made this statement due to campaign finance laws and other reasons. He later said on the same page that he is serious and “The presidential run is getting in order. You keep asking me if I’m serious. You have no idea. Let’s have fun again.”

Reading the rest of the wikipedia entry makes it abundantly clear that Stanhope is hardly the Girls Gone Wild/Man Show comedian that some of his more mainstream fans mistake him for.

Now, can he overcome the initial negatives and turn them into positives as well? I don’t know…but, while I can no longer link to the material, I was favorably impressed with his Q& A on Hammer of Truth.

Among other things I seem to recall that he was in favor of immediate US troops withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, a real investigation into 9/11 and Bush impeachment. All key issues for me.

As much as I like reaching out to the left, pissing off some of the anti-porn/anti-fun/pro-censorship feminist types is not exactly out of the question for me; I like free sexual expression, a fun-loving attitude, and not taking things too seriously all the time while remaining commited to promoting freedom. Stanhope seems to embody these qualities.

He is not a proven campaigner like Kubby, so he is not my number one choice, but I personally would rank him ahead of Phillies if those were the three candidates for the nomination.

I should note though that all three rank ahead of Gary Nolan and Michael Badnarik in my book.

I agree that medical marijuana is an issue that we are in agreement with the majority on, that the war on drugs should be ended, and that Kubby is in his right to be as public about his crusade as possible. But it’s honestly not the most pressing agenda on most peoples’ platters – even many libertarians – not enough to make them vote Libertarian at least, and we have to weigh the long-term consequences of a perceived one-issue presidential candidate making the LP the “(insert issue here) Party,” in the same way we would if we had a celebrity presidential candidate who would put the party in a fleeting spotlight and then leave the party weighed down as the “(insert celebrity name here) Party.”

I don’t see the average American all of a sudden seriously consider a wonkish LP candidate who is all serious and selects his issues based on what a majority cares about. Well maybe if he was a billionaire and willing to blow several million bucks of his own money on the run, but otherwise, no.

When we are this small, and at this much of a disadvantage, we have to speak about issues with passion and energy, and select issues which are extremely personally important to significant chunks of people – people for whom that is their most important issue.

If their position on those issues is being ignored by the bigger parties, or if both wings of the duopoly line up against their position (like on immigration, drug legalization and the war) that creates an opening or opportunity for us to grab a voting bloc and make it ours.

Not everybody in that voting bloc will vote for us, but a lot more than otherwise would and we’ll gain new members, new activists, new contributors and future candidates.

Being “serious” is not going to make you a major contender all of a sudden. There are many more institutional barriers.

You have to break out of them by being creative, doing guerilla marketing, and simultaneously being both passionate and organized.

There are a lot of brick-and-mortar things that have to be done – and you’re not going from 0.4 to 40 in one election cycle.

re: Kubby as a “one issue pot candidate” well at first….

They said the same thing about Loretta Nall down here in Alabama.

We got over that though. Read all about it….

http://nallforgovernor.blogspot.com/2007/01/loretta-nalls-2006-year-in-review.html

Yes, I know that Loretta is supporting Phillies.

I’m still wondering why.

http://pauliecannoli.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/lpa-repost-ii-loretta-and-phillies/

Here’s what LP National founder David Nolan had to say about Steve Kubby overcoming the “one issue candidate” impression….

http://www.kubby.com/00-intro.html

=================================

Thus, the question on many delegates’ minds was “is Steve Kubby a real Libertarian who supports individual liberty across-the-board, or is he just a one-issue candidate?” By the end of the convention, there was no doubt in their minds. Both Steve and Michele were consistent defenders of liberty. In addition, they projected a wholesome, all-American image: an attractive, outgoing couple whose appearance and behavior belies the United States government’s ongoing campaign to depict all drug users as goofballs, losers and an all-around menace to society.

Steve secured the Libertarians’ gubernatorial nomination by a unanimous vote, and proceeded to hit the campaign trail. As with everything he does, Steve campaigned with a “take no prisoners” intensity; there is never any doubt where he stands on any issue.

http://lastfreevoice.wordpress.com/2007/01/03/kubby-in-the-news

Neither am I. But you continue to forget that medical marijuana is a WINNING issue. Why run and hide from a winning issue? How is it “bad attention” to be attacked by the enemy over our winning issue?

“I refuse to accept that libertarianism in and of itself can not be effectively marketed to the mainstream until effectively marketing to the mainstream has actually been tried. The LP is just not an appropriate vehicle to do so with.”

You are right, but not for your reasons. The LP does not have a suitable marketing budget for going after the “mainstream”. If your new party can achieve the budget required to aggressively pursue Joe and Jane six pack and present a consistent and principled (albeit moderate) libertarian vision, then you will rightfully share a place in the Hall of Great Libertarians and your party will receive my full support. I don’t think you (or anyone short of a billionaire) can pull it off.

You fight with the weapons you have. If the enemy has tanks and Howitzers, then you don’t throw pebbles at your enemy in an open field. If all you have are pebbles, then you certainly don’t challenge your enemy to an open field battle on their territory.

Also, you need to distinguish – of course, purist libertarianism is not marketable to the mainstream. That’s because political moderates hold a wider array of values then just freedom. The LP has failed to address these other values effectively. They have also ignored obvious markets like small businesses and the progressive Left. A new party with a small business base would be widely appealing to moderates, as small businesses are relatively homeless politically (between the corporatist Right and the regulatory State Left), make up a majority of the market and recognize the progressive benefits from reducing excessive government intervention. I refuse to accept that libertarianism in and of itself can not be effectively marketed to the mainstream until effectively marketing to the mainstream has actually been tried. The LP is just not an appropriate vehicle to do so with.

The LP cannot market to the mainstream. Libertarianism is not mainstream. You need to accept that and plan accordingly.

The plans me and others are making are only very preliminary right now, but basically, the premise we had for forming the Libertarian Reform Caucus was to try to make the LP viable. While we succeeded to a degree, the fact of the matter is that the LP has impossible electoral barriers and internal membership barriers to overcome in order to change the negative net liberty that has resulted since it’s inception. As the party has already developed a habit of losing almost every time and the voters know this, the party is not really doing much good beyond occasionally slapping the wrists of Republicans for straying from limited government roots and pushing single issues here and there.

A well planned out new party can take advantage of new technologies, hone an appealing message balanced between principle and realism, start with a fresh image and spawn new alliances, fill large holes in the political spectrum that are not satisfied by the current system, and generally make the necessary leaps and bounds, a boat that the LP missed a long time ago and can’t get back on without miraculously growing wings and flying across the ocean. Maybe it is “splintering” the movement, but there’s a great deal of effective targeting that the LP has not done (ie small businesses, moderate reformists, the Left), and there’s a great number of people who agree with many of the things the LP advocates but won’t touch the party with a six foot pole because of the history of rampant radicalism, conspiracy theorism and terminal failure.

When we formed the LRC, we weighed the plusses and minuses of either reforming the LP or starting a new party and chose the former because it seemed more doable and less expensive, and keeping the party organization/infrastructure was a huge benefit. But some of us finally decided that haggling with the LP is purely quixotic because of not only the de facto barriers created by the system, but by the party itself. We now feel like it’s easier to take the lessons learned from the LP and create something better and more effective that is less polarizingly ideological for the libertarian movement than the LP has been (and for the progressive movement than the Green Party has been.) Maybe we’re wrong, but either way we win – either we succeed or the LP becomes stronger from the competition.

Paulie,

Of course I believe Kubby is a solid libertarian and probably projects a very good and well-rounded image, but the fact of the matter is that his backstory will always haunt his candidacy and make him appear like a one-issue candidate. His medical conditions are not his fault and I certainly believe he is in his rights to recieve treatment via medicinal marijuana.

But think of what the media will label him when he starts going more public – they will say “The Libertarian Party nominated marijuana activist Steve Kubby.” That’s his claim to fame. He launched his candidacy at a marijuana rally. His only political experience is passing a ballot resolution on medical marijuana. His claim to fame is his court battle over his drug use. Nobody has to read very deeply into his campaign slogan – I certainly hope that changes (under other circumstances, it would be a good slogan, but many will draw the allegory that freedom in Kubby’s mind =marijuana, however overexaggerated that might be.) Read the first paragraph of his Wikipedia biography and tell me that any objective moderate will not read that and see him as a one-issue candidate. It doesn’t matter how well he projects himself – think of how easy it will be for the major parties and media to shape him as such.

The same problem was with Doug Stanhope – no matter how reasonable and well-spoken his personal politics are, the major parties would strike at the opportunity to permanently discredit the LP - the Right could label him as the “destroyer of family values,” the Left could label him a “misogynistic pig” and the LP will be permanently labelled “the party that ran the Girls Gone Wild guy.” It just sounds like a joke, even if we might gain short term benefit by appealing to the lowest-common-denominator Eric Dondero types.

I agree that medical marijuana is an issue that we are in agreement with the majority on, that the war on drugs should be ended, and that Kubby is in his right to be as public about his crusade as possible. But it’s honestly not the most pressing agenda on most peoples’ platters – even many libertarians – not enough to make them vote Libertarian at least, and we have to weigh the long-term consequences of a perceived one-issue presidential candidate making the LP the “(insert issue here) Party,” in the same way we would if we had a celebrity presidential candidate who would put the party in a fleeting spotlight and then leave the party weighed down as the “(insert celebrity name here) Party.”