+ There are many more outreach avenues for third tier political candidates and movements: Internet, talk radio, cheap desktop publishing, cheap movie editing…

– Paid membership is down, especially when you factor in inflation.

+- Actually dues have gone up lately, since we no longer have UMP. To be both a state and federal dues-paying member requires more bucks than in the UMP days.

– This was also the case in the early 1980s.
– In other words, during the days of peak membership, dues were way down from historical levels. Not only had teh $25 level been inflated down, but the LP also had UMP.

Can the LP break through the concrete ceiling?

Does it want to?

The LP still grew, just the $25.00 per person dropped. The amount of money the LP had per year dropped, but the interesting thing according to the yearly reports, when the LP had more money coming in they overspent. Now the LP has climbed out of debt and is running in the “black” and this with less money coming in. So my hat is off to Bill Redpath and the LPHQ “merry little band” for turning this around.

I don’t think the LP tries to hide membership numbers or anything sinister. They list the names of new members and the renewing members every month in the LP NEWS.

I wonder what sort of sustaining membership numbers the LP would have if dues kept up with inflation…

Bill

The number of people who are “sustaining members” is someplace around 12,000.

The total number of LP party members as of March 1st (I think that was the date) was over 116,000.

Last time I have seen the Party affiliation numbers were a couple years ago and that stood around 225,0000.

On the other hand, when we have canvassed L voters in MA, the obvious conclusion has been that the party registration data is almost completely meaningless.

Your crap is nearly impossible to read.
Also, as Knapp already pointed out—the LP doesnt release actual registration numbers. I believe those have dropped since 2004 significantly.

So much of the Anti Democratic Party and the Anti Republican Party postings Third Party Watch take on the trappings of pure, and even, mishandled, propaganda. Yes commentary is differentiated from pure [hard] news, but when commented on like Quirk, G_E, and others of the ‘Rah-rah’ peanut gallery—-they lose their edge.

Not every reader stops at the Headline! Take those two so-called conservative hacks: Gary Wills and Robert Novack.

Wills, ‘a strange little man’ who loves the odd and boring game of base ball to a degree of Compulsive Disorder, is a wanna be academic who does not even pretend to play by the rules [of fair play]! He presents the arguement with all the zeal of a North Carolina District Attorney going after white male LaCrosse athletes. He has a grasp of the whole cloth, but leaves lots of the pattern in the shredder or trash can.

Bob Novack uses a different technique. Instead of leaving appropriate, important stuff out, he throws in inappropriate [if factual] details. [Like the potentially lethal identities of once secret, clandestine government agents!]

All around the global, the bi-lines of these two truth benders signals the reader that a full review of the facts IS NOT FORTH COMMING.

Former Nixon Speech writer Ben Stein has a much better reputation—-inspite of the fact that he is a known, professional comedian. At least Mister Stein makes a pretense of hitting both sides of the issue———occationally! [His nearly 200 IQ probably does not hurt too much either!]

“ya gotta flog what ya got….’ [No, no, no! ]

You carefully analyze [tear apart] and synthyze [put togeter] your argument, including occationally ‘letting things go’ and NOT COMMENTING ON the condiction. Remember, the other guys ‘can not quote ‘Silence’ !’

Fact: What ever unhappiness you have with Non Democrats and Non GOP, it has been the two headed political monster of the establishment parties which have brought the one and only global super power to mimic the Soviet World Empire and its path into the rubbish bin of History.

Those are two very different kinds of numbers, history says that they don’t necessarily track each other well (the LP had more than half again as many dues-paying members in 2000 as it did in 1996—and its presidential vote total went down by about 20%; the presidential vote total then held steady in 2004 even though membership had declined well back toward its 1996 level),

Also, the organizations/voter bases being compared are just completely out of scale with each other anyway.

But hey, you gotta flog what you’ve got. The release was interesting in any case.