Wayne Allyn Root:

*supports the continuation of presence in Iraq (with deadlines) I would prefer to just leave, but I understand where he’s going with this. Just up and leaving puts him on the fringe with conservative mainstream.

*he actually supports the FLAT TAX. Not the Fair Tax. But he said he would support the FT if it means we’ll be getting rid of the Federal Income Tax.

*he is a good communicator, but he comes off as uhhh I don’t know. He’s a good orator, but he just makes me feel uncomfortable. And I don’t like him advocating a wall on the border. Securing the border is one thing, building a WALL is another.

*He’s GREAT on the War on Drug. Wants to end it!

I would probably give him my vote, is voting for New Jersey already done? I just voted for Ron Paul. Root might have some bad positions on some issues, but I think he brings more to the table than the other candidates. He IS mainstream. Well, somewhat.

George Phillies

*bad orator

*annoying

*dorky

Sorry, I would only vote for you if you were the last man standing.

*Christine Smith

Don’t know much about you. You seem too… mediocre. The LP needs to nominate a guy like Root, he has the best chance of getting media exposure and he has been out raising everyone so far.

*Steve Kubby

I’d say you’re my second choice. How’d you pull off getting on South Park? That was very cool. You seem like a good second choice, but I feel like I need to compromise, so that’s why I would vote for Wayne Root. He might suck on a few issues, but at least he’s not in the fringe.

The rest are out of it…

thank you

Yes, the endorsement had an effect. The Rolla Daily News is published in Phelps County, Missouri, and in that county Phillies tied with Root for second place (out of twenty votes cast in Phelps County’s LP primary, Root and Phillies each received three—“uncommitted” won the county with, if I remember correctly, 7 votes). Phillies polled 4th place statewide.

PEACE
Steve

The “primary voters” came from the 83-86,000 (last I heard) registered Libertarians in California. Unlike the 1,200+ dues-paying CLP members (from which the likely 50 or so CLP delegates to the LP national convention will be chosen), primary voters don’t follow internal LP politics, so they’re unfamiliar with the candidates.

It’s thus not surprising that the only female name, Christine Smith, won. Sorry, but Smith won due to voter ignorance, and because of her sex. (And before anyone calls me a “sexist,” remember, I’m the one who’s been promoting Karen Kwiatkowski for president these last several years.)

Smith’s victory does not reflect her actual support among the eventual California delegation. It doesn’t even reflect her support among primary voters, since they voted for her out of ignorance.

However, the real loser was Wayne Allyn Root. Root is the only LP candidate who is known to primary voters. Root’s the only one who’s appeared on Major Media for months now, doing talk radio and cable TV shows throughout Southern California.

And still, with all that Major Media attention, Root came in third.

Smith won due to voter ignorance. Root lost due to voter awareness.

I predict that neither candidate will be the favorite of the CLP (or national) delegation at the national convention.

Phillies is too off-message and un-charismatic to help the LP at all.

(Disclaimer: I was the electronic outreach coordinator for Phillies at one point and left of my own accord.)

As for Root, I just don’t think convention-going big-Ls would nominate the man if he was the only one running. Sigh, but then again I didn’t think any libertarian would ever run on a fair-tax platform.

Good job by Third Party Watch regular Robert Milnes as well, beating multi-millionaire candidate Daniel Imperato in California.

You write:

“The Phillies 2008 Primary Direct Mail campaign exists primarily in Mr. Knapp’s imagination.”

Thanks for cluing me in to the fact that I’m just imagining the pieces of Phillies 2008 direct mail received at my house, some addressed to me and some addressed to my significant other. My recollection is that we have each received four pieces of said mail, in our imaginations. The “Phillies Buck” should have clued me in to the fact that I was just having a bizarre cartoon dream.

On the bright side, when it became clear that the LNC had thrown away $200,000 on ballotbase, a program that does not work, including paying huge amounts of money for data that is now rotting in a database someplace, my campaign did get GeorgeBase up and running in a few days, at 0.1% of their cost, with well above 60,000 names of L supporters with phone numbers.

Almost everyone in California who was reached had already voted by mail, which you can easily do in California, at least in the two counties where we concentrated our efforts. Needless to say, they could not change their votes, so the campaign was not directly going to do much.

The Phillies 2008 Primary Direct Mail campaign exists primarily in Mr. Knapp’s imagination. I am doing contacting of state party leaders, systematically around the country, by phone email and real mail, meaning I did reach a few dozen people in MO, and once you have the answering machine on the phone the ‘please vote for me’ was a few extra words. However, MO was an open primary, and effective L targeted schemes are challenging. Nonetheless, for MO, my congratulations to ‘uncommitted’ and Wayne for finishing first and second.

George Phillies campaign in Missouri using direct mail. He campaigned in Missouri using email. He campaigned in Missouri by phone. His campaign blasted about a press release about the newspaper endorsement that you now call a “null factor.”

In California, he ran a GOTV calling operation—I’m aware of one registered Libertarian household which received two calls, one each for the two registered Libertarian voters in the household.

If you don’t think that 4th place, sub-10% polling in those two states is a “loss” after those self-advertised efforts, you’re high.

I have so far not commented on the Arizona web election because I have no details on it. I don’t know if any of the campaigns had advance knowledge of it (to the best of my knowledge, the AZLP did not contact the Kubby campaign about it). I don’t know if 10 people, 100 people or 1000 people voted in it. I don’t know which candidates were listed on the electronic ballot. I don’t know how secure the process was. When I know more, I’ll say more. Until I know more, I won’t.

California voters didn’t turn out for much of anyone… Christine Smith wins because of her sex, plain and simple: It’s a well known fact that females tend to pull votes BECAUSE they are female. Kubby’s failure to win his home state says far more than any Phillies failure to win a state on the other side of the country that he didn’t campaign as heavily in.

Missouri’s ‘endorsement’ was a small paper, so that’s a null factor. It was an open primary, so Root’s Republican roots paid off there.

Arizona, where Phillies beat Barry Hess’s hometown advantage, and they were using IRV so it wasn’t ‘one vote takes all’ says FAR more about the true nature of the race: Phillies might not everyone’s first choice, but he’s probably everyone’s second choice.

[obdisclaimer: I used to be the Phillies Webmaster, but currently have no staff position with the campaign.]