I see the nomination process as analogous to a music website that allows the sampling of a couple of minutes of a larger song before one buys. With our campaigns, the pre-nomination period, in theory, allows LP members to see which candidates are the best at:

1. Recruiting new members;
2. Re-engaging former members;
3. Raising money;
4. Earning media; and
5. Producing campaign materials and ads.

In 1988, we had a choice between two candidates—Russell Means and Ron Paul (as well as a couple of others I don’t remember). Both were very good at getting people involved in the Party (the also-rans were not) and both were also pretty good at raising money; although neither Paul nor Means released their supporter database to the LP so they could be contacted for the next campaign (the “Paul Surge” of members was primarily people who called the LP directly because they’d been inspired to do so by the Paul campaign—I know because I fielded more than a few of those calls even a year later). Unfortunately those people were but a small subset of the number of people who were on the Paul campaign database. From December 1987 to December 1988, the LP only increased it membership rolls from 5500 to 6300 (about 14%).

1992, Andre Marrou demonstrated very clearly that a pre-nomination candidate could recruit a lot of new members. Both in advance of the nomination, and after it, Marrou made absolutely sure that LPHQ was promptly given all new names generated by his campaign, so the Party could ask them to join/support the LP. I know because one of my jobs as an LPHQ staffer was to get the information packets out to the prospects. In fact the 1992 election-year spike brought the LP to its then-highest membership level ever, from about 9,000 to about 12,000 members (25% increase).

The Browne campaign’s 1996 and 2000 sharing of supporter contact information was based on the Marrou model. The direct result was thousands of people were brought into the LP by Browne in 1995 and 1996.

Opponents running against Marrou and Browne did nothing similar during the pre-nomination window. Dick Boddie, for instance, didn’t share any of his supporter data with the LP. Neither did Tompkins, Gorman, Hornberger, or anyone else.

In any case, nothing will dissuade me that the pre-nomination period should be seen as anything other than the “candidate test drive”. The nomination at the convention should be seen as the “buy”. The candidate who does the best job of recruiting new friends into the Party and the movement should be given the nod by delegates. The ones who refuse to do that should be ignored.

Interesting side thought: Things that happened twelve years ago still seem to cause fits:
———————————————————————-
From: LibertyDC@aol.com
To: lpus@dehnbase.fidonet.org
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 1996 06:47:49 -0500

“the national office is primarily directing reporters to the Browne campaign and positioning Browne as the ‘front runner.’”———————————————————————-

... yet the same thing is happening right now:

http://www.lp.org/libertydecides/

... with a candidate featured prominently on the site with a label of “1st place”. Ingenious—putting the rankings on “autopilot”. Leaves no one responsible for perceived bias. Had this been done in Browne’s time, I have little doubt that the cries of indignation would be simply deafening.

Don’t get me wrong—I think Liberty Decides is wonderful idea; however, I don’t approve of its sole metric. Measuring how many new Sustaining or above members a candidate has recruited would be a far more important metric to say which candidates would be more or less beneficial for the Party.

Dammit, you had to go and bring Browne into this. You write:

“I really wish candidates for our nomination would do what Harry Browne did in 1996 and 2000: use the pre-nomination period to raise new money, find new contributors, and get them into the LP.”

Browne is the perfect example of a candidate having a long post-nomination period to campaign in, since he was de facto nominated in 1995 and 1998, both times by seizing control of the party apparatus—illicitly in 1995 under the aegis of a corrupt national director who has since publicly confessed to stealing the 1996 nomination for Browne, and semi-licitly in 1998 with the help of a duly elected national chair who told everyone to sit down and shut up while he used LPHQ as a Browne 2000 campaign facility.

Nominating in late March or early April would put the post-nomination media burst right at the when the major party nominees have (usually) been determined and the media are looking for new story angles.

Finally, once the nomination occurs, contributions count against general election limits instead of primary ones. The earlier you nominate, the more months those post-nomination dollars have to last.

We should move the LP nomination up, but only by a couple of months.

At least in the case of the Libertarian Party, the 1993 decision to move the next national convention to the year of the election (1996) was primarily motivated by the desire to give us legal standing to sue for ballot-access relief in states where the early petitioning deadlines plus no substitution made for a discriminatory situation.

Ultimately, what third parties should really be aiming for is “schedule parity” with the Democrats & Republicans—e.g., our deadline for certifying our nominated candidates for president should be the same as the latest of the duopoly’s conventions.

Fairness would dictate that if the Dems and Reps can certify only a couple of months before the general election, we should be able to do the same.

We got the law changed in Virginia partially due to the lawsuit threat from our “year-of-election” convention in 1996.

There may still be a couple of states where continued action of that sort is needed; I don’t know.

I would think that if the LP or some other major third party doesn’t maintain an election-year nominating convention, the thieves if the duopoly parties would assume they could roll back the improvements made in ballot access law since 1996.

I could live with an earlier selection date unless there are any compelling lawsuits over early deadlines or candidate substitutions that still need to be fought; however, I would prefer that it be earlier in the Pres year rather than the summer of the previous year.

All of that said, however, I really wish candidates for our nomination would do what Harry Browne did in 1996 and 2000: use the pre-nomination period to raise new money, find new contributors, and get them into the LP. This pre-convention recruiting opportunity should be used as the indicator of which candidate will do the most for the LP.

Admittedly, there is little incentive for them to do so as long as the current one-sided climate is in place.

1. Gene McCarthy did not seek the Libertarian nomination.
2. While he had libertarian sympathies, he was not a Libertarian.

Parties that have received primary season matching funds (and which then legally used the money to pay for general election petitioning) have been the Citizens Party in 1984 (Sonia Johnson); the New Alliance Party in 1988 and 1992 (Lenora Fulani); the Natural Law Party in 1992, 1996 and 2000 (John Hagelin); the Green Party in 2000 (Ralph Nader); the Reform Party in 2004 (Ralph Nader).

Primary season money shuts off as soon as the party makes its nomination. Since the money can never be paid in the odd year before, a party that nominates in the odd year before the election has just totally shut off the opportunity.

The first three, nominated the year before the election, averaged about 317,000 votes. The latter three, nominated the year the election was held, averaged almost 423,000 votes – 1/3 higher. I would not argue that ANY solid conclusion can be reached based on such skimpy statistics. Clearly other factor played a far greater role in shaping the outcome in each of the six contests. But to the extent that one can hazard a guess, it would appear that holding the nominating convention in the year of the election offers a slight edge.

That’s part of the problem – we aren’t, and the duopoly parties (or even the other third parties) would be reaping an advantage by having more of those situations behind them and less ahead of them. Even in the general election, a candidate just needs to blow it once to seal his defeat. An early nomination provides less opportunity to see how a candidate can handle those situations, and gives a lot more chances for him to screw one up.

But those upsides you mention do seem pretty appetizing. Maybe i’m just being a contrarian pain the ass…

What is predictable is that if a third party waits until late spring or early summer of the election year to nominate its candidate, that candidate will face even more handicaps in raising funds and getting into the fight than if he or she had been nominated in late summer or early fall of the previous year.

One of the biggest deficits third party candidates face is in getting in the public eye at all. It would be nice for a third party to have its nominee named, its fundraising machinery in motion, and be ready to run commercials for a known nominee during the “major party” debates, caucus and primary coverage, etc.

Let me repeat myself—I’m not saying early nomination is a silver bullet. It won’t magically make a third party into a “major party.” But I think it makes sense.