“I’m a real Libertarian. I’m anti-war, pro-choice, unimpressed by the war on drugs, and an ACLU activist.”

Really? This makes you a REAL libertarian? I thought libertarianism is upholding our unalienable rights to life, liberty, and property? Is he Ron Paul anti-war or is he a pacifist that wouldn’t respond to an act of aggression by another individual? Is he a Constitutionalist or a strict anarcho-capitalist that thinks we can implement anarcho-capitalism already at the federal level. What is pro-choice? Does that entail protecting individiual life or allowing for the murder of it as it takes it’s first gasp of air? Unimpressed by the war on drugs meaning there’s a better way to do it or simply eliminating the war on drugs? ACLU activist? So does this mean that he doesn’t believe in freedom of speech when it involves faith?

God I hope the Republican convention goes brokered. How Ludwig would’ve loved to have seen President Paul.

thank you for your response, much appreciated. I understand your position a bit better now, though I would not make the same conclusions in every respect. I must congratulate you on your (new) website, it looks colorful (personally I like the green and orange from an aesthetic perspective), perhaps a bit more color and style would be even nicer, but this is only a personal opinion and this is not about a beauty contest for websites, but about the issues.

The LP in Arizona especially took a lot of initiative with the Ron Paul revolution.
My thinking is that as Ron Paul is still in the race, they are still supporting him and financially they are also supporting candidates for congress on his platform, which include GOP, LP, CP and Independents (one even a Democrat), few have been endorsed by Ron Paul, it is more they that endorse Ron Paul’s platform. He has said that the movement is bigger than the LP, which is true. Some people from for instance the Democratic Party that wanted to vote for him, registered too late and could not vote and some newly party switches were even turned down, like with the caucus in LA. Obviously Dr. Paul cannot choose all his supporters, so there may be some non-LP members under them, but of them many have been introduced to the basic philosophy of the LP, which is good. It is a very diverse group. Well, it could also be that many (not all) of them are pro-life and of that some would not vote for a pro-choice candidate.
I think they are still waiting and still active in the current campaign and with issues and with the caucuses and party meetings becoming delegates, as the primary/caucuses are just like a glorified straw-poll. If Dr. Paul would not be on the ballot box, they would tend to vote for a candidate that resembles the closest to the position of Dr. Paul and with whom he has some relationship. I do not think he will endorse anyone (officially), in any case not before September when the RNC. Some on gopusa.com have even threatened to kick him out of the GOP should he endorse a LP candidate or nominee.

I listened to a view interviews with Dr. Phillies and find him very organised, with conviction, and definitely not dry as the previous poster (falsely) tried to suggest. My father has also completed his PhD at MIT (my parents were married in Boston), in Mechanical Engineering, in 1957 I think.

Barr is clearly NOT a libertarian. He supports US interventionism. While he opposes it in Iraq he supports it in South America. Barr is in favor of government schools using tax funds to promote prayer. Barr tried to get Wiccans to be forbidden to practice their religion if in the military. Barr has said that he opposes any legal rights for gay couples. “To be clear, I am absolutely not a supporter of granting marriage rights for same-sex couples any sort of legal recognition…”

He tried to make it illegal for individuals to burn flags—even if they were the owners of the flag. He voted to make it illegal to give so-called “soft money” donations to political parties.

He is big on the war on drugs. He recently said the US should give more foreign aid to Colombia because they are so important to our war on drugs.

He blamed the Columbine shootings on not having the Ten Commandments in the schools. He ranted on about atheists supposedly trying to “infiltrate” the Boy Scouts. He voted against allowing individuals to seek the help of a physician to end their lives when they are terminally sick.

So we have a man who is anti-gay, pro war on drugs, opposes separation of church and state, is happy to restrict freedom of speech, wants to intervene in South America, believes in foreign aid, etc. And this is what this website is trying to promote a “libertarian”. Barr is no libertarian and Gordon needs a reality check. But, of course, Gordon is paid by Barr so what do you expect?

Denver Delegate

In your position, I would want to know what level of commitment these newcomers have to the LP. If Gravel, Root, or Barr do not win the nomination will they support whomever the nominee is? Will they commit to helping the LP grow?

Agreed … past and future commitment to the party’s growth is another important quality I’ll be looking for and encourage other delegates to consider as well.

1) Let me expand on what I said at the Heartland event.

With respect to Ron Paul supporters, I haven’t been planning to recruit them, I have been trying to do it. There are some completely usable lists of supporters for direct mail, there are donor lists that can’t be used for fundraising, and there are some other extremely large lists.

Phillies 2008 has actually done direct mail, some thousands of pieces, spread over much of America. We’ve also done electronic mail, and we’ve done targeted Google Adwords. Finally, I’ve had supporters physically visit Ron Paul meetup groups. At the front end, we did some market research, comparing large lists of Ron Paul donors and large lists of current and recent national party members.

By direct measurement, most national party members are not Ron Paul donors, and most Ron Paul donors are not national party members. The overlap is around 10%. While we are still trying different marketing approaches, so far Ron Paul supporters have not been notably interested in our direct mail or electronic contacts. These outcomes match the experience of my volunteers.

Conclusion: Having actually looked, I believe that the LP is not going to get a significant influx of Ron Paul supporters this year. That’s not a ‘we don’t want them’, it’s a ‘not an expected event’.

There could be a radical and unexpected change in the situation. On the bright side, claims that the Ron Paul campaign has diverted much of the money that would otherwise have gone Libertarian is not defensible. The LP and its candidates may not be happy about finances, but Ron Paul is only a very modest part of the reason.

2) With respect to my appeal to conservatives, everything I said is true. If you want to read who my campaign is targeting, please look at my major issues pages http://www.ChooseGeorge.Org/major_issues . I am going to target the very large majority of all Americans, left and right, who want to end the war, support civil liberties, and restore fiscal sanity to Washington. That tends not to include the people who McCain would fear losing to another conservative party. With respect to targeting, Stefan and I are thus approximately in agreement.

Jim Clymer with the CP also mentioned Dems. can change party easier than the GOP, which could favor Phillies’s argument, only in this year there are some 1/3 plus of the GOP that is anti-war and there are also conservatives (whether pro- or anti-war) that would not vote for McCain in any case if he is to be the GOP nominee and it makes sense providing them an opportunity and give an alternative to vote.

Dr. Phillies mentioned in his 2 closing remarks during the Heartland COnference that the LP would be going the false way if it were to base its political strategy and power base on that of Ron Paul. Well, this is at max only very partly true. He should also keep in mind that Dr. Paul received quite a lot of Independents, former Reform party voters as well as minorities (more than any other GOP candidate) along with traditional GOP voters, thus a very mixed or diverse field. The LP should focus on votes from both the right, middle and left, not only right and also not only left and it can this year without changing its platform in any way. Dr. Phillies wants to attract the dailykos voters/readers, well they support Obama strongly, and Clinton not even allowed there, so with a possible Obama nomination for the Democratic candidates, how is he going to comete with Obama for this vote and how will he differentiate himself from Obama?

I’m a WAR supporter, but if George is nominated I’ll vote for him. Frankly I’d like to see a Root/Phillies ticket. A fusion ticket if you will. Perhaps that would help keep rifts between any party factions to a minimum. This would allow pressure to be applied as needed to whomever is number 1.

Dave – I wasn’t aware I smacked you around even once, but if so, you’re welcome. I took some hard lumps from Andy (and some others) before I came to my senses.

G.E.,
I’m Joking around. We did have those ‘= moron’ exchanges.

Andy,
That’s what I get for remembering what Barr had mentioned on C-SPAN (I think it was), thanks for the correction.

I think that the LP currently has ballot status in 28 states. There are currently petition drives going on in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and a few other states so this number will be going up.

The Green Party is currently on the ballot in 21 states and the Constitution is currently on the ballot in 16 states.

If you want Badnarik results, here’s the answer:

How did George Phillies spend his first $40,000? Lots of travel.
Direct mail. Mailing lists. Campaign literature. Website Design and
Hosting. LP News ads. Accounting services. Bumper Stickers.

If you wanna play with the big dogs, this at least indicates a coherent plan:

Bob Barr’s committee tells us on their front page how they’ll spend their first $50,000 or more. They are spending on a baseline poll,
professional staff, and office setup (the website must be included in
that somewhere).