Through a vigorous 50-state effort and a well-planned and financed campaign, the Mises Caucus and its supporters have taken near-complete control of the Libertarian National Committee and its Judicial Committee. They did this by the expedience of calling on their supporters to appear at state convention after state convention, elect a new set of officers and a set of national convention delegates that supporter their cause. In some cases, supporters created a claim that the state organization was illegitimate, and convinced the LNC to recognize an alternate group as the state Libertarian Party organization.
So where did the Mises Caucus take over? A simple if not quite perfect indicator is the 2022 National Convention vote for the new National Chair. The candidates were McArdle (Mises candidate who won), D’Orazio, and Dasbach (two non-Mises candidates who lost). There were also rare votes for NOTA (None of the Above). (The delegate count is from the draft National Convention Minutes, Appendix A, State-by-State Detail for LNC Chair Election — Round One.)
Here I compare the 50 states + DC, in ascending order by non-Mises vote. Special case: Wyoming sent no delegates to NatCon. An asterisk (*) indicates a state where McArdle supporters did not have a majority of the delegation. There were 10 of these states. In 13 states, non-Mises delegates were shut out completely; all votes were cast for McArdle or NOTA.
The states where Mises did not have a majority were North Dakota, South Dakota, Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, Illinois, South Carolina, Ohio, New York, and Indiana. Readers may anticipate that these are the states that by and by will be having issues with the National Committee.
RI 3-0 (3 Mises votes, 0 non-Mises votes)
VT 3-0
DE 4-0
WV 6-0
MT 7-0
AR 8-0
NE 9-0
CT 12-0
KY 12-0-1 (1 NOTA vote)
UT12-0-1
NH 13-0
NV 14-0
ND 1-0-1*
DC 2-1
ID 7-1
IA 9-1
MA 15-1
MN 16-1
MD 16-1-2
AK 2-2
HI 2-2
OR 14-2
TN 14-2
NJ 19-2
CO 30-0 (plus 2 write-in votes)
SD 0-3*
AL 4-3
ME 5-3
OK 7-3-2
KS 9-3-1
WI 14-3
PA 45-4
AZ 22-5
FL 41-5-1
MS 0-6*
LA 4-6-2*
WA 30-6
NC 18-7-1
MO 10-8-1
GA 25-8-1
NM 0-9*
IL 12-9-4*
SC 7-10*
OH 13-18-7*
MI 20-13
VA 22-14-1
NY 17-16-1*
CA 72-22-7
TX 39-24-10
IN 6-24*
Ryan, I agree with your practical solution. Libertarians should just support the candidates they agree with and ignore the ones they don’t.
Sitting in the hope that the Mises Caucus will go away is a tactic sure to lose. I have listened to a large number of claims that the Mises Caucus would go away before, e.g, it took over the national convention, and none of them came to pass. The largest difficulty in creating a counter is that the number of libertarian activists interested in internal politics is small, the number of mises folks willing to pack a state convention is rather larger… Private associations that choose their own members, identify candidates, and put them onto the ballot are a possible solution. Using a different party name, rather than ‘libertarian’ will in some cases simplify matters. The possibility of having significant requirements to become a voting member, and then advancing by mail ballot rather than a state convention, might be helpful. A state convention in a state the size of California, where travel times would be several days simply to reach the thing, is not entirely sensible.
End game? There are lots of ways to be involved in politics, issue advocacy, public policy, ideological persuasion etc, which do not involve political parties. You would be wise to avail yourself of them. I’d agree that taking over an existing party or starting a new one is far more trouble than it’s worth.
Contra Jim, the Heise PAC isn’t interested in carrying any load or letting anyone else take it from them. Their mission is pure and simple, to destroy the libertarian party and brand name and do so in a way that no sane and decent person would want to have anything to do with anything remotely associated with it ever again. It’s too late to stop them from accomplishing their mission on behalf of Bannon, Stone, et al. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to drop the load and drop stinky loads all around it, smearing them all over the vicinity. They do have that much ability without help. If you heed my advice to remove yourself from said vicinity you will thank me later.
The Mises Caucus is sincere. They are just confused about libertarianism because they’re mostly Paleo’s. What we view as their intensely wrongheaded idea about how to attract others to the Libertarian Party actually does work to attract people sympathetic to the corrupt Paleo version of libertarianism to which they adhere. Their absurd social media policy doesn’t destroy the LP. It remakes the LP in their image. That isn’t the same thing.
It may come to the point where no decent libertarian will want to associate with them. Everyone draws that line on their own.
In the meantime, it could be that the opposition has already begun organizing in the form of the Classical Liberal Caucus.
Very few Libertarians want to form a new party, Mises stupidity or not. Just take a step back, halt funding, stop doing activism, and withhold votes from pro-life or anti-immigrant candidates.
The Mises Caucus will eventually tire from trying to carry the load themselves and they will quietly drop out. Then the adults can start running the party, again.
The absolute worst thing to do is trying to shut down state affiliates or disaffiliate state parties. Not only will that not work for very long, it’s going to create sympathy for the MC. Over reacting almost always causes more trouble than the initial offense.
I still think having Libertarians migrate to the Constitution Party is the best option. It has established ballot access (I think about 13 states at the most), and a declining membership. So, Libertarians should take it over and make the party ideologically a Libertarian party.
My real concern about “taking over” the CP is that it seems unfair to the true adherents of the current party much like what the Mises Caucus has done to the LP. I guess I must be a “two wrongs don’t make a right” person. Besides that there is the confusion that would ensue about platform changes and so forth. I believe too much time would be spent on clarification and take away from party building. I do really like the name, however.
Entryism is seldom the good way to accomplish goals. Look at the 2016 election, entryism led to the Republicans and the Democrats getting hijacked by candidates outside their party.
So… what is the endgame? If the Mises folks are subverting the LP into a right wing party and they have total control of the LNC and a large majority of state parties; what can be done? Starting a new party is extremely difficult at best. I’ve seen a suggestion that taking over the Constitution Party might be an option but other than a pretty sexy name I don’t see much merit to that idea. Where do real libertarians go?
Ignore national party politics and support state and local level political candidates you endorse. Look at the national Republican and Democratic parties/committees. No one gives a damn about them and most can’t tell you who the national chairs are. (Ronna McDaniel and Jamie Harrison if you were wondering.)