Last updated on December 20, 2022
3) Support our candidates. 50-state ballot access for the Presidential candidate. Fifty-state ballot access is an Important Activity. The Presidential candidate is the nominee of the national party. It’s expensive. Only by focusing the resources of the entire National Party can our Presidential nominee be on the ballot everywhere. The LNC should set aside in each year’s budgets the funds needed to carry out this objective in a timely way. However, we shouldn’t focus so tightly on the Presidential candidate that we ignore all our other candidates. In recent decades, this activity has been severely overemphasized, at the expense of all other party activities.
4) Build a Political Party. Activist Training. Activist training is an Important Activity. All across America, individual activists want to hear tips on how to solicit signatures, get out the vote, design trifolds, and help Libertarian friends. Training and demonstrations using advanced technical means (distance learning, DVDs, internet radio, web pages, streaming video) can satisfy this need. A simple substitute, the Libertarian Candidate campaign Disk, already exists. It can usefully be upgraded and distributed to every candidate, and to every state and local group. The Liberty for America (LibertyForAmerica.com) web site has a series of trifold templates on particular issues. The 2010 New Path candidates weren’t just talking. They were already distributing training materials, and the next group to run for the LNC should do the same.
5) Public Outreach. Develop a Quality Web Site. Web Site Development is an Important Activity. We can do much better that we are, and we can do it rather less expensively.
6) Support materials. Producing good support materials is an Important Activity. We need a good set of downloadable trifolds on Libertarian positions. The trifolds should include blank sections for local enhancements. The Liberty for America website has put up samples. We should offer a good set of downloadable templates for web pages.
50-state ballot position would not be so tough if the bad states would ease their ballot access laws. A rational Libertarian Party at this stage in the cycle ought to be working to lobby for bills in state legislatures to ease the requirements, especially the vote test. This has worked in over half the states during the past 35 years. That is why the median vote test has dropped from 5% in 1976 to 2% today.
Excellent suggestions.