Last updated on May 27, 2024
On the 7th ballot, Chase Oliver won. He is giving a victory speech.
There are now five nominees for Vice President. Mike Ter Maat and Clint Russell appear to be the most notable. Mike Ter Maat was elected as the Vice Presidential Candidate. The final vote. as given on Independent Political Report, was
Mike ter Maat: 371 votes – 51.31%
Clint Russell: 340 votes – 47.03%
NOTA: 8 votes – 1.11%
Other: 4 votes – .56%
The At-Large winners are Andrew Watkins, Travis Bost, Kathy Yeniscavith, Robert Vinson, and Steven Nekhaila, all with 369-392 votes. The Mises block vote was transparent in the statewide votes. The next three are Mimi Robson,Evan McMahon, and Tony D’Orazio. The motion for plurality vote victories ensured a clean sweep.
I won’t be shocked if some Mises controlled states put Rectenwald or someone else on the ballot, knowing they will face no consequences for doing so.
I’m disgusted by my fellow MC-ers who tried to NOTA Chase Oliver and have no candidate on the ballot without regard to the consequences for marketing, down ballot candidates, or ballot access. That is absolute madness. You guys got outplayed in politics and Mike Ter Maat didn’t owe you anything; to think otherwise is just entitlement no better than a welfare handout. In fact, he very candidly said that he could not come to an agreement with Mises on strategy and that is why he endorsed Oliver, making Heise’s whining moment at the mic truly pathetic to see.
Absolutely nothing is more validating to the MC haters over the past two years than those of you who foolishly voted NOTA and brought the party to the edge of an epic collapse right after just successfully winning the most media coverage in its history. After this stunt, I will never give a dime more to the Mises Caucus or its affiliates. What a sad waste of my money that would be. But thankfully we don’t need the PACs anymore. The makeup of the party is forever changed and the ORIGINAL vision of the MC has already been accomplished. The PAC now needs to wither away so those of us who want to move the party forward can dedicate our money and work to the party itself, and right now that includes our presidential candidate, Chase Oliver.
Now to the rest of the MC who broke ranks and voted for Chase Oliver on the final ballot: thank you. And I ask the diehard MC haters to please take note that about 30-40% of MC delegates did break with Heise and voted for Chase. We want to work together for liberty, but obviously we can’t work with people who apply collectivist thinking to group all of us together and write us off. Many of us are MC because we want to apply Ron Paul-style libertarianism to the LP, but that doesn’t mean we endorse what Heise tried to pull. I’ve been personally ostracized by MC haters who think we’re all the same and that is not okay. Please use critical thinking to separate the wheat from the chaff, because we need each other if we’re going to stand a chance against the duopoly.
This convention was a great success precisely because nobody got exactly what they wanted. Heise’s credentials manipulation was rightfully shot down. The officers are evenly split between Mises-endorsed and CLC-endorsed. The LNC overall is still Mises while the presidential ticket is non-Mises.
This is what we need: an LP that combines positive traits from multiple different groups. The people who want to focus on federal races and ballot access got what they want, while the people who want the party to focus on messaging and local races got what they want. Now let’s all get to work together.
I’m pretty fond of NOTA. In fact, there have been times when I’ve mused that nominating NOTA might send an interesting message.
But THIS year, that message would have been framed by Donald Trump saying “see, they liked me so much they decided not to run a candidate against me.”
So I’m glad we got a nominee.
Is there any chance that some state parties will simply refuse to put Oliver on the ballot, or put someone else on the ballot, and have the overwhelmingly MC controlled LNC fail to take action?
Everyone should be judged as an individual, it takes effort to overcome hostility to individuals when they cling to a label that was carried by those who attacked you. yes, I realize it occurred on both sides. I will focus on individual behavior from this point out and try and view everyone as a clean slate. However is state parties refuse to run Chase or actively oppose him now that he is the nominee and I hear the arguments like, they have a right to their opinion or the rules allow it, I will consider those arguments as actions and judge accordingly.
“they have a right to their opinion or the rules allow it, I will consider those arguments as actions and judge accordingly.”
I wasn’t at convention and haven’t met either Rechtenwald or Oliver, so have not formed an opinion on which one would be better to carry out the LP’s presidential campaign mission. I think it would be fair to say Mr. Oliver, having taken 7 ballots to win the nomination, was not a consensus candidate. Therefore, why not let a state with a strong preference for one, or the other, put electors pledged to their preference on their state’s ballot? Maybe Mr. X’s message, views or campaign style is better for the demographics of their state? And Ms. Y, even if endorsed by the convention, would do worse in their state? Maybe the disgruntled state, forced to back an unpopular candidate, will slack on the petitioning effort? Or one promises to campaign more in that state? What matters it if, say, Iowa and ten other states are running electors for Mr. X and New Hampshire and 25 other states are running electors for Ms. Y, and Mr. Z jumps in and gets 13 states to put him on the ballot? Voters don’t care much about the LP candidate anyway and probably only some media would even notice there was more than one candidate. If the media did, that may generate way more publicity that a “unified” campaign will.
Sure, unity is worth something. But so is not having a large minority of disgruntled members who think X,Y, or Z is a terrible representative for Libertarian principles in their state.
Did the Green Party benefit when it’s Alaska affiliate put Jessie Ventura on the ballot instead of Howie Hawkins? Did the Constitution Party benefit in any way when New Mexico listed Sheila Tittle instead of Don Blankenship as the party’s nominee? Did the Libertarian Party benefit when Arizona put L Neil Smith on the ballot instead of Harry Browne?
I see no evidence that it helped in any way, and some evidence that it hurt.
Your claim that “Voters don’t care much about the LP candidate anyway” is crap. The voters who took the time to research the Libertarian candidate care and wanted to vote for him care. They’ll read an article or go to ISideWith and fill out the questionnaire, and maybe decide to vote for Chase Oliver. Because Oliver is the name that will come up on most sites, given that he is the LP nominee. What happens when they get to the voting booth and they see no Chase Oliver, but instead some guy named Rectenwald, whom they know nothing about? They conclude the LP can’t get its act together and default to their 2nd choice. And since the LP has demonstrated it can’t get its act together for the top of the ticket headliner, that casts doubt on the professionalism and abilities of all of the down ballot candidates.
If you people want to put Rectenwald on the ballot, feel free. Do it as an independent. Putting him on as a Libertarian just furthers the narrative that all you want to do is destroy the Libertarian Party.
Jim, I didn’t have a horse in this race. I always loyally vote for whatever Libertarian appears on my ballot. But the purpose of the LP is not to corral the votes of Party loyalists. Voters in different states have different issues and respond to different appeals. The voting profile in Alabama is different from that in Taxsachusetts. Jo Jorgensen got 2.5% of the vote in Montana, 4 times that of her results in New Jersey. Maybe the Jersey LP could have done better with a different candidate for their state? You mentioned Arizona -I bet Neil Smith probably made many more campaign appearances, interviews, and other outreach events in Arizona than the national Party candidate could have. If the LP’s goal is to spread the message to leaners and uncommitted voters, then the more outreach the better. If that means different candidates for different folks, then it may be time to embrace it.
ATBAFT – Browne nationally got 0.37% and Smith got 0.38% in Arizona. Arizona is a state that is typically well above the national average. In 1996 Browne got 0.47% nationally and 1.14% in Arizona. That 0.01% above the national average that Smith got was the lowest out performance Arizona has ever had. From 1976 – 2020, ex 2000, Arizona averaged 0.55% above the national average.
I have a database with somewhere around 20,000 LP election results. I equalize the data across the country by, for example, just looking at elections that are L-R-D, excluding races with only one major party opponent and elections which include other minor parties. New Jersey (and NY and CT) always comes in very low. Not just for President. They are well below the national average for every office. Those states have control for every office except President. It doesn’t help.
There is no need to speculate. There is data that you can look at to check your theory, both within the LP and from other parties.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I have watched hundreds of local, county, state and national races over my lifetime. It is perfectly obvious to me that some candidates do better in some geographic areas than others. Factors are always likeability, charisma, ability to convey one’s message, the way one presents oneself (dress, humor, grooming, etc.), even dialect. The LP isn’t going to win anytime soon. The object of a campaign is to reach the most folks with the most compelling message. The persons best to do that aren’t always going to appeal in every district of every state. And, with state or regional candidates, you may entice more candidates to step forward: those whose career or family obligations rule out running all over the country for three or four months, but may be willing to devote weekends or evenings to run in their state or region.
Per Jim, from the other side of the non-duopoly fence, no, the Alaska GP didn’t benefit, and the national GP certainly didn’t benefit from putting The Body on the platform.
And, as George has hinted with on the Montana GP in another post, the national GP decertified the Alaska Party for this.
Of course, the GP didn’t have its version of Mises Mice running the show.
When you’re more disorganized than the Green Party …
This is great news, and I might consider getting active again (I left the LP when Mises took over). Chase found the LP at their booth at Atlanta Pride in 2010. In recent years, I’ve lived in a couple states where the local LP refused to table at Pride events because there were (gasp) *homosexuals* there. In this Handmaiden’s era of right-wing encroachment into our sexual lives, this is the perfect moment for a out and proud gay man to represent and promote freedom and liberty.
(PS: I find it amusing that the right-wingnuts who protest Drag Queen Story Time never themselves read to kids at libraries!)
NY Times reporting: “Mr. Trump also insisted that he “would have absolutely gotten” the Libertarian nomination “if I wanted it (as everyone could tell by the enthusiasm of the Crowd last night!),” a statement inconsistent with the frequent heckling he experienced throughout his speech.”
Nevertheless, Trump’s appearance belies the MAGA bravado that the election will be a Trump landslide. Trump knows that the election will be close, and that Libertarian votes will matter.
He overestimated the LP impact. He thinks they typically get 3% for President, which has only happened once. 1% happened two other times, or three if you round up 1980. That leaves what, 9-10 times when it was closer to 0 than 1%?
My initial read on this year’s election is that it’s likely to be in that last category, with Kennedy likely to be getting the bulk of the generic protest vote, Greens and Constitution Party having stronger tickets than in 2020, and two people with probably about 1% name recognition and not much money as of right now on the LP ticket, in addition to a very divided party not even close to being united behind them.
Trump might also be falling for the common mainstream political/media perception that libertarians are a lot closer to Republicans than Democrats and draw the vast majority of their votes from people who would otherwise vote Republican. In reality, exit polls show many libertarians would not vote at all if they don’t have a candidate, and almost as many would vote D as R. The net difference they make is actually only about 10% of their vote total if you factor that in. This year, a chunk of what would usually be their vote is also likely to go to Kennedy, and more would if they didn’t run a candidate.
Trump may have overestimated the potential LP net impact by as much as a hundredfold in making a decision to go there. He should have held a Trump rally in Virginia instead. He probably regrets his decision.
That and he wasn’t eligible anyway because he didn’t go through the process to become a candidate. RKF2.0 did, to his credit.
And the LP Bylaws prohibit the LP having a candidate who is also a candidate of another political party which Trump will be soon.
The LP Chair disqualified his nomination for that reason.
Far better than Rechtenwald,Trump or Kennedy or Toad certainly. . A victory over the divisiveness and destruction brought by Mises Caucus. He is going to have a tough time of it. He mentioned Christian Libertarians,but not Objectivist Libertarians(I know that he is Gay) but that needs to be specified that if you are Christian like Benjamin Ley or Frederick Douglass that is one thing,but part of the warfare in the LP has been brought on by the idolatrous savages(those like Mike Huckabee or Moms For Liberty)to impose their form of governmental censorship and restrictions on others. The best thing for Chase Oliver would be for the sorest of sore losers little Donny Trump to launch a typical libelous attack on him because of his sexuality.