The Kennedy money is its only shield.
As of 8/23, while the LNC had $298,000 cash on hand, it also had $20,800 encumbered for Kentucky ballot access, $53,700 in credit card debt, and something being clarified around $300,000 in unpaid convention expenses.
Expenses for the first three weeks of August were $83,000.
Normal income for the first three weeks of August was $50,000, implying a catastrophically bad month for general fundraising. The Kennedy Joint Fundraiser will supply an additional $61,000, half of which will cover the remaining net expenses of the first three weeks.
It appears that the LNC has net negative of liquid assets over money owed, and that so soon as the Kennedy money stops the cash shortage will increase markedly.
How may this be solved?
Some solutions are unlikely to eventuate. There are no crypto whales. The current LNC will not resign en mass and let better people replace them. Kennedy will not continue his campaign. It is not obvious that a political party can file for bankruptcy and stay in business.
The LNC could reduce its operations budget to that of the National Green Party.
Party members could realize that they need a parallel organization to do those political things that the LNC is not doing, namely almost all of them.
I look forward to voting for Libertarian Party candidates Chase Oliver for President and Michael ter Maat for Vice President in November.
I was around the liberty movement for the Ron Paul presidential campaigns and spent ample time in the trenches. I finally came into the LP because I found the original pitch of Mises Caucus compelling: incorporate the fire and energy of the Ron Paul movement, focus on winnable local races to slowly build a more credible bench towards state and federal, harder messaging against things like COVID lockdowns, and deemphasize cultural/worldview issues so as to make the party more welcoming to a broader group of people instead of just those assumed to be culturally more left-leaning (liberty is for everyone).
Unfortunately, almost none of that has happened. The behavior I’ve seen exhibited by MC leadership, especially at and post the 2024 convention, reminds me of the kind of corrupt GOP figureheads I fought long ago.
Deliberately sabotaging Chase Oliver, the best messenger the LP has run for president since Badnarik in 2004, is idiotic. Messaging hasn’t deemphasized culture/worldview; it just switched the bait to appeal to MAGA instead of the left, which isn’t any better. Proven, winning, low-cost grassroots efforts like the Molton Maneuver were abandoned and replaced with vague goals and no clear path to achieve them.
I still don’t believe the LP was in a good position before MC, but it’s in an even worse one now. It went from being minimally effective and occasionally embarrassing to being minimally effective, routinely embarrassing, deeply corrupt, and teetering on bankruptcy. This will be a lifelong stain on the majority of this board and their hardline collaborators. Apart from some serious reflection and remorse (Harlos style), why should anyone want to entrust them with anything ever again?
I’m doing an Atlas Shrugged at this point. We’ll see what survives the fire after the house burns down.
Well said. Very well said indeed.
What usually survives a fire when a house burns down: not much. If you’ve ever had a house or two of your own burn down, had friends and family go through this, or worked as a fireman, to take a few examples, you’re intimately familiar with this. Unlike a house fire, you also face the practical difficulty of splintering. Even the remains of houses after house fires do not split into multiple different smoldering remains of much smaller houses.
The chair and at least one half of the board need to resign or be sued into oblivion PERSONALLY. And from what I hear McAdle has several personally coming and already filed across the country. Who knows. Maybe Harlos will find courage. She never sued last LNC maybe this time different. If she does, they are done. Derivative suits are stupid. Sue her personally.
Dear editor,
Against my better judgement of not digging through their trash – not my party and not my ideology, as I am neither big nor small “L” – didn’t I read something here not too long ago about them having a building that’s sitting empty which they might potentially sell, or perhaps rent out?
I’m not an expert on the DC area market – if you want more specific knowledge, I can competently discuss the Florida-Georgia line area – but my general understanding is that it’s well above national average.
While my personal temptation, were they to ask me for my advice, which they would not, would be to put themselves out of their group misery and commit corporate suicide (legally, dissolve the corporation), my best advice to them if I wished them well would start with looking at selling or renting their tangible asset.
…
My more honest advice to them is to dissolve their corporation as soon as possible, as opposed to the slow and painful death it will endure otherwise. Stated libertarian goals, some of which I share, would be far better served through decentralization -some to local levels, some to competing organizations for interstate cooperation without geographic monopoly turf.
Better yet still, I ought to butt out, as my advice is neither sought nor welcome, but I could not resist the temptation to offer it nevertheless.
As always, I hope I haven’t broken the mysterious rules for acceptable comments, and if I inadvertently have, please edit out any offending portions – if possible, with ellipses or some indication that portions were excised – as opposed to garbage canning the entire thing.
Sincerely yours,
Piglet Farmer
There are limitations on what the building can be used for because of the conditions under which people donated towards it’s purchase. I’m no lawyer, but my understanding is that donation were given for the specific purpose of purchasing that particular building to be used as a party HQ. If the building is sold, the money must be returned to the donors. I don’t believe the building can be rented. I may be wrong, and would be glad for someone better informed to correct me.
Unfortunately, or not, my other suggestions aside from corporate suicide were deemed unacceptable for publication here, although I avoided explicit details. Past experience suggests rephrasing won’t help. I thank the esteemed editor for publishing what remained.
It is unconscionable that $300k in convention hotel bills have not been paid three months after the fact. It is honorable to pay those charges agreed upon, not hold payment hostage for leverage to get the hotel to adjust some disputed charges. Does the LP want to get a deadbeat reputation?
At least 1.5 years ago – perhaps more – I suggested they cut all spending by 20%. I would now say cut by at least 25%. Obviously that means staff cuts as well. That’s a start.
2nd the so called operations / acting exec director should take over as many admin functions as possible – like accounting & HR – that will save about $8-9k a month. I should point out this is not a burden since so many staff are contractors & there’s so few bills being paid. I am told a former ops director only spent about 15-20% of their time on these tasks. You can also tell this from past staff reports that outlined the exact functions of each employee/contractor.
They should also be re-assigned to the HQ building since they’re still paying all the bills related to that. Then they can rent out individual office space to some affiliated groups or campaigns (which was done in the past) so that the revenue generated by the “rent” is considered “related” & thus not taxable. They can get about $800-1000 per office upstairs (x 2) plus perhaps $400 for each cubicle x perhaps 3. The OD/XD can then work out of the first floor ops center office. That’s $2200 a month which will cover the costs related to HQ.
Obviously all travel should be cut – the old policy (per various staff reports) apparently was the Chair or XD would travel when an affiliate covered some or all of the cost.
A deadbeat reputation is exactly what the Trumpie plants like McArdle want. You can see the vengeance against Libertarians by the MAGA. Trump being booed out of that Convention is just the tip of the iceberg. Losing in 2020-Jo Jorgensen and Libertarians were an easy scapegoat. If that then Libertarians did become effective and that sent a message to the establishment-across the board that the Libertarian Party needed to be taken out.
The good news – if you can call it that – is that Oliver is on the ballot in all the big battleground states.
Oliver may yet cover the vote spread in those swing states, and affect the outcome.