Chapter Four
Pursuit of the Nomination
Browne’s Opponents Speak
We now reach 1996. The machinations of the Browne campaign remain underground, largely out of sight of loyal Libertarians across America. Until the revelations of 2001, only a select few suspected that matters were not quite as open and above board as they appeared.
Among those select few were staffers and supporters of Browne’s competitors, Rick Tompkins, Irwin Schiff, and Doug Ohmen. In a recent letter circulated by Richard Boddie, long-time—and now former— Libertarian Activist George O’Brien wrote of a rough draft of Chapter One of this book:
“George Phillies’ excellent piece on the insider support of Browne’s 1996 nomination campaign appears generally accurate. The only error was in claiming that the people in the Tompkins campaign thought there was a ‘level playing field’. We knew otherwise from the beginning.
“I made some posts in ‘95 to that upset a number of people as I began to connect the dots. We knew the fix was on. At the same time, we knew there was no way to bring it up during the campaign without leading to charges that we were trying to destroy the LP.
“Our critique of the Browne campaign was that it was designed primarily as a fundraising vehicle capable of paying the insiders a fair amount of money. Before the nomination, we contended that Browne’s campaign was essentially a fraud as was demonstrated by the promises to campaign full time in New Hampshire in fund raising letters. He did not even visit New Hampshire.
“My critique of the Browne campaign started with his original proposal of a 5% national sales tax, which he eventually dropped. It later included his sell government assets to fund Social Security gambit, which did not make financial sense. On some issues like the sales tax, our efforts led him to drop the proposal even though it was a big winner among conservative donors. In truth, Browne stayed as close to the hard money conservative line as could without getting into too much trouble with libertarians. But it was a constant struggle.
“In any case, it had become clear that the driving force behind everything the Browne campaign did was money. It had also become clear that there were too many people in power in the LP with an awful lot to lose if he did not win the nomination.
“The Tompkins campaign had no illusions about being able to raise as much money as Browne, but the plan was to avoid spending it all on hacks.
“George L. O’Brien”
Rick Tompkins, writing to me in 2001, presents a similar description of the unseen issues, notably his campaign’s difficulties in getting mailing lists from the National Headquarters:
“All we were trying to get were the lists of national convention delegates, including the previous one or two conventions. We never had any intention of running the type of campaign Browne & Co. were running. We only planned to send a comprehensive package of information, including a videotape of me speaking to the issues, to as many likely delegates as possible.
“As I recall, Tamara Clark dealt mostly with Willis. Dasbach was involved at some point because she told him of the problems we were having. They put us off with silence, at first. Then, when we kept after them, the excuses began. We didn’t really believe them, having learned by that time their tactics and biases, but since they were in total control of the information, there was little we could do. This went on for many months, at least 5 or 6, until it was finally too late. We could see that Browne was getting whatever info he wanted, whenever he wanted it—including very unbalanced support from the LP News.
“The disk we finally received (so late it wouldn’t really have mattered much, anyway) purported to be from a national convention several years earlier, and would therefore have been of limited use in any case, but the disk was defective, so that we couldn’t even open it. We got a lot of ‘sincere’ apologies from Willis, again. Gee, do you think Browne had that much trouble getting whatever list(s) he wanted?
“Since the person in charge of the party’s large donor program at the time (Sharon Ayres) was also Browne’s campaign manager, does anyone doubt that he had access to that list, as well—especially in light of all the other chicanery that went on, only a small part of which, in all likelihood, has come to light?”
“…That seemed obvious even at the time [GP: that Winter, Willis, Ayres, Cloud and Dean were the inner campaign strategy circle of the Browne 1996 campaign.] And it looked to me as if Bergland was in the wings, though he had to try to look impartial. Bill Winter was cold and uncommunicative toward me from the start, and Willis was his usual arrogant and supercilious self.
“Jack Dean displayed deep anger with my opposition to Browne. He seemed particularly incensed over my pointing out some uncomfortable facts about Browne & his campaign, advocating taxes, etc. for just one example (which they had started adamantly denying even though he had done it on a number of occasions, with cameras recording—and many of us had watched the tapes). Browne’s advocacy of taxation was oneof the factors that had brought me into the race in the first place. And let’s not forget Emerling, who now goes by ‘Cloud’.”
Finally, I have spoken with activists associated with yet another exploratory committee, a committee for a candidate who never got off the ground but who researched conducting a nominating campaign for 1996. From those activists, one learns that in 1995 the LNC presented itself as having a fixed rate for renting names from the mailing list, namely $125 per thousand as a cash payment in advance. ‘Cash payment in advance’ and ‘$125/1000 names’ are still the terms in 2001. Furthermore, the exact text of the mailing and the mailing date for each mailing had to be approved by National Headquarters before the list would be rented.
The requirement that National Headquarters had to approve the text of each mailing to LP members, and that National Headquarters also got to set the mailing date, raises a further conflict of interest issue. Under the rules, if Ohmen, Schiff, or Tompkins wanted to do a mailing to the Party membership, they had to submit the text of their letter in advance to Perry Willis. Given Willis’s attitude toward Browne as reflected in his confession, it appears very likely that the text would rapidly have reached Harry Browne’s campaign. Browne would then have had advance notice to prepare a riposte to any attack by his opponents. Indeed, given that National Director Willis set the mailing dates for each list usage, Browne would have been able to mail his response before his opponents got to mail their attack. Under these conditions, it would have been impossible for Ohmen, Schiff, or Tompkins to conduct an effective direct mail campaign to the Party membership.
What Browne Spent To Attain the Nomination
Most Libertarians saw only the outside of the campaigns, the part that put candidates in front of the prospective convention delegates. That effort cost money. What did Browne spend? The Browne Campaign’s FEC reports for this period cannot be accepted without some caution. According to campaign accountant Stuart Reges, as quoted above, in at least one case the FEC filings were deliberately false and misleading. Unbeknownst at the time to Reges, money for Willis was laundered through a third party so Reges would not know to include the payoffs to Willis in the campaign’s FEC filings. Reges reports that he only learned of the scheme in 2001, after Willis confessed. In another case an FEC filing describes payments to a specific party for a specific reason with a claimed purpose that is not the same as the purpose listed for other payments to the same party for the same reason. In this case, the manipulation of ‘purpose’ had the effect of hiding from interested readers financial support that LNC, Inc. had given to Browne’s nominating Campaign.
Reges reported that in 1996 the campaign had regular multi-hour conference calls to discuss strategy and planning. Under these conditions, it would have been possible to hide from campaign accountant Reges a few small payoffs to Willis, but the Campaign was unlikely to have been able to hide substantial expenditures from Reges. Based on Reges’s word, the bulk of the 1996 campaign filings should therefore be reliable.
