On Tom’s Silver Bullet
Hello Libertarians. This is the seventh of a series of opinion articles I’ll be privileged to write for you once per month on an “inside baseball” topic for the Libertarian Party. I encourage everyone who has an opinion on whatever we’re talking about this month to comment or send phillies@4liberty.net your longer editorials, which may well be published.
If you spend any amount of time around Libertarian strategists, you will inevitably come across someone promoting a silver bullet solution to all or most of the problems in the Libertarian Party. You might even be convinced by one of these people that their solution is the genuine article.
You can recognize a silver bullet by the format that its logic takes: “Only if the Libertarian Party does X, will we be successful.” Examples I’ve encountered over the years include:
-
The LP will only be successful if we put all of our effort into legalizing marijuana.
-
The LP will only be successful if we put all of our effort into ending the death penalty.
-
The LP will only be successful if we offer the public a very moderate version of libertarian philosophy.
-
The LP will only be successful if we offer the public a very pure version of libertarian philosophy.
-
The LP will only be successful if we focus all of our effort on building membership through direct mail.
-
The LP will only be successful if we focus all of our effort on running local candidates in winnable races.
-
The LP will only be successful if we elect the right people to the Libertarian National Committee.
-
The LP will only be successful if we can recruit the perfect Presidential candidate.
Most people who have gone through more than one political cycle can tell you something about these solutions. To be successful, we’re probably going to need more than one bullet.
If silver bullets tend to underperform, it would make sense to avoid falling for a new one. Instead of trying to find one answer to all of our problems, it seems more reasonable to break up all of our problems into smaller bits and then, by trial and error, to find the most effective way to fix them individually.
It would at least take a lot of hubris at this point for someone to introduce a new silver bullet. And people should be pretty skeptical of anyone trying to sell any new snake oil.
But it’s my birthday this month, so indulge me.
-
The LP will be successful in the long term if and only if we offer the public better candidates than the other parties, cycle after cycle, regardless of whether those candidates win or lose, for every level of office.
What does that mean? In this case, when I use the word “better,” it means better in ways that voters care about. As far as I can tell, what most voters want in a candidate are two things. First, they want a sense of warmth from a candidate, a feeling that the candidate really cares about them. Second, they want the candidate to seem competent for the duties of the office.
If all we ever did was present to voters candidates who genuinely cared more about them than the opposition did, and who could demonstrate that they knew how to do the job better than the opposition did, I think our victory would become somewhat inevitable. I don’t say that we would win every race that we would deserve to win, but I do say that if we deserve to win races over and over again, regardless of any discouragement we face, we’ll get there.
And I think if we don’t do that, we probably won’t get there.
How we achieve it is beyond me. Do we educate our potential candidates so that they’ll be better in ways voters care about? Do we try to recruit people who already have those qualities to our brand? Do we scour our ranks for the natural candidates among us and then beg them to run? I really don’t know.
Efforts to do all of those things have been made, some of them with moderate success and some with none. But even though I don’t know how to accomplish it, I do think that I’ve correctly described the win condition, and I hope people keep that in mind when they’re thinking about how their parties ought to operate.
Having said all of that, let me leave you with one more strategy. This is the one I call the Bronze Bullet.
-
Survive until next year.
That’s it. Let’s not bankrupt ourselves. As long as we still exist, we get to try a new strategy if the current one doesn’t work out.
Trump has a major effort to turn out low-propensity to vote voters.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-hunts-elusive-2024-election-prize-infrequent-voters-2024-09-09/
Some other silver bullets:
* Moving the presidential nomination earlier
* Getting around the lack of media by using the internet(first it was websites, then it was social media, then it was podcasts)
* Getting some already well-known person to be our presidential nominee
* Focusing all our resources on winning in one state
* Getting all the non-voters to start voting Libertarian
While I certainly agree with Mr. Rowlette that voters are willing to support candidates that they think care about them and that they perceive as competent, and candidates should be encouraged to present themselves as such, the most important thing candidates can be urged to do is to directly contact as many likely voters as possible. Direct contact with likely voters is by far the most effective campaign tactic, but it requires organization, planning, and consistent effort over time, not to mention the ability to leave a positive impression on those contacted. We need as many as we can get of personable candidates willing to do some work.
Silver bullets? Load up the autocannon, and use all of them, and more that have been omitted.
You want to move the nomination earlier when we did that from 1980 to 1992 and it didn’t do anything?
You want to join the chorus of podcast bros?
You want to get Tulsi Gabbard or RFK Jr to be our presidential nominee?
You want to focus on winning New Hampshire, or one electoral vote in Maine?
You want to waste money on non-voters?
Silver bullets distract from doing real work of candidates getting lists and knocking on the doors of likely voters, getting out press releases and op-eds, working on initiative petitions and other means of circumventing political bodies, and individual LP members getting to know and be known by their elected officials.
I want to have a good Presidential candidate, not a crackpot like RFKJr. Reaching outside our party, the current Governor of Colorado is about the appropriate stature, though some of his stands would not work.
The last candidate to invest in non-voters was Donald Trump in 2024. You may have heard of him.
Podcasters are good if they are Libertarians, not good if they are alt-right characters pretending to be Libertarian.
Unlike most people, I have been national volunteer coordinator for a Presidential campaign. A good campaign will use the extra year very effectively. A lousy campaign, or the more recent slew of scampaigns, will not.
You focus on winning a state if polling is favorable. I am not worried about this happening in the near future.
We also need an accumulation of special interest groups.
Jared Polis is as bad as RFK, Jr. No way.
My point was somewhat different…what matters to my point is his stature as a politician — elected Governor — not his stands, which I noted were problematic.
Of 2024 eligible voters who did not vote in 2020, about 12% voted for Harris and 14% voted for Trump but 73% did not vote in 2024, according to Pew Research. Naturally, a significant portion of those folks are new voters who were not old enough or otherwise weren’t eligible in 2020.
I don’t recall a specific effort by the Trump campaign to reach non-voters but if there was one it didn’t amount to much.
A presidential campaign would be able to use all the time leading up to the nomination effectively to build a campaign organization that will work to win the nomination and build support for the general election. If the nomination is moved earlier it will create an extended period of time lacking the urgency of the nomination race as well as the general election. Motivating all the people involved in a campaign including donors and voters is hard to do without being able to instill a sense of urgency. When I ran for Governor we had a contested LP primary and there was much more activity by each of the three campaigns than there would have been without the nomination being decided in the summer leading up to the general election, if it had been decided by convention in the early spring or the previous fall we would not have had the highest percentage for Governor of any Libertarian on a general election ballot in 2018.
What is funny though George, is he is about as “libertarian” as RFK, Jr. and doesn’t have a brain worm. The LPCO does a great job of dismantling Polis yet tried to sell their soul for RFK, Jr.
Chris Powell – Trump was getting a lot of people who were not regular voters in the 2016 Republican primary, which he was only winning with about 40% of the vote until Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio dropped out. Since then those people have become regular voters, at least for Trump. The great bulk of Trump voters are regular Republican voters, less the Never Trumpers, plus some regular Democratic voters.
Obama also picked up some people who normally didn’t vote in 2008, just to set the precedent. They did not turn out for him in 2012.
The voters Johnson picked up in 2016 were mostly Never Trump Republicans (mostly Ted Cruz primary voters), as well as some people who normally voted Libertarian down ballot, but not for President. Dissatisfaction among regular voters with the major party candidates seems to be a more established path to increasing the Libertarian vote total than trying to turn out non-voters.
Jim, if you’ve got a source to back up that claim about previous nonvoters supporting Trump in the 2016 GOP primaries I’d be interested to read it. A google search doesn’t bring up anything that seems relevant. Pew reports that in the general election more previous nonvoters supported Clinton.
Chris – I can’t find the article/survey that I remember. I see only two exit polls which asked if people had voted in a Republican primary before, which isn’t exactly the same thing, as people would have answered that they had voted in a Republican primary before even if they hadn’t done so for 3 or 4 election cycles, which is effectively a non-voter. But, fwiw, Trump got 35% overall in New Hampshire and 38% of first time Republican primary voters in that state and 36% overall in Ohio and 39% of first time Republican primary voters in that state. So he was out-performing slightly among that not quite the same group of people.
This article from December, 2015 briefly mentions something about it, a couple of paragraphs up from the bottom. This article is now pay walled, although it still works with the internet archive because either it didn’t used to be or the NY Times was still using an ineffective paywall back then.
It’s only a short statement saying “Another turnout challenge for Mr. Trump is that he commands the support of many people who are unlikely to vote. Civis found him winning 40 percent of the vote among those it gave less than a 20 percent chance of participating in the general election — let alone in the primary.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20151231100626/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/upshot/donald-trumps-strongest-supporters-a-certain-kind-of-democrat.html
That’s closer. It at least talks about Trump’s level of support among people who don’t have a history of voting. But, it isn’t what I am remembering. I just can’t find what I am thinking of. I suppose it could be tentatively inferred that Trump’s Dec 2015 elevated poll support among unlikely voters translated into a couple of extra points of support from never-before Republican primary voters.
The first thing the LP should do is look to the Anti-Corn Law League as an example of success that is one to follow.
There are a number of markets that have been closed by legislation. If those markets such as housing, urban transit, occupational licensing, and a couple of others were open to allow competition we would see that people benefit and that taxes could be reduced, and the LP’s image might get a boost.
Directing all national party resources to one state is a good way to get 95% of people in the other 49 states to stop donating.
Non-voters generally are non-voters because they just don’t care about politics. My youngest brother is a good example. He isn’t registered to vote and if something isn’t either in a video game or Japanese anime, he doesn’t care. I have elderly relatives who don’t vote anymore. As long as they keep getting their Social Security check, they don’t care what else happens. On the occasions when I haven’t voted it was because there was no Libertarian option on the ballot, not because I would have voted for a Libertarian if only I had known they existed. Non-voters are not some untapped pool of potential Libertarian voters.
By now, you’ve probably received a fund raising pitch “From the Desk of Steve Nekhaila, Chair.” It has to be up there as the most delusional LP fundraising letter ever written. He’s pitching something called “The Parity Project, to reach out to the “30-60 million Americans (who) either self-identify as libertarians or hold mostly libertarian views.” This project, which $24,000 in contributions will launch, can “create a libertarian society in as little as ten years.” Not since the days of the Browne campaign, ably skewered by Dr. Phillies, has such unrealistic and unobtainable nonsense been peddled to the membership. Ironically, the Parity Project has “hired Perry Willis” (also roundly skewered and exposed by Dr. Phillies) to conduct the project! Also, one wonders why $24,000 needs be raised when the LNC just realized in excess of $600,000 for the sale of headquarters, and, apparently has no plans to return the money to the building donors? How much longer will the membership tolerate the existence of ineffective leadership, impossible goals, and baffling internal feuding?
I am sympathetic to what you are saying, ATBAFT. Several other unfortunate names have also surfaced.
Parity in a decade is David Bergland’s worthless strategic plan at the end of the 20th century, except he had a slightly longer time line than this nonsense. “A pony for every little girl’ is far more credible as a plan.
However, this is an actual direct mail project, with a concrete goal–fixing the data in the database — a step that I have long advocated, so I sent the LNC my $20.
Below is what I just sent by way of the “Contact the LNC” section of the LP-USA’s website. I should add that I continue to contribute and volunteer for my county and state Libertarian parties.
“I recently received a letter requesting that I send money to the United States Libertarian Party, something that I did regularly from 1980 or ’81 until 2022. Here is my response:
“The LP-USA did nothing when the LP-NH endorsed the anti-libertarian Donald Trump for president and when the LP-CO tried to put the anti-libertarian Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on the Colorado ballot as the Libertarian presidential candidate. However, members of the Libertarian National Committee did try to punish the person who put the LP-USA convention’s choice Chase Oliver on the ballot in Colorado. The LP-USA has not legally pursued former chair McArdle for misdirecting party funds to her domestic partner. The LP-USA mismanaged the national headquarters building to sell it recently for an inflation-adjusted 40% less that its 2014 cost. Why should I trust the LP-USA with my money?”
==However, members of the Libertarian National Committee did try to punish the person who put the LP-USA convention’s choice Chase Oliver on the ballot in Colorado. ===
They certainly did and Nekhaila continued to allow Malagon to harass me over that even after I won my appeal. He allowed Malagon to further harass JC member Seebeck and my attorney Moulton (not directly but by badmouthing them publicly and privately on the LNC list which was shameful).
He did, but I just ignored him and in doing so, took away his jollies.
Besides, his badmouthing only means I do things right. 🙂
“…as the most recent Consumer Price Index (CPI) report was released on August 12, 2025, showing a 2.7% annual increase for July.” Every time that a report like this one comes up in the news the LP should write a news release that reads “the recent inflation reports showed that the dollar lost 2% ( or whatever the figure was in the report) of its value.
Look for prices to increase and note that low income people will be hurt the hardest.”
I think it would be real beneficial if the LP got a media release once every week and encouraged the members letters to the editor of the local media.
I remember the Advocates for Self Government used to give annual “Lights of Liberty” awards to people who would get a certain number of articles or LTEs published which included “libertarian” in the text. I won six years in a row, and I still have the certificates, signed by David Nolan and/or Sharon Harris. I wonder if they still do that.
I have no idea if they still do that but it is a great idea. Both state and the national parties should promote that idea. And thank you for writing.
They don’t anymore AFAIK. I was a double Lights of Liberty Triathlete in 2001 and a third one in 2002.
I agree with you on arriving alive in Grand Rapids. Other than that I am checked out except for less than a handful of LNC members that I respect.