It is time to clear the decks!
For the LNC, the writing is on the wall.
How has the national Party’s situation changed relative to the last comparable year, the year after a Presidential election, four years ago?
Income is way down. As the year is not quite over yet, you might add a tenth or so to 2025’s numbers, but income would still be way down. Membership Revenue is down to $97,348, from $700,830 four years ago. General fundraising is down from 1.05 million four years ago to $608,000 this year. Program/project income is down to $48,000 this year from $357,000 four years ago.
On membership, in 2021 we had over 2 million members. We are now well under 1 million.
The Mises Caucus’s record of party leadership is a record of disaster. The LP cannot continue at this rate.
It is time to clear the decks!
For the LNC, the writing is on the wall.
The writing reads Mene! Mene! Tekel! Upharsin!
You have been weighed, measured, counted, and found wanting.
Leave salvage operations to the few (though their number increases) competent, honest, non-Mises LNC members.
I agree with George. It is time (to coin a phrase) clean house. The facts speak very loudly the Libertarian Party is in trouble. When George shows membership fundraising is down, membership has dropped, income is down, Chase Oliver our 2024 presidential candidate performed poorly, leadership is poor, etc. we have from supporters of the status quo excuses and responses saying things are not that bad. The facts show otherwise.
When others and I post about the failures concerning ballot access we are given excuses. The last two presidential nominating conventions were very poorly run. Chase Oliver gave his acceptance speech in the middle of the night, the last two conventions, Friday the first day of the convention was wasted arguing over who is eligible to be a delegate, presidential candidates of other political parties allowed to speak at our conventions, our vice-presidential candidate being selected in very controversial way, for the first time in Party history we did not have a roll call of the states when selecting our presidential candidate. Leadership is responsible for these failures. To be fair we the membership are also responsible for electing the leadership of the last eight years. Not enough of us seem to be concerned.
It is a long, long way from 1980. It is up to us to elect leadership that will grow the Party.
Bitching and moaning won’t solve the problem. Foodfights won’t solve the problem.
Find a media outlet that will print your stuff and then start writing short-form letters that they can use. “FloridaPolitics” services a very nice demographic and they publish my pronunciamentos every single time.
See you at the Barricades.
It’s hard to clear the decks when the crew can’t decide on a leader and a focus.
The party is not goig to grow until there is a clear explanation as to what the LP supports. Obviously, if the government wants to pass laws that add to someone’s cost and makes it difficult for people to get ahead, that’s okay with the LP. Just make damn sure we paint a target on our backs by being big on the gun issue, and avoid the abortion issue.
The people running this show, whether they are on the LNC or friends with someone on the LNC need to pay attention to issues in the news and especially with regards as to what issues are a concern to the voters such as affordability which is an issue with women voters. It is well worth staying on top of the news.
The LNC needs to get a weekly news release out and the regional reps need to work making sure the news release gets sent to their state’s media outlets.
That should be followed up with gettinng members to write letters to the editor to the local media outlets. With 9,000 members it should not be hard to get 500 people to write to their local papers. Then post the names and a link to their letter on the website in the state and nationally.
The national web site needs to be updated. The party wants to end the war on poverty but does not have one negative comment on zoning laws, or the other laws, regulations, policies, and financial handouts that support the upper class while they deprive people of their opportunities and property rights.
I’ll consider renewing my monthly contribution if the LP ever takes a stand to repeal and abolish the barriers to prosperity that have been erected. Hell! That might change the way others view the movement.
This was sent to the LNC 1/3/25 2145 pst
Who? Being non-MC is not enough. Nekhaila (allegedly non MC though kisses up to them when convenient) is cowardly and enabled harassment. The rest of them sans Keith Thompson don’t respond to inquiries. I could go on . NO ONE on current LNC except Keith is my current position.
Also remember the utter lack of transparency spitting on a JC decision.
I agree. Keith is the by far the strongest person on the LNC right now
I don’t blame Chase one bit. Would I have urged a single person to sign up and be a dues-paying member of a national party that wasn’t giving me the time of day? No way.
I disagree. If Chase Oliver had brought in a lot of supporters they could have taken over the LP, or become an influential presense in the party. Also, look at the list of donors to the Chase Oliver campaign. It is filled with people who have been donating to the Libertarian Party for many years. So if his new supporters did not want to donate to the LNC they could have still donated to him and that did not happen.
The donor list is the big donors only.
The Chase Oliver campaign only raised about $478,000, which I believe is the least amount of money raised for an LP presidential candidate since John Hospers ran in 1972, especially when adjusted for inflation.
The Federal Election Commissioj requires reporting the names, occupations/business, and addrees of all donors who donate $200 or more and this information can be looked up online at FEC .gov . Could Chase have had some donors who donated less than $200 which do not have their information listed? Yes, but judging from the totals it could not have been very many people.
Oliver had a third of his donations unitemized. He had a lot of small donors. That number could have been half the national party membership donating at typical small donor levels.
He also was unable to do a JFC with the LP due to Embezebelle.
Chase’s job was to run for President. Not to waste time with internal machinations of the national party, and any new members “taking over the LP” wouldn’t have happened until the next national convention, long after his campaign was over. He focused on the task at hand, and was absolutely right to do so.
The biggest driver of LP fundraising and number of members has never been the LNC, it has been presidential camaigns. The Chase Oliver campaign failed to grow the party. Fundraising and dues paying membership went down from the Chase Oliver campaign, which is a first in LP history from a presidential campaign. Chase Oliver was not supported by the Mises Caucus.
Does the Mises Caucus share some of the blame for the current poor state of the Libertarian Party? Sure, but not all of it. There is a lot of blame to go around.
Blaming Chase Oliver for Mises Caucus running the LP into the ditch is delusional.
After Chase won at Convention, instead of supporting the LP candidate, all the Mises cucks took their ball and went home to vote for Trump.
The MC is solely to blame.
Not entirely true. The Chase Oliver campaign spent very little on ballot access. As usual, most of the ballot access was handled by the LNC. Some of it was handled by state parties.
Campaigning is the job of the candidate. Winning supporters and donors is the job of the candidate.
Chase Oliver was offered speaking a speaking slot at Rage Against the War Machine 2 and he turned it down.
Chase Oliver was offered to appear on podcasts from Tim Pool and Dave Smith and he turned them down. If he was afraid that Tim Pool and Dave Smith were going to try to set him up or edit his comments to make hilm look bad he could have brought his own recording equipment so he could show people what really happened if this turned out to be the case.
Most of the public pays attention to candidates, not to political party committies. When I joined the Libertarian Party in 1996 I joined because of the Harry Browne for President campaign. Back then I had no idea who was on the Libertarian National Committee or what they were doing.
Who in their right mind would want to join a national party that fund raises for the opposition and only encourages voting libertarian if it helps the Republicans? I am a life member and even my continued involvement turns on the outcome of the next national convention.
Are you going?
I will be there.
Thank you. Not sure I will be but will look for you if so. Thanks for sticking it through.
Right.
And if anyone doesn’t know, that’s exactly what Angela McArdle and the Mises Caucus did.
They used LP resources to raise money for RFK/Trump and they only supported the LP candidate in blue states….to help Trump win.
Angela McArdle, MC and the takeover, are the sole reasons the LP is in the state it’s in today. Claiming otherwise is ignorant.
I am not a life member, and before 2022 annually had been donating increasing amounts to the national LP since well into the last century. Until the national party repudiates supporting non-libertarian candidates and policies, I’ll not be supporting the national LP.
I agree, the only problem is that any 3 Libertarians will come up with 4 definitions of what is a Libertarian. If we cannot agree that Trump is not a libertarian than the party can move on without me.