(title)

I Was A Delegate in 2008. The Libertarian Party is About to Repeat It

What the party’s February 2028 convention invites and the 2008 lesson it should remember

JAKE PORTER

Disclosure: I manage Jo Jorgensen’s exploratory campaign for the 2028 Libertarian presidential nomination. This is analysis, not campaign material.

Rand Paul told Newsmax on September 23 that he’s considering a 2028 presidential run and will weigh the midterms before deciding. Libertarian leaning Thomas Massie’s name circulates as a potential Republican contender. And the Libertarian Party (LP), which locked in a February 2028 nominating convention in El Paso, Texas, has inadvertently built the perfect scenario for chaos. I know, because I was a delegate in 2008 when we were saved from a similar situation by having a convention in May after most of the primaries were over.

Jake Porter’s Analysis & Investigations is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The February Trap

In June 2025, then Libertarian National Committee (LNC) Chair Steven Nekhaila publicly considered moving the 2028 convention to February, arguing that it would give the party a longer ballot-access runway and grant the Presidential ticket more time to campaign for the general election. This proposal has been discussed by party delegates for years. In fact, once upon a time the party used to nominate the candidates the prior year to the election.

By October 2025, the LNC issued its venue request with a tentative date of February 2028. In February 2026, the committee voted 9-8 to hold the 2028 convention in El Paso, Texas and with that vote the February window was locked in.

The ballot-access logic is real. An earlier nomination does mean more time for petitioning and more time for fundraising.

But consider what February means. The Libertarian Party will choose our Presidential nominee while the major parties are just getting started with caucuses and primaries. The delegates in El Paso won’t be picking a nominee for the race as it is. They will be betting on the race as it might become. That is the trap. And it’s already being discussed in the open by people who endorsed Donald Trump at the expense of the LP in 2024.

2008: The Rehearsal

The author at the Phillies 2008 booth at the Libertarian National Convention in Denver. Photo Credit to the late Mike Bozarth (MO)

When Ron Paul announced his Republican presidential bid in 2007, the Libertarian Party didn’t just watch it happen. It emptied out. Members resigned to register as Republicans so they could caucus for him. I was in college in Iowa at the time, a caucus state, and I watched it happen up close.

LP presidential candidates started being told: “Why are you running against Ron Paul? You should just drop out and nominate Ron Paul.” While Paul could have waltzed right in and won the nomination on the first ballot, he wasn’t wanting the nomination in the first place.

There was even a small movement to not run an LP presidential candidate at all, to clear the field for Paul. It never killed the nomination, but it slowed everything down, and it may be part of why the field settled so late, with Mary Ruwart and Bob Barr entering when they did.

Then the national committee, if memory serves me, voted to use our phone operation to support Paul. I thought it was a conflict of interest at the time. Saying so out loud was treated by some as heresy. You did not dare criticize Ron Paul in Libertarian circles in 2008 without angering a lot of people within the party. Paul was just that popular.

This isn’t an attack on Ron Paul or a suggestion that libertarians shouldn’t have supported him. It was the job of the party to take the enthusiasm Paul generated and turn it into massive support for the LP. There were some missteps by the party, but at the end of the day I would argue Paul was ultimately a huge net benefit for the LP. That said, I won’t pretend that moving our convention up before the second Super Tuesday in 2008 wouldn’t have caused havoc on the party.

Denver-The LP National Convention (May 22-May 26, 2008)

By the time delegates arrived at the convention, the Paul campaign was basically over. Paul couldn’t win the Republican nomination and the delegates knew it. The “don’t run anyone” effort evaporated, and the convention did what conventions do: it nominated someone. Former Congressman Bob Barr won.

During the cycle I’d been chief of staff to George Phillies, one of Barr’s rivals for the nomination. After Denver, I became Barr’s Iowa coordinator for the general election. I saw the convention fight from the inside of one camp and the aftermath from the inside of the other.

What happened next told you everything about the tensions underneath. Paul wouldn’t endorse Barr. Instead he invited the minor-party candidates to a joint press conference and Barr didn’t attend. Barr’s people took the endorsement of all candidates as a snub and Paul’s people took Barr’s lack of attendance as a snub.

“The strongest message can be sent by rejecting the two-party system, which in reality is a one-party system with no possible chance for the changes to occur which are necessary to solve our economic and foreign policy problems. This can be accomplished by voting for one of the non-establishment principled candidates — Baldwin, Barr, McKinney, Nader, and possibly others.”

“I’m not interested in third parties getting the most possible votes. I’m interested in Bob Barr as the nominee for the Libertarian Party getting the most possible votes,” Barr said at a separate news conference in the same building less than an hour after Paul’s endorsement.

On the same day, Barr offered the Libertarian vice presidential spot to Paul. The response from Congressman Paul’s spokesman, Jesse Benton was that “Dr. Paul has zero interest in that.”

In September, Paul responded to the decision by Barr not to attend to settle on a single endorsement of Constitution Party nominee Chuck Baldwin.

After Paul

Some of Paul’s people came back to the LP. Some never did. Some of them are MAGA now. The energy that Paul built didn’t belong to the party. It belonged to Paul, and when he was done with it, it scattered in many directions. It came back stronger in 2012, which outperformed 2008 by every measure. But 2012 was Paul’s campaign, not the LP’s.

Why 2028 Is Different

The author with Rand Paul ahead of the 2016 Iowa caucuses.

Here’s what the nostalgia merchants leave out: 2028 isn’t 2008. Rand Paul is not Ron Paul.

However you rank the Paul’s as legislators, Rand doesn’t command the devotion inside the party that his father did in 2008. The “just nominate Paul” energy isn’t there for him the same way. And many of the people who lived through 2008 are gone. Many left the party. Many have died. The delegates who will walk into El Paso in February 2028 are a different delegation at a different point in American history, fighting over a different party and they’ll be doing it months earlier, before the Republican field has resolved, placing bets on a race they can’t see yet.

Congressman Thomas Massie is more like Ron Paul in 2008 to the LP. He has similar popularity within the

party delegate base.

The Plan in the Open

The author between Ron Paul and Thomas Massie at Liberty Iowa’s Caucus Day 2016.

This isn’t speculation about what could happen. It’s already being proposed in public, on X, by the founder of the Mises Caucus.

On May 28, 2026, Michael Heise proposed that the LP hold its presidential nomination open for Thomas Massie: use the February convention to pass bylaws changes allowing the party to back Massie if he won the GOP nomination, then recess the convention until roughly two weeks before the Republican convention, when Massie’s fate would be clearer.

  Michael Heise

Heres a reason why sane libertarians shouldn’t 100% write off the Libertarian Party: Lets say hypothetically Massie were to seek the Republican nomination for president. Lets also say that in light of that, you wanted to hold the LP’s presidential nomination open to give it to…

His words: it would give Massie a “tremendous stick to wield and leverage, win or lose.” Read that again. The proposal is to turn the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination into a bargaining chip for a Republican congressman’s primary campaign and for Heise to wreck havoc on the LP as he has for the past several years.

The Danger

While Heise says the delegates could recess the convention to a later date and endorse him if he wins, this opens up all kinds of potential problems. Don’t forget that the Mises Caucus initially opposed any online convention during Covid in 2020 and attempted to nominate no candidate in 2024 after their candidate lost the nomination. Nominating None of the Above would have cost the party ballot access in several states. Heise also endorsed Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 election.

He doesn’t care one bit about the party having a nominee or about the party maintaining ballot access. This would feed right into a power play that leaves the party with no nominee and no ballot access to show for it.

The delegates in El Paso won’t be picking a nominee for the race as it is. They’ll be betting on the race as it might become. We should remember the lesson of 2008 before February 2028.

Watch for parliamentary tricks and lawsuits to delay the convention and leave the party without a nominee in 2028. The 2024 Mises Caucus playbook to drop out and endorse the Republicans is still in play.

Jake Porter’s Analysis & Investigations is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.