Mises Caucus founder Michael Heise announced today that he is withdrawing from politics. He cites family finances and personal reasons, his love for his wife and child and his need to maintain a full-time job.
He departs as the Mises Caucus had remarkable success at the Libertarian Party National convention, electing most members of the Libertarian National Committee and coming respectably close to selecting the Libertarian Party’s next Presidential candidate.
Jonathan Casey, Chair of the Classical Liberal Caucus, has announced that he will not be running for re-election. He believes that his Caucus needs a candidate more oriented towards internal peace.
In June 2022 Heise was interviewed by Reason and asked what success in 2024 would look like for the Mises Caucus. Heise said “membership… we need to hit at least 30 (thousand).”
And now any chance of getting to something approaching successful membership levels rests on Chase Oliver.
Was he referring to Caucus membership, or Party membership?
Party. He said vote totals are a meaningless metric (reference to Johnson) and that he was looking to measure minds that agreed with us and his minimum goal was to match the 30 thousand or so dues paying members that the party had in 2000.
“Jonathan Casey, Chair of the Classical Liberal Caucus, has announced that he will not be running for re-election. He believes that his Caucus needs a candidate more oriented towards internal peace.”
Seriously, tho, Kevin Reed of Massachusetts might be a good option. He has worked hard to bring the factions together in Massachusetts.
Reading his message on Discord thatwas shared on Twitter, it seems to somewhat confirm what Angela McArdle had said in her private messages to confidants a year ago that Duque publicized that the only thing the Mises Caucus really care about to do work for the party was Dave Smith for President. Heise in his message says “life has been very difficult” after Smith said he wouldn’t run and “backed out of the tour,” and “fundraising has gone down to dangerously low levels”.
Folly of empires.
Heise was cutting himself 10-15k a month in checks from the MC kittie for ‘consulting’ his own organization. At one point the FEC software got confused about him having two addresses (CA and PA) and thought he was two people…and the paychecks for those two people were the first and third largest expenses for the Caucus. (Second place involved fundraising/payment processing.) Once you scrub out Heise’s six figure a month paycheck and the expenses related to swag/fundraising, there’s barely anything left the MC spends money on. Sometimes a grand or two in hotel rooms, or a few travel expenses.
By all indications, the MC funds have become mostly a personal GoFundMe account, approximately the same time Dave Smith went back on his promise to run. They’re at dangerously low funding levels largely because Heise has been cashing it out. (While still taking donations.) A more interested party could probably pinpoint when he decided to dip out by charting his month to month consulting fees and looking for the beginning of the spike.
Heise’s paychecks :
https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?data_type=processed&committee_id=C00699785&recipient_name=Heise%2C+Michael
If you have a few hours, search “Mises PAC” on FEC.gov for tons of filings. There’s interesting stuff in there..
Perhaps George would like to be the Chair of the Classical Liberal Caucus.
A student of Game Theory up against a student of Economic Theory? That WOULD be interesting!
The key leadership of both the MC and the CLC falling off is a very healthy development for the party, especially given their combative nature.
Both caucuses served a purpose in their original time. MC was needed to bring the spirit of the Ron Paul Revolution back into the LP. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just Ron Paul libertarians who came in through that open gate. It was also a lot of the alt-right and other unsavory characters, and for that, the CLC was needed to keep the LP from becoming the Other MAGA Party.
Now the dust is settling. Many people who were never interested in working with the other side, the “my way or the highway” crowd, will jump ship. It’s unfortunate, but probably necessary longer term. This is politics, and there’s no winning without negotiation and collaboration. This is definitely true externally in the public sphere, but it starts internally within the party.
For the hardliners who will only accept it 100% their way, the wind has been taken out of the sails both financially and in terms of emotional commitment, meaning there will very likely be no big swing or major battle at the 2026 convention. There are still some death throes we can expect to see over the coming weeks and months, but overall the Caucus Wars seem to be coming to an end.
So what next? Hopefully healing. MC, CLC, and everyone else who actually sticks around setting aside and forgiving old wounds. Those who refuse to do so will become increasingly bitter until they also leave or get sidelined.
The Republicans and the Democrats have their schisms and infighting too, but they can afford to, because they’re on top. We’re not. We need a united front in order to advance liberty. The Caucus Wars showed us what was working about the LP, and also what definitely wasn’t. Now it’s time to get to work maximizing what we do well, while also continuing to refine and fix what we don’t. Learning from this experience is part of what it means to mature as a political movement.
MCers, you need those people who were around in the party long before you because they know how to raise recurring revenue, cultivate new donors, deal with the FEC and Secretaries of State, manage ballot access, and all the other things that go into administration. That’s what it takes to be a party.
CLCers and Prags, you need those people who know how to tap into grassroots activism and get people fired up, and who can implement things like guerrilla marketing to break through media blockades, and a ground game operation that gets people to actually show up when needed. That’s what it takes to win.
Combined, the future of the LP looks bright. Now each of us has to make a choice. Are you in, or are you out?
Out. I don’t see anything coming together. I see quite possibly different states nominating presidential tickets other than the one the convention nominated, state party factions and national suing each other, national chair possibly not endorsing national ticket and even conceivably endorsing competing ticket. We saw this movie before as parties like socialist, reform and American Independent splintered into multiple inconsequential microparties, decades long lawsuits, etc. The libertarians took a long time to get there, but now have. The socialist and libertarian movements are both vibrant; parties of those names are circling the drain, only staying afloat due to insufficient centrifugal force at microscale, but on downward trajectory.
While I consider Mr. Heise a political opponent, I wish him the best. Over the last several years he’s obviously been willing to put his political work on the front burner, and now he’s attending to other things that are at least as important.
And while I’m not a CLC member, I also wish Mr. Casey the best and thank him for his hard work defending the LP from Bad Things.