Chapter Twenty One
Finale
December 2000
In December, the Browne campaign received $43,369, and spent $63,521, leaving it with $309 in the bank. In addition to individual donations, the campaign received $6,890 from Seabreeze Travel. The filings disclose payments to Staff members, their firms, and other familiar destinations.
Last but not least, Art Olivier received $466.40 for his expenses.
Art Who?
Art Olivier was the Party’s Vice Presidential candidate.
During the campaign, Harry Browne was reimbursed for expenses such as travel and hotel rooms. Reimbursements to Browne were well over $10,000. An effectively deployed Vice Presidental candidate should have done as much travelling, as much speaking, and should have had miscellaneous expenses on the same order as the Presidential candidate. In fact, Olivier received less than 4% of what Browne did. According to my highly placed sources, it was only with the strongest direct efforts that Olivier was able to get any money at all for travel.
Libertarians have no legal path to support a Vice Presidential candidate directly. Federal law requires that Vice Presidential campaign to use the Presidential campaign’s bank accounts as its depository accounts. Those accounts are totally under the control of the Presidential candidate and his campaign. To support a Vice Presidential campaign, you must donate to the Presidential Campaign and hope that the Presidential Campaign cares about supporting its Vice President.
Federal Law interfaces poorly with the way the Libertarian Party conducts its affairs. In the Libertarian Party, the delegates choose the Vice President. Party By-Laws allow the Presidential candidate to appear and express his opinion on who the Vice Presidential candidate should be. Recent Libertarian Presidential candidates have had the wisdom to remain silent while the National Convention selected their running mates. On the other hand, once the Vice Presidential candidate was selected, the Libertarian Presidential campaign has sometimes ignored them. Olivier received under $500 for his campaign expenses. Browne’s 1996 running mate Jo Jorgensen received only a few thousand dollars.
Libertarians could not directly pay Olivier’s expenses by giving Olivier or a Vice Presidential campaign committee any money. Under Federal Law, Vice Presidential candidates may not have their own campaign committees. Federal Law was written by political parties in which the Presidential candidate chooses the Vice Presidential candidate for the direct benefit of his own campaign. Federal Law was written by political parties that view the Vice Presidential campaign as an important part of their national effort. To say that the Browne Campaign didn’t care about the Vice Presidential campaign is the grossest understatement imaginable.
The way to change it is to let the Presidential nominee select his or her running mate and put it before the convention for a ratification vote, instead of having a separate VP race.
George this post is very interesting. After the presidential election of 2000 (Art and I live in the same county and we knew and know each other.) I spoke with Art and he mentioned he once was at a campaign swing in which he found himself at an airport. He noticed Harry Brown was also at the airport. Art had no idea Harry Brown was campaigning in that city. He talked to Harry Brown and they both went their separate ways.
Art told me they did not campaign together and their campaigns did not communicate with each other. He never knew where Harry Brown was campaigning. He also told me he did not receive any help from Harry Brown’s campaign. My impression is that during the campaign Art Olivier and Harry Brown and their campaigns were strangers.
It seems to me the only presidential and vice-presidential campaigns that worked together were Hospers and Nathan in 1972, Clark and Koch in 1980, and Bergland and Lewis in 1984. We have to expect that our presidential and vice-presidential candidates will work together as running mates. How well the candidates will work together during the campaign should be a criteria used by the members and delegates in deciding who our presidential and vice-presidential candidates will be.
I assume the previous presidential candidate in 2024 was no different in terms of communicating and working with his running mate. This has to change.