-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
I might be willing to run for an office, but I would like to know more
what is involved. What offices have no libertarian candidates running
at this point, and how can I find out what would be expected of me in
those offices?
Thanks, Mike.
Here's the list of local partisan offices up for election in 2004:
* US Representative, 8th District (San Francisco; Nancy Pelosi, incumbent)
* US Representative, 8th District (San Francisco and San Mateo; Tom Lantos,
incumbent)
* California Senator, 3rd District (San Francisco, Marin, and Sonoma; John
Burton, term limit victim)
* California State Assemblyman, 12th District (San Francisco and San Mateo;
Leland Yee, incumbent)
* California State Assemblyman, 13th District (San Francisco; Mark Leno,
incumbent)
There are also non-partisan races up for election:
* SF Supervisor, 1st District (Jake McGoldrick, incumbent)
* SF Supervisor, 3rd District (Aaron Peskin, incumbent)
* SF Supervisor, 5th District (Matt Gonzalez, incumbent)
* SF Supervisor, 7th District (Tony Hall, incumbent)
* SF Supervisor, 9th District (Tom Ammiano, incumbent)
* SF Supervisor, 11th District (Gerardo Sandoval, incumbent)
* SF Board of Education, 4 seats (Emilio Cruz, Eric Mar, Mark Sanchez, and
Jill Wynns, incumbents)
* SF Community College Board, 4 seats (Natalie Berg, Milton Marks, Julio
Ramos, and Rodel Rodis, incumbents)
* BART Director, 7th District (Lynette Sweet, incumbent)
* BART Director, 9th District (Tom Radulovich, incumbent)
Anyone interested in running for partisan office needs to collect
signatures in time to qualify for the March primary, which means they need
to do the petitioning this fall. The non-partisan races have their
petitioning period in the early summer, as the mayoral race just did.
We have no one confirmed as running yet, though Jonathan Marvin is
interested (as earlier in this thread) in running for Assembly, 13th District.
What's expected of you in that office? That you act and vote as a
Libertarian. What's a little more important, I think, is what's expected
during the campaign.
There are three ways to run a campaign.
1) A paper campaign. This doesn't make much sense for a non-partisan race,
but there is some value to having the Libertarian label on the ballot in
the partisan races. All that's required to do this is to collect the
nominating signatures (40, usually) and pay the filing fee (1% of the
salary - about $1,000 for Assembly); the fee can be reduced by additional
signatures. Libertarians need a maximum of 150 valid signatures to
eliminate the fee; less, depending on the number of registered Libertarians
in the district.
2) A public education campaign. By being on the ballot, you'll get lots of
questionnaires and invitations to speak. You can accept as many of those
as possible, and try to communicate the Libertarian message. If you are
not trying to win, but only to communicate, then you don't have to worry
about actually convincing people now, only exposing them to the ideas.
3) A victory campaign. With the right combination of your strengths and
opponents' weaknesses, and sufficient funding, you can wage a viable
campaign focused on becoming elected. This is very, very hard for
third-party candidates to do in a partisan race, but it's not
impossible. This involves reaching out to libertarian-minded voters, but
also convincing non-libertarians that the libertarian way will be better
for them, at least in some key respects.
~Chris
- --
Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as
distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
~Ambrose Bierce / Freelance text nerd: <URL: http://crism.maden.org/ >
PGP Fingerprint: BBA6 4085 DED0 E176 D6D4 5DFC AC52 F825 AFEC 58DA