Great meeting today. Thanks to all who braved traveling to distant territory at Glen Park. Among the subjects discussed was LPSF's tradition of only discussing/recommending/supporting ballot measures. How about candidates? Why have we been absent from the discussion on candidates. LPSF bylaws prevent us from "endorsing" a non Libertarian; and given the general leftists nature of S.F. candidates, LPSF would have a rough time "supporting" candidates. But how about "recommending for consideration" two or three candidates in each category?
Starchild gave a very good summary of some candidates with records and/or causes we might want to highlight. For example, we would want a socially liberal Sheriff such as Mirkarimi, even though we would not want that same individual as a Mayor or Supervisor where his economically liberal views might lead to tax and spend. We have already considered on this list Adachi's principal issue, pension reform, and Hall's conservative-leaning economic view.
Postcards with our ballot recommendations are going out no later than the first week of October. If we can come up by September 23 (to give Aubrey and the USPS time to get the postcards ready)with two or three candidates for Mayor, DA, and Sheriff that we could add to the recommendations, we would not once again be absent from the discussion. We decided that we would support our recommendations on the postcards with a "Why" on the LPSF website.
We decided to make our general proposals on this private Activist List, and the ExCom would make final decisions.
Please post who you would consider your favorites, and why.
Apparently you pushed him pretty hard about something years ago. I forget what it was. He told me to my face that you should stay away from him and he was pissed. Anyways....you know where I stand. But as they say in the sales biz "If you don't get push back, you aren't trying hard enough".
Hi All! I'll be wrapping up the postcard project in the next week, so do we have any more input on the candidates for the November election? From the emails I read, I see 3 votes for Jeff Adachi for Mayor, 1 for Tony Hall (and 2 for Tony as the second choice), 2 for Ross Mirkarimi for Sheriff, 1 for Vu Trinh for DA (and 1 for Vu as the second choice), and 1 for David Onek for DA.
For my own choice, I will vote for Jeff Adachi for Mayor and list Tony Hall as my second choice. While Adachi is definitely not Libertarian material, at least he favors fiscal responsibility, which for San Francisco is miles ahead of all the current politicians. He has been the only public official to support pension reform and, as far as I know, the only candidate that refused public financing (even though he supports the idea and practice) for this election. He strikes me as sincere, and I have pledged to help out in his campaign--not gungho like I would for someone like Starchild or Phil--but enough to lend a helping hand and show support. I question Hall's sincerity, but he's enough of an outsider and at odds with the status quo that he merits a second choice vote. The rest of the mayoral candidates don't interest me.
For the other two offices, I haven't decided yet if I will vote for any of them, but I want to add a footnote to Vu Trinh, who I spoke with for a while at the SF Liberty Coalition event in July. We talked about his surveillance camera idea. The reason for him supporting more extensive use of such cameras in public areas was that they would be more reliable than personal witness accounts, which can be iffy at times. While his motivation is sound (the search for truth and justice where real crimes have occurred), of course the downside would be a Big Brother environment like in the UK, where they cameras everywhere.
Please add any additional final thoughts or votes on any of the candidates before the postcards go to press.
Yeah, but some of them are likely to be significantly better or worse
than others. Voting for the best (or least bad) ones seems like a more
effective form of damage control than doing nothing.
Certainly, politics is distasteful to people of principle, [almost]
regardless of what those principles are.
And certainly, LPSF should only heartily support and recommend
candidates who are an actual benefit to liberty in San Francisco.
However, consider that San Francisco will have a mayor next year, and it
will be one of the candidates who are running (barring any of a set of
very unlikely events). If any of those candidates are notably
preferable to the others, from a liberty perspective, it is worthwhile
for a liberty organization to express that preference. While one should
not allow the good to distract from the pursuit of perfection, neither
should the hypothetical perfect disrupt the possible good.
Very well expressed. Thank you. My less sophisticated way of assessing the situation is to say that we as individuals can vote for the least harmful choices or not vote at all -- same with our group, express preference for the least socialist or not have a voice at all.
Well said. (Your last sentence sounds Shakespearean!)
I support Ron Paul. He's far from perfect, but he's good.
I haven't seen evidence any of the SF Nov. 8 candidates qualify as
good. Useful evidence would show a candidate has diminished the net
size of Got while in office. (Jeff Adachi, for example, has decreased
spending in some areas yet increased spending in others.)
Can the LPSF supporters of these candidates present such data?
Speaking of Ron Paul, are Free State people largely active in the Ron
Paul campaign?
Yes, and to a lesser extent, the Gary Johnson campaign. I was singing
in a pub in Portsmouth when a Ron Paul pub crawl came through; it was
most entertaining, and a few of them joined in the singing.
It’s a little frustrating, though: the New Hampshire laws really
hamstring third parties, and with the national allure of arguably
liberty-friendly major-party presidential candidates, coupled with the
genuine success of local libertarians in disguise within the two-party
system, LPNH is really foundering. I’m concerned for the effect it
could have on other state affiliates if the most libertarian state in
the country can’t sustain a Libertarian Party.
Thanks for carrying the LP torch there. While I share your concerns
about the LPNH, but I don't think it's just New Hampshire -- my
impression is that the Libertarian Party nationally continues to be in
a slow downward spiral, and I think it will take serious changes, or
some serious luck, or both, to turn it around.
One major issue is that the Libertarian Party needs the support and
guidance of the larger libertarian movement. Guidance, to help keep
the arm of our movement that is involved with electoral politics to
from falling prey to the temptations and corrupting influence of that
involvement (e.g. Wayne Allyn Root). It's kind of a Catch-22 though,
because to get that support from the larger movement, I think the LP
must be more visibly concerned with the vitality and progress of the
movement as a whole, and less narrowly concerned with its own success.
But on a brighter note, let me echo Marcy's sentiments that we here
in the LPSF don't consider you an outsider!
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
" The continued progress of a social movement may depend on the
movement’s being recognized as a movement."
-Daniel B. Klein, Santa Clara University
The New Hampshire Libertarian Party is in the middle of its 2nd petition ever to get the party itself on the ballot. The national LP is mostly paying for it.
Thanks for bringing that up, Richard. The national money is about to
run out; we have about the total number of petitions needed (over
13,000), but of course we expect to need more as not every petition will
be valid (we anticipate 80%). If anyone wants to contribute to LPNH,
now would be a good time. (-: