Colleagues,
Let me state at the beginning that I have a bias here. I'm a fan of
Wayne
Root. I supported his campaign for the Presidential nomination at the
beginning and all the way through the convention. I thought he was a
better
candidate than Bob Barr and I still believe that's true.
Regarding Craig Thomas' question - and by the way, it's been ages
since I
last saw you; I hope you're doing well - "Are any of these assertions
from
Nolan untrue or incorrect?":
Well, certainly some of the statements from Nolan's proposed
resolution are
incorrect and much of the rest is just plain irrelevant.
1) Let's start with the very first sentence, "Whereas Congressman Bob
Barr
obtained the Libertarian Party's Presidential nomination by holding
out the
prospects of tens of millions of dollars in campaign funding and as
much as
five percent of the popular vote for President"
Bob Barr certainly did state during an exuberant moment at the
convention
banquet that he believed he could raise tens of millions of dollars
and
reach record vote totals, but that was AFTER he won the nomination.
There is no evidence that I've ever seen that he ever said anything
remotely
like this prior to the nomination, though it wouldn't surprise me if
his
supporters promoted the idea. I have not yet met a nominee who boldly
stated after his nomination that he expects to have a poor campaign
and it's
easy to start to believe your own adoring fans.
2) "Specific shortcomings of the Barr/Root campaign which contributed
to its
failure to achieve its stated goals and disqualify it from receiving
any
financial aid from the Libertarian National Committee."
I have no clue what David Nolan is stating here. The only financial
aid the
LNC can afford to provide to our Presidential campaigns is support for
ballot access, which is a hell of a lot of money. We also lend to
them the
use of some of our staff.
3) "The Barr /Root campaign went to great lengths to avoid using the
word
"Libertarian" wherever possible."
Yes, that's true, as did the nominees of the other parties avoid the
use of
their party labels. The major party candidates all attempt to appeal
to the
undecided, independent swing voters. Unfortunately, shouting from the
hilltops that we're Libertarian (or Democrat or Republican) does not
get
anyone to actually listen to what you have to say.
4) "The Barr/Root campaign raised more than $1.3 million in
contributions,
but spent almost nothing on advertising to the voting public. Campaign
staffers were paid inflated salaries; money was spent on refurbishing
Bob
Barr's Atlanta offices; "political consultants" were paid at least
$100,000;
$19,000 was spent on limousines. But almost nothing was spent on
promoting
Barr or the Libertarian Party via paid broadcast or print
advertising."
Of course, money gets spent on consultants. These are the folks who
spend a
short period of time not handling their normal jobs so that they can
take on
a grueling campaign.
As far as money being spent on limousines, many taxi and shuttle
companies
have the name "limo" in their names. You can't tell from a campaign
finance
report how the money was actually spent by only looking at the name
of the
vendor. And, sometimes a limo is the most economical way for a large
group
to travel. I was in Philadelphia at a training conference a couple of
months ago and I had to get from the training facility to the
airport. A
half-dozen of us with our luggage took a limo rather than get into
two or
three separate cabs. That had to cut the cost per person by at least
a
third.
The comment on not spending money on paid broadcast or print
advertising is
simply ignorant. You simply can't effectively run a national paid
advertising campaign on a $1 million shoe-string budget. Given the
amount
of campaign funds available, you're much better off spending that
money
trying to get earned media through radio talk shows and television
shows,
which is precisely what the campaign did. If they had attempted to
spend
their meager funds on advertising, even fewer people would have
gotten the
message.
5) "Some petitioners were not paid for services rendered, leaving the
LNC in
the embarrassing position of being dunned by those petitioners."
That's simply false. No one is dunning the LNC for anything related
to the
Barr campaign.
6) "When TV personality Stephen Colbert interviewed Bob Barr shortly
after
he received the nomination and asked why previous Libertarian
candidates had
not received higher vote totals, Barr replied that "The Libertarian
Party
has never had a good candidate before" - thus insulting Ron Paul and
all of
our previous Presidential candidates."
For folks who haven't seen it, the Colbert Report is a comedy show.
Most
everything you say on his program had better be entertaining and
tongue-in-cheek if you ever want to get on the program again.
7) "In September, Barr agreed to participate in a press conference
organized
by Ron Paul, but failed to show up. This understandably enraged Dr.
Paul and
led to his eventually endorsing fringe candidate Chuck Baldwin for
President. As a result, the enthusiasm and potential financial
support of
Dr. Paul's thousands of avid supporters were lost."
Ron Paul is a unique phenomenon, which won't likely be repeated and is
certainly not transferable to any other candidate. His endorsement
of Chuck
Baldwin did nothing for him and it would have done nothing for us.
Was the campaign poorly run? Sure, but poorly run Libertarian
Presidential
campaigns seem to be the norm, rather than the exception. Would I
have run
the campaign differently? Absolutely! For example, I would have not
focused on battle-ground states; I would have focused on the states
where
there was no question as to which candidate was going to win that
state's
electoral votes.
That said, I will give them credit for their successful media
coverage,
which was stellar compared to most of our candidates. Our VP
candidate
alone got more media coverage than all of our previous VP candidates
combined, and more than many previous Presidential nominees. And in
terms
of votes as a percentage of the voting population, the campaign
performed as
well as any of our better performing campaigns, with the exception of
the Ed
Clark campaign.
So, should the LNC pass resolutions condemning our Presidential
candidates
for running disappointing campaigns? Only if we believe in the
usefulness
of circular firing squads.
Aaron Starr
Treasurer
Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
(805) 583-3308 Home
(805) 404-8693 Mobile
starrcpa@...