Hi Aubrey and All,
The most significant thing that stuck in my mind from the Yolo Conference was the strategy of the "elevator speech." Such messages need to be concise, clear, and uniform. I am proposing when we have room on the agenda, at a meeting after we decide on the ballot arguments, that we give the Rand Paul question some time. The issues here are that 1) we do not want to go along with him that he is a libertarian, 2) we do not want him to bleed the liberty-leaning donors dry way before our real Libertarian candidate comes along, 3) we want to encourage Christian Right Republicans to love him, which would not be hard to do given the bill he has introduced to declare that life begins at conception, 4) we want to clarify the huge differences between him and Ron Paul, 5) we do not want him to dilute the identity of the Libertarian Party.
My suggestion that we address the Rand Paul question is aimed at those of us who truly view the LPSF as a political party. My suggestion is not addressed to those of us who avoid "wasting votes" by choosing the most prominent somewhat liberty-leaning candidates.
Just to make sure I was not inadvertently going against some plan from on high, I got the view on this subject from the new Chair of the national LP. See his email below.
Marcy
Marcy:
Have you appointed or elected to be the Libertarian Dictator? Will people whose views do not entirely agree with yours have to leave the party? I understand what your saying, but...........my view is that such doctrinal purity will doom the Libertarian Party to irrelevance. Many Libertarians think our message will have broad appeal. I don't think so. Some people will agree on some and some will agree on other issues, but few will swallow the whole platform. We are wasting our time if we insist on doctrinal purity.
This is not to say that support Rand Paul.
Les
Hi Aubrey and All,
The most significant thing that stuck in my mind from the Yolo Conference was the strategy of the "elevator speech." Such messages need to be concise, clear, and uniform. I am proposing when we have room on the agenda, at a meeting after we decide on the ballot arguments, that we give the Rand Paul question some time. The issues here are that 1) we do not want to go along with him that he is a libertarian, 2) we do not want him to bleed the liberty-leaning donors dry way before our real Libertarian candidate comes along, 3) we want to encourage Christian Right Republicans to love him, which would not be hard to do given the bill he has introduced to declare that life begins at conception, 4) we want to clarify the huge differences between him and Ron Paul, 5) we do not want him to dilute the identity of the Libertarian Party.
My suggestion that we address the Rand Paul question is aimed at those of us who truly view the LPSF as a political party. My suggestion is not addressed to those of us who avoid "wasting votes" by choosing the most prominent somewhat liberty-leaning candidates.
Just to make sure I was not inadvertently going against some plan from on high, I got the view on this subject from the new Chair of the national LP. See his email below.
Marcy
From: chair@lp.org
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 06:26:46 -0600
Subject: Re: Your strategy for 2016 is?
To: amarcyb@hotmail.com
CC: carla.howell@lp.org
Dear Ms. Berry,
Thank you for contacting me and sharing your thoughts. One of the
commitments I made when running for Chair was to deal with Senator
Paul and the threat to the Libertarian brand that he represents. When
the Washington Post referred to him in passing as "one of us," I
submitted the following letter to the editor (which they did not
publish):
In yesterday’s Washington Post article, “Meet Sean Haugh”, the writer
refers to Kentucky Republican US Senator Rand Paul as “one of our
own”.
Senator Paul is not “one of us”, he is not a Libertarian, he is a Republican.
He has campaigned for Republicans against Libertarians in the past and
I expect he will continue to do so in the future.
He said he is not a Libertarian in an interview in May, 2013 that was
noted in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-rand-paul-aggressively-courting-evangelicals-to-win-over-gop-establishment/2013/05/12/d917ccb4-b8af-11e2-b94c-b684dda07add_story.html
Sincerely,
Nicholas Sarwark
Chair
Libertarian National Committee
As Chair, I intend to keep emphasis on what Libertarians actually
believe and draw
the contrast between those beliefs and what the
Democrats and Republicans stand for. I also intend to address Senator
Paul directly, by creating a website that compares and contrasts
Libertarian positions with his, but that effort will likely have to
wait until after the November elections.
Yours in liberty,
Nick
> Hello Nicholas,
>
> Allow me to share a recent vignette. I recently attended a conference hosted
> by local Libertarians (yes, big "L"). One of the panelists mentioned Rand
> Paul as if Paul were one of "us." That mention, coupled with the fact that
> Paul is at present in Silicon Valley sealing contributions from the
> lucrative tech industry prompts me to write inquiring of you, what is the
> Libertarian Party's strategy, if any, to counter Rand Paul's poaching all
> the registered Libertarians he can find.
>
> I have no quarrel with Rand Paul for being a Republican, since I campaigned
> tirelessly and joyously for Ron Paul in 2008. I have no quarrel with Rand
> Paul for being smart and figuring out that his Dad's success, at least in
> California, was largely due to the enormous contingent of big "L"
> Libertarians like myself.
>
> I do have a serious quarrel with the inaction of the Libertarian Party. I
> was expecting that delegates at the recent LP Convention would move the
> Libertarian presidential candidate choosing back to where it was before it
> was changed to occur at the last minute before U.S. presidential elections
> take place. I keep expecting the LP to mount a campaign
informing the
> public that Rand Paul is no Ron Paul. Nothing so far.
>
> I realize that as is the case in my own LP chapter, finding volunteers to
> keep on top of situations is a challenge. However, since I can find time to
> do some clarifying of the Rand Paul situation with friends and on social
> media, I expect the National Libertarian Party to so something as well.
> Hopefully, the reason for the Libertarian inaction is not the desire that
> Rand Paul would see the light and run on the Libertarian ticket, since that
> would be akin to hoping for a second coming.
>
> Regards,
>
> Amarcy D. Berry
> 508 Gonzalez Drive
> San Francisco, CA 94132
>
> Member of the national LP and of the Libertarian Party of San
Francisco
Hi Les,
First, I believe it might be better if we kept calm and not resorted to name calling. Secondly, I emphasize that I asked that the subject be placed on the agenda for discussion and vote, and that the points I note are the ones I, as a member just like you, suggest we discuss. Obviously, if after discussion, the vote is for LPSF not to get involved, not to follow the strategy suggested by the "elevator speech" I mentioned, to leave it up to each LPSF member to give a different official position of the LPSF view on the subject, or even not to have any "official" position on subjects at all, that is perfectly fine with me. Not a problem at all.
Les and All, because I am particularly thick headed, I do keep trying to elicit from this group some sort of vision or objective as to where we want to go specifically. It was especially painful for me to see how successful the Yolo county LP has been in their interactions with their community, and in raising funds, by being a cohesive group. Had Yolo been closer in distance to San Francisco I would have requested to join their group in a heartbeat!
Marcy