From the Boston Tea Party —
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
07/09/08
POC Thomas L. Knapp
[email protected]
314-750-6993
BOSTON TEA PARTY ADDS AFFILIATES, ENDORSES CANDIDATES
CYBERSPACE — The Boston Tea Party, America’s new libertarian political alternative, is on the move. Since the beginning of June, the Internet-based political party has nominated a presidential ticket, chartered affiliate parties in eight states, and is now in the process of endorsing candidates in states where it lacks its own down-ticket ballot access.
The party’s first slate of candidate endorsements includes Phil Rhodes for Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina and Morey Straus for State Representative in New Hampshire. Both candidates are running on the Libertarian Party’s ballot line in their states.
Also endorsed is the party’s only sitting elected public official, Jim Y. Casarjian-Perry. Casarjian-Perry, a Town Meeting Representative in Billerica, Massachusetts, is seeking election to the town’s planning board.
“As a new party, we have our hands full seeking ballot access for the presidential ticket and building active organizations in the states this year,” says Boston Tea Party chair Jim Davidson of Lawrence, Kansas. “Endorsing qualified independents and candidates of other parties is a win-win proposition — it helps us build the party and it hopefully helps those candidates gain additional support for their efforts.”
The party’s national committee expects to endorse additional candidates between now and the November general election. The party requires candidates seeking its endorsement to certify that they support the party’s one-sentence platform: “The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope and power of government at any level, for any purpose.”
The party’s presidential candidate, Charles Jay of Florida, will appear on the November ballot in Colorado. The party expects to achieve ballot access in several additional states. It has recently chartered affiliate organizations in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas.
-30-
about 300 words
BOSTON TEA PARTY WEB SITE:
http://www.bostontea.us
JIM Y. CASARJIAN PERRY FOR BILLERICA PLANNING BOARD:
http://casarjianperry.com/
MOREY STRAUS FOR NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE REPRESENTATIVE
http://vote.stra.us
PHIL RHODES FOR NORTH CAROLINA LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
http://www.philrhodes2008.com/
Above “darren” seems to think we formed the Boston Tea Party this year. Actually, the party was formed in 2006, mostly as a response to the LP eviscerating its platform. This is the first year we’re running candidates for president and vice president, and I’m very proud of the gentlemen chosen for those nominations. We’re also endorsing candidates from other parties who are interested in reducing the size and scope of government.
It would be my pleasure to see the party endorse, say, George Phillies who is running for president in New Hampshire as a Libertarian Party candidate. I think he and Chris Bennett are on the ballot in Massachusetts as Pres/VP. Again, I would have no difficulty seeing an endorsement by our party.
Obviously, rather a large number of libertarians have left the LP since 1998 when I stopped paying dues to the national party. I was upset by corruption at the national party then. I know that Charles Jay was sufficiently disappointed in the party in 2004 to form the Personal Choice Party. Tom Knapp was adequately disappointed in 2006 to form the Boston Tea Party. This year, 170 people have joined our Facebook group, and 155 have joined our party on the national site http://www.bostontea.us/ while the LP continues to shed members.
The LP is shrinking, and the Boston Tea Party is growing. By the time I leave office in October, it is my goal to have party affiliates in all 50 states, DC, and some of the territories. We’re now on the ballot in Colorado and we filed on Friday to be officially recognised in Florida.
Party loyalty is like patriotism. It is the last refuge of scoundrels. I’m disgusted by it.
Marzullo – If anyone’s a “turncoat,” it is the “libertarians” who supported a statist-conservative anti-capitalist drug-warmonger and homophobe for our party’s nomination.
If you read the article you are commenting on, you would know that many notable LP candidates are endorsing the BTP platform and excepting the BTP’s endorsement for their candidacy. Are Morey Strauss and Phil Rhodes turncoats? No. They are loyal to the LP, but holding themselves to a higher standard of libertarianism by endorsing the BTP’s platform as well:
Joseph,
You write:
“Exactly how I felt about Mary Ruwart”
… and you therefore presumably did not support her campaign. That’s how it works.
“BTP are just LP trncoat bastards, they shouldn’t ever be allowed back in”
This statement relies on several assumptions, some of them flatly false, and some of them highly debatable.
The first assumption is that BTPers have left the LP (if they haven’t left, they wouldn’t nee to be “allowed back in”). In point of fact, many BTPers remain members of the LP and some of them (including two of the three endorsed candidates above, and myself) are running for office on the LP ticket.
The second is that switching parties, or attempting dual party loyalty, is “turncoatism.”
It’s interesting to hear that from someone yelling “Barr 2008,” given that Bob Barr came to the LP from another party, and supported that party’s candidates well into his tenure as a member of the Libertarian National Committee, and indeed even well into the very year that he declared his candidacy for the LP’s 2008 presidential nomination.
I also find it interesting that I seldom if ever hear the word “turncoat” used by Barr supporters to describe:
– former LP presidential nominee (and before and after that, Republican congresscritter) Ron Paul;
– former LP presidential nominee (and before that, “fusion” LP/GOP Alaska state legislator) Andre Marrou,;
– 2000 LP presidential nomination candidate (and before that, “fusion” LP/GOP New Hampshire state legislator) Don Gorman;
– 1976 LP presidential candidate (and before that, Republican legislator and “faithless elector) Roger Lea McBride.
Furthermore, the very concept of turncoatism relies on the assumption that some particular manifestation of loyalty is owed the LP by those being accused of it. You might have a point if the people involved serve in some office of fiduciary duty in the LP with which their BTP membership is in conflict.
Regular members, however, don’t owe their support to the LP or its candidates any more than they owe their votes to one of the two “officially approved” party candidates. Political support has to be earned by parties and candidates, and whether or not it has been is entirely a subjective judgment on the part of the person being asked for that support.
Finally, you seem to regard support for the BTP and/or its candidates and support for the LP and/or its candidates as mutually exclusive. This is plainly incorrect, and I’m living proof of it. I’m the BTP’s national VP nominee, yet last weekend I helped hang about 300 LP brochures featuring Bob Barr — one on every door in my town. I also campaigned in the congressional district I’m running in, and helped another LP candidate campaign in the congressional district she’s running in.
What did you do for the LP last weekend — or ever — except piss and moan about those mean old Boston Tea Party people?
Thomas,
“You are persistent in claiming that political parties should offer you their support, but you don’t seem to be willing to offer anything of substance in return for that support.”
Exactly how I felt about Mary Ruwart 🙂
Bob Barr 2008!
BTP are just LP trncoat bastards, they shouldn’t ever be allowed back in, and they should be verbally humiliated at every opportunity. ciao
Robert,
“The BTP” can’t help anyone get on any ballots, since it is forbidden by its own bylaws to raise/spend significant money.
The ticket has to get ITSELF on ballots, or be put on those ballots by state affiliates that can, and choose, to raise money to make that happen.
So far, you’ve demonstrated no ability to raise the money to put yourself on ballots, or to motivate state-based groups to put you on the ballot. Do you think that having the BTP put a tiara on your head would somehow have magically changed that?
Did you look into the ballot access requirements for your own state — requirements which are fairly minimal — and attempt to put together an effort for ballot access there that you could have touted to the BTP as proof of your ability to campaign? That would have been an obvious way to lever yourself up onto the same plane as Charles Jay, who had prior proven ability to get on the ballot as a 2004 candidate.
You are persistent in claiming that political parties should offer you their support, but you don’t seem to be willing to offer anything of substance in return for that support.
Even a party that doesn’t expect to win has goals and objectives … and you continually assert that parties should sacrifice their goals and objectives in preference to your goals and objectives. What are you offering in return for that sacrifice, other than a “plan for victory” that has no basis in fact, reality or history?
I say here what I’ve said many times before. The best use of BTP would have been to help my independent candidacy to form a fusion ticket & get on as many ballots as possible. then coordinate the downticket vote to elect Libs & greens. But no. So now it is what it is, whatever that is.
The LP approached being a real political party most closely in the late 1990s.
So the Libertarian Party finally decides to be a real political party and immediately the members who liked the debating society go off to form their own political party? Either they will preach to the choir and go nowhere as they did in the LP for years, or they will moderate their rhetoric as the Libertarian Party just did. Either way, what does this serve other than Naderizing the LP?