Paulie’s opening note: I am sure that some people will call this selection of opinions one-sided. It is not meant to be; that is just what I am finding online. “The other side” is certainly welcome to comment, and will receive coverage.

GEORGE PHILLIES

The LNC adopted a budget.

There will be staff cuts. The dollar number I appeared to be seeing on the computer screen display seemed to say that these cuts would be significant. The treasurer gave a ‘point at numbers on a spreadsheet’ display on a screen, rather than a prepared separate presentation so numbers were hard to read. It appeared to me that the cut was by an eighth or so.

There is no money for ballot access.

Money for adwords ads got dropped.

LP News will come out quarterly, so far as I could tell.

Almost now money appeared to be budgeted for doing politics.

There is no money to hire an Executive Director.

I thought the income estimate may turn out to be optimistic.

There is a lot of spending for membership recruitment and fundraising. It was shown that recruiting members by letter, as done under Project Archimedes, is appallingly expensive, namely something like $80 or 90 per member, and based on attrition and donations, it takes something like 6 years if I heard correctly to recover that money based on donations.

Web recruiting is appreciably cheaper. Stuart Flood proposed that the costs charged to web recruitment rather than web outreach are low, but web recruitment is still cheaper than direct mail.

The party will spend up to $15,000 in a lawsuit against the Washington top two primary system.

In public comments at the end, I reminded the LNC they were spending the plurality of the money in the Libertarian Political movement, and suggested that if there were no product there would be issues with future support.

The Acting Executive Director proposed that because LNC members were volunteers that they should sign the normal volunteer confidentiality form. Flood noted that the form contradicted his other agreement with the LNC. About 6 or 8 members made clear they would not sign. He also said he was not sharing information with the at-large members or regional representatives.

There were 6 votes against adopting the budget, so the budget was adopted only if it was limited to the pages mailed in advance.

It appears that if you want to give to ballot access, for example for the six ballot access drives that can be pursued today, you can give to your own state, or you can send money to Freedom Ballot Access http://freedomballotaccess.com

CHUCK MOULTON

It’s my understanding that from a legal and FEC standpoint the presidential campaign and the vice-presidential campaign are merged.

I think the LNC should consult Bill Hall about whether the LNC could contract to get the list from Root, then fund a Root lawsuit against Barr/Verney for access to the list. It may be a cheaper way than $250,000 to achieve the desired result.

MICHAEL H. WILSON

How much money an LNC member raises is just one of many things they should be doing. And from my perspective one of the lesser. Much more important is putting into place a system for fund raising that last long after these individual members are long gone from the committee. I would much rather see that tool developed than any particular member raising money. $10,000 from one person may be impressive to some, but I would much rather have ten dollars each from a 1000 people once a month.

LIDIA SEEBECK

Today has been SO frustrating. I was seriously stressing out up here.

I’m seriously debating leaving the LP. If I do, I will not join the BTP. I might maintain an L voter registration, or I might revert to a DTS status.

If any LNC members actually read this. Listen up.

Today’s debacle post-lunch was heinous. Over an hour, and you couldn’t even make a decent decision. Meanwhile we have top-two laws threateing our ballot access, and this points out a need to quickly establish legislative analysis as a priority in all states and federally. Meanwhile infrastructure is crumbling, the economy is shattering, property and privacy laws, and the Obama administration is already showing socialist colors which bodes just really badly for the Torch of Liberty.

Other than the call for “lobbying” (and how can you effectively lobby that which you have not analyzed completely and carefully?) today was a bunch of internal blather, very little of which was truly necessary.

From a perspective of a Rad who is decidedly a prog-libertarian by alignment, I feel sidelined. I feel like all these discussions are actively preventing people from being effective in ACTION. Having to spend time on this matter is keeping me away from the budget discussion in Sacto, and believe me when I say that I’d actually rather be listening to the California Channel right now. Yep, you guys are even less mature and less capable than the pols in Sacto. Yes, that’s a b****slap. Yes, I’m swearing a little. I’m that mad.

Spread this around. You’re in danger of losing two activists and two precious legislative analysts if you persevere in petty internal manure rather than getting back on track to move policy in a libertarian direction. You only do THAT via action.

MATT HARRIS

The presidential and vice-presidential campaigns are not exactly “merged”. The case is that there is a single committee formed for the general election in most cases. It is a committee to elect the president, since the vice president is not elected seperately any longer (I believe it was the 12th amendment that changed this.)

If a candidacy for elected office has a committee, then the treasurer of the committee files with the FEC. This is almost always the case. The reporting threshhold for the FEC for PACs is $1000 per calendar year. I don’t know the specifics for a candidate for public office committee, and it is different from that of a PAC, but I would say it’s generally going to be safe to assume that by the time a candidacy has raised or spent enough money to cross the threshhold, a committee with a treasurer probably exists by that point. Not always true, but usually. If a committee with a treasurer does not exist, the candidate may file for themselves.

Root’s access to/right to sell the Barr campaign’s list would be governed solely by contracts between Root and the Barr campaign. If the Barr campaign gave Wayne Root unfettered access to their lists without having a contract to govern what he may and may not do with such lists, then… well, that’s the case, and he can most likely do virtually whatever he wants with them.

That kind of seems unlikely, but even if he was under contract not to release/sell them and gave them to the LNC anyway, the liability would rest with Root himself if he were to breach that contract. Now, there could be some whacky legal wrangling in terms of IP law – going into trade secrets and whatnot, however I’m just not familiar with the case law (if there is any) on that subject, so someone else will have to research it if that becomes an issue. It’d be interesting to see, though, since I have a passing interest in IP law as well.

VIRTUAL GALT

I think it’s OK for the LNC to publish the extent of a committee member’s fundraising, provided they also publish a summary of the member’s other activities on behalf of liberty/LP/etc. Examples:

How many state party meetings in their region did they attend?
How many lobbying contacts with state/federal legislatures?
Accessibility to membership — do they have a blog or other means of getting membership input?
How many LNC meetings did they attend?
How many articles/LTEs published identifying them as LNC member?

CHUCK MOULTON

I’ve updated the roll call votes chart.

If anyone could tell me which LNC alternates attended the meeting, I’d appreciate it.

http://www.chuckmoulton.org/libertarian/2010/voting/

MICHAEL H. WILSON

There is so much to do and so little getting done. The top two fight. The poor literature package we have. The lack of timely and thoughtful news releases. The now slimmed down LP News. One could go on and on. Instead we have these games being played by a couple of boys on the LNC claiming to prove that they are the moral leadership of the committee, or something like that.

A couple of them need to apologize to the others for wasting their time and money on this nonsense. Then they need to apologize to the rest of us.

Quite frankly this is an insult to the many hardworking people in this party and there are some on the committee who put time and money into getting the word out. Does one laugh, or cry at this point?

PAULIE CANNOLI

10:07paulie_cannoli:If anyone is good at drawing…liberty spanking justice
10:07paulie_cannoli:Or the other way around

MIKE SEEBECK (Twitter Feed)

TeaSeebeck: Andy again, wanting credit Paulie for candidate web stuff

ANGELA KEATON (Twitter Feed, since then removed from public view but available in IPR comments by Paulie) [at this same point]

Crayzee Andy again

NOTE: As far as I know this error was never corrected in the LNC minutes.

VINDEX

Root didn’t know that interview was being recorded?

Excerpt:
Root: And I’d be willing to bet every dime I have in the world, a million dollars I’ll put, I’ll put a million dollars cash on the fact—
Welch: This is on the record—
Root: —that my GPA was better than Barack’s—
Welch: Oooooh.
Root: …and he got in based on the color of his skin.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/128461.html

GENE TROSPER

I have to say, my opinion of Root has changed somewhat. I view him much more kindly that I used to.

CHRIS BENNETT

I won’t be satisfied until Root apologizes for the racist Obama statement.

STEVE MEIER

The Libertarian Part of Florida passed a resolution condemning the LNC action against Angela. The Alabama Libertarian Party did nothing. This (Alabama football loss) was gods way of showing her displeasure.

Stewart,

I apologize to all the white male Christian Alabama fans.

KEATON (Twitter Feed)

Haugh spit up laughing threads that insist that Starr was polite when he rejected my advances.

KIDDLEDEE

Paulie, thanks for keeping up with this.

PAULIE

Don’t thank me – thank Sean Haugh that I don’t have a real (as in paying) job right now

JIM DAVIDSON

Very glad to see Hogarth on the platform committee. Very disappointed to see Holtz is still breathing his fetid ideas.

JOHN FAMULARO

Perhaps they could appoint a second committee to draft a motion regarding her refusal to cooperate with the first committee.

WALDO (non-LPer friend of Steve Newton at Delaware Libertarian)

I dunno Angela Keaton from Adam’s housecat, but Jesus fucking Christ, you nominate Bob Barr and that nitwit Root and you’re worried about the image and reputation of the party? Fuck all.

CHRIS NC

I believe that the parallel to Bob Barr is most damning. Flood himself declined the opportunity to fill that regional rep seat (as he is certainly entitled to do), allowing Bob Barr to join the LP and immediately ascend to its interconvention governing body. This is the same Bob Barr who continued to raise funds for Republican candidates, even when they had Libertarian opponents. Where is Flood’s concern about BARR’s “fiduciary responsibility” of loyalty to the party?

BRIAN MILLER

So really, this entire affair is a proxy battle for a larger question:

Is the Libertarian Party a mental masturbation vehicle for a small connected clique to feel important and expel those it deems troublesome, or is it a political party that comments on real issues and is accountable to its membership?

CHUCK MOULTON

George Donnelly wrote:

Reformers are eager to get rid of a radical.

You seem to be painting with a wide brush. I see no evidence of this allegation. The Reform movement at reformthelp.org believes in big tent libertarianism which is inclusive of radicals.

Most of the prominent reformers that I know (e.g., Brian Holtz) want to compete in the marketplace of ideas with respect to strategy, not silence their opposition. This reminds me of an experience at the Federalist Society national lawyers convention, which I attended recently. During a panel on judicial conflicts of interest, a staffer of Russ Feingold, who was sponsoring a bill imposing dollar limits on educational sessions for judges, read a hypothetical where George Soros paid a billion dollars for judicial retreats in Aruba to train judges on how to be more liberal. Someone stood up and said “Is your Soros hypothetical supposed to scare us? Liberals can spend whatever they want. We will win in the free market of ideas, not by silencing our opposition.” The whole audience stood up and applauded.

Many people seem to misuse the word “reformers” to apply to purist conservative ideologues. It is unfortunate that this misuse of term continues to propagate. There may be purist conservative ideologues who want Angela off the LNC, but I would not put Stewart Flood in that group.

MIK ROBERTSON

George (Donnelly),

You should be representing Ms. Keaton at the meeting. It would be much more helpful than various state affiliates making demands or vague threats of disaffiliation. Issues have been raised and they must be addressed so the committee can move on. The George Phillies “defense” of Ms. Keaton is the equivalent of the speeder pulled over and telling the officer that others were going as fast or faster than they were.

JEN SCHULTZ

Sounds like Flood’s basic reason for being upset is that she has been openly harshly critical of the LNC, and was not a cheerleader for the Barr campaign. I am not sure that open negativity of an organization is necessarily good for the general morale, but it should be up to the general membership to decide whether to remove her prematurely, not the LNC, since they have more of a potential for conflict of interest. Anyway, the charges seem a bit nit-picky, as if Flood is trying to grab anything he can hold onto to make his case. Perhaps the LNC just needs to learn to all get along and address her concerns instead of encouraging pointless drama.

MARC MONTONI

George (Donnelly),

Radicals aren’t exactly rallying to her defense, at least not the three leaders of the radical caucus.

If you’re including me in that comment, I haven’t “rallied” to any great extent because 1) I’ve been doing a lot of vacationing with my family since Nov 5th; 2) what little free time I’ve had at home has been consumed by data-entry work (address corrections, calendar additions, entering contributions, etc) in my duties as Secretary of the Libertarian Party of Virginia; and 3) assembling / editing a couple of articles destined for the next issue of Virginia Liberty.

In short, attempting to something for the LP.

I am satisfied that the hot lens of intense scrutiny over this that’s been focused on the LNC will ultimately encourage any fence-sitters on the LNC to bury the Keaton motion and move on. I see that the matter has already been deep-sixed to a committee.

My opinion is that Angela should stay on the LNC. I also agree that there are other LNC members who have at least as much, or more, to answer for than she does.

I share Paulie Cannoli’s Paulie Cannoli’s disappointment on the lack of any decisions of substance/productivity today:

7:03paulie_cannoli:And they just punted the mission statement too. Did they actually get anything done yet today?

These LNC meetings cost big bucks. I saw one estimate that each one costs $30k in time, materials, hotel fees, transportation, lodging, opportunity cost, etc. Yet for all that, nothing particularly forward-looking has even been discussed, much less accomplished, yet this weekend. Has the weekend’s events bought us $30,000 worth of progress for the LP or libertarianism? Or even $10,000?

They could be discussing whether/how to introduce new web capabilities to get more buy-in from members, such as your idea for a my.LP.org interface.

There are ballot drives coming up; and as I recall, there are one or two that would get us status for four years (so they will be good for the next presidential campaign) which we could start on now. Are they decising on a plan for those?

There could be a project begun today to mail/phone/email the national membership list now to recruit candidates for any states that have elections next year. Is that on the Agenda?

There could be a project to identify upcoming rallies and protests that have an “in” for LP outreach — such as the “End the Fed” rallies that the LP mostly missed as a venue for outreach. I don’t see anything like that either.

The LP is in the hole. One way to get out of it is to stop making large swaths of the donor base angry. Another way to get out of it is to raise more money. The LP needs to stop running with its legs in a potato sack.

Every activity is an excuse to raise money. The LNC should be concentrating on finding new ways of raising money and recruiting more new donors. Activities not in compliance with that general rule should be swept off the table with extreme prejudice. I hope the LNC collectively sees that it must turn its focus on expansion — tomorrow and at subsequent meetings.

Angela Keaton has not damaged the LP. While I agree with you (George) that a couple of the charges have merit, many LNC decisions over the last several years have done a lot more damage than anything Angela has done.

Thanks to everyone for all the efforts to get the LNC meeting into the sunshine.

DONNY FERGUSON

Actually they [Barr campaign] need to hold onto the names until the debt is paid and it’s a common practice. Many campaigns pay off their debts by renting their lists. I’m already getting DNC, Obama and other liberal requests for donations under name I donated to Hillary under because she’s renting her list to pay off her debts.

If they were to turn it over to the Party before the debt is paid, it would devalue the list and make them unable to pay overdue invoices, which hurts vendors and the employees who work for them.

STEVE MEIER

George,

I wonder what value that list is. How much does it differ from four years ago? If it does differ, sure people move, how much of the list are disenfranchised republicans that wouldn’t likely make the philosophical move to the Libertarian Party?

Lidia,

Yes this silly dance was frustrating. But, let me echo George Donnelly. This act of broadcasting the LNC meeting actually makes me feel better about the party. While the key issue was essentially a waste of time, the manner of the meeting seemed in compliance with the party rules. The party could easily contribute to this by enabling such broadcasts in the future.

I think, Lidia, that this storm might prove beneficial for the party. If there is common grounds between the radicals and the reformers it is a desire for transparency. If the two sides can cooperate on making the party transparent they could start working together on other common issues. People that I have had heated discussions with in the past, were making statements, today, about this issue, that I basically agreed with and they were acknowledging that though they hated to admit it they knew they were in agreement with “the other side”.

My Lists:

The winners:

Wayne Allen Root: He gives a high energy speach. He has work to do to win over the more radical branch of the party but if he spends the next three years working libertarian event he will be a hard force to stop.

Michael Jingozian: In a win situation Michael is the one who comes up with a way to defuse a volatile situation. In a situation where the two main factions were sharpening their knives for a vicious fight, Michael provided the escape path. He might be a quite guy, but at least somebody looks and acts like they are thinking.

Keven Takenaga: The well publicized expected meeting fight that drew a live Internet broadcast gave Keven a chance to give a nationally viewed speech to the libertarian party. In that his speech was moved right before the Keaton action you can be sure that every watching for the main event saw Keven. Keven delivered his speech about the state of the California Libertarian Party with his typical soft spoken competence.

The Looser:

Stewart Flood: Against a back ground of laughter around the absurdity of his contrived case Stewart, was in a no win situation and if it hadn’t been for the quick thinking of Michael Jingozian, Stewart would have created a massive train wreck of the Libertarian Party and the relationship between the Nation Committee and many of the state organizations. What will likely remain in viewers minds is Stewart getting angry as the audience became more amused.

Those that could not sink or swim were just there to float:

Angela Keaton: She survived. She is still an LNC member. But the motion has been shuttled off to a committee hopefully to let it dissolve in obscurity. But without a clear cut vote in her favor she also hasn’t been cleared.

Bill Redpath: I have sympathies for Mr Redpath. No one wants to find themselves at the helm of a boat headed for an iceberg with half the crew rowing towards the left and the other half rowing towards the right and both sides quite ready to stop rowing and hit each other with their oars in an attempt to dislodge them from the boat. Like Mr Flood, the motion to move this dispute to a committee allowing neither side a win allowed the boat to sat least momentarily avoid the destruction.

LIDIA SEEBECK

Cohen’s comments about Kevin aside, I rather respect Kevin. I think he comes across so soft as to seem timid and afraid to a Westerner, but Kevin has some definite Japanese acculturation and his way is very Asian in that regard. He will never be a high-pressure salesman but he is quietly competent and is willing to listen to good ideas.

I have a very difficult time with Root. He is Kevin’s opposite, the ultimate high-pressure guy. He’s got energy but does he have self-discipline and enough of a scholarly bent to understand economics and other difficult subjects? He is so raw around many edges, and his consistency has sometimes been lacking.

I consider Jingo to be something of an unknown, but he quietly impresses many he meets, including Mike apparently. So he might be basically an okay guy.

I think we here all know what I think of Angela. ‘Nuff said.

I no longer respect either Redpath or Flood. Period. They are perpetuating the baloney that is at the source of my anger.

OK….probably enough for now