I’ve never called myself a “perfect” candidate, or claimed to have run a “perfect” campaign. But in 2008, I received 11,929 votes (4.37%) — 2000 more than my Green opponent, despite there now being 50% more registered Greens in our district than Libertarians, and despite her purchase of TV commercials on local cable systems. My percentage was the highest among the eight third-party candidates in four 4-way races in California for Congress or state legislature. It also broke the record (set by my 2004 total) for highest percentage ever won by a third-party candidate in my district (with data going back to 1992). In that 2004 race, my campaign was covered in a story on the national Fox News Channel, and I was interviewed on the top-rated morning news program in the nation’s 5th-largest metro.

Mr. Blanton claims he has been maligned here merely for “throwing out a whole lot of ideas about what is wrong with the LP and LP candidates”. In fact, he’s been insulting and boorish, and his only “idea” seems to be this: if Libertarians aren’t going to win office this year, then government abolitionism should be the theme of every Libertarian campaign, every year, forever.

Blanton says he has no interest in voting for a Barr or a Holtz. What he still doesn’t comprehend is that his brave and daring act of non-voting isn’t interpreted by the political world the way that he fantasizes that it is. His not voting doesn’t yell “smash the state!” It simply whimpers that he doesn’t care whether public policy moves to the left vs. to the right vs. toward freedom.

Blanton’s parting shot — if he can actually stick to his pretense of being done here — is that he’s “playing” Bob and me. But I’ve already said here that Blanton is somebody who is “staying in character”, and he’s served as a wonderful foil for me, as shown in the first paragraph of this comment.

But wait, Blanton’s not done. He asks “where’s the beef?” about my 2008 campaign site, so now I get to quote him the front-and-center positions I took that made my site more radical than that of LP anarchists like Tom Knapp, Susan Hogarth, Morey Strauss, and Dan Grow:

End subsidies for all corporations and farms
End speech limits on candidates and publishers
Abolish trade barriers and wage/hiring rules
Stop disarming and monitoring peaceful adults
End all government banking and lending
Let you control your own retirement savings
Let all healers & insurers compete freely
Let adults use any substance or medicine
Legalize all consensual adult relationships
Make schools compete for students & tuition
Defend choice in procreation and risk-taking
Oppose mandatory worship and national service
End taxes on income, production, sales, gifts
Tax only land, resource use/pollution, traffic

Seriously though, Mr. Holtz, where’s the beef? After reading #94 above, I was expecting to see some of those issues front and center.

“Democrats advocate personal freedom but legislate economic equality. Republicans advocate economic freedom but legislate personal morality. Libertarians advocate both personal freedom and economic freedom”

While winning a seat on the Soil Board is indeed quite an accomplishment, it is hard to understand why Mr. Holtz isn’t in Congress right now after looking at his hard-hitting and dynamic libertarian website.

Maybe it’s the hairdo?

In Florida Libs on such Boards have done some sexy things: http://www.libertarian-international.org/apps/blog/show/787326-us-libs-green-u-s-soil-water-boards

I see you’ve run a magnificent campaign emphasizing all the correct issues that the voters care about, according to you. Why haven’t you won? Have you ever broken 5%? How many times have you run?

If your approach is flawless and utilizes all the metrics you’ve come up with, why haven’t you won an election? I believe you have run more than once. Have you not learned anything from your experience about motivating voters? Maybe a catchy slogan would help:

Freedom in our grandchildren’s lifetime!

or

Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice.

By the way, Mr. Holtz, I do have a kid – he’s 25 years old. His first vote was for Badnarik.

So, I may end up having grandkids that will benefit from your brand of extremist moderate incrementalism 50 or 60 years from now.

I’m asked by Mr. Carpozzi:

“What do you possibly think you accomplish by name-calling?”

Absolutely nothing. Calling a non-specific candidate a chucklehead is not as bad as specifically saying:

“Blanton is simply ignorant.”

But that’s typical of the smarmy passive/aggressive LP moderates I run into – humorless suburban jackasses as far as I’m concerned.

I’ll humor you though. If you really want to learn about intra-LP and movement dysfunction, I’d suggest looking in a freakin’ mirror. Then, determine why the perfect libertarian candidate, Mr. Holtz, has never won an election.

I’ve been hanging around this website for about a week throwing out a whole lot of ideas about what is wrong with the LP and LP candidates. Apparently, I’m just mean, negative, clueless, ignorant, crazy and way out of line. I must be wrong about everything and you guys have the answers to everything except why Brian Holtz loses elections.

I’ve been a libertarian for the last 29 years and all I can tell you is the libertarian movement is creating libertarians, but the libertarian party is increasingly not filling their needs.

For the first time since 1980, I couldn’t vote for the LP nominee Barr. I see no future in the LP or in voting at all. The more moderate the LP has become, the more radical I have become. My energies and money are wasted on the LP.

I have no interest in voting for people like Barr, Root or Holtz. I consider people like Glenn Beck to be right-wing bigoted warmongers, not libertarians. And many people I know who were once LP members feel the same way.

So, Carpozzi, you figure it out. If the LP can’t attract libertarians and apparently can’t attract mainstream voters, there might be a problem. I’m tired of wasting my time talking about it. I’ll give you a clue though. Take this however you want, but I sincerely think you and your pal Brian don’t have the street smarts to know when you’re being played. The same goes for a lot of libertarians. There’s a reason that politicians and political hacks consider voters to be rubes.

As to why Brian Holtz hasn’t won any elections, I guess that’s all my fault.

me: I do recall that Tom purged himself, but he seems emblematic of a mentality that I continue to not understand. Tom, why do you use the term “chucklehead” about others with whom you disagree on some things? What do you possibly think you accomplish by namecalling? Humor me. I’d REALLY like to know. Your answer may explain a LOT of the intra-LP and movement dysfunction.

Maybe because the GOP supports regulations and bans on gambling, suicide, substance use, pornography, gay marriage, sexual services, reproductive services, and cloning? Maybe because the GOP makes no attempt to repeal laws regulating prices, minimum wages, maximum hours, equal pay, plant closure, family leave, hiring, firing, occupational licensure, insurance policies, zoning, rents, product safety, drug efficacy, fuel efficiency, pollution mitigation technology, parental media control, and media copying technology? Maybe because the GOP failed to use its legislative majority to start privatizing any of our socialized systems of education, health care, health insurance, agriculture, and retirement savings — and instead expanded Medicare to cover prescription drugs, continued to nationalize education via No Child Left Behind, and passed a trillion-dollar bailout bill?

It remains pure bullshit to claim that a non-anarchist Libertarian “looks like a Republicrat, talks like a Republicrat, sells the same tired half-measure like a Republicrat”. It remains self-delusional to say that a minarchist agenda is “trivial” and “contrived”, and anyone pushing such an agenda isn’t “honest” or “authentic”. Psychologically project much, Mr. Blanton?

Blanton thinks that the issue of education is “trivial bullshit” compared to issues like “national databases on citizens”. Maybe the anarchist Blanton doesn’t know that education consistently scores in the top 5 in polls about voters’ priorities. (What are the odds that Blanton has any kids?)

Blanton thinks that the allegedly-reformer-dominated LP doesn’t run congressional candidates who call for

• releasing non-violent offenders and actually ending drug prohibition
• ending the Fed’s monopoly on banking
• ending personhood for corporations
• talking about $56 trillion in debts and unfunded liabilities and how that is truly a crime against our own children

Blanton is simply ignorant. All of these positions have been part of each of my three congressional campaigns. In 2004:

The latest version:

I even made shirts for my kids based on the most recent one. Oh, and last October, 18 LP congressional candidates in California issued a joint press release condemning the bailouts.

It’s simply inane to say that an agenda is “about minimizing change” and “keeps things pretty much the same” when it includes

• ending all government ownership of schools
• ending all government prescriptions for anti-pollution technology
• privatizing all Social Security assets and contributions
• replacing 3,457 pages of income tax code (plus 13,458 pages of IRS regulations) with a flat tax

And those were just my examples of market-oriented incremental reforms. I never said we should renounce goals like repealing all taxation of labor, peaceful production, and voluntary exchanges.

Bob, remember that Blanton says he’s purged himself from the LP. Trying to un-purge him may not be the best use of our time.

me: Guess we’re watching a different movie, Tom. “Conformists” wouldn’t join the LP in the first place. And LP candidates select themselves. Public office nominations are almost never contested in the LP.

me: Perhaps this is the problem. What excites YOU ain’t what motivates most people, because it certainly appears that MOST people don’t want radical change, but rather a change in direction.

But it appears that you too are calibrating the message you suggest. On a scale of 1 to 10, yours is perhaps a 7. Mine is perhaps a 2. In recent years, the LP’s has been perhaps a 4.

I’m sorry you are unpersuaded on the Accord. I view it as the single most important initiative for fixing the LP. Without it, we’ll continue to get sanctimony in the ranks toward fellow Ls over fundamental matters. That, IMO, leads to drift at a time when we most need a reasonably united front to roll back the state, at whatever rate individual Ls might advocate.

I hope you’ll reconsider your position on the Accord.

& TB writes; ” Ending, yes actually ending, an ineffective and costly interventionist foreign policy, including the current wars might resonate.”

Robert Tom is right on the money from my take on things. I have been trying for years to get the LP to explain to the American public and our own members the costs of keeping all those troops overseas. Most American have no idea what the numbers are and that includes members of the LP.

There are more issues that we have shied away from then we have addressed.

Midwives, forget about em’.
Private transit companies? Nope, not interested.
Inflation? Ain’t got time to write up a flier on that.
Occupational licensing laws? What’s that?
Corporate Wefare? So what if its a $100 billion annually.
McCarran-Ferguson Act? Never had time to research it.
And on and on and on.

As for the radical running the place in the 80s and 90s. I seriously doubt it. Crickenberger did have some excellent ideas. Too bad we get follow up on some of them.

P.S. – I don’t give a damn about the St. Louis Accord, I’ve already got a Honda Accord.

“I’m not sure how advocating secession, no IP, no drunk driving laws, baby selling, insurance-company-supplied cops and defense, meth legalization, etc., is going to reverse the collapse.”

Well, no shit. I’m not sure how advocating revenue neutral tax plans will reverse a severe economic downturn either, cupcake.

But, just perhaps advocacy, along with rational explanations, of drastic (as in radical) rollbacks in government programs that have never shown any signs of success might resonate. Ending, yes actually ending, an ineffective and costly interventionist foreign policy, including the current wars might resonate. Ending personhood for corporations. Ending America’s status as the world’s largest jailer by releasing non-violent offenders and actually ending drug prohibition (not just claiming to favor medical marijuana). Ending the Fed’s monopoly on banking seems to be resonating. The list of rational and radical issues is virtually endless in this totalitarian-lite nation. Many of these issues are in the current LP platform. And yet, the chucklehead conformists that the LP selects to run for office (especially local, state and congressional) haven’t enough moxie to even call for minimal changes in the status quo. They dance around huge issues.

Sure, talking about $56 trillion in debts and unfunded liabilities and how that is truly a crime against our own children is unpleasant – but it is true. Telling the voters that the criminal class of elitists in the Democratic and Republican Parties have literally driven this nation to its knees won’t win many converts from those two cults – but the LP isn’t winning any converts from these cults to begin with.

Embracing Glenn Beck and his right-wing bigotry ain’t the answer. Sending Root to talk about trivia on Savage Nation ain’t gonna do it either.

I think you might be surprised at how many apolitical people agree with me when I suggest we’d be better off with no federal government than with what has come to be. Lots of people would vote for None Of The Above if given the chance. But, voting for the LP candidate who seems to be pretty much the same as the other candidates but has no chance of winning doesn’t seem to be working too good for the LP in terms of electoral success (which is a pipe dream to begin with) and, more importantly, introducing even marginal libertarian ideas into the public discourse.

At the rate America is heading towards soft totalitarianism, there is a good chance that LP moderates will be doing baby steps in a circle out in the yard of a government camp 20 years from now while their children wonder how their own parents could have allowed this to happen. Projected taxes of 80% on the next generation probably won’t be very appealing to them. But, maybe by then they will be too dumbed down to know the difference. They will at least have an excuse for having no concept of what freedom is.

The Holtz program seems to be about minimizing change:

“The LP never endorses incremental reforms like school vouchers replacing public schools, pollution taxes replacing technology regulation, negative income tax replacing all forms of welfare, flat tax or fair tax replacing the existing income tax tangle, personal Social Security accounts, etc.”

Sounds like changes that can be made to keep things pretty much the same. Change the way govt pays for education, change the way govt collects the same amount of money it collects now, a minor change in how a forced retirement program is administered, change the way the welfare state redistributes income.

Garsh ding, thats real exciting stuff there. It sure is a wonder folks ain’t trying to make that Holtz feller King-O-The-World. He’s all about change, and hope too, I reckon. One of the greatest moderates in all of history. I know I’ve been chomping at the bit for the government to come up with a different way to take money from me and redistribute it.

P.S. – I don’t give a damn about the St. Louis Accord, I’ve already got a Honda Accord. I care about the LP’s complicity in redefining libertarianism and doing more to harm the libertarian movement than help. It really is time for the LP to rethink what it does, how it does it, and the people and ideas it promotes.

me: If your premise that a voter is a SINGLE ISSUE voter, you are correct. Most are not.

tb: Even when LP candidates appear to be regular Joe’s, with mainstream haircuts, trimmed nostril hairs, talking points that sound like Serious Politicians, moderate policy proposals, etc. – they still lose! The same also applies to any third party or independent candidate. This is America. There is a “two-party” system.

me: Yes, that’s a fact. I’m suggesting that political change is a CUMULATIVE effort, a marketing campaign, if you will. If L candidates are sober, thoughtful, interesting, and speak in language voters understand and relate to, at first we’d gain respect and sympathy. Over time, if our candidates improve and their ideas have real power, the Rs and Ds will steal our ideas. And, if the opportunity presents itself, Ls might start getting elected.

tb: The idea of having a candidate that looks like a Republicrat, talks like a Republicrat, sells the same tired half-measure like a Republicrat sure hasn’t been working out too well.

me: I’m not sure I’d characterize L candidates that way. Generally, we run cutting edge candidates who push for smaller government across the board. That IS different from the Rs and Ds. Sometimes a radical L runs on a “radical” L agenda. For ex., an LP congressional candidate in VA once advocated the right to private nukes. Is that the sort of approach you prefer, Tom?

tb: It’s almost as if the LP hasn’t noticed that America is reaching a crisis point. It may already be too late for baby steps in the right direction. Compared with national insolvency because of debt and unfunded liabilities, multiple wars and drums of war beating for new wars, national databases on citizens, increasingly militarized police forces, and the largest prison population in the world render the issue of vouchers as trivial bullshit.

me: could be. If things are as dire as you suggest, perhaps it’s time to head for the hills with gold, shotguns, and freeze-dried food. I’m not sure how advocating secession, no IP, no drunk driving laws, baby selling, insurance-company-supplied cops and defense, meth legalization, etc., is going to reverse the collapse. You COULD run for office on such a platform, though. Might be an interesting experiment.

tb: If anything, the public is left more confused than before about what libertarianism is.

me: Begs the question: What is L-ism? I’d suggest the St. Louis Accord allows for quite a bit more latitude in defining the LP’s approach than you seem to suggest.

tb: The strategy and approach of the LP moderates, pragmatists, or whatever they want to call themselves has been a total failure and they have had a lock on the LPHQ, the LNC, the LP News, and the LP website for quite sometime. It hasn’t been the radicals or anarchists

me: The LP has been small since its inception. “Radicals” and anarchists ran the LP in the 80s and 90s. Results of all the experimentation is the same. I’d suggest patience and respect for all strains of L thought is called for. That has not been part of the experiment thus far. Worth a try! Do you support the St. Louis Accord, Tom?

If the goal is to separate government from education, at what point in time will this idea be introduced to the public? After vouchers have been used for 50 years?

Even when LP candidates appear to be regular Joe’s, with mainstream haircuts, trimmed nostril hairs, talking points that sound like Serious Politicians, moderate policy proposals, etc. – they still lose! The same also applies to any third party or independent candidate. This is America. There is a “two-party” system.

I’m saying get real – advocating vouchers might make your neighbor think you aren’t radical and he’ll invite you over for a burger, but it doesn’t mean he’s going to vote for you and that is because he can vote GOP and get voucher talk – along with estate tax talk, and all the other crap that Libertarian-Lite and Republican candidates babble on about.

Certainly I’m not the only person that notices that people aren’t buying the LP product. The LP needs to give people a reason to vote for their candidates. The group most likely to make a difference on election day are the people who don’t normally vote. The main reasons they don’t vote is they see no difference in the parties and they dislike professional politicians. Libertarians shouldn’t even worry about winning elections anyway. Getting 15% of the vote would be a coup. But, it should be obvious that the LP won’t get 15% from the voters they have been targeting. They might get it from non-voters if they gave them a reason to vote.

The idea of having a candidate that looks like a Republicrat, talks like a Republicrat, sells the same tired half-measure like a Republicrat sure hasn’t been working out too well.

I don’t see what the moderate Libertarian-Lite candidate has to offer that would make a voter or a non-voter motivated or have any passion for such a candidate. Their issues are trivial and they don’t appear to be honest and authentic because they aren’t. Their message is contrived. The LP candidates for local and state office are even worse than the national candidates in most cases.

It’s almost as if the LP hasn’t noticed that America is reaching a crisis point. It may already be too late for baby steps in the right direction. Compared with national insolvency because of debt and unfunded liabilities, multiple wars and drums of war beating for new wars, national databases on citizens, increasingly militarized police forces, and the largest prison population in the world render the issue of vouchers as trivial bullshit.

So, at the end of the day, the LP accomplishes absolutely nothing. The candidate doesn’t win. The public doesn’t hear any real libertarian message. If anything, the public is left more confused than before about what libertarianism is.

The strategy and approach of the LP moderates, pragmatists, or whatever they want to call themselves has been a total failure and they have had a lock on the LPHQ, the LNC, the LP News, and the LP website for quite sometime. It hasn’t been the radicals or anarchists.

The LP needs to re-examine it’s strategy for moving society in a more libertarian direction. If the answer is to nominate Wayne Root’s God, Guns and Tax Cuts or to embrace Glenn Beck, then maybe it’s time for those in the libertarian movement request that the LP change its name.

Quit playin’ games and act as if it really matter.