Monthly Archives: May 2012

Brief recap of the Libertarian National Convention

Politics

This was originally posted at my personal blog, JasonPye.com. Stephen Littau asked that I post it at The Liberty Papers. I currently work as Gov. Gary Johnson’s state director in Georgia and blog regularly at United Liberty.

Last weekend, I joined several hundred Libertarian Party members at Red Rock Casino and Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada for our national convention. It was a long one, probably a day or two too long, but still a lot of fun both politicking and hanging with friends.

The weekend opened without much fanfare. Candidates running for the party’s nomination were seeking “tokens” from delegates in order to appear in the debate and be considered on the floor to represent the LP.

Most of the first two days were consumed with the typical wrangling over the party by-laws and platform. There were some internal issues addressed, such as a dispute between two factions in Oregon where the body had to choose what delegation from the state to seat (some of those not seated in Oregon eventually made their way to Georgia, where we had spots open).

Working (click to enlarge)

These first two days were particularly stressful for me since I had to work three delegations to ensure their support for Gov. Gary Johnson. The campaign gave me Idaho and Iowa as my ultimate responsibilities, but I also spent some time lobbying members from Georgia — after all, that’s my home state. When I wasn’t working on delegates, I was either sitting in the pressroom (where there was Internet access) or catching up with old friends.

On Friday evening, Gov. Johnson and R. Lee Wrights squared off in a debate before convention delegates (you can watch it here). The 2008 debate saw a number of candidates with varying viewpoints of libertarianism and the direction of the Libertarian Party. The debate between Johnson and Wrights showed the clear differences in approach to politics. While Wrights was lobbing one-liners and soundbites to delegates, Johnson was discussing a more political approach. Some friends were complaining that Wrights was only interested in appealing to Libertarians, others said that, since this was our party’s primary, a more “red meat” approach was necessary; no different from Democratic and Republican campaigns.

Most, if not all, of the folks that I talked afterward said that both sides did well articulating their message, and that they hadn’t changed their minds.

War Room (click to enlarge)

Saturday was when delegates selected the party’s nominee. Four candidates were able to get enough tokens to be nominated — Gov. Johnson, Wrights, Carl Person, and Jim Burns. Each candidates received some time to make their case for the nomination. We had heard going into the convention that some delegates were resigned to Gov. Johnson winning the nomination, but wanted to give a nod to Wrights on the first ballot. That was the case with a few folks from Georgia, despite my overtures that were would only be one ballot and that they should get, even what they admit, on the winning team. Thanks to a few of the delegates from Oregon and another couple from Nevada being sat with us, Georgia went for Wrights in a 10 to 9 vote. The other delegations that were assigned to me, Idaho and Iowa, broke for Gov. Johnson.

Boom! (click to enlarge)

And while we may have lost Georgia, Gov. Johnson took the nomination on the first ballot with over 70% of the vote. Wrights received over 25%.

Now, one may think that the stress was off and that we were done with the real work, but that wasn’t the case. You see, in the Libertarian Party, we run candidates for vice president separately. Gov. Johnson let it be known before the convention that he wanted Judge Jim Gray as his running mate. However, Wrights saw the writing on the wall and was collecting “tokens” for vice president as well (he asked me when I saw him on Wednesday evening). Some of were actually nervous here. Wrights is a great guy, but those of us working on the campaign were tasked with rounding up votes for Judge Gray.

But despite a strong showing from Wrights, Judge Gray took the nomination for vice president with 59% of the vote.

That’s it, right? Work is done for the weekend. It time to go drink and gamble. Wrong. Chris Barron, Andrew Ian Dodge, Jenny Everett (a new member from Georgia), and I decided that it was time for a drink, so we headed down to Yard House, one of the fine establishments in the Red Rock casino. The body had moved on to officer elections, and after to speaking to my good friend, Brett Bittner, we had contended that Mark Rutherford would likely win the race for chair. We figured we all could just give him our proxies and have some fun. So, off we went.

Man, were we wrong. After our second round of drinks, we started hearing that there were some strange things going on. By our fourth round, friends were telling us to get back to the floor. By the time we got back, all hell had broken loose. Admittedly, I can’t give the play-by-play, but apparently, None of the Above (NOTA) was a strong candidate. All I can say is that I was incredibly frustrated, probably more than I have been when dealing with party politics or political campaigns. Because of time constraints, voting for chair was postponed until Sunday.

The reasoning for floor fight was because of shenanigans pulled before we even got to Vegas, such as charging a floor fee for delegates and having the convention roughly 15 miles away from the strip. Seriously, it cost around $50 to $60 for a cab ride from the airport or the strip. That was ridiculous.

Delegate Nobody (click to enlarge)

Despite staying until the early hours of Sunday morning, I managed to pull myself out of bed for another day of voting. It got…crazy. During the midst of the voting, Chris was arbitrarily removed from the Missouri delegation along with a couple of other folks apparently for voting the “wrong way.” He’d been voting for Rutherford, but there had been some sort of behind the scenes wrangling going on — or at least, that’s the allegation — to ensure that the delegates seated in Missouri that didn’t actually live there (Chris is from DC, but their delegation was full) would no longer have their votes counted. Again, that’s the allegation, there is no way to prove it. But at the very least, it certainly doesn’t sound good.

In the end, Geoffrey Neale, a former LNC chair who hadn’t even put his hat in the ring until Sunday, defeated Rutherford and on the fifth round of voting that day, won the race for chair. Lee Wrights, who had lost bids for the presidential and vice presidential nomination the previous day, won the race for vice chair. Wrights is a good guy. I don’t know Neale, but everyone I know seems comfortable with him as chair. He certainly understands that he doesn’t have a mandate. Nevertheless, I have confidence that they will serve our party well.

Also, congrats to my good friends, Richard Schrade and Brett Bittner, who were elected to leadership posts. Schrade was elected as the Southeast regional alternate to the Libertarian National Committee. He’ll no doubt serve Georgia’s interests well. Bittner was elected to the Libertarian State Leadership Alliance (LSLA) at as At-Large Representative.

Lee Wrights (click to enlarge)

In case you can’t tell from the brief mentions above, the evening parties were pretty neat. I didn’t do much partying at the last two conventions. We did hang out with friends, but I can’t recall doing as much as we did last weekend. Good times where had (RIP #3102) and I got to meet some really cool people, including Rupert Boneham, who you may know from Survivor. He’s running for Governor of Indiana as a Libertarian. I also got to meet Roger Stone, a former GOP operative who recently joined the LP. Roger may never read this, but I learned a lot from him in limited interaction.

And let me just say that Chris Barron is a really cool guy. My liver blames him for the amount of adult beverages I consumed in Las Vegas. As an aside, I was happy to see so many younger Libertarians at the convention. That was really encouraging.

My body has finally recovered from the week of debauchery and stress. I managed to catch up on sleep by Wednesday, though I think it’ll be awhile before I drink again. You can see some pictures from the weekend at my Flickr page. Bruce Majors has also shared his photos from the convention.

Jason Pye
http://jasonpye.com/
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Three Takeaways from the Dawn Loggins Story

Culture, Economics, Media, Occupy Wall Street, Strategies For Advancing Liberty, The Welfare State

Whatever your philosophy or wherever you find yourself in the political spectrum, one thing I think we can all agree on is that we are living in difficult economic times. Most of us, if we haven’t experienced it ourselves, know someone who has lost his or her job or is otherwise struggling to keep up with increases in the price of living. Times are tough for many if not most of us.

In these difficult times, I think it’s important to remember to persevere rather than throw up our hands and quit. One could understand a teenager giving up on her future if she was abandoned by her parents, bullied at school, and even homeless. Who could expect any other result?

Don’t tell that to 18 year-old Dawn Loggins. She experienced all this and more and has been accepted to…Harvard?

This is such an inspiring story that I don’t want to give much more of it away. Really, I hope that everyone who reads this post reads this four part series by Alicia Banks for The Shelby Star. This story is nothing short of amazing.

There were three main takeaways I got from reading this series:

1. Dawn’s Personal choices made all the difference. Every cliché you have ever heard about becoming a successful person applies to Dawn Loggins (ex: “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity,” “when the going gets tough…” etc.). Rather than complaining about how unfair life is or blaming all her woes on the 1%,* or even her parents who abandoned her, she took it upon herself to improve her situation.

2. Sometimes one has to break the rules or violate the law to do the “right” thing. Dawn may not have been successful if the law was followed to the letter**. What if the principal or the school’s guidance counselor would have called DSS? Here’s an excerpt from part 2:

No one risked calling the Department of Social Services about Dawn, who was 17 at the time and had been homeless.

Those who cared about Dawn could have lost her to foster care if they alerted the authorities to her situation. Putnam was afraid Dawn wouldn’t be able to take classes she had lined up for her senior year at a different school.

Putnam and Kolton made sure Dawn had everything she needed: Clothes, food, shelter and Burns.

In situations like Dawn’s, Jane Shooter, assistant director for the county DSS, said social workers would have attempted to locate her parents and understand the situation. If they determined a child needed to be placed in foster care, their first attempts would be to find a safe guardian or foster family in the area. But that’s not always possible.

Members of the Burns community took care of one of their own on their own.

But was this the right thing to do?

“I can only say if you suspect a child is neglected or abused, by North Carolina law, you’re mandated to report it,” Shooter said.
Children in foster care age out of DSS’s protection when they turn 18 years old. Dawn turned 18 on Feb. 9.

“There’s nothing we can do now that she turned 18,” Shooter said.

3. Despite what some on the Left believe, regular people are more than willing to help others who are struggling without the government forcing them to do so via wealth redistribution (especially those who are doing all they can to help themselves). In addition to a few very key people who helped Dawn through high school, since this story was published, there has been an outpouring of support from regular people who want to help Dawn pay for her Harvard education.

Of course, Dawn’s story isn’t typical but neither is her work ethic. Was she successful despite her hardships or because of them? Was she smart because she studied hard or did she study hard because she was smart enough to realize doing so would be her most likely ticket out of poverty?

These chicken/egg questions aside, one thing is clear: we could all learn a thing or two about pursuing the American dream from a teenager by the name of Dawn Loggins.

Hat Tip: Neal Boortz
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Stephen Littau
http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/

Mao Yushi: An Inspiration for All Who Yearn to be Free

Activism, Economics, Foreign Affairs, Free Speech, Freedom, Freedom of Association, Freedom of the press, History, Human Rights, Individual Rights, Liberty, Multimedia, Profiles in Courage, Property Rights, Strategies For Advancing Liberty, Theory and Ideas

Last Friday, the Cato Institute honored dissident Chinese economist Mao Yushi with the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. Just a week prior, Mao, a consistent critic of Chinese government policies and advocate of both individual and economic liberty faced the possibility of being detained rather than being permitted to fly to Washington D.C. to receive the award in person and deliver his acceptance speech. By Tuesday, Cato confirmed in a press release that the Chinese government kept its word and allowed Mao to leave the country.

The first video tells Mao’s inspiring story:

The second video, the 2012 Milton Friedman Prize winner himself Mao Yushi delivers his acceptance speech.

Congratulations to Mao Yushi for earning this most prestigious prize for your life’s work in the advancement of human freedom. You sir, are an inspiration to us all.

Stephen Littau
http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/

Libertarian Party Nominates Gary Johnson For President

Election '12, Libertarians, Politics

The Libertarian Party held its convention over the weekend in Las Vegas and, as many had been expecting, overwhelmingly nominated former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson as their Presidential nominee:

Aside from the muscular gentleman in the slinky party skirt and halter top, a delegate wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and a prominent speaker sporting a powdered wig, it was a typical political convention.

And by the time the Libertarian National Convention concluded in Las Vegas on Saturday, party members had the man they hope can propel them to relevance in presidential politics.

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson won about 70 percent of the vote on more than 600 ballots, finishing well ahead of Libertarian newsletter founder Lee Wrights.

What it means is Johnson, a former Republican who served two terms as governor from 1995 to 2003, will carry the party’s torch in a campaign against Democratic incumbent President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

Johnson says a “pie-in-the-sky” goal for himself and vice presidential candidate Jim Gray, an Orange County, Calif., Superior Court judge and outspoken critic of the war on drugs, is to generate enough support to qualify for debates on the same stage as Obama and Romney.

“If that happens, anything is possible,” Johnson said. “I don’t think either Obama or Romney are talking about solutions to the problems.”

He’s betting a swell of supporters for Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul will shift to the Libertarian candidates once Romney becomes the nominee.

“As much as I would like (Paul) to be the nominee, I don’t think that is going to happen,” Johnson said.

Johnson is right about that point, of course. Ron Paul is not going to be the Republican nominee, and even the apparent delegate wins his supporters are racking up at state party conventions in caucus states aren’t going to amount to much of anything in the end. So Paul’s supporters will have a choice, either they support Johnson, they become loyal Republicans and back Romney, or they stay home on Election Day. Johnson is obviously hoping they they choose the first option.

This is the second time in two election cycles that the Libertarian Party has nominated a former Republican elected official as their nominee. Last time, of course, it was former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr and while the results of his campaign were disappointing, Barr did end up getting more votes than any Libertarian Party Presidential nominee since Ed Clark got close to a million votes in 1980. Can Johnson get close to that? Conor Friedersdorf makes a good point in that regard:

A former governor of New Mexico, he was re-elected by that state’s voters, left office popular after two terms, and therefore has the most executive experience of any Libertarian Party presidential nominee. He can also cite the state he ran as evidence that nothing radical happens when he’s put in charge. An economic conservative and social liberal, he represents a new direction for a party that has long wrestled with its paleo-libertarian wing. And yet he too is certain to lose on Election Day, as third-party candidates in American presidential elections do. The question is whether he can match his party’s 1980 high-water mark and win 1 percent or more of the vote, and whether he might win even more in the key swing state of New Mexico, where voters already know and have cast ballots for him.

That would certainly make things interesting wouldn’t it? If Johnson ended up costing the GOP a pick-up in New Mexico, then maybe they’ll stop ignoring the libertarian vote for once.

To be realistic, though, the prospects for third-party candidates are never good and they’re unlikely to be much better. Perhaps the greatest role that Johnson can fulfill with this campaign is to become a strong and effective spokesperson for libertarian ideas around the nation, and to stand as proof that you can indeed by an ideological libertarian and govern effectively. That would be no small accomplishment.

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com
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The Life of Julia… who really wins?

Democrats, Economics, Election '12, General, Government Regulation, Healthcare, Hope n' Change, Politics, The Nanny State, The Welfare State

President Obama’s campaign has put together “The Life of Julia“, following a woman from cradle to grave to show how she benefits from the enlightened benificence of President Barack Obama.

The reality, though, is rather different. Let’s look now at “The Life of Julia”:

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Quincy
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