On November 11, the South Carolina Libertarian Party held their 2023 State Convention to elect new officers and select delegates to the 2024 Libertarian Party National Convention.  Following the convention, a debate was held between six candidates seeking their nomination next May in Washington DC. The candidates present in the debate were (as placed left to right at the podiums) Jacob Hornberger, Lars Mapstead, Chase Oliver, Michael Recktenwald, Joshua Smith and Mike ter Maat. The debate was moderated by Antony Davies and James Harrigan, the hosts of the Words & Numbers podcast. IPR was present to cover the debate, and was able to get sit-down interviews with each of the candidates during the day.  These interviews totalled nearly three hours of discussion, covering questions selected by the author and included some submitted by our readers. While the interviews will take time tomorrow to prepare for publication, the debate was live streamed by the SCLP and is available for viewing on their official channel located here: https://www.youtube.com/@sclibertarianparty/streams In this author’s opinion, the debate was civil for the most part, however it did look slightly like a Republican debate at one point, with candidates speaking over each other a bit and challenging each other on the validity of their message and ability to win the nomination.  The moderators sliced, diced and washed some of them down the drain on the issue of Social Security, and as one audience member said afterward, it all depends on who recovers from it.  But overall, they all made good presentations of their message.  Some of the same  questions were covered in the IPR interviews, where we will give you the opportunity to read their responses made without the required short limits of the broadcast medium. Although there were a few minor audio issues, the production quality of the debate was far more professional and organized than many others in the past, and in this author’s opinion is clearly worth watching to help delegates and the general public form (or solidify) their opinion of the candidates.  I do have my personal opinion of how the candidates did, but that will be reserved for post-interview analysis after the interviews are published over the next few days. The timing of interviews prevented any observation of the actual convention, although it appeared to be well organized and civil.  South Carolina is not a recommended convention to watch if you want to see political food fights.  Details on the convention will be reported later by another person in attendance.

Last Updated on Sunday November 12, 2023 12:49pm EST The 2023 South Carolina Libertarian Party Convention was held the weekend of November 10-12, 2023 in North Charleston, SC. The convention featured a debate between some of the (qualifying) presidential candidates.  Interviews were scheduled with all of the candidates listed as attending as of October 22, 2023, and one of the two others since listed as attending.   The interviews will be published on Independent Political Report and referenced on this page.  It will be a ten question format, with several in multiple parts.  I hope to conclude each interview in ten minutes or less of each candidate’s time. Followup political analysis of the candidates and the evening’s debate will be published on Third Party Watch. The best-laid plans of mice and men… As noted when this was first posted the day before the convention, I planned to interview five candidates.  All six announced candidates appeared at the convention and I was able to get solid sit-down interviews with each of them.  160 minutes of recordings.  Yup!  Nearly three hours.  Add in the analysis of the debate, and we (my ten fingers) are looking at possibly a day or two to sort all this out and produce a good article (or articles) covering each of the interviews.  Fortunately as of this update it is Sunday and I hate football. To start, the following was published on IPR Saturday evening about 11pm. On the Road: Libertarian Presidential Debate Publication Order   The anticipated publication order is: An Interview with Lars Mapstead Interview with Mike ter Maat Interview with Chase Oliver Interview with Joshua Smith Interview with Michael Recktenwald Interview with Jacob Hornberger