Liberal Party USA held their inaugural convention in Houston this weekend. While this author had hoped to attend, circumstances prevented travel.
As most readers here know, I am clearly in support of the argument for a classic liberal party. So while this is intended to be as unbiased as possible, please excuse any on my part that may filter in.
The party entered the weekend with ten state affiliates. They left with twelve and about ten new states “under construction”.
The New Hampshire Classic Liberal Party was accepted as an affiliate before the start of the convention, and the Montana Liberal Party was accepted Saturday evening. I have not seen anything on Montana, but a brief review of New Hampshire shows a very clean and professional website. Information and links to these and other affiliates can be found on https://liberalpartyusa.org.
The identities of the states currently forming affiliates can be found on https://theliberalparty.org. This information was provided through delegates at the convention and is not any official listing or announcement of the party that I am aware of. It shows significant growth and could be considered a sign that Liberal Party USA may quickly beome the Bitcoin of American Politics.
On Sunday, election of the party chair took place. By a margin of two votes, interim chair Trisha Butler was elected to a two year term as the first permanent chair. Late Saturday evening she had responded to my request for comments about the convention with the following statement:
“It’s been awesome. Totally chill, lots of great conversations and ideas. I[t] was a relaxing weekend filled with learning and hope!” She then mentioned that they had added Montana as an affiliate that evening, which I have verified.
Reports from the Pennsylvania delegation were that the keynote address by John Dougall, Utah Auditor General, was very well received. I was unable to get many detailed responses from others during the event, but what I did observe was that everyone was very interested in the presentations and discussions going on.
Robert Kraus, interim executive director, informed me that attendance was around fifty, which is what they had planned for and expected.
The most notable comment came from one party member who was unable to attend. He simply said “I am incredibly jealous.”
