Many of the articles on this site have references to obscure terms such as LNC, RNC or DNC, as well as references to people you may never have heard of, unless you are intimately involved in the backroom of “third party” politics.
As this site grows, the editors will attempt to keep up with any new or confusing terms, and add them to this reference page.
Our descriptions of organizations is intentionally brief. For more detailed descriptions of these organizations and associated terms, we recommend NOT visiting their websites, but instead searching Wikipedia. Beware! You will find more pages explaining the meaning of political terms than you may have time to read.
Organizations Occasionally Referenced
LNC
Libertarian National Committee. This is the governing body of the Libertarian Party. The members are elected every two years at the national convention, and consist of a standard list of officers as well as “regional representatives” elected by groups of states, and “at large representatives” elected by the convention delegates.
RNC
Republican National Committee. This is the governing body of the Republican Party. The members are two representatives from each state, one male and one female. They meet several times a year, but that large a body does not actually run the party. They elect a chair person and a committee that manages the day-to-day operations.
DNC
Are you starting to see a pattern yet? The Democratic National Committee, which governs the Democratic Party. Yes, we will use the proper name and not call them the Democrat Party as their detractors tend to do. Organized in a manner somewhat similar to the Republican Party.
Mises
The Mises Caucus. They are currently in charge of most of the Libertarian Party, including the entire Libertarian National Committee and a majority of the state party affiliates. To the general public, they would easily be viewed as a combination of white supremacy and the far right. Wikipedia has a great source of information about them and their history.
LP 2.0
Refers to both internal and external organized attempts to either retake the Libertarian Party from the Mises Caucus, or failing that create a new Libertarian Party.
Classical Liberal Party
Refers to the movement to create a new political party, based Classical Liberalism, the foundational beliefs that many of the founding fathers of the United States held, and that formed much of basis of the Libertarian Party.
LPUSA
Liberal Party USA. A national association of independent Classical Liberal parties.
KEYSTONE
Used in reference to either the Keystone Party of Pennsylvania, now identified as the Liberal Party of Pennsylvania, or their attempt to create a national party of the same name. Merged into LPUSA.
People Occasionally Referenced
Starchild
What do we say about Starchild? A member and activist in the Libertarian Party of California, he has a tendency to be quite flamboyant in public at conventions, being seen most famously in a statue of liberty costume. This editor’s observation, from many years interacting with him, is that he is a quite intelligent and extremely well educated person. He comments from time to time on political sites and an analysis of his work shows him usually writing at the graduate or post graduate level.
Professor George Phillies
George Phillies (D.Sc., MIT, Physics, 1973), long time member and supporter of the Libertarian Party, is the lead editor of Third Party Watch and of Independent Political Report.