I remember years ago hearing children, myself included, reciting an old rhyme that began “Sticks and stones may break my bones”. There are numerous variations of the next line, from “But words shall never hurt me” to “But names will never hurt me” and many more. But the common theme was always that words, unlike physical weapons, cannot hurt you. That of course has always been untrue. What you are called, or what you call yourself, can cause damage. It can also cause confusion. And the meaing of words can change, even if you try to prevent it. I have used the words classic liberal a number of times over the past few years to describe a needed political movement that has been somewhat dormant and cast aside by most of the current political parties in our country. If you search Wikipedia, you will find what they consider the definition of the word. You can also find definitions of libertarian, democrat, republican, and even green in relation to political movements and parties. According to the Internet acolytes who worship at the alter of the Wiki and feed it content, both libertarianism and classic liberalism are forms of the larger movement commonly called liberalism. They are frequently considered synonymous, but they really aren’t. Progressive liberals are another form of liberal. In the US, general use of the word liberal has tended over recent years to mean the progressives (or to us classic liberals the BAD liberals), thus slapping the word liberal on something is in some circles akin to drawing a scarlet letter on it. Libertarians have a similar problem as the right and the media try to change the meaning of the word into a radical branch of the Republican Party. The current leadership of their party is helping. At one point in recent history, the word classic was added to identify one of the older strains of liberalism, one closer to the beliefs of the founders of our nation. But classic liberal still has the word liberal in it. And people don’t just instantly understand it. It has to be explained as being different from the progressives. Several organizations, including Project Liberal are trying to reclaim the word liberal. And others are writing about reclaiming the word as well. In the October 25 issue of The Colebrook Chronicle there is a letter (page 5 middle column) from Kevin Craig, in which he gives an excellent account of what has happened to the word liberal and what it really means, ending in his statement that he is reclaiming the word. I strongly recommend reading it. While it is a difficult task, Mr Craig is correct. The word needs to be reclaimed. Liberal Party USA is one political party trying to do just that. Some of the autonomous state parties that came together to form this organization have the word freedom in their names. Others have liberal, classic liberal or classical liberal in their names. One still has the word libertarian in their name, having disaffiliated from the LP and joined this new party. Personally, I find this confusing, but that’s their choice. In some states, liberal works. In others, such as my state of South Carolina, liberal isn’t just a scarlet letter, it is a white hot brand on your face and potential loss of job and income in a state that mostly bleeds bright orange/red for their demi-god president elect. But to names and words. Almost everyone has suggested what they believe are better names for a new party than the word liberal. Are they right? Is liberal a word permanently lost, much as the simple phrase hail victory, spoken in German, has become permanently associated with a murderous dictator who caused the deaths of millions during World War II? I hope not. So if you are a classic liberal and not afraid of names, don’t be afraid to shout to the world: I am a liberal! If enough of us do it, maybe we can reclaim the word.
Category: Politics
Liberal Party USA Convention sees signifiant affiliate growth
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.”
Dallas vs Houston
I certainly apologize if anyone reading this believes I am going to talk about football. Baseball certainly, but never football. I was raised a Philadelphia boo-bird and I am proud of it. Even Santa Claus fears real boo-birds. Before I go any farther, I need to post one small link. It has been more than a year since my last commentary on Third Party Watch, and some may want an explanation of where I’ve been. Reading is not required. But back to Dallas vs Houston. Yes, that Dallas. The Dallas Accord. There are relatively few people still around who were in the Libertarian Party during or prior to the 1974 Dallas Convention. But it is legend in their party, and is often quoted as the treaty made between the classical liberals and the anarchists to hold the party together. With apologies to lpedia.org for the oversimplification: The party was growing. The number of classical liberals (aka minarchists) outnumbered the much smaller anarchist wing of the party. In order to prevent a split and with a goal of expanding the party, concessions were made and the statement of principles was changed. I wasn’t in the LP in 1974. In fact, I was still in high school. But if I had been in the party and at that convention, I would have advised against it. The cost, over the years, could be way too great. It allowed candidates some considered lunatics to run for office. The anarchist wing of the party slowly grew until eventually they were mostly just waving dildos around and calling themselves the radicals. Obviously, by definition, the entire party is radical — at least as far as the media, the “major” parties, and most of the public are concerned. Look up the word. The original party, far more oriented toward classical liberalism than anarchy, slowly disappeared. This isn’t to say that anarchists are bad people. Some of my best allies when I was in the LP were anarchists. (Hmmm…where have we heard that before?) The rubber bands holding the party together began to stretch. By the time I joined in 2005, the fractures were large enough to see, and large battles had begun to take place at conventions. The largest rift started in 2006, when the “Reform Caucus” tried to strip and cleanup the platform. All sides would agree that it was a badly botched job. Eventually, infiltrators came in, calling themselves “Mises” and we all know what happened next. Yes, some of the Mises caucus members are actually classical liberals who have been fooled. And they fooled some of the anarchists and classical liberals already in the party as well — for a while. So where am I going with this? Why should anyone care about the Dallas Accord’s failure? A few days ago there was a discussion on Third Party watch about the actions of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire and their violation of the ByLaws by endorsing the Republican candidate for President. These actions were preceeded by the equally suspect convention antics, where that same candidate, along with an “independent” candidate were both present and invited to speak. One was even nominated during the Presidential candidate election. I would mention their names, but I have no intention of risking an eventual violation of Godwin’s Law in this commentary. In this discussion, I recommended a few methods of holding out and purging the infiltrators. I suggested that the definition of libertarian was too vague and that they needed to correct it. A reply to the effect that the composition would be changing to “actual libertarians” was submitted. I suggested that they needed to get everyone to agree on what an “actual libertarian” is. The next reply was classic: “Oh that’s easy, that’s me.” And here we have it. Those replies could have been from anarchists, minarchists, socialists, or even the fascist controlled Mises caucus. All sides believe they are “actual libertarians”, so unless you know the players, you can’t tell them apart by that answer. Which takes us to Houston. Houston, Texas, in December of 2024. A convention of the recently formed Liberal Party USA. A party that understands that in order to keep your focus on the goal, you have to have a standard. Their’s is classical liberalism. Not communism, socialism, fascism or anarchy, but classical liberalism. Go search wikipedia. They have lots of great information on this. This is why a number of classical liberals who used to be in the Libertarian Party have joined this new movement. They understand that while the anarchists are “fellow travellers” toward freedom, their definitions of freedom in regard to the role of government differ. They understand that the Libertarian Party failed in part to the desire to appease everyone. So they decided to cut their losses and let others try to save what is left — if they can. This is your wakeup call. There is still time to get to Houston in December. I wanted to go, and even bought a ticket, but health prevents me from attending. So I’m challenging all classical liberals — you know who you are — to get off the couch or chair you are sitting in and join this new movement. We need to make sure that the Houston convention builds a party structure that won’t result in its own version of a Dallas Accord a few years from now.
The Long Road Back
Sometimes stories are so painful that you can’t write about them. But sometimes you have to. I know that the readership of this site tends to just be foreign nationals trying to break in, which of course would get them nowhere, but occasionally real humans visit and anyone doing so would justifyably get the impression that this site is dead. And it was dead, from November of 2023 until today. Why did I go silent, and why have I returned? If you really want to know why I went silent for thirteen months, read on. If not, I won’t be offended. I needed to write this for myself, but you are not required to read it. This was started in August, but most if it was written in one sitting this evening. Giving yourself goals beyond your physical ability In the fall of 2023 I planned for an event. It was a big one for me, and I knew it. But I prepared myself in advance, both physically through lots of rest, and by lining up all the pieces and players through many telephone calls, email messages and texts. The event was the 2023 South Carolina Libertarian Party’s state convention, and my plan was to interview the candidates seeking their party’s nomination for President. Having left the Libertarian Party three years earlier, I hoped that I would be able to conduct fair and unbiased interviews, giving the readers of Independent Political Report some insight into who was running. Everything went quite well on the day of the event. All six of the (later seven) candidates who appeared went out of their way to give me time for proper interviews. At the end of the day I had roughly 3 1/2 hours of audio. It was a very long day, and I even attended the debate. I wasn’t planning on attending the dinner, but I did, through the generosity of a friend who’s wife had decided not to attend. My overall impression of the convention was that it ran very well up until the end of the debate, when a serious error in judgement was made by permitting a local sociopath to speak. He has been claiming to be running for president for years but is only slightly more qualified than a dead rat. I recall him wearing a hoodie and mumbling a lot. I had to deal with this person many times over the years, and in the past the state party had always instituted minimal rules for attending debates to keep him away. This person can’t meet any minimum requirements. You are probably wondering why this person is even mentioned here, but it is a factor in what transpired. Could I ignore it, or would I have to mention his presence? At the end of the evening, I was exhausted. I made it home by Uber, but I think that if I had been there another hour they would have been calling an ambulance. But I had my interviews done. Or did I? Pieces of a puzzle I started writing the next day. I outlined what I was going to do, and the order the interviews would be published in. Then I started building the six interviews, reviewing the recordings to make sure I had the same questions to cover. Hours went by. I still had to work, so by the third day, I needed to deal with customers. I quickly found myself in the very bad cycle of working and then trying to write at night. Within another few days I was exhausted and had to stop. Having a heart attack affects everyone differently. In my case, even though it had now been a year and a half, I found that I was no longer able to go into “crunch mode” to get something this big done. Then the writer’s block set in. I found that while I can write commentary and give opinions and analysis, I am horrible at trying to put together interviews without interjecting opinions. And I had a lot of opinions about these candidates! Then the anger set in. Why was my former party putting up such a weak slate of candidates? What could I write about this set of six without giving my opinion of who would win? I felt it would be Oliver and that it would be a horrible battle at convention and end up fracturing the party. And how could I say anything without being brutally honest about just how much of a fool several of these candidates were and expose the few who were clearly con-artists? What was their motivation and what were they trying to achieve? Of course I can write this after the fact and it doesn’t really matter whether I was right or wrong. What actually happened was far worse than I guessed last November. But back to the puzzle. Another week went by. I found I could not even look at several draft commentaries I had been working on. Now I understood the puzzle. It wasn’t the articles I was writing. It was the puzzle of how you keep yourself neutral when you are used to giving opinions. The articles sat unfinished. A step into the dark So I went silent. I spent a lot of time talking to a friend about my writer’s block. He eventually talked me into going to a local meeting of the writer’s association. His intent was good, but I never should have gone. So the last Sunday in February, after voting the day before in the Republican Presidential Preference Primary for the first time since 2000, I attended the meeting at the downtown public library. I am sure it was useful to many of the writers present, but I found it quite boring. It was obvious that this well meaning group was not necessarily my solution. Neither was the set of stairs which I fell down outside the library, fracturing my hip on the concrete sidewalk and placing
On the Road: Libertarian Presidential Debate
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.
Libertarian Presidential Candidate Interviews and Debate
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
A case for a new Classical Liberal Party
Last Updated on Saturday November 9, 2024 04:23pm EST This series began near the end of May 2023, when I felt the need to start writing about how I felt the Libertarian Party had failed, and a new Classical Liberal party – not the same as the current Libertarian Party – was needed. The series stalled in early July, with The Hunt for Red October having been written in July, but not actually sent for publication until October, after Leave the Party, take the Canolli. I recommend reading based on the order of the articles on this page. May 2023 Is “retaking” the LP really the best solution? Forming a New Party The Question of Political Purity Tent City June 2023 MacArthur Versus Hooverville How the West was Lost Robert’s, the Political Weapon of Mass Destruction October 2023 Leave the Party, take the Cannoli The Hunt for Red October November 2024 Dallas vs Houston December 2024 Sticks and Stones
The Hunt for Red October
SPOILER ALERT: Love it or hate it, if you never watched this movie then go watch it before reading this! What can I say? I had to find a way to bring one of my favorite movies into this. The premise of the movie is quite simple: The USSR builds a super sub, designed to silently approach, attack and destroy the US swiftly and cleanly, ending the cold war. The Captain does not like what they are planning to have the October do and decides to defect. He assembles a hand picked crew of officers he believes will follow his lead and the sub makes its exit from port. Russia tells the US the captain is a rogue madman to get them to help destroy the sub. The hero (of course!) figures out the captain is not mad, opens his big mouth, and ends up chasing the sub part way around the world. Classic Sean Connery, along with some young actor who clearly demonstrated that he actually does know how to use a prop gun, contrary to his recent statements made after causing the death…well…we don’t need to go there. So what’s the point? Spies, intrigue, escape! And in the end, the “good guys” appear to have won. The liberty movement is in the middle of its own Hunt for Red October. The bad guys, who I will identify shortly, built a weapon. It escaped from them, and for decades they have fought to chase it down and destroy it. But who are the bad guys and were they always bad? In the movie, one could argue that some of the concepts that became the USSR and led to the Russian revolution might have had good intent. They were, after all, living under harsh conditions and the rule of a series of nasty hereditary rulers – the Russian Czars. But the leadership after the revolution in Russia was quickly overtaken and devolved into a corrupt and evil regime, often suppressing their people worse than the government they overthrew. Sound familiar? Our bad guy for the sake of this discussion is the political system of the United States. It was not always bad, but this is not 1787. The government is run by the power brokers within the political system, so I believe they are the real “bad guys”. Our country built a weapon called freedom. It has gotten away, and the political system has been attempting to capture and destroy it for years. Oppressive election laws and cooperation from the media in their attempt to silence all of us who call ourselves “Third Parties” are one of their main weapons. Just the fact that our government was originally designed to not have political parties – certainly not just two – disputes the claim, by both the left and right media, that we have a “two party system”. Obviously many of us involved in partisan politics don’t agree with each other’s ideas and proposed solutions. There are parties that I think are full of absolute lunatics. Their ideas are insane – at least in my opinion. I am sure they think the same of me, along with others who have the same beliefs I have. A few of them are clearly enemies of the liberty movement, and support increased suppression by the government. But this discussion is not about people opposing liberty. It is about the stupidity and ignorance within the liberty movement itself at this point in time. Ignorance on the part of party leaders who don’t shoot at the enemy but at their own allies. Stupidity on the part of people who blindly follow them. Is that harsh enough? Some of this is on one side, some of this is on the other — or I should say others. Everyone in the liberty movement should be an ally. We should all be fighting to find the submarine called Freedom to rescue it. Instead, some of us are chasing after it underwater, where we should be, while others sit on the surface flying their party sanctioned flags and shooting at anything that surfaces or even moves. Just as they were not all in one vessel attempting rescue in the movie, we do not all need to be in the same party. Different arguments are needed. Did the “good guys” just send out one ship? No. So why do we have one 50 year old party that attempts to deal with every aspect and every question of liberty? It is the ship on the surface, flying flags and shooting at its own people. The bottom is covered in barnacles and rust, and its wake is full of leaking oil and people jumping overboard. The Libertarian party needs to go into dry dock and either be scrapped or rebuild itself. Some seem to want to rebuild. Some of us who jumped want a newer vessel. A party built to show the public a message they might listen to. One running candidates who do not look and act insane in the public’s eyes. Red October is still out there, and we need to rescue it. But how do we build a better party?
The Good, The Bad, and the Non-Partisan
Earlier in the week I was sitting here at my desk, working on some code, when there was suddenly a knock on the door. No, it wasn’t Santa Claus, it was something better. I went over the door and asked who it was. The response came back: “this is Mike Gastin and I’m running for city council”. I immediately asked him to hang on a minute while I found a shirt. A minute or so later, I opened the door, and no, it was not Mormons pretending to be running for city Council to try to hand me pamphlets, it was an actual candidate! He introduced himself, and we talked for a bit. We actually ended up talking for 20 or 30 minutes, and I am amazed that he talked to me at all since I realized after he left that I am a month overdue for a haircut and I don’t believe I’ve shaved since August. He told me a little bit about himself, and why he is running, and I asked him some questions – geared to determine if he really was a non-politician as he claimed. Charleston has too many career politicians at the local level, so it was refreshing to find out that he was sincere. We talked a bit more about the issues facing our district, and I even asked him to say one good and one bad thing about all of his opponents and about the candidates for Mayor. He was able to identify good and bad things about each of the candidates, which told me that he would be able to work with a mayor that did not necessarily agree with everything he thought should be done. At one point he mentioned that someone had put me on his list as someone he needed to talk to, which explains why he was knocking on my door on a Wednesday morning at 10 or 11 o’clock, when most people are not home. The person who put me on his list knew I would be home. I was extremely pleased with his knowledge of the critical issues, and after he left, I also did a little research into his résumé. He is certainly not running to get a paycheck. I can’t imagine that he would be doing it to try to start a “political career”. So a local citizen, running for office to try to get a job done. I don’t want to make this sound satirical, but it is almost out of a Jimmy Stewart movie. The question of course is whether he can win over a two term incumbent that I only hear from when he tries to say hello as I walk into the polling place every four years. Constituent services? Not in most city council member’s vocabulary. But I believe it might be in Mr. Gastin’s. I was impressed enough that I actually decided that I am going to vote this November, and I told him that I would spread the word that I had actually met somebody who could answer my questions – and for those of you that don’t know me, most politicians run for the hills when I start asking questions. Now we get to the interesting part: it is a non-partisan race. I did not ask him his party affiliation, and when he thought I was going to ask him he immediately interjected that he wasn’t going to say – that it is a non-partisan race and party labels are not discussed. So, who do I tell? We all know the truth about local politics. Even though it is non-partisan, people in the back rooms of the Republican party, and the Democratic party know who the candidates are. The Greens would as well. I have been out of the libertarian party for over three years now, so I tried to look up who to contact locally. It would be easier to find a Maytag repair man in Alaska. Eventually, I called someone in another part of the state, and was told he believed that the Mises caucus had taken over the local county party, and that all they cared about was mises minutia and trying to figure out how to vote for Trump or RFK Jr. I have no idea if that is true, but that is what my friend thinks is going on. But this is a non-partisan election, as many are. My friend and I talked about a couple of other non-partisan races he knows of in Georgia that he is hoping will succeed. The mayoral race is non-partisan here in Charleston, as is city Council. So there really isn’t anything a minor party could do, other than spread the word that there is at least one candidate worth considering. I am certainly not saying that there are no other candidates to consider, but when I see people running, some with the same last name as their parent that held the seat, I have little doubt that they are just trying to extend political dynasties. And what would a minor party do anyway? Well, they can influence elections. In Charleston county, the sum total of the minor party votes is frequently greater than the difference between the two other party candidates. In other words, support from minor parties and independents is still important. Of course, most minor parties are going to be even more stringent with verifying that a non-partisan candidate passes a purity test before even considering support. That is why they are failing. Rather than find someone you can agree with on three out of five issues, they will only support someone that agrees with them on five out of five. It doesn’t matter what the five are. If they disagree, forget it. The end result is that most non-partisan candidates get treated exactly like Eli Wallach in the final scene of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. In the end, they are left with their hands and feet tied, standing
Leave the Party, take the Cannoli
A word of advice to anyone trying to write in the modern world: don’t ever take a weekend vacation where they don’t let you talk politics or religion. It throws you off pace. But while I was on this weekend retreat at the end of June, I did manage to sneak in a few minutes on my iPad catching the news. I quickly switched back to baseball when someone came into the living room. It was one of the countless Saturday morning political commentary shows. The hosts all have unpronounceable names, so while I channel surf a lot, I tend to listen to the one with the Philadelphia accent. It brings back memories. On this particular Saturday morning, there was a story about a “secret” meeting between Washington insiders in the Democratic and Republican parties having met earlier that week to discuss ways to stop “no labels” from running a candidate and somehow allowing Trump to be re-elected. The discussion centered around whether this was the election cycle where a strong, third-party or independent candidate could finally have impact. The guest vehemently denied this possibility. More recent events, some covered on Independent Political Report, center around fears of the Green Party’s candidate, as well as this group they call “no labels“. Interestingly, there was no mention of fear of Libertarians or other “third-parties”. Why not? Unfortunately, we all know the answer to that question. Agree or disagree with the current state of their party, no one disputes the fact that regardless of the candidate, the LP never seems to get anywhere. Neither do the Greens, although one could argue that both parties have had candidates in recent cycles that helped tip the scale one way or the other between donkeys and elephants. But is tipping the scale the goal? We never talk about the squeaky voiced, short guy with the funny ears, who ran twice in the 90s. What made him different — besides money of course? He had a message. Something about a conspiracy by the then current president to mess up his daughter’s wedding or something crazy like that. A precursor of the craziness the country went through the last two election cycles when someone even nuttier actually managed to get elected. So does this mean that for a “third-party” to make a difference it has to run a complete whack job? I hope not. Of course “insiders“ will tell you that the presidential campaign is meaningless. That all it does is get you ballot access in certain states. That the really important races are at the local level. Of course, that is true. But eventually presidential elections will mean something if a smaller party begins to succeed. Until then, parties just have to continue running politically credible candidates, who all “die on the sword” to try to advance their message. To their credit, all the presidential candidates I have worked with believed their mission was extending ballot access and helping downstream candidates. Most of the others I interacted with had similar goals. That is why antics at the national level, such as candidates for president wearing masks, Civil War uniforms, or boots on their head, only do damage to whatever that party is trying to accomplish. Flamboyant party leaders also distract from a credible appearance. All of this adds to a continuing decrease in coverage of parties and their candidates by the media. When I joined the libertarian party in 2005, I started going to national conventions. At the 2006 convention, I met several people who stated they were running in 2008, including Dr Phillies. They were all respectable looking, with rational issues. My recollection is that almost everyone at the 2008 convention made solid presentations. By 2020, the tables were turned. There were several credible candidates, but the whack jobs were in abundance. Those of us around the country who believe that local elections are what you win first would’ve been embarrassed, and lost credibility at the local level, by several of the potential national candidates. As we all know, a lot of the good dedicated leadership of the LP has either left, is being forced out, or in some cases is plotting taking the party back over from the usurpers. Look at what the Libertarian Party of Colorado recently did. I have no idea about election laws in their state, but if a party did that in South Carolina, state law enforcement would probably be raiding their meetings, and making arrests due to violation of state law regarding parties colluding together. Usurpers acting completely mad. But regardless of whether it is legal or not, openly colluding – or suggesting collusion – with another party is disgusting. At some point you have to decide whether the ethical infrastructure of the organization has crossed the line of corruption to a point where it is no longer salvageable. So where am I going with this? And why, after pretty much “retiring“ and just sitting back, and observing for the past nearly 3 years, am I making noise again? I have watched two parties fail that I have been involved in. First, the Republican Party in the 1990s. And now the Libertarian Party. Both abandoned their mission. Both abandoned their ethics. Not everyone. But enough of the leadership to cause the direction to change. So I decided to get back in the game. There is a lot of work to do. Fortunately, I found a group of ethical and dedicated people, and there will be a new national classical liberal party. From what I have heard rumors of, there may actually be several groups that end up launching. And the next week, I was even told by someone that she had heard on a podcast that I and the editor of 3PW were working together to create a national party. That one shocked me so much that I almost fell over laughing. Are they that scared? Would a secret cabal led by Dr Phillies and myself be their