My first interview at the South Carolina Libertarian Party convention was with Lars Mapstead.  As with most of the candidates, this was my first time meeting Mr Mapstead.  This interiew was conducted about 11am on November 11, 2023 and took about 30 minutes. Since Mr Mapstead was my first interview of the day, he was actually asked one more question than the other candidates. Based on his opinion that he would decline to answer, it is not included and was not asked of the other candidates.  I appreciate Mr Mapstead’s candor with what turned out to be wise advice. In these interviews I will attempt to include the entire answer where practical, however there will be a few answers where elipses (…) are placed where there was either a pause or a comment interjected by the interviewer, or braces ([ ]) ocasionally for editorial corrections. Question One What drove your decision to run for this office? I think that what it really comes down to is I was watching the 2020 election, and I was watching the George Floyd riots break out. I was watching us being locked down in covid, and then I was watching all the animosity around the January 6th stuff and I realized that everybody in America is pissed off…and all my friends were coming to me and telling me that they were suffering under economic hardship, [it was] hard to make ends meet, the health care system was breaking, and the education system was breaking.  They were having run-ins with criminal justice…so there were a lot of things that were hardships for people. They kept saying, well why don’t you do something about it?  You’re a smart guy, you know how to fix problems.  You’ve been a business person and that’s what you do.  I [had] watched Jo and Spike do their run, and I said I can do that.  And I could bring a message thats different than the duopoly is delivering.  All my life I felt I had to vote for Bush or Clinton, [as if] that was my only choices for most of my life… I voted for Ross Perot and then Ron Paul twice.  And the reason I did that is because they were talking about the debt and the deficit and the Federal Reserve and I was big on monetary issues…the economy, and how people were able to get ahead — or not get ahead…my friends suffering…and then asking me for some help to aleviate the problem and I wanted to offer more choices and voices to the American People. Question Two What do you hope the primary impact of your run will be internally within the Libertarian Party and externally with the public if you get the nomination? I think internally, one of the the things I’ve really come to understand running for President is that there is no fundraising mechanism that’s easily available for all candidates running across the country, and if there’s anything we all know, what it takes to win elections — its money. I came into this thinking that I’d be plugged into this fundraising “machine” that was going to be able to raise money and run my campaign for me and I realized that just doesn’t exist. In fact, the Libertarian Party is having a hard time financially all across the board.  States are, national is, candidates are.  And the candidates I’ve talked to said I wish there was a way to raise funds, because I would have been able to win my election. So one one of the things I am working on is a thing called “go gold”, which is the equivalent of “act blue” or “win red”, which is what the republicans and democrats have…I’m going to make it happen, because that’s what I do as a business person.  I think its a doable thing.  I have a number of people that are interested in helping out with it… (Interviewer interjected: So you’re going to continue with that regardless of the nomination?) One hundred percent!  That’s one thing…and the other thing that I have done is…the Libertarian Party stopped doing candidate training, and I believe that running candidates is the thing the party is supposed to do.  Run candidates and win elections.  If you don’t have candidate training, how are you going to have qualified candidates that can run?  I have worked with Cara Shultz to return [to] candidate training.  We’re doing online free candidate training for any candidate that wants to, and its not really associated necessarily with my campaign.  I want to offer that to the Libertarian Party because I feel like…I’m very much a party person as far as wanting to have success across the board in all states — as many as we can. I would also add…that I’ve been working hard on ballot access…in Maine part of my plan for having success in my candidacy is to win electoral votes, and Maine and Nebraska split up their electoral votes…these are two, but there are eight or ten states that are very applicable to this. We need ballot access in Maine, and we don’t have it right now.  I have been very active in fundraising for them.  I went to Maine and campaigned in Maine and got signatures for them.  I’m running ads on twitter right now to get more registered Libertarians, because we need five thousand of them before the end of the year or we’re not going to be on the ballot.  All candidates should be focused on that and I don’t see that coming out of other campaigns.