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...building the libertarian future...
...through practical politics...
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AuGeo |
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Sun Jun 14, 2009 at 12:37:58 PM MDT |
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Wed May 26, 2010 at 09:38:56 AM MDT
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AuGeo writes: Folks, the tables will not pass simly pass through the Content Management Software. To read the tables, go straight to http://NewPathForTheLP.org and read the business plan.
LNC Inc. has a long list of weaknesses that have combined into a threat to its continued existence. If these weaknesses are not corrected soon, the National Party will cease to function in a meaningful way. On the other hand, there are enormous opportunities awaiting an active, effective party.
What are some of these weaknesses?
Falling membership -- down more than half in ten years.
Declining income -- down nearly three-quarters in real dollars in ten years.
Shrinking donor base -- the number of large donors keeps falling.
Decreasing credibility -- fundraising appeals that were once a major income stream now sometimes lose money.
Declining activity base -- some state parties have been inactive for years; others have vanished.
Negative momentum -- the National Party is going backwards.
Treading water -- the National Committee response to the above is to keep repeating the same activities on a smaller and smaller scale
Parliamentary Paralysis -- the LNC spends its time dreaming about Robert's Rules of Order.
The LNC needs
More Resources: Money, People, Activists
Positive momentum
Credibility to regain lost members
Credibility to gain new members
There is a clear solution. (1) The LNC frees up resources and generates new resources. (2) The LNC starts doing real politics rather than treading water. (3). The LNC is seen as being politically active. (4) Steps 1-3 generate new resources and opportunities, allowing these steps to be repeated. We generate more activists, donors, candidates, and other resources. The LNC moves into an ascending spiral.
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Wed May 26, 2010 at 09:33:36 AM MDT
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AuGeo writes: The authors are looking for Libertarian Majority Party Status, not perpetual defeatism.
Perhaps we should have inserted this chapter at the beginning. After all, this is the chapter that lays out the true objectives of our Libertarian Party, as seen by the New Path. If you talk honestly about our final destination, readers may find the trip sounds too challenging.
That's why we talked first about simple practical steps that we clearly can put into place. Those steps were all obvious and sensible ways to move in what was clearly the right direction. Now that we're moving the right way, let's consider where the journey will take us.
The purposes of a political party are to place candidates on the ballot, to elect them to office, and to use its elected officials and other parts of the political process to put its platform into place.
What do we need to reach our objective?
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Wed May 26, 2010 at 09:30:34 AM MDT
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Earlier chapters discussed what the LNC needs to do. Here we turn to a different question, namely how the LNC should organize in order to do its work. Perhaps also buried here is some discussion of how not to organize, at least if you want results.
Actually, this Step's changes start happening before any of the other changes. To fix our Party, we first have to fix how it goes about its business. However, if we'd started with Parliamentary Procedure rather than Quick Fixes, Real Politics, Fund Raising, and Member Acquisition, most of you would have chucked this book into the nearest wastebasket. Or hauled it out to the firing range for some well-deserved target practice. So the last actually shall be first. The deeds in this last section really must start happening before anything else can.
If we want to have an effective LNC, we need to suppress the Roberts cult that tries to replace substantive discussion with hairsplitting centered on what should be entirely procedural rules. The Summer 2005 Policy Manual was 41 pages of narrow columns and large type. The December 2009 Policy manual is 56 pages of wide columns and small type. We once had a Policy Manual that was simply an ordered set of operational motions passed by the LNC. We now have a bloated Policy Manual riddled with footnotes to Roberts, complete with the claim that if the LNC Secretary modifies the manual, and if the LNC does not reject the changes, the changes are binding. We need a Policy Manual that reflects LNC Policy, not a Policy Manual that reflects mind games of a few Committee members.
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Wed May 26, 2010 at 09:28:09 AM MDT
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The Practice of Scientific Membership Acquisition
No bones about it: We Need Growth, or We Will Die.
Fine. How do we return to days gone by when our membership was growing?
The first answer is to revive the LNC's credibility. We need to be seen as doing real politics. We need to put resources where they will have the biggest bang for the buck. Nobody wants to give time or money just to pay overhead. Yes, people understand there has to be some overhead. But nobody (except the dominant coalition on the LNC, who voted for the current overhead level) considers our current overhead level to be acceptable.
Activists need and deserve activity. We need to show a lot of it, soon, or we will fail to justify being supported. Activity may start slowly, but there must be more as time passes.
People need to be given a good reason to give time and money. When people see effective activity, they will be more open with their wallets. The New Path plan will give that effective activity. As a result, membership will start to grow.
The next way to expand the membership is to stop the bleeding. In the last five years we saw two massive spikes in the membership lapse rate: first from mid-2005 to early 2007; then from early 2008 to late 2009.
What happened in that timeframe that led longtime members to give up on the LP?
continued below fold
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Thu May 20, 2010 at 19:44:32 PM MDT
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AuGeo forwards from George Phillies: Of course, last minute attack letters are the stuff of politics. You learn to live with them. And now I have received mine. (Actually, I did not receive mine. I have not received a copy.) Remember, there will always be reasons for not surfacing the attack until the last minute, and most of those reasons are subject to question. Recall the four-page attack on Mary Ruwart, last convention, that was mailed so late that many of us got it only when we came home.
More silliness below fold
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Wed May 19, 2010 at 10:27:16 AM MDT
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AuGeo: As forwarded to GoldAmericaGroup from George Phillies
Situation on Massachusetts Libertarian Ballot Access
Recently -- hey, I'm a candidate, did you expect my opponents to say nice things about me? -- a number of bizarre rumors have arisen about Massachusetts Libertarian ballot access. Please note that I am one member of the state committee, our chair is David Blau, and our state committee has uniformly been unanimous on these questions. In particular:
#1) False rumor: Massachusetts Libertarians are about to lose ballot access.
Truth: This year, you can run for partisan office here on the "Libertarian line". In 2012, you will be able to run for partisan office here on the "Libertarian line". In every other future year, you will be able to run for partisan office here on the "Libertarian line". That's true no matter who we Massachusetts Libertarians run or do not run for office in 2010. There is no legal way to change this situation. [Ballot aside: In most town ballots, the candidate names appear in a vertical column, with the Party Designation in slightly smaller print on the line after the name.]
#2) False rumor: I declined an offer to run for Secretary of State as a Libertarian.
Truth: I am not legally eligible to run for Secretary of State. If anyone had asked -- they didn't -- I would have told them so. [Why? I'm Libertarian State Treasurer, and our state law says that Treasurers of State-filing PACs may not be candidates for public office.]
#3) False rumor: I kept Barr off the Ballot in Massachusetts.
Truth: Barr was on the ballot here. He was on the ballot here because I personally organized the litigation that got him on the ballot. He was on the ballot here because I spent thousands of dollars of my own money to collect signatures. He was on the ballot here because the signature distribution process to Town Clerks, and later the collection and transmission to the Secretary of State, was staged out of my house.
#4) False rumor: The Massachusetts Party is not running anyone for statewide office.
Truth: In Massachusetts, parties cannot put candidates on the ballot. Candidates have to put themselves on the ballot. Getting on the ballot is either so easy that you can do it yourself (State Rep, 150 signatures) or so challenging (Secretary of State, 5000 signatures) that getting on the ballot costs thousands and thousands of dollars. Of that great expense, the state Libertarians can legally give a candidate for non-Federal office five hundred dollars. To my knowledge, the libertarian candidates in this state with money are running this year for Congress.
#5) False rumor: After this election, Massachusetts Libertarians will have minor party status and find it harder to get on the ballot as Libertarians.
Truth: In Massachusetts, it is easier to get on the ballot as a minor party candidate than as a major party candidate, for every office except President. Yes, that's the opposite of some other states. If you are a minor party candidate, any registered voter can sign your nominating papers. If you are a major party candidate, registered voters who belong to other major parties can not sign your nominating papers. No matter your party connection, for each office the required number of signatures is exactly the same for all candidates. Last Winter, Joe Kennedy ran for U.S. Senate. The press covered him as a "Libertarian". He was running on the "Liberty Party" line. He notes that if he had tried to run as a Libertarian, he would have failed to get on the ballot.
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Sun May 16, 2010 at 18:39:29 PM MDT
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The Basis for Scientific Membership Acquisition
Recently a supporter of a certain LNC chair candidate challenged opponents by asking exactly which demographic groups would we propose targeting. The chair candidate in question has been (to his credit) very upfront about who he thinks is our most promising target market. In his view, it is the Fox News, Newsmax and Palinesque "Tea Party" crowd.
To date, we don't believe anyone has answered the challenge, so let us propose our thinking on the matter.
Various surveys over the last five years have noted anywhere between 10 and 20 percent of Americans identify as "libertarian" in some sense. That's 25 to 50 million voting age people. Libertarian candidates rarely get more than a few percent of the vote, and actual party membership is but a tiny fraction of even that depressed percentage.
Our first position is: Rather than go after people who are on the opposite end of the Nolan Chart from where libertarians live (that's the Fox News/Newsmax crowd), why not go after people who are actual libertarians to begin with?
Fortunately, Pew Research provides us with a good snapshot of two "typical" libertarians, based on their research and polling. Our membership profile gives us another starting place. When you develop profiles of potential target "buyers" (members), you can gear your advertising, marketing, public relations and outreach efforts toward these people. When those targeted people come and look at your website, read your publications, and hear your representatives, they realize they have found a home.
The LP has been seriously negligent on this score. Those who argue for improved marketing and branding are right - we currently do nothing of the kind. The key questions are: What are we marketing? And to whom?
Answer below fold:
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Fri May 14, 2010 at 21:30:08 PM MDT
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AuGeo writes: I keeping forwarding parts of the New Path plan, and will keep at it. You can read the entire plan, and the short-form business plan, at NewPathForTheLP.org.
Our objective is to turn the Libertarian Party into the American majority party. We will become the majority party through thoughtful, effective, hard-working leadership that spends your money effectively, that mobilizes volunteers in useful ways, that incites effective grass-roots organizing, and that spends its time electing Libertarians and creating the conditions that will elect more. On our way to that objective, we will reunite vast numbers of Republican and Democratic politicians with their families in much-needed retirement, and not incidentally re-unite their political parties with their political ancestors, notably the Whigs, Federalists, and Know-Nothings.
Mobilizes volunteers? Anyone can talk about mobilizing volunteers. You need to do real work to make it happen.
The National Committee can and should maintain an internal education campaign. Our message: Take charge of your political life. You don't need our permission to become an activist. We need every Libertarian to be active in politics.
The National Committee can't ask every Libertarian individually to volunteer. We still have people with titles, people who have promised to spend their time helping the party. These people should view candidate and activist recruitment as a major personal objective.
More Below the Fold
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Tue May 11, 2010 at 15:25:34 PM MDT
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We are going to ask people to give us money. How will we handle it?
First, we will spend more and more of the LNC's money on doing real politics. The quick fixes mentioned above are going to free up very substantial chunks of change. That money will be going into our most important Mission-Critical Activity, real politics.
Second, we're going to move to fiscal transparency. We're moving to a budget that makes clear how we are spending your money, as opposed to a budget that hides all spending under a few nebulous categories. We're going to fundraisers that let you know how we actually spent your money, so you can see we're not raising for doing politics and spending the money on the back office.
Third, we'll be giving financial reports that match what a political party should be doing, not categories appropriate if we ran a steel mill. We're under entirely different rules on reporting, taxes, etc., and our reports to you should match our mission and our activities.
Fourth, we're going to move to budget allocation processes that make sure that your donations are spent the way they should be. An example of this approach is provided by the Massachusetts budgeting plan. Our Massachusetts state association has adopted a budgeting scheme under which there is no need to guess how many people will join or renew their memberships this year. Instead of fixing spending totals, as though newsletter printing costs were independent of the number of members, LAMA tells members in advance how their membership dues will be divided. The division includes so much toward printing the newsletter, so much for sending renewal notices, so much for administrative costs, etc. Dues allocations center on items where the donation covers the marginal cost per member, and on targets where spending totals can be flexible, such as internet advertising. This scheme averts many pointless arguments about budgeting for an unpredictable membership count.
The Massachusetts budgeting scheme clarifies spending patterns. A member knows how his dues are being spent, and what his membership costs the party. If estimates of marginal costs are good, the cost of each member is covered by the member's donation, so the party budget is not perturbed if the membership fluctuates. Adoption of the Massachusetts plan, with numbers suited to our particular needs, would allow the National Committee to center its attention elsewhere.
Having said that, we are confident: These steps will revive the confidence of libertarian donors. They will see that their hard earned contribution dollars are being spent in ways that actually advance us into the Libertarian future. And then with the right approach, they will give us more and more money. That's not just the best way to revive our party's finances. It's the only way.
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Sun May 09, 2010 at 18:47:34 PM MDT
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As also seen on LibertyForAll.net and IndependentPoliticalReport.com, and forwarded by the good will of Lee Wrights, LNC At-Large and Editor of Liberty for All.
This term, LNC Treasurer Aaron Starr instigated attacks on At-Large reps that consumed more LNC time than any other single activity. I urge delegates to say "No!" to such divisive behavior by refusing to return him to the LNC in any capacity.
It saddens me to write these words, as I once had great respect for Mr. Starr and even supported his bid for Treasurer in 2004. However, serving with him on the last LNC has greatly changed my perspective.
In the LNC's first full-length meeting (September, 2008), Aaron Starr accused At-Large Rep Angela Keaton of blogging confidential information from our Executive Session. We spent almost half of our meeting time deciding whether or not violations occurred and what, if anything, should be done about it. While such leaks can create liability for the LNC, nothing that Ms. Keaton blogged even approached that level. Most of the LNC- including myself, I regret to say-took Mr. Starr's concerns more seriously than they warranted.
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Sat May 08, 2010 at 11:30:35 AM MDT
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The Libertarian National Committee is tasked with a short series of Mission Critical Activities. We need to raise and spend money well. We need to recruit and retain members. We need to run a first-rate back office. But above all, we need to Do Real Politics. A political party that is not doing real politics is really not doing anything; it's just occupying space and draining its members' wallets.
Part Two lists a long series of ways of doing real politics. They're all the important and worthwhile activities. We don't claim that list is good, but it's a good start. We don't claim we're going to be able to do all of them, all at once, as though we were about to become the majority party. We do promise you that we're going to make a start on all of them, enough of a start that our present and future donors will have the flavor of the activity, and be ready to invest in it if they want. Some of the activities we propose, such as running a national convention, reinvigorating state affiliates, and making downloadable trifolds available, are fairly self-explanatory. A few could use a bit more discussion, and that's what we offer here.
For list, see below the fold:
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Thu May 06, 2010 at 17:04:14 PM MDT
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Part Three
How Do We Do It?
Part Two gave a list of activities we need to perform. Some activities are mission-critical, others are important, and bringing up the rear we have a few worthwhile activities. Put together, those merely important activities are mission-critical. We could miss one or another now and then, but if we did none of them over a long period there would be mission-critical failure.
We now move to Part Three. We've listed the things we need to be doing. How do we assemble the resources needed to get those things done?
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Tue May 04, 2010 at 16:52:20 PM MDT
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Which tasks are uniquely appropriate for the National Committee? One task, and only one, is specified in the Bylaws. Other tasks can be inferred from the mandate in Article Three of the Party Bylaws. Some tasks are reasonably sent to the National Party because they are huge, critical, and only the National Party has the needed resources.
Let's start with our Bylaws. I've inserted numbers to help you keep track of specified actions.
ARTICLE 3: PURPOSES
The Party is organized to implement and give voice to the principles embodied in the Statement of Principles by: (1) functioning as a libertarian political entity separate and distinct from all other political parties or movements; moving public policy in a libertarian direction by (2) building a political party that elects Libertarians to public office; (3) chartering affiliate parties throughout the United States and (4) promoting their growth and activities; (5) nominating candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States, and (6) supporting Party and affiliate party candidates for political office; and, (7) entering into public information activities.
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Sun May 02, 2010 at 17:03:42 PM MDT
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Eric Sundwall recently proposed a set of questions to National Chair candidates. Here (below the fold) are Sundwall's questions and George Phillies' answers.
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Sat May 01, 2010 at 21:57:48 PM MDT
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We'll start with activities every Libertarian group including the LNC should be doing. We'll identify some of these as Mission Critical Activities, some as Important Activities, and a few as Worthwhile Activities. There are absolutely critical activities like fund raising, membership recruitment, and back office operations. Without those, Party operations come to a stop. Then there are Important Activities like candidate support, volunteer mobilization, voter base development, and public outreach.
Some people thought we could skip Important Activities for a while when times got tough. After all, nothing in particular happens if you don't run ads for a month. Those "some people" were wrong, dead wrong. Those people have almost killed our party. Candidate support, volunteer mobilization, all those activities that look like you could skip them for a bit...those are the reasons that we exist. If you aren't doing them, if you aren't supporting candidates, mobilizing volunteers, advertising the libertarian message...your group isn't doing anything. It's just a parasite on the libertarian body politic.
So what are the activities for every party group?
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Thu Apr 29, 2010 at 20:02:54 PM MDT
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The New Path objective is to turn the Libertarian Party into the American majority party. We will become the majority party through thoughtful, effective, hard-working leadership that spends your money effectively, that mobilizes volunteers all across America to do effective work, and that spends its time electing Libertarians and creating conditions that will elect more. As we move toward that objective, we will reunite vast numbers of Republican and Democratic politicians with their families in much-needed retirement, and not incidentally re-unite their political parties with their political ancestors, notably the Whigs, Federalists, and Know-Nothings.
Mobilize volunteers? Anyone can talk about mobilizing volunteers. You need to do real work to make it happen.
Remainder below fold:
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Wed Apr 28, 2010 at 16:39:48 PM MDT
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How do we find an answer? Step one is to turn over a new page, a blank page that we will fill in. Then ask what the LNC should be doing. That's 'what', not the 'how should we do it?' There are activities every party group should do -- many of the most critical activities are here. There are also activities specifically appropriate for the LNC. We'll see what those activities are.
Step One: Start from Zero
By now you understand the crisis we face as an organization. Consider our revenues, our membership levels, the number of contributors, or any other metric. No matter which metric you choose, we are failing.
Our party can still be saved, but only if we act now.
The members of the LNC's current dominant coalition - the people who created this crisis, and did absolutely nothing to solve it - are utterly bereft of any solutions.
Fortunately, there are answers. Sensible answers.
Where did we get the answers? What the New Path did was develop a zero based budget and zero-base strategy. What does that mean? It means that we tore off a blank sheet of paper and assumed we were starting from zero.
And what was on that list? See below the fold. Remember, starting at zero does not mean you plan to end up there, it means you apply self-criticism to every operation.
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Sun Apr 25, 2010 at 20:54:33 PM MDT
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A Simple Summary:
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
Business plans sensibly start with a serious look at the situation. Where are we? What do we do well? What's stopping us from succeeding? Where do we have opportunities? What is threatening us? The answers appear as bullet-pointed lists.
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Sun Apr 25, 2010 at 20:49:35 PM MDT
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From the New Path Program document at http://newpathforthelp.org/ima...
The Mortal Danger
Our Libertarian Party is morbidly ill.
Since 2000, party membership has fallen more than half. There are dips and bumps, but the trend is down, down, down. If things go on, someplace around 2016 we will be down to the life members and a few party faithful.
Since 2000, party income dropped by three-quarters in real dollars. As with party membership, there are dips and bumps. We do better in election years. The trend is still down, down, down. If things go on, by 2016 party income will nearly have vanished.
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Wed Apr 21, 2010 at 20:25:18 PM MDT
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Gold America Group is the open blog for sensible, polite, discussion of libertarian political activity and the libertarian political movement. Participation by all libertarians prepared to be polite to each other is invited.
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