1. Slowly but surely the media in Oklahoma is beginning to pay attention to the Libertarian party. Chris Powell is an excellent spokesman.

2. story part –

   Professors Boris Schor and Nolan McCarty track polarization at americanlegislatures.com. Their latest rankings show California has the nation’s most polarized legislature.
   —-
   Higher percentage of communists in CA legislature than in any other State ??? — even NY, MA, etc. ???

   NO primaries.

   PR and AppV

3. Robert, I hope so.

   I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way for the Libertarian Party to get to the next level is to concentrate their efforts in deeply red and deeply blue states. In evenly contested states, they are vulnerable to the offensive “wasted vote” charge. Of course that charge is deeply offensive, but it’s made, and it can stick.

   I view Oklahoma is a particularly good laboratory for this. An examination of the 2016 election results bears this out. In 2012, Oklahoma was the only state in which Gary Johnson wasn’t on the ballot and where write in votes for him either weren’t permitted or were not counted. Only Republican and Democratic candidates were on the ballot. Fast forward to 2016. We have the same Libertarian candidate. The LP did the hard work to overcome the onerous requirements of Oklahoma ballot access law to secure a ballot line for their candidate. Oklahoma was one of only 6 states that Jill Stein couldn’t make the ballot, and one of an even smaller number that had only Clinton, Trump, and Johnson on the ballot (of the six states that Stein missed, Darrell Castle made some of them, but not Oklahoma). The results were Gary Johnson received 5.75% of the vote, his fourth highest percentage of any state.

   Of course, Trump carried Oklahoma easily. Hillary, for her part, couldn’t clear 30% in that state. If you were to combine Trump’s and Johnson’s votes, then split them evenly, Hillary would have finished third.

   These facts tell me two things. First, Oklahomans are hungry for another viable choice. They practically live in a one party state, and who really wants no political competition. Second, it’s hopeless to be a Democrat there. I think LP candidates in that state should start making the argument that voting for a Democrat is a wasted vote, and if citizens there want a real choice and real political competition, they should vote LP, as they are, given the political culture of that state, the best positioned to give the Republicans real political competition, which would benefit everyone.

   I don’t think this observation is unique to Oklahoma, but Oklahoma provides a particularly good set of facts to test this assumption — deeply one party state, with onerous ballot access laws that limit the ability of third parties to gain a foothold, giving the one third party that has, the LP, the field to themselves (no other third parties are present to split the third party vote).

   If you are in a three-way race, start in third place, and have as your goal winning, if you win, one of your opponents is going to finish in third place. My strategy if I were the third party candidate is to identify which of the two above me would most likely finish third, and take that particular opponent down first. Once I’ve succeeded in doing so, then I’d target that opponent’s voters with the wasted vote argument and built my support to surpass the first place candidate.

   I’ve been reading about Larry Sharp’s campaign for Governor of NY. Based on what I’ve read, he seems to get this, and in fact, is starting to talk about himself as the main competition for the Democrat.

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