According to Last Free Voice:
The Libertarian Party (Libertarian National Committee, Incorporated) is apparently preparing to file suit against the New Hampshire Secretary of State. The lawsuit will demand that the state place Bob Barr on the ballot, and remove George Phillies from the ballot. This suit is separate and distinct from the ACLU lawsuit in Massachusetts to substitute Bob Barr in place of George Phillies on the Massachusetts ballot.
The article claims that Phillies is not cooperating with efforts to remove him from the New Hampshire ballot, reportedly citing an ethical obligation to petition signers that placed him there.
Barr is expected to appear on the New Hampshire ballot as well, since his supporters submitted what they believe is enough signatures to qualify in the state appart from seeking to replace Phillies.
Since I am in Europe, I am not able to get full information (the above post was not written by me). But my understanding is that the NH LP will be a co-plaintiff in this lawsuit. If the case wins, the NH LP will have won the legal right to substitute, not only in this instance, but into the future as well. Thus the lawsuit would be a ballot access gain for New Hampshire and the nation.
I do not follow the logic of this. If Barr has enough signatures to get on the ballot in new Hampshire then why waist the resources to sue to get Phillies off? Also if Barr has the signatures what is the point of Dr Phillies contnuing to run? There is an untold story here.
Ahh, Richard’s post wasn’t present when I posted that would make sense other the Dr. Phillies position. Which since he hasn’t spoken is unknowen?
naahhh I still don’t get it. Unless the lawyers are free? Lets say it costs 10,000 usd (and i suspect more) to sue over this. If Barr is already on the ballot then it is a mute issue. On top of that given the limited resources of the LPNC a waist of badly needed cash, durring a presidential election year. If this is true I expect to hear a very good explenation from the LPNC and the NHLP. Who is funding this? I make no accusations I am very currious though.
Gary Sinawski does not charge very much, and furthermore if the case wins, the party gets its attorneys fees back. The goal of this lawsuit is to win the right of parties in NH to use substitution, this year and in the future.
What was the reason for putting Phillies on in the first place ?
Was it because Barr had not signed on with the Libertarians at the time they took out the papers ?
What is the point? They are both losers.
The NHLP started collecting signatures for president in 2007. They were traumatized by failing to get a valid petition done in 2004 for Michael Badnarik, and then again failing in 2006 (for Governor). After two elections in a row of not getting on statewide, they decided to start super-early. They put George Phillies on the petition for 2008. New Hampshire doesn’t permit substitution. Barr didn’t even announce until April 2008.
So there is a risk here of losing the suit and Barr NOT being on the ballot in NH, correct? George Phillies still will be but not Bob Barr; is that correct?
Richard, I’d like to know how “NH LP” will be a co-plantiff, when the LPNH Exec Comm (of which I’m a voting member) has NOT authorized such a lawsuit, and we explicitly discussed such an option and REJECTED voting for it.
Someone is lying to you, or worse, being told that LPNH will support this, when by my informal head count, it won’t pass an ExecComm vote if proposed.
The problem is that the national LP holds its convention WAY too late. If you wait until the nominee is named, you don’t have enough time to petition, and because each person can only sign once, the Nader people and such have already sucked up a lot of people who would be inclined to sign, so a lot more get rejected as well.
The NLP REALLY needs to move their convention back at least 6 months.
Fortunantly, ALL the court precedent is on the side of substitution, so hopefully the non-candidate Phillies will be off the ballot this November.
JM
Seth,
I sure hope that the NHLP can get some perspective here. After failing to get on the ballot for two statewide cycles, a little wakeup call is in order.
The chances of Bob Barr winning in NH or being elected this year are minute. The chances for George Phillies are infinitesimally minute. The chances for a lawsuit victory are significant. And the value of such a victory, as a step toward liberty, far outweighs ANYTHING that could be gained by pandering to that perfectly pure, petulant primadonna of the purity police, George Phillies.
To the NHLP:
If you haven’t signed on yet to this vital ballot access lawsuit, please hurry up and do so. Court victories could be a great surprise outcome to what otherwise could be a lackluster and possibly quite damaging year for the LP.
Thanks for the explanation Richard.
What I find curious is why the LP did not focus their efforts on becoming a permamently qualified party in New Hampshire. Your chart says they need 12,500 signatures. It’s not the easiest state to qualify in but it is far from the hardest. California requires 88,000 registrants. Not petition signatures but 88,000 people that have to reregister into the new party in order for it to qualify. And it takes alot more work to convince someone to reregister than to sign a petition.
The whole scenario is mystifying.
This lawsuit is nothign more than a faction in the LPUS trying for a political payback on Phiilies, who has been an outspoken critic of Barrroot. It is similar to a SLAPP suit, except in this case it is not targeted directly against Phillies, even though if they win he is negatively affected.
The fact that Barrroot has filed their own petitions makes the suit moot. If the suit was truly about substitution, then those petitons would not have been filed and the suit filed much earlier.
This is all a colossal waste of money at LPUS, and that is already in short supply anyway. The vice-chair, at least a third of the LNC, and the General Counsel were all caught off-guard by this.
That’s why the perpetrators should resign, starting with Redpath.
Hmm. It would seem that their is a rather high degree of internal division and anger within the LP, and it seems to be getting worse and worse over the years.
Is the party going to fall the way of the Reform or Natural Law? Heck, the Green Party has pretty much split into a Nader-Independent faction and those who want another Green Party candidate and those who want to work with the Democrats.
This is a very good argument the LNC has: Petition signers, signed the Phillies petitions believing they were qualifying the Libertarian Presidential ticket, and not necessarily Mr. Phillies.
In New Hampshire, the petitioners are not so much petitioners, but official affadavits of NH Voters. They are literally one page each, and very official looking with the State Seal and the whole works.
I could imagine a number of NH voters getting super pissed off to learn that they had signed not to get the Libertarian nominee for President on the ballot, but rather some guy from Massachusetts who placed 6th for the nomination.
What Phillies is doing is very nearly outright voter fraud.
Obviously, I meant to say the “petitions are not so much petitions,” not “petitioners.” Sorry for the typing error.
The LP managed to make the ballot in every state + DC in 1992, 1996, and 2000. The nominating conventions in 1996 and 2000 were later (~July 4) than the ones in 2004 and 2008 (late May) when we did not make all 50 state ballots.
The problem is that the LNC decided after 2000 that 50-state access was no longer a top priority. They were no longer willing to invest the time, effort, and money required to make it happen.
They also decided that increasing membership wasn’t a top priority either, which is a big part of the reason membership fell from a peak of over 30,000 to a low of around 10,000. Fewer members led to less revenue, which makes it harder to fund ballot drives. It also means fewer volunteers.
If a future LNC decides to once again focus on building membership and makes 50-state ballot access a top priority, nominating in late May won’t be a problem.
Richard, luv him to death, but he’s painting a very rosy picture of what actually happened in New Hampshire. In truth, Phillies and his Anarchist supporters, mostly affiliated with the Free State Project, continued to petition long after it was known that Barr was the Nominee.
They could have ceased petitioning after Phillies failed to gain the nomination. But they figured they’d embarrass “Rightwing Libertarian” Barr by contiuing the Phillies signature gathering.
It’s even worse than this.
New Hampshire law states that a voter can only sign one petition for one third-party candidate.
That means that a person who signs for say Ralph Nader, invalidates a signature for Bob Barr. And yes, someone who signs for George Phillies invalidates the Barr signature, as well.
In practice, this meant that we petitioners on the ground had to be extra careful in asking voters if they remembered signing for another Libertarian candidate in the past. Additionally, we had to avoid mostly, high population areas, like Manchester, where we knew the Phillies people had gotten a great many signatures.
This slowed the signaturing gathering process for Barr/Root down. We still got way more than enough to qualify, and met our goal for the State.
However, and this is the crux of the matter, by delaying the NH drive, it put us way behind for Connecticut. We had to play catch up. In fact, it got quite chaotic at the end in CT. We made it. But…
We missed it in Maine. Our delay in CT, due to our delay in New Hampshire, left us with only 2 1/2 days to gather 4000 signatures in Maine; a near impossibility. We were only able to get 3200.
Phillies escapades in seeking to thwart the democratically elected Libertarian Party Presidential ticket in the State of New Hampshire, eventually cost us ballot status in the State of Maine.
I have pretty much in the past been apposed to mandatory dues as a requirement for membership. But what Mr Dasbach just said made me realize, that one benefit of a dues system is that it creates an incentive for the party to increase membership.
I still am not in favor of mandatory dues but maybe a two teer system where both levels can participate in party function but one level gets better seating?
Eric,
Seems like a long stretch to blame the problems in NH to the event in Maine. I have more respect for those who take responsibility for their failures then I have for those that look for some one else to lay the fault upon. For example, Did Barr have anybody up in NH the day after the convention starting the petition process or was their a delay? When did you arrive? If Barr’s staff had been better organized they would have been in NH earlier thus finishing earlier thus onto Ct and left with lots of time for Maine.
Think of it this way. If just two or three of the petition gatherers who were collecting for Phillies those last few weeks, had switched to help the official Libertarian ticket of Bob Barr/Wayne Root to gather signatures, we would have finished in NH a week earlier.
Finishing a week earlier would have allowed us to get to Connecticut on time. And it would have saved CT LP Treasurer & Ballot Drive Crdtr. Andy Rule a serious amount of heartache and lost nights of sleep.
Having a normal, on-schedule ballot drive in CT would have allowed us to get to Maine with plenty of time to spare. All we needed was one week. As it is, we only got 2 1/2 days.
How very, very sad that Phillies and his supporters chose to take this confrontational route.
George Phillies and all his supporters are entirely to blame for the loss of ballot status for the State of Maine for the Libertarian Party in 2008.
That’s a great question Steve.
The Maine Libertarian Party has a history of being controlled by more of a leftwinger element of the Party. These are George Phillies natural supporters.
When we got here, the first thing I inquired about was the local Libertarians.
I was told that not a single one of them was assisting the effort, nor had any plans to help.
In New Hampshire, we at least had three or four local LPers assisting. Same for CT, the main guy – Andy Rule – being a self-described “Christian Libertarian.”
One has to wonder why not a single LPer in Maine lifted a finger to help out the drive.
ZERO volunteer signatures were collected for the Maine effort.
One has to wonder if Phillies, who holds sway with a great many New Englander LPers, got to the LP locals in Maine. I strongly, strongly, strongly, suspect that to be the case.
Eric,
To demonstrate how ridiculous your blaming Phillies is. The population of New Hampshire is over 1.3 million. The requirement is what 6000 signatures. This amounts to 0.5% of the population. I don’t believe you couldn’t find a different 0.5% of the NH population then Phillies and his crew did. I don’t believe Phillies 0.5% had any impact on you finding Barss.
Eric,
The members of the Libertarian party are free people they have a right to decide whom they will put their effort out for and whom they won’t. Just like you a free to choose. Again you are blaming Phillies for the mind set of the Maine Libertarians. This sounds like Bob Barr and company failed to make a good sincere sales pitch. And you and Bob know the reasons that that group are distrustful of him. It is Bob’s responsibility to build party unity but Bob has a huge history of actions that make him suspect. Don’t blame the North East and George for not having bought Barr’s claims of being a new man. The blame rests with the candidate. Just like the aclaims.
Steve, New Hampshire is a very difficult State to get signatures in period! It’s 5 times harder than Maine. People in NH are very reluctant to sign anything. It may have to do with them being in the spotlight of politics all the time, versus the “country folks” in Maine.
Getting 80 signatures a day in NH was considered a “great day.” Getting 80 signatures in say Illinois, or even Maine would absolutely suck.
In Illinois for instance, I was regularly having days of 300 to 400 signatures.
So, do the math. First you get only 80 sigs a day in NH, on a good day you could bust 100.
Then out of those sigs you gotta hope that none of those people also signed for Phillies, even after you asked them.
Phillies made our job in New Hampshire enormously more difficult on numerous fronts.
As I’ve said, if just two or three of his people had just assisted us, in those final few days, instead of continuing their “renegage” drive, we could have finished much earlier, we would have allowed us to finish CT early, which would have definitely allowed us to get to Maine with more than enough time to spare.
George Phillies and his supporters have the blood of the State of Maine on their hands.
Eric,
I was just doing some back of the envelop estimations.
If half the NH population are registered voters. that means a pool of 600,000 if only 10 percent were willing to sign anybodys petition that reduces the pool to 60,000. If George took his 6000 and Ralf another 6000 then Barr had a pool of 48,000 But Most of Georges where from earlier in the Year so George really only impacted Bob by maybe what 1000 or around 1 in 50 so you needed to filter out maybe 300 people whom you met that had already signed for George from after the nomination. Ok 80 a day I’ll give you 50 a day that cost you 1 man week of work. If you had 7 people that cost you one working day. Lets say my math is off by an order of magnitude. and it cost you a week. You could have started a week earlier. Look Eric you deserve credit for the effort you and your team put in and the Job you did. But George doesn’t deserve the blame for your failures.
Basic math 1 in 50 of 6000 is 120 not 300. You had to talk to an additional 120 people that cost you less then two days. Unless you made a poor assumption about where you should go to collect those signatures. Like not collecting in the heavy population areas.
My failures, ‘eh?
Please explain how it is that New Hampshire, Connecticut, or Maine are “my failures”?
And btw, what’s your last name? Why do you post in an on-line Forum under the generic name “Steve”? Anybody can use the name Steve. You’re accusing me of “failing” in New England. Have the courage of your convictions, and post under your own name. Not some bogus name like “Steve” or “John Smith.”
My guess, you’re probably Paul Frankel, Andy, or Todd Andrew Barnette posting under “Steve.”
You’re focusing on a minor aspect of the Phillies efforts to sabotage our drives in New England. The main problem is the fact that they didn’t lift a finger to assist the LPNH in getting on the ballot, but rather sought to pursue their own renegade effort in complete opposition to the National LP.
Why, when they knew who the official Nominee of the Libertarian Party was, did they decide to continue with their effort, instead of assisting the National LP drive?
Hey “Steve,” why do you think that not a single Maine Libertarian Party member assisted the effort to get the Party on the ballot?
Laziness? I doubt it.
More likely, someone got to them, and told them to “sit on their hands,” so that the National LP and Barr/Root would not make it.
I’d be curious as to your response. Why do you think that the Maine ballot drive was 100% done by National?
Eric,
NH and CT where Barr sucess stories as far as I know. Maine Was a failure so far. George is not the cause of the failure in Maine. You have drawn out a long concated story in order to justify blaming george but it doesn’t hold water. If it was your stratagy to collect signatures in the less dense areas of NH then it was your stratagy that caused the delays that ended up costing Maine. Not Dr. Phillies.
Oh Eric, My name is Stephen Meier of Fremont California. Anyone who want’s to know can simply ask without making dumb accusations. By the way I got my Bob Barr package today because i made a donation to his campeign.
With such polite and pleasant petitioners, I can’t understand how the LP could ever lose a ballot drive. Not only polite, but they are never wrong!
Eric,
Some one told them to sit on their hands. Maybe but as free thinkers they could listen to whomever told them that or ignore it. But they arn’t your or Congressman Barr’s slaves to order around. You didn’t get any help? Could it be you came in like General Sherman did when he “visited” Atlanta?
By the way Eric, some of that “National” cash came from my pocket.
One rule of politics at the national level is that you have to put the effort into converting the locals into supporters of the national party. Did Congressman Barr visit New Hampshire, Main, CT and MA before the convention. Did he make any attempt to understand and address their concerns?
We both know the answer…. Now why do you think that Maine? was 100% national?
Sharon,
As much as I enjoy poking at Eric. He does get my thanks and gratitude for the very fine effort that he has made to get Barr on as many states as possible. It is his drive, his determination that pushes him and makes him unwilling to examine his weaknesses. Ohh yes this is all written without ever having met Eric and is probably completely BS.
Eric I do thank you for your effort, the bad food, the hottels. But, George did not cost Barr Maine and had almost no effect on Barr getting onto the ballot in NH.
Has Bob’s name been accepted to NH yet? I am waiting becouse if he has I owe Barr a donation on your behalf as I promissed earlier.
What seems to be left out of the above discussion is that if Dr. George Phillies had the decency to refuse to permit his name to be printed on the ballot access petitions in NH, and the LPNH instead used a TRUE stand-in like Ed Clark or Miriam Luce, then that stand-in would obviously have gone out of their way to make sure that only Bob Barr’s name appeared on the ballot in New Hampshire. And Dondero’s theory as to why Barr did not get ballot status in Maine is almost definitely correct. During crunch times like July and August, even a single day’s delay in getting petitioners into a state can cost you ballot access in that state.
Eric Dondero is a self-proclaimed Republican, but there is no reason he would lie about something that can be reltively easily checked by talking to LP members in New Hampshire and Maine, and by talking to our petitioners.
You know, come to think of it, Dr. Lieberman is 100% correct in this. I remember, in past years, it was common practice for the Libertarian Party to use Ed Clark’s name as the stand-in in many States. Mr. Clark allowed his name to be used, and there was never any problems with withdrawing his name.
Why all of a sudden we’ve got problems on this front in numerous States?
If Phillies was any sort of a man, he’d be jumping up and down screaming bloody murder at the State of New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and previously in Connecticit (where there was some question about this substitution thing too.)
Why is he being so evasive about all this, and so coy? Actions speak louder than words.
If he really wanted his name removed, he’d be all over the internet and in the media, blaming the State.
Eric is all mouth and no knowledge. There are no “Anarchists for Phillies”. Eric just made that up.
The strategy was to finish the drive for Phillies, so that either he or (through substiution) Barr would be on. We didn’t want to stop when we were a few hundred short and switch gears, thus increasing the possibility of ending up with nobody on the ballot at all.
ED>In practice, this meant that we petitioners on the ground had to be extra careful in asking voters if they remembered signing for another Libertarian candidate in the past.<ED
All of this is wrong. I watched Eric petition for a few minutes and he made no such statements. He also said he was doing great, at 20 sigs an hour, though that could have changed later.
The evidence that petitioning in New Hampshire is more difficult than in most states is that the Green Party presidential candidate has never been on in that state except in 2000; the Constitution Party likewise failed in both 2004 and 2008; Natural Law failed for president in NH in both 1996 and 2000; and no candidate of any socialist party for any office has been on in New Hampshire since 1980 (all the other New England states have had socialists on the ballot since then).
Eric Dondero is a professional. What he says above ought to be respected; he knows first-hand. How many other people who say it is easy have actually petitioned there? Why is it that New Hampshire was one of only two states in which Badnarik didn’t get on?
Meanwhile, New Hampshire is one of only two states which has never had a ballot access law declared unconstitutional, and now we have an opportunity to change that…and people are fighting each other instead of a repressive state government.
The Barr petition validity will not be known until August 27, but it is likely to be valid.
Richard,
What Eric says about petitioning should be respected. Particularily when Eric compares the results day per day from one state to another. But unless Eric has been on the ground before in an area then his knowledge is situationaly limited.
When Eric casts blame on others about a failed effort, I must beg to disagree with him.
I also believe that we the readers have a responsibility to evaluate what we are told. Eric has blamed the failure in Maine on George Phillies. In particular Eric claimed that New Hampshire was more difficult because of Phillies. thus they were delayed, thus late into Ct and thus late into Maine. Here I believe that a quick mathematical model shows that Phillies efforts had little to no impact on Barrs effort. Unless Barr was counting on local support. If Barr was counting on local petitioning support the model gets more difficult it then has to take into account the question of wether local activists are supportive of Barr and if likewise if Barr has done enough to bring the local activists into his support network. But to blame Phillies for this is weak very weak.
On the other hand I do think that Eric et al. made galient efforts to get as far as they did and they deserve credit for their work they do not deserve support when making unfounded accusations. Sorry that is far to childish for my taste!
Scott, there is a difference between telling lies and misjudging. If I am running late for work because I left my house late and then there is another car in front of me that is driving within the law. My being late for work wasn’t caused by that other car. I find it hard to believe that Phillies and company delayed Barr and company more then a couple of days. And if Barr and company avoided the populated zones out of fear of not having a rich enough source of signatures then my calculations state that Barr’s activists were making poor descisions. Phillies is not responsible for Barr’s activists poor decisions. I do not accuse Eric of lying I think he has nbeen working hard and reached his limit and was in a difficult situation. But blaming Phillies isn’t acceptable or reasonable.
If Barr’s workers rolled into a state without preperation and pissed off the locals rather then coming in early and doing the ground work early this hurts them. Again, this is a Barr campeign mistake not Phillies issue.
Scott,
New Hampshire does not allow substitution. A candidate either gets the signatures with his/her name or they don’t. Using a standard fill in the blank name is not yet an option. Unless…. and this is the point that Richard has been making unless the law not allowing substitution is changed. One way to get the law changed is to get a court of law to rule that the law is not valid. I had asked earlier if going after this case was a waist orf resources and Richard whom seems to be the most knowledgable believes it not to be a waist of resources. I don’t have a good counter argument and so I defer to Richard’s judgement.
Eric,
20 sigs an hour? So Phillies delayed the effort by six hours?
I think one question left is? Is this an effort to alow petiton switiching or is this an lpnc anti phillies effort?
Morey, what are you smoking? Must be some pretty good sh*t.
The “strategy was to finish the drive and collect the few hundred more signatures to assure there was a Libertarian on the ballot…”
Are you FRIGGIN’ KIDDING ME?????
That is a stupid ass remark if I ever heard of one.
Seth Cohn and the leadership of the NH LP were ENTIRELY AWARE!!! that the National Libertarian Party were shipping in THE VERY BEST PETITIONERS IN THE COUNTRY!!! to help the NH LP get on the ballot.
The chance of success for the National LP drive to gain the necessary 7500 gross signatures was very high.
As it was, the Phillies effort continuing to gather the signatures while we were up there, worked to undercut our effort. As mentioned before, someone who signs the Phillies petition first, disqualifies the Barr petition.
If the Phillies people had simply stopped petitioning they would have been extremely helpful to our effort.
If they had stopped petitioning, AND collected a few volunteer signatures for the LP ticket, as well, we would not be discussing all this today. It would have been a done deal.
But, as we all know, they chose to actively work against the Libertarian Party. But hey, they’re Leftwing Anarchists. Causing Chaos and Screwing things up is their middle name. What else could you expect?
Steve says, “Unless Barr was counting on local support in Maine…”
Of – f*cking – course he was!!
We’re talking Maine here. This is NOT West Virginia. Maine has had an existing Libertarian Party for decades. West Virginia, Rhode Island and the Dakotas have had barely existing LPs.
The Maine Party is well-established.
Imagine our suprise when we arrived and were told by the paid hired gun on the ground that “not a single volunteer was assisting from the local Libertarian Party.”
What?!? Bloody What???
If I was petitioning in North Dakota such a statement would not have shocked me. But in Maine?
Though, once you realize that the Maine LP is loaded with a bunch of Leftwing Crazy Anarchists types, just the types who love someone like George Phillies, well, um, you get the picture.
Richard Winger just made my day. He doesn’t realize it, but that one statement in his post, just made me the happiest camper on planet earth.
RW:
The Barr petition validity will not be known until August 27, but it is likely to be valid.
Eric:
And in the end Richard, that’s all that really matters.
(Though, if for some reason we miss it by a few sigs, all hell will break loose. It will be a whirlwind of hatred for the Phillies people of Tsunami proportions, and I swear to Christ, if I have my way, every single Libertarian in the entire United States will know who is to blame for the NH failure. I may even personally knock on every door of every dues-paying Libertarian in the State of NH to inform them of what happened on my own dime. And you know damned well, I’m fully capable of doing that.)
Morey, what is your full name, and where did you see me petition?
Was it at the Rush concert at the Verizon Arena in downtown Manchester?
If so, then you are indeed correct. I was getting 20 signatures an hour there, actually more like 30 to 40. But it only lasted 2 to 3 hours.
If I was at my usual hang-outs, Nashua City Hall or the Manchester DMV, I’d be happy to get 8 to 10 an hour.
Eric,
If New Hampsire by some unfortunant event failed. I who have been a libertarian for decades will know it wasn’t because of Phillies it was because Barr’s effort started too late.
I will also know that the LP members in Maine were exercising their rights to support whom the choose. They aperently don’t like or trust Bob Barr enough to work for him.
Eric, A real man takes responsibility for his short commings and doesn’t look for another to blame.
Eric,
“As it was, the Phillies effort continuing to gather the signatures while we were up there, worked to undercut our effort. As mentioned before, someone who signs the Phillies petition first, disqualifies the Barr petition.
If the Phillies people had simply stopped petitioning they would have been extremely helpful to our effort.”
What was Phillies short at the time 300 Sigs?
Statistically those few sigs had ZERO impact on your efforts.
“But, as we all know, they chose to actively work against the Libertarian Party. But hey, they’re Leftwing Anarchists. Causing Chaos and Screwing things up is their middle name.”
“Though, once you realize that the Maine LP is loaded with a bunch of Leftwing Crazy Anarchists types, just the types who love someone like George Phillies, well, um, you get the picture.”
If you were saying things like this while you were in NH and CT by the time you arrived in Maine you would loose local support. As I said earlier you would be as welcome as General Sherman when he arrived in Atlanta. My recomendation top National would be to not send you to Maine again you arn’t politically astute enough to relize that you are burning your bridges.
Quoth Eric Dondero:
“We’re talking Maine here. This is NOT West Virginia. Maine has had an existing Libertarian Party for decades. West Virginia, Rhode Island and the Dakotas have had barely existing LPs.”
Actually, my recollection/impression is that the Maine LP was effectively moribund for several years and only recently started trying to put an organization back together.
That recollection/impression is supported by the fact that the Maine LP’s web site is a blog with a grand total of two posts and a note that its executive committee roster is “not yet complete.” That blog seems to have replaced a site that went from at least as far back as August of 2007 to at least January of 2008 without updates (the January 2008 archive of the site is still topped by an invitation to an August picnic).
I see that the new Maine LP site lists Mark Cenci as a member of its executive committee, which is a good sign that real activity is either already occurring or soon to come.
Hey Eric, switch to decaf. 🙂
Bob Marston Said:
” What I find curious is why the LP did not focus their efforts on becoming a permamently qualified party in New Hampshire. ”
LOL, yeah, that would be nearly impossible. Mostly because no one wanted to help with that effort. The combined effort for the last 16 months netted less than 9,000 petitions. We’d likely need 18,000+ to qualify as a party. So that’s either another $20K from national to pay petitioners or another 200 volunteer hours, which are incredibly hard to come by even on a good day.
Oh, and that petition would only qualify us for 2008. We’d still need 4% of the vote to remain an official party in 2010. Hence we go for candidate petitioning.
The above comments by Eric and others cannot overstate how hard it is to petition in NH. All the paid petitioners said they got their lowest numbers by far compared to any other state in any year. Unless you are collecting on election day or maybe July 4th you just cannot count on more than 80-100 in a day. And even then, it’s still tough. I worked a town election and only got 50.
I have no idea if Phillies sabotaged the petitioning effort. Yes, he and others were still collecting to get on the ballot after the convention. The thinking of a good number of them was indeed that since George only needed 200 more, better to finish and at least have a candidate on the ballot rather than risk missing it. They could have collected for Barr instead. In George’s defense he and some of his supporters did help us collect 12 petitions for Barr at the Merrimack 4th of July parade, but he’d already qualified in 1st district so it didn’t cost him anything.
Our collecting for Phillies earlier did affect the Barr effort. Our certification rate in the places where we collected in the spring is lower for Barr (by 30%) than in the rest of the state b/c of the “sign only once” law. It did affect where we sent petitioners, but since we knew where the Phillies sigs were collected we were able to work around it fairly easily.
Incidentally, this sign once law kept Badnarik off the ballot b/c the petitioners the LPUS sent in also collected for Nader, invalidating a lot of sigs in the process.
I really wish we could have done this all with volunteers, but given the difficulty of petitioning in the summer and the general lack of participation by LP members, we needed the help from national to get Barr on the ballot. Even with the new volunteers and candidates we picked up because of the Barr nomination. At the very least we could have released the pros sooner to finish CT, RI and ME if even 10 more LP members had put in a full day collecting.
Regarding NH in 2004. I do know that there was doubt from National that the NH LP would make it on the ballot. Redpath told me that the locals told him that they had the situation “under control”. I left and went to Alabama with plenty of time to go to NH, and the NH LP failed to have things “under control”.
James Maynard, we’d like your intelligence in Wyoming http://www.freestatewyoming.org/ , where the numbers don’t require hopelessly large numbers of electable libertarians (The NH State legislature is over 400 members, right? So you have to elect 201 to have a simple majority right? Not going to happen, with this herd of cats.)
Sharon: Keep in mind that Eric is friends with Scott Kohlhaas(semi-competent) and Sean Haugh(incompetent) who have been cooperating together to systematically destroy the petitioning careers of several longtime libertarian activists (Because they are either 1 of the 4 petitioners he defrauded in NE in 2006, or they are like myself and know that he never made good on that fraud, but allowed the LNC to cover part of his debt —link: http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:0IcuPe0r-AgJ:www.lp.org/archives/lnc20070721.pdf+LNC+Pittsburgh+Nebraska+Scott+Kohlhaas&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us ). There is a lot of evidence that Eric and Scott also conspired to misdirect the effort in WV, when they realized that Shane Cory was totally in charge there, and totally unsupervised by Russell Verney (and that I was the only libertarian activist who had answered the call to save WV, thus making it an effort that could fail, and I’d be blamed, becuase they’d be left holding the bag, and I’d presumably have too few financial resources to sue them for payment).
The Libertarian Party, in being divided, has allowed itself to come under the influence of completely disreputable people .
Redpath is competent (as evidenced by his work in 2004), but can’t bring himself to act responsibly, becuase it would mean firing several people all at once, late in a campaign season.
Eric Dondero survives by mixing fact with fancy. Were he to tell a complete lie, absolutely noone would pay attention to him, and he thus would not be an effective agent provacateur (as he may literally be. Remember: he has no allegiance to the LP, and regularly claims to be a big R “Republican”).
Sean Haugh is utterly and completely incompetent. A simple google search of him at Last Free Voice will return Andy Jacobs’ interactions with him, among others. Immediately after Scott Kohlhaas hired me to go to CT, Sean Haugh fired me, after I defended my reputation against a slander that was CCed to him by Shane Cory. Cory is also completely incompetent (as a petition drive coordinator), as evidenced by his work in WV. The only reason there was even the slightest difficulty in completing any 2008 LP petition drive was that 6 of the traveling petitioners from 2004’s ballot access drive were being attacked from a position of “hidden authority” within the LP.
Eric Dondero is roughly correct that anything Phillies is doing to access the ballot is detrimental to the LP, unless it is the NH LP’s intention to have him continue his action for the purpose of CREATING A LEGAL PRECEDENT. This may be the case, or may not. Either way, the only defensible action is that Barr and Barr only be placed on the ballot in NH. The trouble with Eric being roughly correct is that, in addition to being roughly correct about that one thing, virtually all of his supporting details are incorrect, or designed to slander his critics (most of whom are actual libertarians).
As a good example, ever notice how all of the actual libertarian party petitioners he dislikes are all “leftists” or “anarchists”?
They are nothing of the sort. They are people a lot smarter than he is who have destroyed his arguments online in the past. Andy in particular has taken the time to pick through each argument of Dondero’s and destroy it, in several online forums. Dondero doesn’t like anti-war libertarians (I think there is room in the LP for many libertarians and libertarian sympathizers, I would question anyone trying to shove anyone else out of the party). That said, Eric has real problems understanding basic libertarian philosophy. He thinks gun rights and fully informed juries are unimportant, for instance.
Rich T (from the FSP boards?):
“At the very least we could have released the pros sooner to finish CT, RI and ME if even 10 more LP members had put in a full day collecting.”
Keep in mind that I had been hired by Scott Kohlhaas at the time that WV was ending, to go into CT (on Jul 31, 2008). Keep in mind that when I replied to a slander of my character and petitioning that Shane Cory sent out, Sean Haugh fired me via email (on Aug 1, 2008), as a petitioner, since I guess I was supposed to just accept being slandered in a CC to Verney, Redpath, Kohlhaas, etc… Keep in mind that Haugh has a history of losing his temper, cussing and swearing at people, even in emails, and that his reason for firing me was the “tone” of my email. Keep in mind that for the next two days Kohlhaas didged my phone calls, and so I was uncertain if I was hired or not in CT (Did Kohlhaas have the authority to hire me, above his boss, Sean Haugh? Did Sean Haugh really mean to be so irrational, and fire me? Did he have the authority to do so, according to Redpath, or the LNC, or anyone?! Was I hired or not?) The rental car clock was ticking, and so I had no choice but to leave for another state, and work for a more honest political party than the LP. Sadly, I am a libertarian and they needed my help. So I then went to AL and worked for the Constitution Party.
Incidentally, the LP’s petitioner problems arise from the fact that there is no protocol for dealing with petitioners.
There are no signed contracts, in plain English, not legalese, that describe what petitioners’ rights and responsibilities are. (And oral contracts don’t mean anything to the LP any longer. Oral contracts in the LP have come to mean: YOU WILL GET SCREWED.)
This means that when the LP gets corrupted (as it currently is), it is possible for those in titles of authority to “purge” longtime libertarians from the LP. Not a good thing, since we rely on those activists as our base.
Doubt anything I say? Call me up. I promise to be civil. 907-250-5503.
This is a heated subject, and it’s easy to lose the emotion behind what is typed online. I am not sitting here crying and pulling my hair out. I am presenting my view of the facts, which are measurable have ample available supporting evidence. Call me with your questions, and you will recieve answers.