On May 7, the Wisconsin Assembly Committee on Campaigns & Elections passed AB 35. It lets independent candidates withdraw. However, they must pay a fee to withdraw. The fee for statewide offices is $1,000.
Last year independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wanted to withdraw, but the law did not permit him to do that.
For safekeeping while awaiting approval elsewhere
Sarwark writes, via Phillies
https://thirdpartywatch.com/2025/05/31/how-a-political-party-contests-every-federal-race-in-2026-by-nicholas-sarwark/
I reply
You’re not likely to have any measurable success in uniting your party around issues which have divided it for decades. Abortion and immigration have never been unifying issues for libertarians, to the point that they have now been removed from your platform.
I’ll intentionally avoid my own positions on those issues here, which shouldn’t be relevant anyway, since your party ran me off twice and I’m now quite happy to not be a libertarian and remove from consideration calling myself one ever again. Those of you who want to salt the earth and say I never was are more than welcome to it. I remain a “pledge signer” since 1987, a dues payer and convention attendee 1987-9 and 2008-9, and have at various points before, in between, and even since those years voted for some of your candidates, but don’t worry, I won’t be darkening your doors or sending anyone your way in the future.
Supporting “free” international trade, regardless of national security consequences or fairness and regardless of how tariffs compare to other actual or potential sources of government revenue, is probably more unifying as an issue among libertarians (self described, registered, dues paying, etc). It’s not necessarily unifying for those relatively more likely than others to sometimes vote for libertarian candidates based on the average public impression of what their party represents across a broad spectrum of issues, though.
If you try to define libertarians as being solely or primarily those who “oppose Trump’s tariffs, ICE raids, and the elimination of abortion rights” as their sole or main motivating and unifying issues, you won’t even come close to unifying your own current party activists and candidates , much less the general somewhat libertarian leaning or considering public.
Those in the public at large who are most motivated by their opposition to President Trump and the current GOP leadership on those particular issues primarily and understandably run as and vote for the Democrats, regardless of other issues. Most partisanship as it stands in the US today is primarily negative – opposition to President Trump and MAGA or opposition to the woke left – not positive.
Certainly, there’s no shortage of people who feel the Democrats are not standing up strongly enough to President Trump, on those particular issues, or in general. The vast majority of those will either vote for Democrats anyway (because otherwise Republicans win) or not vote at all regardless of what any minor party without billion$ at its disposal will say or do in the next 18 months. Some of them will vote GOP/MAGA out of accelerationist considerations. Those few in this category who are apt to vote for a non duopoly option will be most likely to vote for a left leaning independent candidate or one from a party of the left such as PSL, Socialist Alternative, Working Families where they don’t cross endorse Democrats, Green, Forward, Progressive, etc, etc.
The libertarians aren’t likely to substantially crack, much less significantly enlarge, the market for minor party leftist congressional candidates in 2026, such as it is. For rough equivalent example, see how Oliver Chase performed in the most recent presidential election against the various major party candidates as well as against all the leftist minor party and independent candidates combined (Stein, DeLaCruz, West, to some extent Kennedy in those states where they were all on the ballot).
“Contact all of the qualified voters with a letter outlining the three major issues Libertarians are running on in 2026 and asking if they would consider either running for office or supporting a candidate who would run on those issues. ”
You mean contact all registered (or in fact eligible) voter’s over age 25, which you preceded this statement by saying are the only qualifications? That sounds rather expensive. What wealthy relatives will leave you the resources to contact that many folks, much less repeatedly? Perhaps Mr. Sarwark is secretly the mysterious inventor of Bitcoin – but if so, he’d better uncloak as such in short order if he plans to deploy sufficient resources for such a plan to succeed in time.
He’d also still face the difficulty that there are Libertarians running state and national party committees, and in some states and districts planning to run for those very same congressional offices, who don’t agree with him on some or even any of those issues – or perhaps just merely disagree that those are “the three major issues Libertarians are running on in 2026.” This would still be the case if Mr. Sarwark was still your party’s national committee chairman, and is all the more the case when he’s not.
Given what I know of libertarians based on both personal experience and reputation / research, more of them would come out of the woodwork to challenge any and all resulting candidates in primaries or nomination conventions precisely due to disagreement over the strategy of uniting around and emphasizing and or personal disagreement on some or all of those three issues. They will also do whatever they can to disseminate countermeasures through their own communications, counterrecruiting of candidates, media strategies, etc., and by vigorously opposing anyone in line with this strategy for internal office at the state and national levels.
That’s merely a prediction, not a statement of any factional preference – I have none for your party.
To my knowledge, nothing bristles a libertarian as much as someone or some other libertarians claiming something like “these are the three major issues Libertarians are running on in 2026,” regardless of what the issues are, and especially when at a minimum 2/3 are long time internal controversies in their party and have more recently been removed from their platform. This isn’t to argue whether they should be in your party’s platform or not – not my party, not my problem. I’m merely stating facts which are easily verifiable and public .
I suspect Mr. Sarwark harbors no illusions as to anything I stated above, so what’s he really after here? Another run for national committee chair? Fundraising for his policy institute or some future organization? Influence over your future party platform? Building his lists? A dry run at a strategy he hopes to implement in some future cycles? Several or all of these?
“Connect Candidates Together Across the Country – Since all the candidates are running on a consistent message, …”
This implies a level of coordination I find difficult to imagine in your party. Not even Democrats or Republicans come close to this level of message discipline among all their congressional campaigns nationwide, much less libertarians. The PSL and other explicitly Marxist Leninist parties would even find this level of unity challenging, which may be why they concentrate on presidential campaigns.
Even if you were to succeed in recruiting a bevy of candidates who agree with you on all.three of those issues, agree to run as Libertarians, succeed in getting on the ballot everywhere, succeed in winning their primaries or nomination conventions – each part of that will be a challenge or struggle in various places – think for yourself how likely it is that all of them will consistently deemphasize their positions on every other issue and keep their campaigns disciplined to ignore their differences among each other on all of those for the entire length of their campaigns at all stages. Let’s just say very politely that it seems rather extremely unlikely to me.
Sarwark is such a fag.
Fuck Nick CIAwark.
That one got approved. Here’s another @
https://thirdpartywatch.com/2025/05/27/lp-new-hampshire-responds-to-recent-criticism/
.
.
.
Thanks for your suggestions, Jim and Mr. Flood. I intentionally got rid of all computer and computerlike devices other than my one and only “phone” for many reasons, one of those many being precisely that I do not want excessive attachment to any such devices from in any way keeping, precluding, or even minimally discouraging me from being as maximally mobile at all times as possible.
For that very same reason I no longer have an actual landline telephone or television. I do have the ability to watch television programs on my “phone”, as well as listen to radio, which is also available in some of my (still as of now running) vehicles. Partly because I watch t.v. and listen to the radio on my phone, as well as use it as an actual phone to make old fashioned phone calls, I do not watch political videos, except on very rare occasions when they are very short and entertaining.
Jim’s suggestion seems to make assumptions about what kind of work folks do that are not accurate in my case. I don’t want to get into too much detail here about myself, but let’s just say most of my work and recreation involves being mobile and frequently being outdoors as well as in a wide variety of various indoor locations. I mentioned previously having been a teenager in 1964, and I think I mentioned having been old enough to travel and gather ballot access signatures in several states but not old enough to vote (then 21) in 1967-8. For those of you who are decent at arithmetic, you can take some reasonable guesses as to what I may or may not need to be productive at given my age; you may or may not guess correctly.
There are also a variety of other reasons I don’t and won’t own or maintain any desktop or laptop computers, tablets (that meant pills for most of my life), pods, pads, I-anything’s, walkmen, et tedious cetera. If I have any other communication devices at all, they might be walkie talkies or perhaps cb or ham radios. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility I might own a megaphone.
Since the whole purpose of decluttering my communication devices was to have it fit comfortably in my shirt pocket or other similar location – for instance, clipped to my belt if I’m the kind of person who wears a belt, or to my brassiere if I’m a woman (I don’t want to tell you which one I am), etc – my current 5.2 inch screen is the biggest I would want to have going forward. If I get something in another size, it will be smaller, not larger.
I don’t see any ctrl button or key on my phone, although there is a + sign on the virtual keyboard.
And another @
https://thirdpartywatch.com/2025/05/31/martin-proposes-campaign-plan/
I think it’s a reasonable assumption, although not explicitly stated in this article, this is the same Austin Martin:
https://thirdpartywatch.com/2025/02/03/lp-hawaii-state-chair-threatens-lnc/
For those not clicking on the link, the short version is that Mr. Martin threatened those on the national committee who would carry out what he called a coup by electing a new chairman to replace their then recently resigned chairwoman with being metaphorically pilloried through his musical talents and otherwise harrassed online and perhaps also in person by himself and folks he would recruit for the purpose of doing so.
Despite the “threat,” and what I subsequently read were Mr. Martin’s repeated interruptions of the meeting, the new chairman was handily elected at the meeting. The “coup” succeeded.
I’ve not seen any updates as to whether the threatened harassment has been at all carried out, but I’ll venture a guess that it hasn’t, or that if it has at all been carried out, the extent has been far less than what Mr. Martin promised or threatened.
Much more recently, Mr. Martin has been elected as a regional alternate to the same lnc and participated non-disruptively, at least to my knowledge, at their recent meeting.
As for Mr. Scott’s comment, wouldn’t it be equally applicable to Mr. Sarwark’s plan at (link in my first comment above)
And , to Michael Wilson’s proposal for a list of issues all of which all candidates, the national party, and all local and state committees he proposes unite around for the next 20 years?
If the answer is yes, then I agree with Mr. Scott – there is, can, and should be no central plan for freedom.
But then everyone has his or her own notion of what is and isn’t freedom and how to best achieve it, which is something I don’t have to be a libertarian to agree with .
Adamson Scott wrote
“This bothers me. Isn’t membership, fundraising, activism and messaging what the state and local party organizations are there for in the first place? This feels like a completely duplicative (and expensive) structure, with potential for disaster if National contracts with an “Operator” in uncooperative State X, and then State X contracts with their own “Operator”, the two operating at cross purposes.”
commie statists — loot the rich – give to poor – ***free*** food / education / etc
fascist statists — loot the poor – give to rich — via govt contracts esp – military -industrial complex
Ballot access censorship is fascism. Censorship has no value, artistic, scientific or political.
Another one awaiting approval on the Sarwark thread:
(Michael Wilson:
Libertarians like to quote Bastiat who wrote the “The Law” as I recall.
He was inspired by Richard Cobden and the Anti-Corn Law League, which focused on repealing the tariff on grain being imported into England. It took about 20 years but they won and the repeal helped to break the back of the potato famine that hit Ireland hard. When it was over a large portion of the public benefitted and kept more of their earnings. What the Anti-Corn Law League did should be an example for all of us.
Something similar was done in Sweden in 1850, in Germany after WWII, and in other nations.
It is not difficult. It just needs to be done.
My first reply, already published:
…
This list of issues is very different from your list which you recently shared in a few other discussions here. “Something similar” is hard to define.
When you say something isn’t difficult, what is the “it” you are referring to? Opposing tariffs? Message unity across all libertarian candidates and campaigns, regardless of what the particular list of chosen issues is? The entire detailed plan as herein spelled out by Mr. Sarawak for 2026?
I’m sure I don’t have to explain to anyone reading that the political systems of all those countries and historical time periods were different in many respects from the US in 2025.
Michael Wilson replied to me:
In 1850 Sweden repealed most of their regulations and simplified their taxes. In the 100 years that followed income went up significantly.
Standing on a street corner with a sign, working a booth and handing out brochures, wearing a shirt with a slogan on the back of it, writing letters to the editor, your state representatives, or media releases, or updating information on a computer website. None of this is difficult.)
Pat Jones
June 1, 2025
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
True enough, as far as that goes – I’ve had plenty of numerous occasions to do each of the things on that list over the decades. You can count those decades back to the 1960s, or the 1950s if you wish to count such activity when I tagged along with or was used as a prop by my parents and their friends. I’m not sure when exactly to draw a line between the two but I think by some point in the early to mid 1960s I was there of my own accord.
I find that overall my efforts on most issues have not succeeded at stemming “progressive” change, or what those more in line with my way of thinking might see as progressive social disease.
I’m all for repealing most regulations and simplifying taxes, and a good portion of those six or seven decades of political activity was towards those ends, on which the “progressives” have nevertheless by and large far outscored us as well.
As I mentioned last round, the political system of Sweden in the mid 19th century had significant differences with the USA in 2025. Mr. Sarwark’s plan is significantly more specific, but if your sole point is that being politically active is a necessary precondition for political victory on any issue or set of issues that’s generally true. I would not, however, say it’s sufficient, based either on personal experience or reading of history and current events.
At
https://thirdpartywatch.com/2025/05/21/fundraising-economics-analysis-by-joe-bishop-henchman/comment-page-1/
I’m not sure what any of that has to do with fundraising, and I avoided commenting on this tangent til now for that reason, but since comments about it keep being approved, Tommy seems to be mixing up science with religious faith. Science has never been neutral – it’s highly politicized, and always has been, most especially on anything anywhere approaching politically controversial issues.
Following “the science” is nonsensical as a political slogan. There are always, and have always been, disagreements among scientists on all sorts of subjects, and especially on how to best translate science into public policy. This dialectic or oppositional approach is essential for peer review and the scientific method to function. The notion that science is settled is scientism or a form of religious faith, not science.
I personally agree with Mr. Piontowski.
As for government restrictions and mandates on businesses, masking in public has been illegal in my state of Georgia under a 1951 law curtailing KKK activity, and many other States and DC had similar laws passed around the time as well. In writing this, I thought I remembered that it was also illegal under federal Ku Klux Klan acts passed in 1871. I have not found support for that, and don’t want to spend more Time on it, but did find this from the NY Times:
“New York’s 1845 law, the oldest anti-mask law in the country, was repealed in May 2020. The law, which made an exception for “a masquerade party or like entertainment,” was passed during an armed uprising by cash-strapped wheat farmers who disguised themselves as Native Americans during protests over feudal rent arrangements.”
I could go further into the subject as it pertains to my other state of Florida, the complicated relationship between government and businesses which are open to the public, sometimes subsidized by the public through the government, regulated and licensed by government in various ways, etc, but I’m straining to think of how to tie any of that back to fundraising.
Perhaps this is on topic since the tangent started with a discussion of the author of the comment which was elevated to an article here, although I won’t be surprised if the editor deems we’ve gone too far off course here. If not yet, I’d expect it if I went more in depth on those subjects. I would certainly expect the hammer to descend quite fast and hard if I likewise shared my perspective on the other tangent about world power political leader’s, so I suppose I shouldn’t comment on that.
+++
Previously published in this tangent:
Jake: “What JBH could have done — but chose not to do — to raise visibility and funds for the LP was to take a hard stance against the Covid mandates and lockdowns while he was chair of the party. Instead, the national LP stood by and did next to nothing during this most egregious assault on personal liberty. One wonders if this absence of opposition to tyranny was intentional.”
(NOT submitted or published – I agree)
George Phillies: “Yes, JBH did not focus on your pet issue. Live with it.”
Todd Piontowski: “Freedom is not just a pet issue. Most Libertarians believe freedom is the issue. This includes the freedom to breathe; the freedom to travel; the freedom to access and use one’s property; the freedom of association; the freedom to alternative health care. All of these freedoms were abridged by the government during Covid. Libertarians are supposed to support “all of your freedoms, all of the time.” Well, except they didn’t during Covid.”
Joseph: “You do understand, Jake, that private businesses have every right to mandate masks for their employees and/or customers, right?
They also have every right to mandate vaccines, if they choose.
It’s called freedom.
LP and JBH were always against government mandates.
As far as private businesses, it’s up to them.
Again, freedom and liberty.”
Adamson Scott: “Bingo. We should also be against states such as Florida with Gov. DeSanctimonious, who pushed a state ban on businesses that wanted to mandate masks or vaccines. Government mandates are bad either way.
My business, my rules.”
Joseph again: “Right.
Government shouldn’t be mandating anything.
Private businesses, however, can mandate whatever they want.
Many so called libertarians, unfortunately, don’t seem to understand this.
JBH was against all government mandates.
But he still gets crap from “libertarians” for having the actual libertarian position on the issue.”
Tommy: “I’m a Michigan Libertarian (Yooper) who believes our Governor Whitmer did the best job in the country when it came to lockdowns/preventions during the pandemic. Liberty might be essential, but science must always trump liberty. The founders of the libertarian movement didn’t have access to the same science and technology that we do today. Science should always be followed because it is neutral, while liberty is a fluid concept.”
It was at this point that I could not any longer refrain from commenting on the tangent. Next, we shall see whether George Phillies approves the submission.
Pat Jones, why waste your time with those statists?
As with any site, there are people reading who are not statists, and others who are on the fence about various things that are being discussed. For example, see Jake and Todd Piontowski in my last comment, and what you don’t see are the lurkers who don’t comment and are in general the most likely to be persuadable at any public comments site.