LP Officer Elections Analysis and Predictions

The Chair debate on Saturday evening produced no major surprises. Root made an impassioned plea for delegates to grow the party by bringing in new members who aren't as far along on their libertarian journeys as the delegates are. Root's closing statement was built around a sports analogy -- Canada's performance in the recent winter Olympics -- that seemed to fall somewhat flat with the audience.  Root opponents in the crowd loudly pounced when his answer to a question about immigration went on too long and he specifically criticized the open-borders position that the LP removed from its Platform in 2006. Myers handled this hot potato with a shorter answer that ended with a rousing call to end the welfare state and the war on drugs and open the borders -- effectively restating Root's position. Myers spoke well, but not well enough to put himself ahead of Hinkle as the leading unity candidate.  Hinkle emphasized his experience and his ability to work with all factions within the party, and managed to avoid being the least dynamic speaker of the evening.

Phillies' performance did not fully exhibit the speaking skills that he had honed in his 2008 presidential campaign.  On a couple of questions he awkwardly failed to end his answer on an applause line. When he said that Angela Keaton asking him was the reason he was running, it's not clear how many delegates knew who the absent Keaton is -- or that this was George's fourth or fifth consecutive campaign for Chair.  Phillies was able to reference his New Path Plan several times, but the debate format did not allow him to get into the details of it.

Hancock gave a spirited performance that was on track to avoid all the land mines that his critics had documented him planting in his own path.  He responded to Root's big-tent rhetoric by saying that newcomers "are welcome to join us, but are not welcome to change us".  Hancock's opponents had not mentioned either his advocacy against voting or his conspiracy theories, but Hancock himself alluded to both in his closing statement.  He talked about "the New World Order", and gave a lengthy justification for  why his 2006 Secretary of State campaign was built around the question "Still Voting?".

During the Chair nominations, Root followed good speeches by running-mate Rutherford and his daughter with an even better pitch for his own election.  For the first time in his Chair campaign, Root declared that as Chair the buck will stop with him: he will take responsibility for delivering results in membership, fundraising, and candidate support.  Both Myers and one of his nominators gave a very explicit plea to make Myers the delegates' second choice, and this probably was not a good strategy for claiming the unity vote from Hinkle.  Hinkle gave all his time to an impressive lineup of nominators, and LP founder David Nolan delivered a very well-received endorsement. In contrast to Root, Phillies was not nominated by his New Path Vice-Chair running mate, but rather by three supporters with LPMA connections.  New Path Secretary candidate Rob Power awkwardly attacked the sincerity of his fellow PlatCom member Chris Barber, who had sent a letter to delegates revealing that Phillies had filed a criminal complaint with the FEC against the LPUS.  Hancock's nominations were highlighted by a solid speech by Barry Hess.  2004 LP presidential nominee Michael Badnarik's speech would surely have been more effective if he had identified himself to the audience. Hancock himself merely said: "Freedom's the answer. What's the question?"

The first round of voting resulted in Root 200 (38%) Hinkle 113 (21%) Hancock 82 (15%) Myers 70 (13%) Phillies 56 (11%)  NOTA 10.  Phillies did not endorse any competitor, but Myers foresaw the inevitable and withdrew from the race while throwing his support to Hinkle.  Hancock's weakness actually played against Root's interests, as Root's only real hope for a post-first-ballot win was to face Hancock on the final ballot.  Before the second round I was agreeing with a Root supporter that a Hinkle victory was inevitable.  However, I did forecast a 20-25 vote pickup for Root, while David Nolan predicted 10, or maybe 20 at most.  The second round nevertheless helped confirm Hinkle's Saturday-night assertion that he was almost everybody's second choice: Root 223 Hinkle 210 Hancock 87 NOTA 0.  Hancock endorsed nobody, and said he had gotten what he wanted and had a backlog of activism to get back to.  The final ballot was surprising only in that there may have been as five Hancock supporters who switched to Root: Hinkle 281 Root 228 (43%) NOTA 19.

Hinkle gave a great post-election speech, saying he would be "requesting -- no, demanding" help from all of us to unite and advance the Party.  He gave no hint of endorsements in the remaining officer elections. David Nolan endorsed Carolyn Marbry for Vice Chair, but praised Mark Rutherford for also being an excellent candidate.  Rutherford's speech was brief, emphasizing he could work well with Hinkle. Marbry's speech was longer, listing the half-dozen state affiliates that she identified with. Rutherford's 285-201 victory seemed to echo the Chair result, with the delegates choosing an experienced party leader over a younger newcomer promising to bring new energy to the office.

Alicia Mattson had the inside track in the Secretary's race, as she had spent the morning once again smoothly handling the Platform debate in her capacity as PlatCom Chair.  Power was coming off a nominating speech for Phillies in which he had dug into the unpleasant matter of George's criminal complaint against the LP. Ruth Bennett tried to portray Power as someone who can work well with any faction in the Party, but she praised the competence of outgoing Secretary Sullentrup only moments before he glowingly endorsed Mattson.  Mattson coasted to a 264-195 win.

The biggest shock of the day was the very last result.  James Oaksun conceded that he had no complaints about how Aaron Starr had been executing the job of Treasurer -- even though we had just learned that the leader of his own New Path slate had filed a criminal complaint against the financial reporting of the LP's relationship with the Barr campaign.  Instead, Oaksun said that the reason he opposed Starr was because of LNC divisiveness that he said was caused by Starr. Oaksun's 319-133 victory suggested that the delegates did not believe that even incoming Chair Hinkle would be able to manage whatever conflicts that Starr would allegedly continue to cause.

The elections for the five At-Large LNC positions will be Monday morning.  Judge Jim Gray would coast to a top-three result if he didn't have a plane to catch, and so he will need stellar nominating speeches to finish in the money.  I predict the results will look something like this:

Bill Redpath
David Nolan
Wayne Root
Mary Ruwart
Rebecca Sink-Burris
John Jay Myers
Pat Dixon
Lee Wrights
Jim Gray
Thomas Hill

My rank preference is something like this: Redpath Root Gray Dixon Nolan Sink-Burris Myers.

P.S. None of my predictions in the Chair race were falsified, although in retrospect Root’s chances of a first-round win were probably less than 50%.  My predictions were:

• Root has 50% chance of a first-ballot win.
• Phillies and Myers are eliminated in the first two rounds.
• If the “final” round is Root vs. Hancock, Root eliminates Hancock but needs a final vote against NOTA to secure a majority.
• If the final round is Root vs. Hinkle, Hinkle is more likely to win than Root.
• Hancock will not throw his support to a more electable candidate, because he wants a Root vs. Hancock referendum.

Comparing Web Site Templates of LNC Chair Candidates

Two of the candidates for Libertarian National Committee Chair are running on platforms that include providing campaign site templates for Libertarian candidates. A third Chair candidate uses such a template for his own State Senate candidate site.  This article compares the three templates.

John Jay Myers says "I also propose to create easily customizable website templates so that states, counties, and candidates can quickly and inexpensively gain a professional web presence."  He is Vice Chair of the LP Dallas, whose web site lists 19 candidates in the current election cycle in that county.  Five of them have custom campaign sites, another five use a common LPDallas.org template, and the remaining nine are not listed as having any web site at all.

The New Path plan of George Phillies says "We should offer a good set of downloadable templates for web pages", and that "Web Templates, disk, downloadables are high priority". Phillies points to a template made available by New Path LNC candidate Jake Porter. Phillies is Treasurer, Membership Secretary, and Editor of the LP Massachussetts.  The LPMA candidates page lists two candidates. Neither uses the Porter template, and one of the two sites is very simple.

Mark Hinkle does not list web sites for candidates among his goals as Chair. However, his current and previous campaigns for state legislature have used the "campaign-site-in-a-box" template offered under the DefendsLiberty.com domain.

This table compares various features of these templates.

Domain of expected integrations	LPDallas.org	LPMA.us	DefendsLiberty.com
Candidate integrations found	5/14 (* * * * *)	0/2	4 (* * * *)
3D/rounded visual design	Y	Y	N
Free candidate domain	Y	N?	Y
Free hosting	Y?	N?	Y
Campaign blog	N	Y	Y
Accepts credit cards	N	N	Y
Displays libertarian feeds	N	N	Y
Libertarian videos	linked	N	embedded
Candidate video	linked	N	N
Slate issue statement	Y	N	Y
Slideshow/gallery	N	N	Y
Nav bar	Buttons	Buttons	Menus
Nolan quiz	N	N	Y
Debt clock	N	N	Y
Meetup/Facebook	N/N	N/N	Y/Y
Email sign-up	N	N	Y
Email the candidate	Y	Y?	Y
Leave a comment	N	N?	Y
Join/Register Libertarian	N/N	N/N	Y/Y
Links to other LP candidates	N	N	Y
Link to an LP platform	N	N	Y
LP graphical branding	N	N	Y
Horizontally resizable	N	N	Y
Stats counting	N?	N	Y

A few problems are noticeable on the five LPDallas.org campaign sites:

• The "Donate" and "Join Us Now" buttons do nothing
• "Stay informed" page is under construction
• 3 inoperative header links ("Life Liberty Property") at the top of every page

The Porter/New Path template is a Drupal template.  Since no live candidate sites appear to be using it (at least in Phillies' state), it can't be rated as providing support for most of the features in the table above. However, none of these features are impossible to implement after a candidate adopts the Porter template.

9 Facts LP Delegates Should Know About Ernest Hancock

[I sent this letter to 1500 delegates of the current and recent Libertarian national conventions. It invites delegates to view the following videos.]

Dear fellow Libertarian delegate,

I'm writing to share with you some information about one of the candidates for Chair of the Libertarian National Committee: Ernest Hancock. 

I won't presume in this letter to suggest who to vote for or against in this race, because I have profound confidence in the judgment of our delegates. Indeed, because there is more than one good candidate in this race, I will not be endorsing any of them. 

I won't pretend I don't have a firm opinion about Hancock's candidacy, but I will let the following facts about him speak for themselves:

1. Hancock boasts publicly that he hasn't voted since 2002, argues that voting "legitimizes" government, and even used free TV airtime as an LP candidate to say "I'm asking you to not vote".
   
2. Hancock signed a "Declaration of Independence" from the LPUS in 2000, which said that "No principled libertarian can associate with the LPUS without compromising the libertarian principle."
3. Hancock repeatedly questions whether the LPUS should exist, and said in 2009 that he is "getting very close to targeting the national Libertarian Party as an enemy of freedom".
4. Hancock questioned the libertarian credentials of the 2008 LP presidential nominee, but in 2008 called the Constitution Party nominee "a good hardcore libertarian".  Constitution Party nominee Chuck Baldwin ran on a platform of outlawing all abortion and assisted suicide, opposing gay marriage, "closing the borders", jailing employers of illegal immigrants, “stopping the flow of illegal drugs into the U.S.”, "vigorously enforcing our laws against obscenity”, and imposing tariffs “no less than the difference between the foreign item’s cost of production” and U.S. costs.
5. Hancock is a "9/11 Truth" advocate who distributes DVDs saying that the Lincoln and JFK assassinations were conspiracies of international banking interests. He says that “if we’re not out there telling the Truth on things like 9/11″ then the LP is “not relevant”.
6. Hancock says that "if you're not at least a little uncomfortable with your position, it isn't radical enough". His idea of a radical-enough candidate is Vin Suprynowicz, the candidate for Vice President in 2000 nominated only by the Arizona LP, who says LP candidates should advocate the right to "personal nuclear weapons".
7. In Hancock's outreach efforts he vouches for the personal character of fundamentalist preacher Steven Anderson.  Anderson calls Obama a "devil" who should be "aborted on national television" and who "promotes a sodomite agenda".
8. Hancock publicly predicts that bloodshed and violent revolution in America is inevitable: "There will be some bloodshed, just how much -- are you sure you want to go this far?"
9. Hancock defends the 1994 Arizona LP candidate who as a member of the Viper Militia was sent to prison in 1996 after stockpiling ammonium nitrate explosives and conducting video surveillance of federal buildings.

I realize many of these claims seem too outrageous to be true. I imagine any fair-minded person would want to see more than a letter and examine the supporting evidence.

You don’t have to take my word for it. You can see for yourself. 

At http://TruthButton.org/hancock you can read the declaration Hancock signed for item 2, and watch videos documenting the rest of these facts. 

If you have any questions for me about this, feel free to contact me at brian@holtz.org.

Brian Holtz
Life member of the LP since 1999
Father of three young Libertarians
3-time LP candidate for Congress in Silicon Valley
Elected in 2009 to Purissima Hills Water Board

$100 Contest: Ernest Hancock or Timothy McVeigh?

Ernest Hancock said recently on his radio show that he's considering sending to each Libertarian NatCon delegate a copy of the conspiracy-theory video Invisible Empire.  One of the video's claims is that Timothy McVeigh was a government "black operations" agent and that the Oklahoma City bombing was a "false flag" operation designed to "demonize critics of world government". (The video also talks about “implantable brain chips” and says: “Imagine: a planet where every human being is required to be chipped at birth. This would be the final tool implemented in a command-and-control world government system in which the elite rule the masses with total control of their lives.”)

The quiz below tests how good a job McVeigh did in impersonating someone like Ernest Hancock, whose Viper Reserves web site said “the likely perpetrators [of the OKC bombing] had closer ties to the police state and NO ties to any militia group”. Viper Reserves was set up to defend Viper Militia members like Dean Pleasant, a 1994 LP candidate in Arizona who was jailed in 1996 after stockpiling ammonium nitrate and creating a videotape surveilling federal buildings and advising how explosives could bring them down.  The New York Times quoted Hancock defending the videotape as "educational".

See if you can tell which statements were made by McVeigh, and which by Hancock.  Post your guesses in the comments where you see this contest, and I'll score them. The first person who scores 100% can decide which Hancock opponent in the Chair race gets my $100 donation.

1. If you're not at least a little uncomfortable with your position, it isn't radical enough.  Take the most extreme position you can.
2. I'm concerned about a United Nations takeover and establishment of a single world government designed to place severe limits on individual freedom.
3. There will be some bloodshed -- how much?  Are you sure you want to go this far?  It's not a battle of who has the most guns. It's a battle of who has the most heart, and who has the most will.
4. There will be a single currency, a single police force -- one all-powerful central government for everyone on the planet.
5. So now it's how many cans of Campbell's Soup can you get? How much water do you got? How many friends do you have? How much land can you plow? What's coming can not be stopped.
6. There are over 300,000 names on a Cray Supercomputer in Brussels of "possible and suspected subversives and terrorists" in the U.S., all ranked in order of threat.
7. It's gonna get to the point of Big Brother. It's gonna get that bad. And if it's not done with video and audio, it may be with electromagnetic waves, are they gonna have a certain frequency on your power grid?
8. At Waco, the feds picked a windy day on purpose so the building would catch fire quickly.
9. They want the building to go down. They need a bridge to blow up. It justifies their existence.
10. The CIA flies drugs into the U.S. to fund many covert operations.
11. The Declaration of Independence had absolutely nothing to do with voting. It was all about what happens when voting doesn't work. You will never vote yourself free.

This quiz was inspired by the Al Gore Or The Unabomber? quiz. See also my Rothbard or the Unabomber? article.

As a bonus, here is video that was a front-page "featured article" on Hancock's FreedomsPhoenix site.  It was an attempt to "pre-empt" the "lies and propaganda" of the recent MSNBC documentary featuring McVeigh's extensive jailhouse confessions.

The State and Its Future

[These essay excerpts have been edited somewhat so they do not match the original version that can be looked up using search engines. Without using a search engine, can you correctly identify the libertarian radical who wrote that original essay?]

The State has been a disaster for the human race. It has destabilized society, made life unfulfilling, subjected human beings to indignities, led to widespread psychological suffering and has inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of statism will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and lead to increased physical suffering.

The State cannot be reformed in such a way as to prevent it from progressively narrowing the sphere of human freedom.  The State cannot be reformed in favor of freedom because modern statism is a unified system in which all parts are dependent on one another. You can't get rid of the "bad" parts of the State and retain only the "good" parts.

It is not possible to make a lasting compromise between the State and freedom, because statism is by far the more powerful social force and continually encroaches on freedom through repeated compromises.  No social arrangements, whether laws, institutions, customs or ethical codes, can provide permanent protection against the growth of the State.

The only way out is to dispense with the State altogether. This implies revolution, not necessarily an armed uprising, but certainly a radical and fundamental change in the nature of society.  People tend to assume that because a revolution involves a much greater change than reform does, it is more difficult to bring about than reform is. Actually, under certain circumstances revolution is much easier than reform. The reason is that a revolutionary movement can inspire an intensity of commitment that a reform movement cannot inspire. A reform movement merely offers to solve a particular social problem. A revolutionary movement offers to solve all problems at one stroke and create a whole new world; it provides the kind of ideal for which people will take great risks and make great sacrifices. For this reason it would be much easier to overthrow the whole statist system than to put effective, permanent restraints on it.

Revolutionaries should not expect to have a majority of people on their side. History is made by active, determined minorities, not by the majority, which seldom has a clear and consistent idea of what it really wants. Until the time comes for the final push, the task of revolutionaries will be less to win the shallow support of the majority than to build a small core of deeply committed people. As for the majority, it will be enough to make them aware of the existence of the new ideology and remind them of it frequently; though of course it will be desirable to get majority support to the extent that this can be done without weakening the core of seriously committed people.

The revolutionaries should even avoid assuming political power until the State is stressed to the danger point and has proved itself to be a failure in the eyes of most people.  The destruction of the State must be the revolutionaries' only goal. Other goals would distract attention and energy from the main goal. More importantly, if the revolutionaries permit themselves to have any other goal than the destruction of the State, they will be tempted to use the State as a tool for reaching that other goal. If they give in to that temptation, they will fall right back into the statist trap, because modern statism is a unified, tightly organized system, so that, in order to retain some aspect of the State, one finds oneself obliged to retain most of it.

Some minarchists may seem to oppose statism, but they will oppose it only so long as they are outsiders and the State is controlled by others. If the they ever become dominant, so that the State becomes a tool in their hands, they will enthusiastically use it and promote its growth.

Some readers may say, "This stuff about minarchists is a lot of crap. I know John and Jane who are minarchists and they don't have all these totalitarian tendencies." It's quite true that many minarchists, possibly even a numerical majority, are decent people who sincerely believe in tolerating others' values (up to a point) and wouldn't want to use high-handed methods to reach their social goals. Our remarks are not meant to apply to every individual minarchist but to describe the general character of minarchism as a movement. And the general character of a movement is not necessarily determined by the numerical proportions of the various kinds of people involved in it.

The people who rise to positions of power in movements tend to be the most power-hungry type because power-hungry people are those who strive hardest to get into positions of power. Once the power-hungry types have captured control of the movement, there are many of a gentler breed who inwardly disapprove of many of the actions of the leaders, but cannot bring themselves to oppose them. They need their faith in the movement, and because they cannot give up this faith they go along with the leaders. True, some do have the guts to oppose the totalitarian tendencies that emerge, but they generally lose, because the power-hungry types are better organized, are more ruthless and Machiavellian and have taken care to build themselves a strong power base.  Thus the fact that many individual minarchists are personally mild and fairly tolerant people by no means prevents minarchism as a whole form having a totalitarian tendency.

A Humorous Review of What We've Learned About Hancock

For the last five weeks, I've been shining some light into the darker corners of Ernest Hancock's record.  Now that all this illumination has been supplied, it's time for a humorous review of all the facts we've learned.

This first video is a riff on the Verizon "iDon't" commercial that highlighted certain facts about the iPhone.



This next video is an example of a Downfall parody. I recently reported on IPR that Downfall parodies are getting taken down from video-sharing sites, so watch this one quick before it gets memory-holed.


Phoenix Freikorps from Brian Holtz on Vimeo.

Hancock on the virtue of extremism in freedom outreach

I've been releasing a  a series of reports trying to answer 10 questions posted on IPR for Libertarian National Committee Chair candidate Ernest Hancock.  In researching those reports, I've discovered material that I hadn't yet found when I composed those questions. This new material invites delegates to consider Hancock's judgment in what he thinks constitutes good outreach for the freedom movement.

The article before this one examined Hancock's endorsement of the character of Pastor Steven Anderson.  In his church (where he says "only men speak"), Anderson preaches that God should strike down President Obama for (among other sins) promoting a "sodomite" agenda.  Hancock embraces Anderson for resisting an unjustified search of his vehicle at a highway checkpoint.

The next video focuses on some guns-rights street theater that Hancock cleverly staged on Aug. 17 outside an Obama town hall meeting in Phoenix. In an Aug. 18 interview about it on CNN, Hancock without prompting brought up his involvement in the "Viper Militia" case of 1996. On Aug. 19, MSNBC aired a story about Hancock and the Viper Militia, which below is interleaved with various Hancock comments about revolutionary violence and the importance of being "at least a little uncomfortable" with how radical your positions are:



Note that Hancock's AR-15-toting friend Chris later went on the Alex Jones radio show to say that he "proudly" attends Pastor Anderson's church, which he calls "the best church in the world".

Hancock himself is a big fan of the Alex Jones DVD Obama Deception, of which he has distributed tens of thousands of free copies as part of his outreach work. For anyone who hasn't seen the whole thing, the following seven minutes might be the parts that make Libertarians "a least a little uncomfortable":



My question is simple: if Hancock is elected Chair, will Pastor Anderson and the Viper Militia and Obama Deception's conspiracy theories become part of the LP's outreach strategy?