Libertarian Party featured in The Economist

The Economist, an influential highbrow news magazine (and one of the few magazines that I bother subscribing to) ran an opinion piece on the Barr campaign in this week’s print issue.  As you would come to expect from reading the news coverage so far, the column is full of factual errors and outdated stereotypes (e.g. the main division in the LP is between between a radical “gun wing” versus a radical “drug wing”.  Take heart, radicals!  Most people still don’t know that we even have pragmatists at all!).  The piece is also heavily focused on the “spoiler” storyline, like most other mainstream coverage.

However, there is some positive coverage of Barr’s poll numbers and the percentage of Americans who self-identify as “libertarian”.  Also, the fact that the Economist is giving exposure to the LP at all is probably a positive thing.  Ron Paul got a couple of paragraphs worth of side note during the GOP primaries months back, but to my knowledge this is the first time in its history that the Economist has run a full-page feature on the Libertarian Party.  First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, etc.

Post-nomination thoughts and tidbits

I’m really disappointed in Christine Smith… not as a Barr backer, but as a 15-year life member of the LP.  Just a couple of weeks ago, she was on radio blasting Mary Ruwart over the child porn thing.  Put the spotlight on her again, and she turns 180-degrees and blasts Barr on national TV.  I publicly apologize to the Ruwart crowd for ever having said a word in Smith’s defense on the first point.  Smith then went on to try and disrupt the post-nomination press conference… at this point I just think all she cares about is getting on TV.

The VP thing didn’t have to play out the way it did.  I was cool with a Barr/Ruwart ticket initially… after the big wins that the reformers got on the Bylaws and Platform debates over the past two days, I thought it would be good for party unity for Ruwart to make the VP slot.  I talked with a few key radical leaders, and leaned Kubby’s way on the first round (with several other Barr supporters) for the unity factor.

On the second round, I shrugged my shoulders and voted Root.  For one thing, I learned that multiple offers had been made by the Barr camp to bring Ruwart on board… before the nominations, and during the rounds.  Ruwart wouldn’t budge, even after it became clear the way things were shaping up.  In all fairness, I’m hearing that she had a pre-existing pact in place with Kubby… and couldn’t find him right before the last vote to see if he’d be okay with her backing out of that.  However, there were multiple offers, and I’m not convinced that she (or Kubby) really would have gone that way regardless.

More importantly, Kubby lost on VP because 20 or more delegates left the floor following the Barr win.  Had they simply stuck around one more hour, Kubby would have WON.  Kubby and Nolan then gave speeches in lobby, and still more others pledged not to go to the morning session tomorrow… thus ensuring that a less-balanced LNC will be elected.  Again, that doesn’t HAVE to go that way either.  Say what you want, this convention has been no “purge”… things played out in such a lopsided manner largely due to all-or-nothing thinking, and poor floor management once emotions got too strong.

I personally hope that once people have an opportunity to blow off steam and vent their frustrations, that most of the disappointed people begrudgingly find their way back in the fold.  I might not have said that a couple of weeks ago, but meeting some of these people in real life (that I’d only known from online arguments) has changed my thinking somewhat.  Before I came out here, my preconception of Starchild for example was based on the portrayal he often gets online… I thought he was some guy who just shows up in costumes and tries to disrupt things because he doesn’t take matters seriously.  You know what?  That image is completely full of shit.  In the Bylaws and Platform debates, he was extremely knowledgeable about every plank being discussed, articulated his positions eloquently and respectfully, and was nothing if not 100% serious (attire aside).  The same was true for the arguments he was making while working the floor during Presidential votes.  I disagreed with him 90%+ of the time, but the guy’s NOT a joke… he’s probably one of the best libertarians we have, and just has a different vantage point than me on what’s best for the Party.  The same is true for several of the other key guys that I’ve gone to the mat with in blog debates.

Phillies probably delivered the best speech of his career when he refused to make an endorsement, but tried to stress that the enemy was outside the room rather than within.  I’ll be doing everything I can for the ticket over the next several months, and I do hope that the disappointed people come around once they’ve had their chance to vent some steam.

Candidate lineup for the LP debate

Tokens are rolling in, and here’s the line-up I have for Presidential debate right now. This may change when the official count is released.

Root, Barr, Ruwart (in the 90’s range so far… each within one token of the other)

Gravel, Phillies, Jingozian, Kubby (in the 60’s… within 5 of each other. SORRY I DOUBTED YA, GRAVEL!)

There are tons of rumors swirling about what deals might have been cut… who the candidates coming up short threw their tokens to… who the top-tier candidates might have given some excess tokens to, etc. I get a general sense that it all came out in a wash, ultimately.

I’ll try to post hard vote totals later today when the official results are announced.

Saturday business sessions

**NOTE** This thread will up updated throughout the day…

[9:30 am] We started off with a minor credentials fight, for delegates that were added to the roll near the deadline. One delegate gave a rant about “rumors that some campaigns are stacking the delegation with paid delegates” (by the way, there were about a dozen late additions… out of 552 credentialed delegates). The Bylaws required a whopping 7/8’ths majority to allow seating of these delegates, yet even that threshold was easily met.

[9:45 am] The radicals are still seething over the Statement of Principles debate yesterday (I think the reformers were being too aggressive in bringing that up yesterday… the tone shifted against them a bit from that point on). They threw a couple of motions out there to have the parliamentarian leave the convention… but after blowing off a little steam there, we moved on to Platform business.

[10:00 am] And HERE WE GO! David Nolan starts out a motion to have a 30 minute debate of the majority report and “Restore04” report on an en banc basis, and have a straight-up majority vote on “deciding which overall direction we want to take”. Looks like Nolan had a majority, but came up well short on the 2/3′rds needed to suspend the rules.

[10:15 am] Someone made a motion to change the rules for the rest of the Convention, requiring a minimum of 40 delegates (rather than 20) to force a hand-count of votes. Motion gets two-thirds and passes. I get a sense that the radicals will find traction on some individual plank votes, but the reformers are 2-for-2 so far on killing off delay tactics.

[10:30 am] We’re debating Proposal 1 (”Omissions”), which basically says that our silence on any particular law or government policy does not imply approval of it. Passes easily with pretty much no disagreement from anyone… the crowd erupts in laughter when the Committee Chair asks if we think they’ll all go this easily.

[10:35 pm] Proposal 3 (i.e. campaign finance and ballot access). We’re not tackling proposals in the order in which they’re listed in the binder. The committee says this is because they want to hit the ones that had the highest level of survey support first, so that we can handle as many planks as possible before time runs out. There are objections from the minority side that some of the planks more likely to go their way are listed earlier in the binder, and the majority doesn’t want to give them early wins and set the tone.

The majority and minority heads take turns reading their respective versions of this plank. I don’t know that there’s a ton of substantive difference, the main difference is that the minority version is the size of a small novel. Speaking of incoherent and wasting time… the minority-backers spend half the allotted debate time arguing about the fact that we’re not considering yet OTHER proposals too.

The majority version wins.

[11:00 am] Proposal 4 (”Rights and Discrimination”). The majority version is three sentences long, and deals with… rights and discrimination. The minority version scrolls over multiple pages on the monitors… and goes into OSHA, the NLRB, and contract law. Somebody makes a motion to ignore the minority report altogether on this plank, because it’s not germane to the subject matter of the topic. That passes.

There have been about a dozen frivolous “point of information”’s in a row, to try and slow things down. We finally get to the ultimate vote, and the proposal passes.

[11:20 am] Proposal 6 (”International Affairs”). The majority version is a few sentences long… and basically calls for non-interventionism, while morally condemning terrorism. The minority version is ENORMOUS, and spends a ton of time on immigration. There’s another motion for declaring the minority report non-germane to the issue (because we already have a separate Immigration plank that was retained yesterday). Passes easily.

[11:30 am] Here it comes… the reformers are emboldened and going for the big win. Motion made to adopt the majority report in full… then entertain motions to drop individual planks and/or replace them with minority versions. This would essentially turn the majority report into the new Platform of the Libertarian Party, and make it the starting point for all further debate.

Reformers just fought off some procedural attacks easily, and are getting hyper-aggressive now. Motion made to divide the previous motion up and vote on each element separately. This means that the majority report could become the new Platform WITHOUT then considering deletions or minority planks. That attempt fails.

That move might have turned off some people like the Statement of Principles thing did yesterday. The original motion fails… we move back to regular plank-by-plank debate (after burning up a ton of time).

[12:00 pm] Proposal 7 (”National Security”). Even I’m voting with the radicals on this one… the text as written is way too broad (e.g. the military couldn’t classify information about troop movements on a battlefield, etc). The plank FAILS.

A few peers weren’t happy with my vote, and I’m starting to see why now. The “no” vote opens the door to a million wacky amendments (somebody’s moving to abolish the CIA right now). This goes on to eat up all the remaining time in this session, and nothing passes at all.

[MORNING RECAP] Majority report wins on proposals 1, 3, 4, and 6. Minority (or at least anti-majority) crowd blocks proposal 7. Most procedural spats have gone the reformers’ way, although the radicals find support to knock them back when they overextend. DEADLINE FOR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES TO TURN IN THEIR TOKENS IS IN 30 MINUTES. See you after lunch.

[3:40 pm] I’m back from lunch, and kinda distracted with other stuff, but there’s not much to report on anyway… the majority report recommendations are now flying through with only token opposition. The proposal numbers that have been made part of the platform are #’s 11 (health care), 12 (labor), 13 (financial markets), 16 (govt. finance and spending), 17 (energy), 18 (environment), and 20 (economic liberty).

[3:50 pm] Proposal 21 (”Self Defense”). The committee asks for consents to fix an extra comma that was a typo… the radicals raise an objection over the COMMA (just to grind down the clock), and we waste time debating that. It ultimately passes.

[4:00 pm] Proposal 22 (”Crime and Justice”). Another objection over another COMMA. This is absolutely ridiculous, and now the tone is shifting against the radicals… just as it earlier shifted against the reformers for pushing their losing point too far. This passes with less than a dozen people opposed.

[4:01 pm] Proposal 24 (”Personal Relationships”). This plank calls for gay marriage, but the radicals argue that we should vote it down… so that we can add further amendments about child custody. For the record, the Barr supporters just voted for an LP Platform plank calling for gay marriage… and we lost. I’ll be back later, we’ll be arguing about every amendment under the sun for the next half-hour…

It ultimately passed, with a minor amendment to reference child custody as well. Again, the “far-right neocon Christian theocracy” Barr crowd backed the plank… backing gay marriage and adoption in our Platform.

[5:10 pm] The abortion plank chews up over an HOUR of time… believe me when I say that I’m doing you a favor by not blogging it all. Ultimately we adopt a modified Platform plank that basically makes the LP neutral on the pro-life / pro-choice debate, with the exception that government should stay out of it.

[5:15 pm] The clock is running out. A motion passes to DELETE ALL PLANKS FROM THE PLATFORM NOT YET DEALT WITH, and add replacement planks as time permits. Effectively, all remnants of the old platform are now gone.

[5:45 pm] We’ve added a few more planks (gay rights, corporate liability). Surprisingly, all the factions are working together pretty well to hammer out amendments and fashion compromise language. There are still a handful of folks who vote against everything, but there’s much less rancor on the floor at this point than there was this morning.

[5:50 pm] Drug War language doesn’t gel together… immigration passes.  The very last plank is a general “Self Determination” statement fashioned from Declaration of Independent text.  If this passes, we actually managed to complete the full Platform agenda (there’s less than 5 minutes to go before the clock runs out).

[5:59 pm] It passes… we actually have a (more or less) full platform!  Presidential debates start in an hour… this thread is a wrap.

Barr re-elected to the LNC

Yesterday afternoon, Bob Barr was re-elected to another term representing his region on the LNC (along with Stewart Flood also… that region is a consolidated region which has two rep. slots). Say what you want, and I’m sure some people will continue to do so, but Barr’s showing no intention of slacking up on his LP support no matter how the Presidential race pans out.

The “Unofficial” LP Presidential Debate

I just got back from the “unofficial” LP Presidential debate… sponsored by Jim Burns, Jingozian, and I believe one other candidate (someone please fill me in if there was a third and I’ll update this post). Basically the participants were all announced candidates not named Bob Barr. I’m sure there will be tons of jeers on that point… but Barr already had a reception scheduled for the same time, and the organizers seemed pretty anti-Barr to begin with… so ultimately everyone will reach the conclusions that they want to reach. I’m pretty exhausted, so I’ll just post some random thoughts and observations before turning in for the night.

Overall, I genuinely enjoyed watching the event and wish we had more of these. I came out of the debate feeling more comfortable about supporting whichever nominee our Party chooses to pick. There were some that made me less comfortable than others, but my silence on any particular candidate shouldn’t be interpreted as condemnation. I’m just going to focus on the people and issues that particularly stood out for me…

This is my first time watching Ruwart on the stage, and she was very smooth and polished. She made only subtle digs at Barr (warning about “recent converts”, and stressing the Patriot Act)… as opposed to Phillies and Kubby, who were the main two really hammering on Barr by name and making an issue out of his PAC. The crowd loved her.

Root is an awesome public speaker, and was probably more high-energy than the rest of the field combined. There was a bit less “red meat” in most of his answers, and I thought he put WAY too much emphasis on the fact that he and Obama graduated from the same college (err, okay?). However, the crowd was with him for the most part and he had no real stumbles.

Gravel did pretty good, and his supporters were loud. He didn’t really try to dance around the fact that many LP’ers disagree with him on some issues… and while there was some very quiet murmurs around me on some points, overall the crowd was pretty gracious and welcoming toward him.

Phillies is a much better speaker than I had been given the impression from people who’ve heard him before. He stepped up, although I though he did get a little shrill toward the end there. He basically made an honest pitch for being the compromise candidate if and when Barr and Ruwart cancel each other out… (I’m paraphrasing) “Both sides may not agree with me, but I’m the candidate that everyone can live with.” I was surprised when he acknowledged that he’s still short on tokens… and promised that once he has enough to get into the main debate he’ll distribute any excess to the other candidates who need them.

Jim Burns was another speaker who exceeded my expectations. I don’t see him having a chance at getting enough tokens for the Presidential debate, but he made a pitch for Vice-Presidential tokens as well (the only candidate to do so)… and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get enough for that race. Really good straightforward answers to questions.

Christine Smith had good stage presence, and I’ve enjoyed talking with her on the floor. She just struggled to really find a particular “hook” that resonated with people and set her apart from the field.

Turnout for the debate seemed larger than expected for what was probably an undersized room (that room was about 800-degrees and started off standing-room only). After the first hour or so the crowd thinned a bit, and Barr’s reception picked up… so that the latter had a somewhat bigger crowd. We’ll find out soon enough who got the tokens and who didn’t, and the main debate tomorrow should be pretty spirited.

Will Gravel get to speak at Denver?

I’m writing notes on the Bylaws debates in another thread, but this was interesting enough to warrant a separate thread. About an hour ago, one of the Gravel guys made a motion to expand the amount of time for Bylaws debates until later on in the evening. I raised an eyebrow, but that motion failed and I didn’t think any more of it.

However, we’re running close to the end of the session, and now the Gravel folks are scrambling around like crazy (Gravel himself’s on the floor)… and made a motion to skip directly to a proposal for changing the threshold for Presidential candidates being entitled to give nominating speeches and/or enter the debates. From the chatter I’m overhearing from his volunteers, they don’t yet have enough delegate tokens to get in the debate under current rules.

They still have time to gather more, but they better hustle… their motion failed, so they’ll have to work with the rules as they currently stand.

**UPDATE** As laid out in the comments by G.E. and myself below, the actual text of this proposal would have raised the required threshold of tokens. I’m not sure if that camp was hoping to defeat it and then offer more favorable amendments (as is the parliamentary procedure), or if things just got really mixed up.

Friday LP Business Meetings

Part of the upside of being in law school is that I’m actually dork-enough to ENJOY procedural debates, so I’m sitting in on all the General Business sessions. I believe that today is all platform and bylaws debates, and the convention hall seems 10-20% full AT BEST. I’m pretty stunned by the low level of participation. No matter which “faction” you lean toward, you have basically no cause to gripe about whatever comes out of these sessions. With a body this small, ANY faction could “hijack” the agenda by simply being organized enough to show up in full. Over half the LP delegation is out wondering around the vendor exhibits… waiting to complain later about whatever comes out of this meeting that they COULD have helped determine themselves.

Unbelievable.

Anyway, I’ll be updating this thread throughout the day as business proceeds.

[9:45 am] At the opening, David Nolan made a motion to basically cut the platform / bylaws debate time in half… shifting the unused time over to Presidential / Vice-Presidential selection. I’ve been hearing that the radicals intend to try to minimize platform discussion as much as possible… and/or have the “majority report” and “minority reports” discussed at a general high-level, moreso than on a plank-by-plank basis. Here comes the opening salvo. M Carling spoke in opposition to the motion, and then a series of delegates made “me too” comments on both sides. Nolan’s motion failed… and a subsequent motion passed to proceed with the agenda as originally planned.

[11:00 am] We just spent FOREVER debating the proposed amendment to Article 8 of the Bylaws (allowing the Judicial Committee to hold a hearing based on appeal by 10 percent of convention delegates… the current rule requires 3% of sustaining Party members). Good LORD… no one here has any knowledge of parliamentary procedure at all! After dueling amendments from Nick Sawark and Guy McClendon, what we came up with was adopting the new “10% of convention delegates” method… while lowering the old method to 1% of sustaining Party members.

[11:30 am] We’re debating the proposed change to Rule 9 of the Bylaws. I get the feeling that around 95% of the room has NO IDEA what this proposal is about. I just finished a year of Civil Procedure class, read the proposal in advance, communicated about it by email with the committee… and **I** barely understand what this proposal is about. I think the general thrust is that no more Vice-Presidential nominations can be made once the Presidential debates start. The motion ultimately passed. It seemed like the Barr, Gravel, and Root crowds seemed to favor it… the Ruwart, Phillies, etc crowds were opposed. Don’t ask me WHY it broke down along those lines… I voted “no” simply because I didn’t really understand the problem this is supposed to address. I’m off to lunch.

[12:00 am] After poking fun at Michelle Singhal on Reason Hit & Run, for confusing Richard Viguerie with Russ Verney, I was just introduced to Verney a few minutes ago. I immediately proceeded to blurt out, “Yes, I know you… you just took over Third Party Watch!” Doh… sorry Michelle.

[2:00 pm] Richard Viguerie is giving the Keynote Address. He kinda oscillates between appeals to the base and to disgruntled Republicans, saying “We libertarians…” in one sentence and “We conservatives..” in the next. Still, the crowd has been surprisingly positive. Turnout is not as high as it was for other morning sessions, but the rumored “protests” haven’t happened.

[3:00 pm] Amendment to Article 8, to provide for removing National Committee members who miss too many meetings, passes easily.

[3:30 pm] Debate on Article 9, setting up staggered terms for the Judicial Committee. Nick Sarwark rose to point out that this proposal would essentially expand terms from 2 years to 14 years. Also, the intention was to block a potential hostile takeover… but a hostile takeover would go through the LNC rather than the Judicial Committee. This goes down in flames, and the body votes to suspend the rules to move on without bothering with amendments.

[3:40 pm] Debate on Article 11… basically setting up former elected officials as “superdelegates” for life. I can’t believe that I’m 100% on board with Starchild on an issue… this is a bad proposal in my opinion. However, the body seemed pretty overwhelmingly in favor of it.

[4:00 pm] Debate on Article 12… establishing certain thresholds (i.e. endorsement, raising $5000 in funds) before a Presidential candidate can get access to LPHQ resources. Seems like a no-brainer to me (best line from the floor: “If you can’t raise at least $5K for a PRESIDENTIAL race, what the heck are you doing?”)… but it generates significant debate and requires a hand-count of the vote.

Ugh… a bunch of new faces ran in from the exhibit hall during the hand-count, and was able to get just over one-third… blocking the motion.

[4:20 pm] WHOA. The Gravel crowd just made a motion to skip over directly to debate on Article 6, changing the rules for which Presidential candidates get to give nomination speeches and/or participate in debates. Gravel himself is on the floor, and his volunteers are scrambling around. From the chatter I’m overhearing from them, Gravel doesn’t have enough delegate tokens yet. They better hustle… their motion failed, so they’re stuck with the current rules.

[5:00 pm] We’re switching over from pure Bylaws debate, to a mixed Bylaws/Platform session. The only two planks which have collected enough tokens for “speedy deletion” are the “Reproductive Rights” and “Immigration” planks. We’re about to have straight-up majority votes on whether to delete or retain those two planks.

The abortion plank of the LP platform has been RETAINED.

The immigration plank of the LP platform has been RETAINED.

[5:10 pm] We’re debating over whether or not to change the Bylaws… to lower the 7/8′ths majority requirement currently needed to alter the Statement of Principles. Are you sitting down? I actually agree with the radicals on this one. If a 7/8′ths majority is required to change the Statement of Principles, but a 2/3′rds majority can change the bylaws to lower this threshold… then there is no 7/8′ths requirement at all.

We spend what feels like forever arguing about this… the Reformers clearly don’t have enough support to change the SoP even with parliamentary tricks. The Chair’s interpretation of the rules ends up defeated. On the flipside of the coin, however, a motion to close the potential loophole is defeated likewise. The status quo on the Statement of Principles debate rolls on for future conventions to wrestle with.

[5:40 pm] Debating over a Bylaws change to appoint the convention committees (Platform, Bylaws, Credentials, etc) earlier.  Most of the debate is drifting off onto unrelated rants about big states having more clout than smaller states, etc.  Time finally runs out on the debate, and the motion to change fails.

[5:50 pm] Proposal for a Bylaws change to speed up Platform debates, by encouraging amendments to be written down in advance rather than thrown together ad hoc from the floor.  This looks to have about 80-90% support, but the radicals are throwing every procedural trick in the book out here to slow things down.  We’re now crawling through a hand-count of all votes.  (Best comment from the floor:  “The sole purpose of all this [radicals' motions] are to deliberately obstruct things so we can’t conduct any platform business at all”).  Final vote count… it passes by about 10-to-1.

[5:50 pm] Debating a Bylaws change to allow the Secretary to make “stylistic changes” (e.g. fix typos). Ruth Bennett tries to hijack the agenda and resurrect the 7/8’ths-majority-for-the-Statement-of-Principles thing, but even the radicals have had their fill of that for the day and groaned that off. After some brief debate (everyone is getting tired), this gets voted down.

We’re done for the day.