Are you ready to be the voice of liberty for the Libertarian Party?

From an LPHQ email:

Are you ready to be the voice of liberty for the Libertarian Party?

If so, you just may have your chance.

The election is 36 days around the corner, and the LP is gearing up for our first radio ads of the season, and we’re looking for you, the loyal supporter, for ideas.

Please submit your best script, or your own commercial, to contest@lp.org. Entries are to be 25 seconds long, and we’ll put the “Approved By” in it.

For ideas, listen to the Barr campaign’s radio advertisement here.

The deadline for submission is Oct. 3, and the winner will be notified within a week of the contest’s close. The top advertisement will be used in radio ads across the country.

So, put on your “creative caps,” and let us truly hear the “message of liberty!”

Atlanta newspaper (finally) looks into Bob Barr’s PAC

Barr writes (or wrote) a column for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, but that didn’t stop the paper from doing a little digging into his PAC now that he has declared for president.

Here’s the story (which was previously covered by Last Free Voice):

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/05/19/barrpac_0518.html

Barr’s group is a so-called “leadership fund,” a type of political action committee used by current and aspiring party leaders to collect money and disperse it to candidates and committees. …Barr’s use of donations for fund-raising and his own expenses is unlike most leadership funds, said Sarah Dufendach, chief of legislative affairs for Common Cause, the Washington-based nonpartisan public-interest advocacy group.

“It’s not supposed to be for the benefit of that particular person,” she said. “The leadership PACs are supposed to be for the support of other candidates. He is just sustaining himself. …

In the last five years the fund has given $125,200 — about three cents of every dollar raised — to federal candidates and other campaign committees, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has found in a review of reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Another $81,875 went to state and local campaigns.

On April 1, former Congressman Bob Barr wrote to rally conservatives across the country to stop liberals from solidifying control of Congress.“If we don’t act fast – I’m afraid conservatives may well lose out again!” he implored in a letter sent by his political action committee. …

The letter made no mention of Barr’s recent campaign for the Libertarian Party’s nomination for president, in which he has criticized many Republicans in Congress. Libertarians will choose their candidate at a convention this week in Denver.

Barr, a former federal prosecutor, defended the fund’s solicitations and expenditures in a telephone interview. He declined to answer questions about individual donations and the letter’s characterization of their importance.

“I won’t be cross-examined” about the fund’s finances, he said.

In an e-mail, the fund’s treasurer, Paul Kilgore of Athens, wrote that the letter was “in production well before the decision to form an exploratory committee was reached. … [T]here is certainly no requirement that we mention anything specifically in our letters.”

The story has also been picked up by other news outlets.

You can read LFV’s exclusives on Bob Barr at the following links:

Barr still “exploring”, with convention just 18 days away. Why?

Bob Barr’s “emotional distress”

Jim Casarjian-Perry: Bob Barr hits home

Bob Barr: An Enemy of Libertarians

How will Bob Barr spend your money?

What positions does Bob Barr support?

Bob Barr proves he’s a Republican.  Again.

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Hat tip Susan Hogarth

Should third parties nominate their presidential candidate much earlier than the major parties?

I found this entry on Thomas Knapp’s blog, Kn@ppster, and found it quite interesting. Here is an excerpt; you can read it in its entry in its entirety at the link:

I’m not one for silver bullets—no one thing will put third party candidates into contention for the presidency—but some changes just make sense. One of those changes is nominating earlier. My recollection is that the Libertarian Party used to nominate its presidential candidates the year before the election. Andre Marrou was nominated for president in 1991. Ron Paul was nominated in 1987. And so on, and so forth. It was only in 1996 that the LP moved its nominating convention into the year of the election itself.

Late nominating conventions handicap third parties. We can’t expect the kind of pre-nomination media coverage that “major party” candidates get. The sooner a party positions itself behind a nominee, the sooner that nominee has access to the party’s full pool of presidential contributors and can get to work reaching beyond the party to the American public. It’s all well and good to hope that a pre-nomination third party candidate will “break out” and catch the mainstream media eye … but it seldom works out that way.

I think Tom Knapp makes a very good point. As far as I can see, the only downside to nominating earlier is that third parties won’t get any media attention at all during the primaries. Right now they don’t get much, but it does get them at least mentioned in many newspapers.

Then again, can the third parties overcome that negative, and list their presidential nominee on the primary ballot, as just one candidate for that office? I’m honestly not sure. If so, it would look in the press as if that one candidate has a great deal of support within the party, rather than as it is now when it appears to the public that each candidate receives a little support here, and a little support there. Making third party candidates appear to have overwhelming support during the primaries can only be a good thing.

On the other hand, many third party voters wouldn’t even bother to vote during the primaries, if they knew their candidate had already been chosen, so there may be no reason to mention them at all in the mainstream media.

It’s a complicated issue, and one which should be thoroughly explored.
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Originally posted on Adventures In Frickintardistan