2013 LPCA Convention Day 2

59 delegates convened for the officer elections this morning.  On the last day of his term as Northern Vice Chair before devoting himself to his new job as LPWA executive director, C. Michael Pickens nominated Janine Kloss for Chair.  He praised her for the work she put into strategy and marketing documents for the LPWA.  Kloss told the delegates: "I'm not coming with a plan, but a question: what can the Executive Committee do for you?" A letter from Kloss distributed on the convention floor did not mention any LPCA office or plans, aside from saying "It is now the time to grow the LP by sharing the morality of the non-aggression principle." Her nomination was seconded by Mark Hinkle, who said she also had the support of Ted Brown and Mary Gingell.  (All three are former LPCA Chairs, and Hinkle and Gingell are past LNC Chairs.)

Three-term incumbent Chair Kevin Takenaga spoke on the need for a Chair to build a team and to focus on specific goals.  He said that in his most recent term, fighting Top Two had been a higher priority than increasing dues-payers. He said the LPCA was on course to maintain party status via its increased registration numbers, which was necessary now that Top Two keeps the LP off of the November ballot.  After Takenaga's speech, Kloss supporter Starchild perhaps hurt her chances by moving to suspend the rules so that the candidates could be questioned for ten minutes.  Kloss said under questioning that she had only joined the LP in December, and that she didn't know which California counties were the most active.

Takenaga won by 38 votes to 26, with 3 for NOTA. (More delegates had been credentialed since the start of the session.)  Gale Morgan was elected by acclamation as Northern Vice Chair, and Glynda Perrotte was similarly elected as Southern Vice Chair.  Kloss then narrowly defeated Jose Castenada for Secretary, 33 to 31.  Brian Darby was re-elected Treasurer by acclamation.

Ten candidates were nominated for 6 open at-large seats on the Executive Committee:

• Jose Castenada
• Judd Weiss
• Starchild
• Grant Huihui
• Nancy Zardeneta
• Josh Famestead
• Brian Thiemer
• Bill Lopez
• Shawn Fox
• Armando Romero

2013 LPCA Convention Day 1

Libertarian Party of California delegates began their convention in Sacramento this morning with a keynote speech by Steven Greenhut, a Libertarian journalist well-known for exposing abuses of government power in California. Greenhut described the rent-seeking practiced by the two incumbent parties, and said that the LPCA "can be one important vehicle for saving the state" if it unites around libertarian common ground. He cited the 19th-century Free Soil Party as an example of an alternative party that influenced public policy without winning the highest elective offices. (The Free Soil Platform had significant overlap with geolibertarian ideas.)

56 delegates were credentialed as Kevin Takenaga began his Chair's report. He celebrated Gary Johnson's impressive results in California, and two Libertarian wins in city council races: John Inks in Mountain View (pop. 74K), and SusanMarie Weber in Palm Desert (pop. 48K).  He credited some of the 15% pre-election spike in LPCA voter registration to the introduction of online registration, and noted that due to campaign finance laws the LPCA "didn't really have an active voter registration campaign".  Takenaga also cited press coverage of the recent move of the LPCA office: Libertarians move in as CA GOP scales back in Sacramento.

C. Michael Pickens gave the Northern Vice Chair report, and noted that he recently became the executive director of the LPWA.  He cited cloud-based call centers as an example of an LPWA innovation that he hopes to set up for the LPCA.  He hopes that the LPWA bylaws will be changed to allow Libertarian endorsement of candidates from other parties.

The Southern Vice Chair is empty. Treasurer Brian Darby was questioned closely on dues revenue and how dues are split between the LPCA and its county affiliates.  Darby asked the delegates to approve a Bylaws Committee recommendation to simplify the state/county dues split formula.

Inks and Weber joined two Libertarian water district directors (Jim Hoerricks and Brian Holtz) in a panel about Libertarians' service in government office.

Delegates approved all five of the Bylaws Committee recommendations:

• Make the LPCA membership pledge against force initiation match that of the LPUS, by changing "I do not believe in or advocate" to "I oppose".
• Require the Secretary to maintain a manual that compiles all procedures created by the Executive or Operations Committees.
• Remove the route to LPCA membership via government-hosted elections to the State Central Committee.  Because of the new Top Two law, the government no longer hosts such elections anyway.
• Change the state/county dues split to 50/50, in place of a 60/40 split in favor of whichever side processed the dues.
• Limit nomination of NatCon delegates to those who have confirmed to the Secretary their acceptance of their nomination.

Tomorrow will be all officer elections, and consideration of the Platform Committee's sole recommendation (about increasing the size of the state legislature).

The First Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The Chair cannot hear the motion-maker;
Elections fall apart; the recount cannot be held;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the convention,
The flyer-choked tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is shouted down;
The rule-followers lack all conviction, while the violators
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the First Coming is at hand.
The First Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Bylaw 11.8
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with human body and the head of no man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert delegates.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That four decades of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a suspended rule,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Las Vegas to be not-elected?

2012 Convention Election Predictions

Gary Johnson will win the presidential nomination on the first ballot, with about 55% of the votes.  If the rumors are true that Jim Gray is Johnson's running mate, then he will win the vice-presidential nomination. I'm guessing Lee Wrights will selflessly agree to run against Gray for the hopes of his supporters to balance the ticket, even though it would be an uphill struggle.

I'm not sure whether Mark Hinkle or Mark Rutherford will be elected Chair.  Hinkle as the incumbent will have the inside track, but the election could very well be tipped by how deftly he handles the gavel during parliamentary conflicts over registration fees and credentialing Oregonians.  Wes Wagner will win less than 20% of the votes.

Bill Redpath may end up unopposed for Vice Chair, but if the 2nd-place Chair candidate runs against him then it's a toss-up. My guess is that the 2nd-place Chair candidate would just run for LNC and not risk losing both Chair and Vice-Chair.

Alicia Mattson will easily win re-election as Secretary.

Starr vs. Phillies for Treasurer will be close.  Phillies will do much better than the 8-10% he's recently received in Chair and POTUS races, but will not do nearly as well as the 70% that his slate-mate James Oaksun received against Starr in the 2010 Treasurer race. Starr will emphasize that he's done the job well in the past, and that Oaksun joined a series of non-Starr Treasurers who had difficulty completing even one term.  I'm guessing Starr wins.

The race for LNC At-Large representatives (top 5 elected) will probably finish in an order like this:

• Hinkle or Rutherford
• Wayne Root
• Lee Wrights
• Mary Ruwart
• Kevin Knedler
• Rebecca Sink-Burris

Platform Committee Adopts Report

The Libertarian Party Platform Committee met in December in Las Vegas.  It adopted 16 proposals, two of which include "pending amendments".  (A pending amendment is subject to an initial majority vote by the convention delegates before the proposal it amends receives its usual up-or-down 2/3 vote.)  This wiki page shows how the PlatCom proposals would change the platform.  Highlights:

1.0 Personal Liberty.  PlatCom offers two alternative rewrites to this plank. Both say that "the right to make a choice depends on both understanding that it has consequences and accepting responsibility for them". This will help defend LP candidates from charges that we demand adult freedoms for children.

1.2 Privacy and Self-Ownership is the proposed new title for this plank, which is broadened to the scope that was originally intended in the 2008 platform rewrite. 1.1 is about freedom of one's own mind, 1.2 is about freedom of one's own body, and 1.3 is about the freedom to have relations with others. PlatCom here generalizes the "drugs" language to include all "substances".

1.4. Abortion would explicitly "welcome both pro-life and pro-choice members", and oppose taxpayer funding of abortion.

1.6. Self-Defense would clarify gun freedom on private property, and rework some clumsy phrasing inherited from the 1976 platform. However, I worry that this proposal is imperiled by replacing the classic "ammunition or firearms" in favor of "personal defense weapons".

2.4 and 2.5 are rewrites that add more complaints about taxes and subsidies. They add language about "hardworking Americans" and "the American dream", while deleting explicit mentions of the IRS,  Balanced Budget Amendment, currency freedom, and banking.

2.6 Labor Markets is rewritten, with a focus on government employee unions and pensions.

2.8 Education gets some polishing, and loses an out-of-scope rhetorical aside.

3.4 Free Trade and Migration is also polished, and it too gets a mention of "the American dream".

3.5 Rights and Discrimination. PlatCom proposes to replace the condemnation of bigotry with a denial that a "natural can ever impose an obligation upon others to fulfill that right".  A separate 3.5 proposal qualifies parenall rights when "a jury finds abuse, neglect, or reckless endangerment".

The following table gives the PlatCom votes for each proposal, along with my analysis of whether the proposal will be approved in convention.

Proposal	Vote	My Analysis	Odds
1.0 responsibility requires understanding	12-0-0	drops force initiation, adds govt role	30%
1.0 American liberty	12-1-0	too jingoistic	5%
1.2 Self-Ownership, risk-taking	13-0-0	good generalization of "drugs" to "media and substances"	80%
1.2 individuals -> adults	13-0-0	gives LP cover for kids+drugs	80%
1.4 welcome pro-life & pro-choice	9-4-0	fig leaf for our extremist pro-choice position	60%
1.4 no tax-funded abortion	13-0-0	slam dunk	99%
1.5 restitution of/to	13-0-0	obvious grammar fix	99%
1.6 guns on private property	11-1-0	good but imperiled by changing "ammunition or firearms" to "personal defense weapons"	60%
2.4 taxes imperil American dream	12-1-0	too jingoistic; delays income tax repeal; drops IRS & BBA references	25%
2.5 against fraud and bailouts	11-1-0	good change imperiled by dropping references to banking & currency	40%
2.7 govt employee unions/pensions	9-4-0	good language, but backsliding toward excess detail	70%
2.8 rewrite education w/o "moral values"	12-0-0	good rewording; radicals won't like dropping "like any other service"	70%
2.9 free to be uninsured	12-0-0	harmless clarification	90%
3.4 immigration rewrite	12-0-0	don't need "American dream" or "general welfare" sap	80%
3.5 rights impose no duties	9-1-3	too absolutist; sticklers will cite jury duty	60%
3.5 child abuse	13-0-0	jury reference is crucial for approval	90%
3.6 electoral -> voting	13-0-0	harmless improvement	95%
3.6 voting to limit govt	10-0-3	almost too obvious	90%

My personal agenda for this platform cycle is to minimize platform language churn while trying to fix the top five vulnerabilities that the platform leaves for our candidates. This web page lists those five problems and the fixes I suggested.  PlatCom's proposals address all five problems, although not always with the precise language I offered. I voted against only one of those five solutions, where the 1.6 proposal only used half of the "peacable adults" solution and made extraneous changes that put the whole proposal at risk.

I voted against 4 of the 6 other plank rewrites, as they tended to churn (and sometimes weaken) the platform language without actually provided extra defense or guidance to our candidates. I cast all five of the solitary nays, and was among the nays or abstentions whenever there were any.

My portal of information about the LP Platform is here.

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.