We’re sending out an “open call” to drug law reform folks to support the LP and the Kubby campaign. We would like to make future appeals like this to the peace community, environmentalists, immigrants rights activists, and many others, but we have to start with a base. For anyone who is involved in drug policy reform groups and discussions, please help us distribute this widely, and whether you are or not, please send us some money (see the “read more” link) and some ideas so we can reach more folks with this message! Steve Kubby writes…
To my friends and comrades in the drug policy reform movement:
The last 10 years have been a decade of incredible progress toward ending the war on drugs. Twelve states have adopted medical marijuana legislation. Numerous communities have reduced marijuana to “lowest law enforcement priority.” More and more studies reveal both the medical efficacy of marijuana and the inefficacy and brutality of the war on drugs.
This progress is the result of your years of hard work: Your rallies. Your marches. Your petition drives. The letters to the editor. Your willingness to stand up and be counted. Your refusal to accept anything less than victory.
But it’s time to take the next step: We need to support a political party that recognizes these facts and acts on them instead of ignoring them and trying to wish them away. We need to support a party that stands up for our rights instead of using us as pawns on the chessboard of politics. We need to support the Libertarian Party.
I have to say, I like the earnestness Steve conveys. I worry about the stigma of the “single-issue” like a lot of people, but frankly despite the stigma this one has, it needs to be heard — and the “lower tone” versions have strong sympathy across a broad base.
I like it when candidates communicate like this.
Ian, check out the rest of the campaign site, like “issues” and “media archive”.
Steve is far from being single issue, unless the issue is freedom.
As I said, we plan on writing appeals like this to other groups as well.
The trouble is having enough money and volunteers to get the message to the intended audience(s).
The LP, already tiny as it is, is reeling from Badnarik’s campaign last year, from several years of mismanagement, lack of recruiting and attrition, and from Ron Paul’s Republican race sopping up libertarian resources.
Steve Kubby already has a name in the drug policy reform community, but
groups working on that issue don’t rent out their lists, and even if they did we would need enough starter capital to mail everyone.
If we can get this message to enough folks who care about this issue, and there are a lot more of them than there are LP members, we can raise enough money to get all the other issues we are working on to the folks that care about those issues as well.
Listen to Steve’s podcast (there will be a new one each week), his radio interviews or watch his youtube clips and you will see that he speaks with the same passion and audience appeal about a variety of issues.
Naturally we are starting with this one, because this is the work he is best known for. But, if we can succeed with this, it’s only a start.
We need your help, and the help of everyone reading, to get over that first hurdle.
I guess we can forget about moving away from the Drug Party moniker.
Pauliecannoli’s comments on the general Libertarian financial issues are indeed true, though the Presidential campaign financial management issues cover three Presidential campaigns.
To make matters worse, the LNC has enacted a new policy that candidates cannot rent ad space with Federal hard money in LP News. Now, massive full page ads at some point not necessarily a good investment, but there is no current possibility of renting ad space at all, so many Libertarians do not know who their Party’s Presidential candidates are at this point. Worse, in contrast to years past, the LNC is refusing to rent its mailing list to Presidential candidates for fundraising purposes. You may contrast this with 1996 and 2000, as described in my book “Funding Liberty”.
To make matters yet worse, out immediately prior Presidential candidate has betrayed his party and vigorously endorsed a Republican Presidential candidate.
Going downhill, I am informed by officers of the LPNH that National Chair Bill Redpath is talking about putting forth a motion to disaffiliate the LP of New Hampshire.
Furthermore, the LNC has come up with two proposals for using the Presidential candidates for fundraising–for the LNC.
To add insult to injury, I am in receipt of a memo from: the LNC National Director–given to me by LNC members who I completely trust on this matter–in which the LNC National Director attacks at length Steve, myself, and other candidates, says ‘my hands are tied’ and vigorously reminds LNC members that _they_ can recruit other candidates against Steve and I.
George Phillies
http://www.phillies2008.com
Ian,
Glad you like it.
The “single issue” bit is something we’ve watched very closely. So far in this campaign, Steve has addressed a wide range of issues, and will continue to address them and others …
… but, let’s be honest. His background is in the drug policy reform movement. That’s where he comes from. It’s who he is. Nobody in the LP or out would have heard of him if it wasn’t for that issue — and while nobody on this campaign is going to try to bullshit you and convince you he’s a household name or a gossip sheet celebrity, he does have some name recognition and some appeal, especially among particular groups, because of that background. He can’t run away from that, and he’d be stupid not to use it.
How should he use it? In two ways:
1) “Heads”
The LP needs the support of unrepresented constituencies. We’ve played footsie with the drug policy reform community for 35 years. We’re obviously on their side (with respect to the single issue that defines them as a community) and they’re obviously on our side (ditto), but while we’ve occasionally been stigmatized as “the pot party,” we’ve never managed the flip side of that coin — getting the marijuana and hemp people firmly in our corner politically on a large scale. We should do that, and if we’re going to, who better than Steve Kubby to make the pitch?
How big is the constituency? The circulation of High Times is apparently still at about 220,000 (in the 70s it reached half a million). If I’m doing my math right, that’s about half again as many readers every month as have belonged to the LP over the entire course of its history. It’s a fairly expensive magazine, and it advertises fairly expensive stuff. If we can gain the allegiance of even 1% of that magazine’s circulation, we’ll be growing the party’s current member/donor base by 25% from an affluent (or at least free-spending on things they care about) demographic with strong opinions. And High Times is just one publication among many that represents a very large constituency by LP standards.
2) “Tails”
Unrepresented constituencies need the support of the LP. Above, I describe how reaching this particular constituency benefits the LP. Reaching this constituency also benefits the constituency itself to the extent that that constituency finds itself presented with an increasingly powerful and well-funded (due partially to the constituency’s own participation) political label that it can support in the correct belief that that label means “the candidate in this package is on your side.”
It’s one of those “win-win deal” kind of things, if we can pull it off.
Now, on to the next offer/observation: Steve isn’t going to run from that issue, and as a matter of fact he’s going to make use of it as often as appropriate, because it’s an issue he’s known for and persuasive on. But … it’s not the only issue he’s going to take this approach to. Over time, we’ll be making similar appeals to various identifiable constituencies, just as Paulie says.
One thing some Libertarians seem to be afraid of is that this kind of approach means the LP will be taken over by activists (on various issues) in the ACT UP vein (“we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!”), making us less saleable to “the general public.”
I don’t think that will happen. As a matter of fact, I think exactly the opposite will happen. Rather than the LP becoming more theatrical/less political, I think these constituencies, however theatrical they remain in their own discrete activities (and there’s definitely a place for such activities — hell, I’ve done a die-in with ACT UP myself!), will be glad to have a forceful but “respectable” public face through the LP … something along the lines of the NRA’s “I’m a gun owner — and I vote.”
That’s important, both to the constituencies and to the party. It was at least partially the melding of the formerly inchoate political power of a marginalized constituency with a political party’s active representative power that took black Americans from being treated according to predjudiced stereotypes to instead being recognized as a formidable voter bloc.
Regards,
Tom Knapp
I’ve seen the email that George is referring to, and I have to say that I’m floored.
It’s as if someone had hired on to be executive director of the Republican Party, then turned to the RNC and said “hey — I thought I’d have Howard Dean, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton to work with over here, but all I’m seeing is a bunch of Republicans. Do something about that, will you?!”
The LP has run candidates in nine presidential elections. ALL of those candidates were relatively unknown to the general public, and a slight majority of them had no prior experience in elected public office (the exceptions being Andre Marrou, Ron Paul, Ed Clark and Roger McBride).
In 2004, we ran an unknown computer programmer. In 2000 and 1996, we ran a not-very-well-known investment advisor whose sole political resume prior to running for president was 22 years of urging people not to, um, vote.
I’m not sure why Shane expects that the LNC will wave some kind of magic wand and change the LP into a party more to his liking. Last time I noticed, executive directors worked for organizations, not the other way around.
Tom Knapp
“To make matters yet worse, out immediately prior Presidential candidate has betrayed his party and vigorously endorsed a Republican Presidential candidate.”
That candidate happens to be RON PAUL who IS a libertarian, in fact, I think that he’s a life member of the Libertarian Party so he is also a big “L” Libertarian.
Michael Badnarik endorsing Ron Paul is not betraying anything. The end goal is liberty, it doesn’t matter what label you put on it.
Paulie; no need to be defensive.
I do, in fact, know better. I was just calling a horse a horse.
In my mind, Steve Kubby is essentialy a single-issue candidate… but he’s a *QUALIFIED* single-issue candidate. And that’s an important distinction. The man won’t be caught flat-footed by any “positional” attacks. This is a good thing. Having a single point to thrust upon, from a well-prepared position, is often the easiest way as the “little guy” to get heard. We LP’ers *ARE* the “little guy.”
Thomas: I’ve said and thought similar things in the past about constituency building.
One thing I find rather puzzling about the LP is the lack of party-internal caucuses. The LRC is the only one that comes to mind. Personally I think that the idea of the BTP forming a caucus within the LP would be highly useful. I don’t really agree with anything the BTP has to say, from a personal perspective — I’m one of those “pragmatist” people that agrees with the “gutting” of the platform — but at the same time I recognize the vital force that the people who believe that way represent for the LP as a whole. We’ll be lessened without you, and I hope that at least a few of ya consider taking up dual party membership and forming your own BTP caucus within the LP.
I personally think that from a Party perspective, the best way to acheive growth is through the diversification of caucuses. “2nd Amendment Caucus” and “Drug Reform Caucus”, “Fed Abolition Caucus”, etc. Have so many we can’t keep track of ‘em all. Just don’t EVER, EVER let them become mutually exclusive.
I have never stopped being puzzled as to why the party that so emphasizes free exchange of economies and behaviors has such trouble doing the same with ideologies. There’s only a few ‘purists’ that I would argue are enemies of freedom rather than contributors to — and they’re the ones who shout over everyone else as to who needs to be kicked out.
… I’ll stop ranting now.
Tom writes: “I’ve seen the email that George is referring to, and I have to say that I’m floored.”
Is there any chance we could get it posted?
MHW
As a further update, Bill Redpath has stated to me that he does not intend to offer to the LNC a disaffiliation motion against the LPNH.
The drug war is about a lot more than just thr right to toke.
It has its origins in racism. The large numbers of people going to prison who are minorities. The no-knock home invasions by police. Corruption in the justice system from the cops on up. Deaths from those same home invasions, an on and on. If the LP had some brains we would shift the debate to those issues.
I am not suggesting that Steve’s campaign do that, but that the rest of us need to shift the focus.
It about a hell of a lot more than what one puts in one’s own body.
MHW
MHW,
See Steve’s Martin Luther King Day blog entry for exactly the kind of focus you’re talking about!
Ian, you write:
“I don’t really agree with anything the BTP has to say, from a personal perspective — I’m one of those ‘pragmatist’ people that agrees with the ‘gutting’ of the platform”
The Boston Tea Party’s platform is one sentence in length and entirely “directional” rather than “end state oriented.” Hard to get any more “gutted” or “pragmatic” than that!
Regards,
Tom Knapp
MHW: It may interest you to know that in his endorsement of Ron Paul, Michael Badnarik pointed to the Oregon LP as a shining example for other states to follow, according to Michael Hampton at Homeland Stupidity:
http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2007/02/25/badnarik-answers-charge-of-abandoning-party/
See the original article for links as well as 33 comments and growing
You may have a thing or two to say about that Oregon comment, I reckon?
Yes, but I’ll have to ask my confidential source (I’ve already asked, and am awaiting instructions). If anyone else wants to post it first, I suppose I can’t stop them
I’m not. Steve is in fact a single issue candidate …if that issue is freedom.
He’s not going to run away from being by far the longest survivor of his disease, or one of the people most responsible for getting the wave of medical marijuana initiatives started, or for winning an important jury nullification victory which made that state law hold up against the feds.
But he’s also going to talk to a lot of other folks about other freedom issues, too. The trouble is that in order to do get the chance to do that he needs money. For the reasons already being discussed in this thread, he isn’t getting much of it from Libertarians. So, logically, we’re going to our other base. If they show us the money, we’ll be using it to reach out to other constituencies, as I already described.
But it will take some money – and some volunteers willing to repost our messages widely – for us to even reach THAT constituency. We’ll take help wherever we can find it.
Could somebody shoot me a copy of that email? I might do a story on it, depending on its media worth.
Anyway, I agree with Knapp here. Part of doing pragmatic politics is taking what you have and using it to its fullest potential. We’ve been cast as the Party of Pot, so fuck it. Let’s run with that shit and do everything we can.
I fully agree.
And, in fact, Steve’s campaign will be addressing those issues.
In fact, we’ve kicked around the idea of a ticket (Pres-VP) that would be eminently qualified to address the issue from both Steve’s side, and the one you mentioned.
We’re still a long way from that being a reality though, so I can’t promise the other person will go for it (or even that we’ll be in a position to make the offer).
I’ve also tried to recruit Chris Bennett to run for VP, but so far he wants to hold off until at least 2012. Perhaps he will change his mind, or perhaps we can find someone else who will not be looked on as an outsider in the communities which are most being hurt by this modern civil war.
It’s “high time” the LP stopped being an almost entirely all-white organization.
As Tom mentioned (it may have been in another thread – I’ll have to check) there was a motion to make the BTP an LP caucus, and it failed. There is in fact a LP Radical Caucus as well as a Rothbard caucus and the
Grassroots Libertarians.
There are other groups such as the Stonewall Libertarians (gay), Libertarian Defense Caucus (warmongers), and so on.
I think most BTP members are in fact LP members, although I don’t know that for sure.
I agree. I have a friend who is interested in starting a 9/11 Truth Caucus, and having a 9/11 theories debate at the convention, for instance. I’m not sure if he wants to be a point of contact for that yet, I’ll let him tell you.
Personally, I’m a rather big tent purist – I’ve welcomed Bob Barr, for example, and endorsed the Pennsylvania and Maryland LP’s cross-endorsements of Populist/Green/Independents John Murphy and
Kevin Zeese, even though I’m a rather infamous anarchist.
I do have a litmus test though – I’m not particularly interested in being in the same party with warmongers, and I certainly don’t want them as our federal candidates and party leaders.
I also have no interest in soft-pedaling any of our peace and civil liberties positions to make the party more acceptable to country club Republicans.
I’ll note that many of the people calling for purges want to purge…us,
radicals and/or anarchists, from the party.
Andy, I’ll just save myself some typing and quote Jake Porter from TG’s blog comments:
http://titaniumgirl.blogspot.com/2007/02/badnarik-answers-charge-of-abandoning.html
In a related note, the highest profile elected, self-identified, libertarian in history is running for president, and much of the lp is ignoring him because he has the wrong letter behind his name.
Ignoring him? You must be joking.
This is the War the government has brought to our homes. Robin Pratt died because of this. They were after pratt’s husband and their information was wrong.
1992, Everett, Washington, The Seattle Timres writes:
“Instead of using an apartment key given to them, SWAT members threw a 50 pound battering ram through a sliding glass door that landed near the heads of Pratt’s 6-year-old daughter and 5-year-old niece. As deputy Anthony Aston rounded the corner to the Pratt’s bedroom , he encountered Robin Pratt. SWAT members were yelling “Get down,” and she started to crouch to her knees. She looked up at Aston and said, “Please don’t hurt my children. Aston had his gun pointed at her and fired, shooting her in the neck. According to attorney John Muenster, she was alive another one or two minutes but could not speak because her throat had been destroyed by the bullet. She was then handcuffed, lying facedown.”
It is great that Ron Paul is running for President; however, a Republican cannot help build the Libertarian Party. For example, here in Iowa, I believe, we need a candidate for federal office to receive a certain percent of the vote before we are considered a political party. While I think we all support Ron Paul, a Republican running cannot help build the Libertarian Party and if he does not win the Republican nomination for President the Libertarians should have a well funded and well organized candidate running for President.
Ron Paul is not running against George Phillies, or Steve Kubby and is most certainly not being ignored.
Stuart and MHW: You asked for it, so here it is.
Anonymous source.
Two major errors of fact in Shane’s email.
The first is an error of omission.
It’s true that Jacqueline Passey made those comments about the Nevada debate. The next day, she posted this:
http://www.jacquelinepassey.com/blog/2007/02/good_news_from_the_steve_kubby_campaign.html
The second is an error of commission.
Steve is not on parole, and is in fact free to travel, although over and above normal costs we will also have to raise money so he can afford marinol, a very expensive medication, when traveling to non-medical marijuana states; and, as explained above, fundraising is not very encouraging so far.
I think Shane is also dismissing Doug Stanhope far too casually. Read the Q & A at http://stanhope08.com (don’t just look at the pic in the header, scroll down) and his wikipedia page.
There’s a lot more to him than GGW and the man show.
I have contacted Mr. Stanhope about him also being attacked.
Stanhope isn’t in the running anymore, not after he heard about the reporting requirements.
I believe he was on a conference call with several candidates last week, and his website indicates he plans to run. I was also forwarded an email which indicates he is planning to run a couple of days ago. I’m including him on an email I’m writing now, so we’ll see what he says.
I hate refering to overused adages but -Wow, with “friends” like Shane who needs enemies? That is CraZy. I think running in 2008 is a commendable act of honor, it’s not going to be easy for anyone – especially with Ron Paul in the ring.
The memo was mean-spirited in so many ways, it’s also lacking in the professionalism department. Talk about adding insult to injury. Like everyone else, I am floored.
BTW – I really like Kubby’s motto – “Let Freedom Grow”
I agree with TitaniumGirl. I began to worry about Shane Cory a couple of months ago when the ubiquitous Eric Dondero praised him as a “fabulous” executive director — “one of the best the LP has ever had.”
http://thirdpartywatch.com/2007/01/05/our-interview-with-shane-cory-2/
It seems to me that a party’s executive director, as an employee, should work closely with all of the declared candidates — not look for ways to surreptitiously undermine and ridicule them. Steve Kubby and George Phillies deserve better.
I have tried to recruit some potential VP candidates myself which includes Richard Mack, Ruth Bennett and Ed Thompson but to no avail. I know of two running for the VP slot Karen K and Anthony Williams. I will throw my hat into the fray only if Karen K bows out because Anthony Williams is for gun control which is very un-libertarian. But I do not think 15 years of activism within the party qualifies me for VP.
Talked to Doug Stanhope. Definitely sounds like he’s running.
Chris: I think you are more qualified than you think you are. I’m sure you remember Dan Quayle? He actually held the office, and I’m entirely sure you are more qualified.
Besides, inventing the internet and picking tobacco don’t really have that much to do with being VP either, and Al Gore managed it for eight years.
I don’t have any illusions about politicians, millionaires and celebrities because I have seen a lot of them up close and they don’t strike me as more qualified than the average person.
You just see them on TV so they may seem like they are more than what they really are is all.