Badnarik's showing and the future.

So Badnarik received roughly 379k votes. That's about 25k less than Nader for third place and 15k less then Harry Browne tallied in 2000. I wasn't expecting miracles, but I figured on at least a half million votes.

So what went wrong? I have a few ideas.

1. This is probably the most important and obvious one: No media coverage!

2. People got scared. They went to the polling place intending to vote for Badnarik but in the end felt it was too important to "throw it away". In PA he got about 20k votes while other LP candidates received three times that.

3. Poor campaign management. While this is all in hindsight of course, here's a few things they did wrong: Too many resources for about 2000 votes in New Mexico. How did polling go from 5% to virtually nil in a month? Too many resources were put in "swing states" as a whole. These people are already inundated by the big two, they also believe that their vote is more important than people in other states that historically lean right or left. And who thought it was a good idea for Mike to get arrested? A noble gesture, but not a Presidential one.

4. I guess this is another problem with campaign management, but it seems like he was running as a protest candidate, not a legitimate one. Badnarik took positions on why things shouldn't be, but didn't give many solutions on how to fix them. Browne's stance on issues in 2000 was what drew me to the LP, Badnarik preached to the choir.

5. Mike Badnarik himself. I know that will make a few of you mad, but it's true. He's a smart guy, a nice guy, and an honest guy - I voted for and supported him, but he's no Presidential candidate. Look at LP candidates of the past: Ron Paul, a doctor who is now in the House of Representatives. Harry Browne is a NY Times #1 selling author in the field of investment. Ed Clarke graduated from Dartmouth and got a Law Degree from Harvard. Mike Badnarik doesn't believe in zip codes. We need candidates with more credibility than that. The divisions in the LP that caused him to be our own "lesser of two evils" need to be mended.

So, what should we do in the future? I have some more ideas.

1. A national convention, somewhere in the middle of the country summer of next year. Hopefully getting the state chairs or members of leadership in the state level from all 50 states. This would be a special convention, not like the ones that "take care of business" every two years. It's sole purpose to mend fences and bang out a solid stance on how and why our ideas can work for the US. Discuss possible '08 Presidential candidates and how we could get them to run. Organize, organize, organize!!!

2. Run more Senate/Representative candidates, and put more resources into them. There's a much better chance we could get a Representative elected than a President, and you can only grow from there.

3. Run a more grassroots Presidential campaign, freeing up some resources for other candidates with greater chances of victory. Keep a seperate Presidential fund, and a separate LP fund. Nominate the Presidential candidate much earlier then June of the election year.

4. Don't run as a spoiler. Essentially that's what we did tried to do in some states. Put more resources in huge, essentially uncontested states like California, Texas, and New York. They pretty much know who is going to win in those states and wouldn't worry about a wasted vote. Also, since those states are pretty much won before an election even happens, the big two don't waste money on ads and campaigning there. The Libertarian candidate would get a lot more attention that way.

5. Since the Constitution is the the LP's greatest weapon, run some kind of Constitutional knowledge campaign. E-mails, fliers, billboards, and national TV spots every now and again. Possibly develop free curriculum for history and social studies teachers.

6. Most importantly, don't forget about the LP for the next 3 and a half years!!!

Well thanks for listening! You may now return to your HAW HAW my guy won. Or, oh no! The sky is falling threads.

I have to agree with poor campiagn management I could have done better. He was a natural for the "daily show" and "real time". It seemed half hearted at best, I had to dog them to come here and look how many Libertarians are here.

I still was suprised with less than 400,000 votes though I was hoping for a million or more but we alwys have next year

I think the Libertarians need to URGE word of mouth advertising in all 50 states.

If I were the campaign manager of the party, I bet I could equal the votes the republicans / democrats get in 2008- but oh well, I'm not

When you put advertisements on the TV however, you have to create a sense of equality between the Libertarians and the big two. If people FEEL that the Libertarian party is EQUAL to Republicans / Democrats, they won't feel weak when voting for them.

Next, when you advertise make sure to have the CLEAR MESSAGE that the Libertarian party will TERMINATE INCOME TAX, and the other partys will INCREASE YOUR TAXES.

As long as ANYONE who watches your commercial gets this message *(Libertarian = no income tax)(republican, democrat = more taxes)*

Thats the second most important part of the advertisements.


These are important because of these two FACTS

1.) Most of America believes Republican and Democrat are the only partys in the United States and that the United States only has two partys.

2.) Most of America HATES the income tax, and if they knew all they had to do was "vote Libertarian" to get rid of the income tax- they would vote Libertarian



Message 1 (Make the watchers feel a Libertarian is equal to a Republican/Democrat) caters to fact 1

Message 2 (Make it clearly known to the watcher that a Libertarian president will eliminate income tax) caters to fact 2

If 100 people were to watch an advertisement that *clearly expresses* message 1 and 2... 95 of them would vote Libertarian.

[edit on 5-11-2004 by aukaiman55]

And ATS is completely free advertising!

I know George Noory of Coast to Coast AM made an offer for all of the major candidates to go on and only Nader took it. Millions and millions of people that think alternatively - like most ATSer's - listen to that show every night. He would have drummed up at least a few thousand more supporters going on there. Maybe enough to have pushed him past Nader.

Yup, what did you think of my advertising strategy?


EDIT: And I'm not just thinking "steal votes from Republican/Democrats"
Im thinking "win the election 2008"

am I the only one who believes it can be done? The only thing we need is word of mouth advertising, but the website isn't urging it =/

[edit on 5-11-2004 by aukaiman55]

Originally posted by aukaiman55
Next, when you advertise make sure to have the CLEAR MESSAGE that the Libertarian party will TERMINATE INCOME TAX, and the other partys will INCREASE YOUR TAXES.

As long as ANYONE who watches your commercial gets this message *(Libertarian = no income tax)(republican, democrat = more taxes)*

And I'll take that one further, we need to show how the country can operate without an income tax. Legitimacy is our most important thing to achieve. People need to understand that we don't just have crazy ideas, we have ideas that can work.

I think word of mouth can be more useful and definitely much cheaper than putting ads in selected markets. Also, yes I think your totally correct in the fact we need to try to put oursevles on par (even if just in perception) with the big two in the minds of Americans. That will take some doing.

Yes, we have to show How we can operate without an income tax.

But, not in a 20 second commercial.

The advertisement could probably have some guy saying.

"Who will you vote for in 2008? The Democrats? The Libertarians? the Republicans? Do you like Income tax? Both the Democrats and the Republicans are intent on raising your taxes. Only the Libertarains want to terminate the income tax and let you keep all of your hard earned money. You're just going to have to ask yourself. Do you want more money? Or do you want less money?"

During the advertisement, the bottom will say " WWW.LP.ORG" and the top will show whatever, it doesn't really matter. At the end it could maybe say "visit WWW.LP.ORG"


Now, this advertisement will be short and to the point. It will give people a sense that the Libertarians are equal to the big two (the libertarian name is in the middle, as if three of them are equal). This advertisement will also make it clear that Libertarian is the only option to REDUCE TAXES

If anyone CARES to understand how the world will work without income tax, they will go to WWW.LP.ORG , but most people won't care- they will just hate income tax so much that they will allready decide to vote libertarian.


This advertisement would be very effective.

[edit on 5-11-2004 by aukaiman55]

Amen, Pete.

Are you working with the LP at all, or do you plan to in the future?

I really think the most important thing is not forgeting the LP in the next 3 years, like you said. Now is the time to grow, not durring the electing. Give all those you know (and yourself) a few months to get back to normal, then give 'em hell!

BTW, why arent we raising more money? Anyone ever think of how much we could raise if every one of those 380,000 voters each sent in $20? I think 7 and a half million would go along way. Thats only $5 per voter per year for the next 4 years. Is this simplistic? maybe I am just not understanding something, but it sure seems simple to me.

Our votes this year cost about two dollars apiece.

With 7 million dollars would buy us 3 1/2 million votes and the countrys attention

I really liked M.B. and thought he came off as an honest and refreshing alternitive to our middle of the road Rep/Dem party candidates. But, with that said I didn't vote for him. Maybe it will help your strategies if you hear from an occasional LP voter who didn't vote LP's way this election. I'm offering these boring thoughts because I would love nothing more than to have more choices and better people to chose from. With that said and telling you that I voted for Kerry here's why:
1. To vote Bush out. I never liked Kerry and wouldn't want to hear his rhetoric for 4 years but I'm from Ohio and I wanted Bush gone anyway I could get him out. Kerry was the only other candidate with any, I mean ANY chance. That automatically eliminated Nader and Bednarik. This was an election that was close and every vote counted. The only "no more Bush" vote had to go to Kerry. Lesser of two evils, blah,blah, blah. I'm mad at my buddy and his wife for voting Nader. In Ohio we were the key and everyone knew going in, that's why the tremendous turn out. They didn't need to visit all those times, we we're gonna vote anyway. The campaign money here was wasted not helpfull. True for both DEM/REP. We lost 232,000 jobs. The ones who didn't worry about losing their job got tax breaks and had more money in their pocket. Put that with the Ohio 3-4% margain of moron (maybe more like 9-10%) people who just vote without much thought and bingo Bush pulls a rabbit out of hat in a tight squeeze.

2. Bednarik had a few unrealistic promises of his own. He kept saying he would order the immediate withdraw of troops in Iraq as soon as he was sworn in. The term for a plan for that is "exit strategy". Bednarik's didn't sound believeable or reasonable. This gave me an overall unsuredness about foreign policy and world events (Isreal v. Palestine...). One of my buddies sons is over there and I worry about him and think Bush did him a disservice by getting us involved to this extent. I thought Kerry could put together the people to help him most. Bednarik was also pro-legalization. I am as well, but I think he should have kept that in his pocket and advanced it only if he was in a position to do so. By outing himself he alienated a certain demographic of voter who is not right wing but also not pro-legalization.

I hope these thoughts are a usefull contribution and hope to see the LP pulling more and more votes from the DEM/REP's. I always mention the LP in my political discussion and also believe the grassroots approach is vital. Plant the seed.
doctorduh

Cavscout: I'm not working with the LP, I just talk to people about it a lot. Friends and bar conversations can add up to a lot of people (especially when you're in a lot of bars). I do plan on getting more involved in the activities of the party, I'm a broke part-time student right now so I don't have as much time or money as being real involved would entail. I do want to attend the next convention though.

If anyone CARES to understand how the world will work without income tax, they will go to WWW.LP.ORG , but most people won't care- they will just hate income tax so much that they will allready decide to vote libertarian

I agree with that. And I can use this to illustrate another beef I have with the LP: their website sucks. The most important thing the LP has is issues and positions, the issues and positions haven't been updated on that website in at least four years. There's nothing about 9/11 and civil liberties! The "legislative program" tab goes to a 404. And in my opinion, they don't focus on the issues and positions enough as a whole. Would it kill them to get a weekly column or something? I'd much rather read something topical than "Libertarian appointed Clerk of Elections in Muncie, Indiana" type of stories.

I'll tell you who you guys need to target...

Everyone (the general public that even knows of the LP) has this idea that it is EXTREME right wing, but to be honest, socially it is very liberal.

You guys need to go after DEMOCRATS, and heres why:

There aren't too many big government Democrats left. People got over that idea long ago. Where Democrats hold their vote for the most part are people who need government handouts and socially liberal people. Well, lets be honest, your not going to get a bunch of welfare leaches to vote for you, but those moderate Democrats you can.

You're main target should be younger people. They are (for better or worse) much more aware of their economic well being. They are also, more often then not, very socially liberal.

Most young people endorse abortions. Most young people are not very adverse to gay marrige. Most young people are very into MONEY - the one thing that the LP claims it will let you keep more of. I can tell you as a person who graduated fairly recently that just about everyone I know voted Republican - regardless of which school they went to, their current income, or their social background. If you target these kids, who realise that they will soon be making money (and paying taxes) but don't want to give up their social freedoms thats who you should go after

If you guys REALLY want to do well, do your recruiting at COLLEGES. Your goal should be to get a good base of young voters AND keep them voting your way. Do this, and in say 5 elections, you may actually be a force to be reckoned with.

EDIT: To add a few more thoughts.

College kids are also more ideal - therefore, there is a greater chance of you actually getting their vote then a mid 30's person who has a more pessamistic view towards politics, and has the idea that their vote will be wasted.

Also, Republicans tend to be more "loyal". Face it, there are very few true Republicans that will even consider changing partys. There are die hard democrats, but on the whole, the portion of them that can be swayed is much higher.

It should also be noted that after 2 big losses for the democrats, a lot of people will be looking for an alternative.

Anyway, good luck - I look forward to the day I might be able to cast a vote for a constitutionalist president and have a hope of him being elected

[edit on 5-11-2004 by American Mad Man]

from PistolPete
4. Don't run as a spoiler. Essentially that's what we did tried to do in some states. Put more resources in huge, essentially uncontested states like California, Texas, and New York. They pretty much know who is going to win in those states and wouldn't worry about a wasted vote. Also, since those states are pretty much won before an election even happens, the big two don't waste money on ads and campaigning there. The Libertarian candidate would get a lot more attention that way.

This idea is so good that it borders on brilliance! Large population centers, already committed to a party, could easily be lulled into a false sense of security while providing a rich pool of potential votes. I am truly impressed.

Amuk mentioned that $7M would translate into about 3.5M votes. That just happens to be the margin between Bush and Kerry this past election, which means that you can make a significant difference in getting the party noticed, and hopefully, listened to.

Fight for equal time and participation in televised debates - another suggestion by Amuk from another thread.

Recruit volunteers from the community. As someone already said, organize, organize, organize. National messages are very important, but start locally.

And finally, please use the internet more wisely than you have in the past. Mass emailings, and a decently designed, easy-to navigate website are a must.

Originally posted by American Mad Man
If you guys REALLY want to do well, do your recruiting at COLLEGES. Your goal should be to get a good base of young voters AND keep them voting your way. Do this, and in say 5 elections, you may actually be a force to be reckoned with.

Something I was thinking about, and this plays goes along with the idea that our Presidential candidate should be chosen much sooner than we do currently. If we choose our candidate in January of the election year he or she can be a guest speaker at large colleges - while the big two are still having primaries and fighting within their own parties (at least in 2008). This will cost little, most schools will at least put you up for free in a hotel, and it targets the idealistic youth vote. Almost all schools have Student LP's that could help organize this.

I've been thinking about people the LP should at least float Presidential ideas at one of them is Dave Barry. He's well known, well liked, successful, and from a big state (Florida). Also, he began his career writing a business column, so he's not one-dimensional. Not to mention I know he's taking time off his column.....a couple of years off may be just what he needs to try something different.

jsobecky:
And finally, please use the internet more wisely than you have in the past. Mass emailings, and a decently designed, easy-to navigate website are a must.

It's bad when our greatest tool for outreach is the internet, and the party website is so terrible. If I knew how to design websites I'd offer my time for free.

I think many, if not most active Libertarians are students. Always been that way. They think they will be able to change something, but then the idealism goes away with age and not seeing party growth, and they usually turn to the big two. But yeah, the student thing is something the LP has been doing for years.

Originally posted by cavscout
I think many, if not most active Libertarians are students.

My son has a school Libertarian Party in High School and is starting one in whatever colledge he goes too.

I think the younger voter will be our ace in the hole in the future, get them now before they become jaded

Originally posted by Amuk
Our votes this year cost about two dollars apiece.

With 7 million dollars would buy us 3 1/2 million votes and the countrys attention

Things like this tend to grow exponentially, so it is likely we would see a larger turnout then that with more money.

I know we need to get our collective # togather for next year. With the job open, if the people dont rally to the Democrats we will have a good chance, I think by then they will be tired of the Republican agenda and we could have at least a big enough to get a good showing

I enjoyed the ATS interview with Badnarik though I disagreed with the "immediately bringing home the troops" & "open immigration" answers he gave.

I think the focus of the Lib party needs to be in the elections of 2006, try to get some headway in the House, and though unlikely, maybe a Senator. They also need to become involved locally, trying to go for "the BIG one", will always be doomed to failure.

If this party can get some movement going and offer up some local candidates and some House & Senate candidates it would reflect well on the movement and give more and more credibility when the next Pres. election comes around. I would not expect a win but with a few Congressional members and a slew of state elected reps, this would open the floodgates for the elections in 8 years, as the majority of the country is neither Dem or Rep but caught in the void in the middle.

It is time for the middle to take over and run the show.......and the Libertarian party has the opportunity to grab the brass ring.....

To succeed though IMO it needs to gain a foothold before going for stars....

How can we get started?

JacKatMtn, we actually do have a lot of libertarians in local offices, over 600 nation wide, I think. We also usually manage to contest a majority of the congressional seats. Many libertarians who win local seats switch to the big 2 in order to further their carrers. I think many of them feel it will do more good to have them calling shots wearing a republican disguise then to loose with the LP. Ron Paul is a perfect example.

I think you all have some brilliant ideas, but most of them are things the LP is doing already. Maybe it is how they are doing it that is a little off.

I think the main thing that will help us is word of mouth. Libertarians love to talk, we all have vocal diarrhea, and this leads to a lot of preaching to the choir, like I am doing right now. What we need it to talk to people.


Another thing to work on is money. You know, I was thinking that we need to appeal to libertarians to donate more. Even if a libertarian decides not to "waste their vote," they can still donate money and support to the LP to help out, and I think we need to approach people about that. It�s always about the money!


I was thinking about holding shooting matches at the local range and inviting local candidates to compete and speak to gun owners. I would like to sell snacks and maybe shirts or bumper stickers and the like. The money from all that, of course, would go the candidate that showed up to speak to us.

Another thing I was thinking about doing was renting a table at a gun show, although I don�t know if any of the large show promoters would allow it, I know many of them don�t even allow political books and t-shirts to be sold.


I think gun owners are one of the keys to libertarian success; we are hands down the most gun friendly party out there. We make the NRA look like a gun control group (which they are, if we want to be truthful.)