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Libertarian Politics
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R.W. Bradford is editor of Liberty.
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I was reluctant to go to the convention because of past experience with covering the LP. Prior to the 2002 convention, getting press credentials was simply a matter of showing up, stopping by the media office, and picking them up. A few months before the 2002 convention, I contacted the party and asked about credentials. My request was forwarded to the LP's press relations staff — Bill Winter and George Getz — who didn't respond. So I emailed Winter another request. Again, he failed to respond.
I was vaguely concerned that Winter might hassle us because Liberty had broken the story that 1996 and 2000 LP nominee Harry Browne had raised millions of dollars which he promised to spend on advertising, but that he actually had thrown only a few thousand dollars in that direction. And Liberty had also been among the first media to report Browne's secretly hiring the party's professional staff (including both its executive director, Perry Willis, and media relations director Winter) to help him secure the 2000 nomination, in direct contravention to the LP's rules.
I was told by the party's chairman, Steve Dasbach, that Winter had probably not responded because he was so busy and, while I could imagine that Winter might hassle us, I could not imagine that he would deny credentials to the one news medium that reported on the LP in detail and provided independent analysis of its activities. So I told James Barnett, a young journalist whom I had assigned to cover the story, simply to go to the convention site and see Winter in the media room for press credentials.
The morning the convention began, I got a call from Barnett, informing me that he had been denied credentials because Liberty's past coverage of the LP had been "biased" (unlike coverage in other media, which had been nonexistent), and that if he wanted to attend the convention, he would have to purchase a membership and pay a registration fee. Barnett purchased a membership, attended the convention, and filed his story.
As the 2004 convention approached, LP Press Secretary Getz reacted exactly as his predecessor had: he simply didn't respond to my requests. I figured he might very well be planning to bait Liberty into coming to Atlanta where he would again refuse to issue credentials to its reporters.
At the Liberty Editors' Conference in Las Vegas two weeks before the convention, I ran into George Squyres, a Libertarian National Committee member whom I knew. He asked me whether I would be attending the convention, and I told him about the non-response from Getz. He said he'd look into it. The day I got back to the office, I received two emails with the subject line "Press Credentials," one a form letter from Getz, thanking me for requesting press credentials and informing me that he would have "personalized credentials" for me in the media room when I arrived; the other from Squyres, advising that I "should have received" my press credentials, with a copy of Getz's form letter and a notation that a copy had also been sent to the party's executive director, Joe Seehusen, and the party chair, Geoffrey Neale. It appeared that it had taken intervention from all three to get Getz to provide press credentials — curious behavior from a party that has difficulty getting attention from the press.
It was nine days before the convention, and the cost of flying there had tripled, but with this resounding welcome, how could I refuse to attend? —R. W. Bradford
For a candidate to be nominated from the podium, he must get a petition signed by 30 delegates. Jeffrey Diket got his 30 signatures and used most of the 16 minutes allotted for his nomination speech to speak directly to the delegates.
What follows is a transcript of his speech, which raises an interesting question. Should the LP open its podium to candidates with negligible support among the delegates? Some observers, including me, appreciate a delightfully wacky performance of this sort; others took it seriously enough that they attempted (unsuccessfully) to change the rules so that candidates like Diket, who received 4 votes out of 778 on the first ballot, could not so easily get access to the podium.
Here is his speech:
Ladies and gentlemen of this convention! To those who believe that human sacrifice and baby murder are the price you must pay for liberty: I do not appeal to you. To those who believe that we should give our substance, our industry and trade with the assistance of the government of the United States to communist countries who will use these means for the purpose of building the weapons they wish to destroy us with, with slave labor, claiming to give us lower prices on the products we have sent over to them, while enriching the Communist Party members of those countries: I do not appeal to you. To those who believe that liberty requires that individuals be allowed to become deviants: I do not appeal to you.
But to those who understand that the Constitution of the United States must be interpreted literally, that we need to confine this government by means of destroying unconstitutional cabinet departments and replacing them with an independent sub-treasury system, where the government lives only on the cash it takes in, by replacing income taxes, excise taxes, sales taxes, tariffs and other taxes that dictate how you spend your money with a simple little two percent bill that you pay to each level of government so that you can have a higher standard of living, and at the same time cut out those government bureaucrats that are taking away our farms through the wild lands project, taking away our industries through environmental laws — thank you Ralph "Sunset" Nader and your irresponsible scumbags — [Applause] who deprive our children of American history and foreign languages, thank you "no school left behind" George Walker Tush; those who want to get us out of the U.N., get us out of the free trade area of the Americas, get us out of the WTO, the phony trade organization that allows China to have a 55-cent tariff on steel where we can't have a tariff at all — that's right folks, there's your world government for you — and especially to those who wish to protect human rights as described by Nathaniel and Barbara Branden when they said that rights are conditions of rational and genetic origins, from the moment of conception from when the baby acquires the human genome, and wish to protect mothers from being bled to death by knife-tipped vacuum cleaners, being given poisonous RU486 or morning-after pills and other devices that are humanicides, and to those who understand that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, by giving you the armament you need, the 2nd Amendment implementation, which I intend to implement: I'm your candidate, ladies and gentlemen. I choose this way to do this kind of speech because I wanted you to see me in person. Not with other people speaking for me too much, but me in person because I am the one you've got to look at, I'm the one you have to support, and I'm the one who has to appeal to you. You're the bosses around here and don't you forget it. [Applause.]
I talked to some of the people I know at EWTN, the International World Television Network, which is one of the pro-life shortwave outlets — and they are telling us that as long as this party continues to support baby murder, we are not gonna get anywhere and fast!
And as president of the United States I am prepared to say that every American citizen is my boss, and I'm not kidding about it, and that's why I am running, that's why I have run for the past year and a half with very little finan- cial resources, that's why I spoke at the Georgia and Arkansas conventions, why I appeared on the "Power Hour," "Privacy Factor," and "Radio Liberty" programs on shortwave radio going to international listeners with my message. Why I got 5% of the vote in Massachusetts and 7% of the vote in Missouri, and I don't mind telling you folks, I didn't have much money, but I got an effect out of $900. [Applause.] And that's the kind of efficient campaigning you need. We're not going to get the money from the Council on Foreign Relations, we're not going to get the money from the tax-free foundations, we're not going to get the money from the rich mucky-mucks or the insiders of this country, because they want world government, world dictatorship, world order, baby murder, possible legalization of drugs only of their advantage, where they can dumb you down to being a little peon, or as one of their documents, "Silent Weapons and Quiet War," said, "Beasts of burden and stakes on the table by mutual choice and consent" — which we are not!
In conclusion, I say this to every one of you: this party could possibly pick up a substantial amount of votes in this country. The message is excellent, but there is a flaw. I've already pointed it out to you. If this party continues down the road of sanctioning baby murder — I'm not bluffing, pal, cause I talked to some of the people I know at EWTN, the International World Television Network, which is one of the pro-life shortwave outlets — and they are telling us that as long as this party continues to support that position, we are not gonna get anywhere and fast! And for those who are asking for alcoholic beverages in this audience — you know who you are! — [Laughing in the crowd] that's why I am laughing at you too, pal. Because you're part of the reason we're not winning elections, part of the major reason. We must be consistent in protecting life, liberty, and property with due process of law. [Applause.] I don't mind the jeers, and I don't mind the reaction, folks!
In conclusion I say this to you: you know where I am! You know where I stand! You know where I am going! To many of you who have committed to other candidates, I realize and understand and respect your commitments on the first ballot. I understand that. But there will be a second ballot hopefully, and to those who wish to talk to me I will be in this room hopefully throughout the first ballot and we will see what happens! Thank you.
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Bart T. Cooper is a writer living in Washington, D.C.
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On Monday, Russo stood around the hotel lobby, loitering outside the doors to the convention hall for a few hours, unlike Gary Nolan, who was nowhere to be seen after his loss. Russo had been holding court informally like this since he had lost the nomination, chatting with delegates, basking in their consolation, and, despite his bluster, seeming to revel in the sympathetic and subdued, yet still emphatic, entreaties to "stay in the LP" and "run for governor of Nevada, then the nomination's yours in '08."
Russo was wearing one of those over-sized, shortsleeved, loud print shirts that you'd imagine a portly "Big Time" Hollywood producer would wear, as he sat beside his pool, shouting into his cell phone. I've hectored friends, especially if they're on the heavy side, by addressing them as "Hollywood" or "Showbiz" when done up in such garb. It was fabulous, indeed.
Russo is great one-on-one: grasping, hugging, thanking well-wishers, easing into a softer, sympathetic, "we fought the good fight" tone of voice.
Russo was deflecting those "stay in the LP" entreaties by professing a belief that I hadn't heard him claim before — that if he doesn't run this year, it will be "too late." To paraphrase: "I really do think that there will be martial law in this country within a year . . . there won't be any more elections."
His well-wishers didn't seem to buy into that, but no one challenged him, perhaps because they were trying to be consolatory, or maybe just hoping he wouldn't yet leave the party. Then again, maybe they just realized that there's no point in trying to argue with Aaron Russo when his mind is already made up. Some were clearly still stunned into reticence by the Badnarik victory and in a state of disbelief over the grand, indulgent mistake the delegates had made.
Russo continued with talk about waltzing into the Constitution Party convention — "That's my party; I started it" (a point of some dispute) — or Green Party conventions and being crowned nominee. —Bart T. Cooper
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Bart T. Cooper is a writer living in Washington, D.C.
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Around noon on Monday, just moments after the convention wrapped up its official business, I climbed into one of the glass elevators with another delegate, following LP founding father David Nolan. Nolan may not have been done up in a western cut jacket and sporting a bolo tie, as I remember him from past conventions, but the bushy mustache and wire rim glasses on the man that founded the LP in his Denver living room 33 years ago still managed to evoke that mythical LP delegate you can read about if you dig up old press accounts of early LP conventions. This was a character on the then-cultural cutting edge: vaguely "hippie-ish," yet infused with a rugged, Western, individualist mystique. He might be wearing a cowboy hat, but it might be adorned with a peace symbol, too.
Nolan gave us few moments of his time, a gracious act for a certified local celebrity on the move. The other delegate in the elevator had been a fervent Russo backer who had been stumbling around in a state of disbelief over Badnarik's nomination since the last ballot. By Monday, he had been shaken from his stupor by an increasingly urgent desperation over what the LP had wrought for itself. In search of a consolatory note for himself, the delegate took the opportunity of this audience to appeal to that fabled Nolan institutional memory and asked him, with his long history of LP activism, how many votes did he reckon Michael Badnarik might attract this November. Nolan shrugged and threw a few stats around, offering, "The easy answer is between a quarter million and around 500,000 votes. But, you never know." Happy to have obliged us, he got off on the mezzanine level and went on his merry way, maybe to the LNC meeting. The discouraging figures he invoked certainly bolstered his reputation for institutional memory, but they marked roughly the LP's low and unimpressive high water marks in the popular vote since 1980.
Nolan has become known these days more for his histrionics on the convention floor than for his status as party founder. When Nolan addresses the assembled delegates from a floor microphone, he earnestly implores them (especially the newer delegates) to take into account his hardearned veteran's perspective, gained from decades in the trenches of LP activism. Occasionally, when the chair recognizes Nolan, he notes that the LP was founded in Nolan's living room. More often, Nolan takes it upon himself to remind the convention of this fact. His fellow delegates routinely return only a confused, if respectful, smattering of applause. Nolan speaks with authority, seemingly under the impression that he is universally known, and maybe even universally loved, as the LP's elder statesman. But if David Nolan is so well known, and as well regarded, as he seems to think he is, why does he feel the need to so emphatically beseech the delegates to heed his advice?
The delegate in the elevator looked at me, his face obviously betraying a renewed disbelief and dismay in the fact that his party's founder was so unperturbed, so clearly undiscouraged by his low expectations. I had missed the speech, but others told me that David Nolan invoked his long history with the LP in seconding Gary Nolan for the nomination. I saw David Nolan conferring with Badnarik partisans after Gary Nolan was eliminated on the second ballot. While David Nolan may not have enjoyed the celebrity status among delegates he seemed to think he has garnered, he certainly reflected the average LP delegate's complacent outlook regarding the prospects of a Libertarian presidential ticket headed by a computer programmer-cum-self-taught "constitutional scholar" without a driver's license. —Bart T. Cooper
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Andrew W. Jones is an assistant editor of Liberty.
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The man whom delegates chose to be their nominee for vice president, Richard Campagna, was largely unknown to most delegates, in part because of his only recent involvement in the movement: Campagna embraced libertarianism only two years ago, shortly before becoming Clive Cleveland's running mate in Iowa's gubernatorial contest.
He describes himself as a multi-disciplinary professional. And his academic credentials are extensive: he received a B.A. from Brown in Political Science, an M.A. from NYU in Ibero-American Studies, an M.A. from Columbia in Counseling Psychology, a J.D. from St. John's University, and a Ph.D. from the American College of Metaphysical Theology. He claims fluency in multiple languages, and is a member of the California and New York Bar Associations.
While most people would consider the unaccredited institution that awarded him his doctorate a diploma mill — its website offers Ph.D.s for $249 — Campagna says that he "literally did a traditional Ph.D., with all the course work and internships and practica that the traditional non-diplomamill school would encompass," and that "this was really the way that [his] Ph.D. could reflect [his] philosophy, spirituality, and approach to education." His doctorate is in Pastoral/Counseling Psychology. He earns his living as a community college instructor, translator, and as a "legal, psychological, and financial counselor for transgendered people."
Campagna describes himself as having an "optimistic, existential, personal-responsibility approach to life," and he believes there is a link between an existential personal philosophy and a libertarian political philosophy. He is confident that his low-key, friendly, mainstream approach can connect with people who have not traditionally voted Libertarian, especially academics, ethnic minorities, and professionals. Through appealing to these largely non- Libertarian constituencies, and focusing on the war in Iraq and the overall need for a drastic change in America's world view, Campagna is "cautiously optimistic that the LP can garner more votes than it has ever gotten on a national ticket."
Campagna's claim to be able to raise upwards of $200,000 from non-traditional sources surely played a part in his nomination. This may not prove to be $200,000 in hard cash. When asked about this by Liberty, he said that by "nontraditional sources," he meant "friends, families, and colleagues. . . . A lot of those monies are contributions in kind to assist me in my travels around the country. I happen to be someone who travels a lot. I'm in a lot of places, a lot of locations, with a lot professional and non-political associations." —Andrew W. Jones
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