Much has been made of the pending railroading of Angela Keaton (and the likely ascent of M Carling and Alicia Mattson into LNC seats they couldn't win through the popular vote process).
Much has been made of the dodgy alleged LNC financial statements leaked through other web sites.
Yes, this Brigade of Buffoons targeting Keaton (a friend of mine) is a group of morons. Yes, they are incompetent. And yes, they couldn't find an electoral victory if you handcuffed it to their right arms.
Which is why I am going to ask each Libertarian to Think Differently (with apologies to Apple) for a moment.
In what areas is the LNC truly instrumental?
What things would cease to happen if the LNC was to shrivel up and die? (Besides all the negative and time-wasting stuff that's been its hallmark for years now).
I asked myself these questions and the answer came back as a stark "nothing."
Ballot access is easily achieved through well-funded PACs with the intention of nothing more than ballot access. George Phillies' Liberty Ballot Access PAC has been a great resource, and, absent the giant sucking sound of the LNC, would probably be able to get us on 49, perhaps 50 state ballots, rather than the paltry 45 we ended up with.
The Watergate Building would lose a tenant, but then again, with no elected representatives in DC, why does the LP need an expensive DC office?
And the job of public and media relations have been abandoned to the grass roots (who do a better job than the paid staff). Outright Libertarians, of which I am a board member, got mention of local, state and federal LP campaigns in a host of local LGBT news sources, the primary national LGBT news magazine, and radio and television talk shows including Sirius Radio and CBS. The LNC itself was absent on gay issues in the election.
Angela Keaton and her AntiWar.com colleagues attracted huge amounts of media support and coverage on the war, while the LNC sat and did nothing.
Downsize DC and the Independent Institute targeted government waste, even as the LNC created bureaucratic waste of its own.
The Munger campaign generated tremendous coverage and awareness in North Carolina without a peep of support from the LNC.
In fact, the LNC had NO meaningful media strategy this year.
(Well, to be fair, the national office did get a YouTube video featuring the chair of our national party being interviewed by a guy in a bunny suit).
So by my count, the LNC has failed in every facet of its mission. In a true free market, it would go out of business and disappear. And that's the course of action I recommend.
The future of the Libertarian Party will be built in places like Dover, Wilmington, Newark, Philadelphia, West Chester, North Carolina.
The LNC can continue to cast out popularly supported members, and put its own inner circle of Starr-chamber sycophants (and "licensed parliamentarians") into office.
It's already irrelevant.
The sooner we acknowledge that fact and get on with the business of liberty in our own backyards, the sooner we can build something meaningful and long-lasting as a movement.
Some intriguing new possibilities are already on the horizon, and I will blog more about them as the LNC continues to self-immolate.
3 comments:
Great post. From the minute I knew what the LNC was, I knew there was no point to it. It only makes the LP look bad by being petty and full of itself (on the whole).
I didn't stumble on this idea by design... actually, it was one of my radical counterparts in the LP telling me that "if this continues, the LNC could go out of business -- and think of what would happen!"
At which point I sorta stammered "ummm... well, what *would* happen?"
Sorta stunned her to think it through as well. ;)
Well argued.
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