Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Liberty Decides - revisited
I've already discussed the LP's new Liberty Decides program a bit earlier. I've been disappointed - though not terribly surprised - that no effort has been made to include any metric of 'support' other than aggregate contributions. Using only aggregate contributions (to the LNC in the candidate's name, not to the candidate) allows crazy well-off guys who are only marginally if at all libertarian (yes, I mean you, Imperato and Jingozian and Root) to essentially buy a 'top spot' on the LP's website while the more traditional radical libertarian activist candidates are still trying to get together travel money to get to as many state conventions as possible.
Traditional LP grassroots candidates are at a big disadvantage here, as their supporters quite naturally want to focus on giving their money to the candidates to run what must be at this point pretty tight campaigns, money-wise. Including metrics other than aggregate support - such as number of individual contributions, percentages of contributions given my LP members, or other details, would help allay this disadvantage to a great extent. And, if there really is a groundswell of support within the Libertarian community for warmongering, social-security-loving, neo-geo-libertarianesque-wannabes, that should be evident as well. Important information.
But here's a very interesting thing about the program. From the rules page: Donations from the candidates will be counted towards funds raised. Also, any money contributed since the candidate has announced his or her intent to seek the nomination will be included (this includes the exploratory committee timeframe).
Put that together with information gleaned from the LP's FEC filings:
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00255695/
and you should at least have some idea of what percentage of each candidate's initial $5,000 might have come from their own pockets. Since the reporting naturally lags the donations, it's not perfectly clear yet, but old reports give some idea of the situation. For example, as of the end of August (three months ago), Imperato had apparently given $3480.00 to the LNC (thanks, by the way) for the year 2007. Jingozian: $1,000 (again; thanks!). Root: at least $1,000 (aggregate amount not available). It'll be fun to see the numbers at the next report, to see how much of their aggregates has come form their own pockets. Again, it's great that they want to contribute to the LP; but it isn't so useful as a metric of support.
Of course, the rules also say: The primary metric of the program is funds raised for the Libertarian National Committee.
By which, apparently, the rules mean the only metric is funds raised for the LNC, since the very next sentence is:
Candidates will be ranked by the amount of money they have raised or attracted to the LP.
But the next sentence is very interesting:
Funds raised will be reported in total and also by month.
I don't see any 'reporting by month' on the website. it would have to go back until the time each candidate filed. Perhaps that will be in the next issue of LP News? Frankly, while I'm glad the LNC's Executive Director has come up with such a clever way to part fools from their money, I am very dubious about the value of this tool for activists. As presently constituted, this tool gives what I think is very misleading information about each candidate's relative depth of support, while giving (so far) precisely no information on the breadth of support or positions on critical issues.
¶ 3:17 PM
Traditional LP grassroots candidates are at a big disadvantage here, as their supporters quite naturally want to focus on giving their money to the candidates to run what must be at this point pretty tight campaigns, money-wise. Including metrics other than aggregate support - such as number of individual contributions, percentages of contributions given my LP members, or other details, would help allay this disadvantage to a great extent. And, if there really is a groundswell of support within the Libertarian community for warmongering, social-security-loving, neo-geo-libertarianesque-wannabes, that should be evident as well. Important information.
But here's a very interesting thing about the program. From the rules page: Donations from the candidates will be counted towards funds raised. Also, any money contributed since the candidate has announced his or her intent to seek the nomination will be included (this includes the exploratory committee timeframe).
Put that together with information gleaned from the LP's FEC filings:
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00255695/
and you should at least have some idea of what percentage of each candidate's initial $5,000 might have come from their own pockets. Since the reporting naturally lags the donations, it's not perfectly clear yet, but old reports give some idea of the situation. For example, as of the end of August (three months ago), Imperato had apparently given $3480.00 to the LNC (thanks, by the way) for the year 2007. Jingozian: $1,000 (again; thanks!). Root: at least $1,000 (aggregate amount not available). It'll be fun to see the numbers at the next report, to see how much of their aggregates has come form their own pockets. Again, it's great that they want to contribute to the LP; but it isn't so useful as a metric of support.
Of course, the rules also say: The primary metric of the program is funds raised for the Libertarian National Committee.
By which, apparently, the rules mean the only metric is funds raised for the LNC, since the very next sentence is:
Candidates will be ranked by the amount of money they have raised or attracted to the LP.
But the next sentence is very interesting:
Funds raised will be reported in total and also by month.
I don't see any 'reporting by month' on the website. it would have to go back until the time each candidate filed. Perhaps that will be in the next issue of LP News? Frankly, while I'm glad the LNC's Executive Director has come up with such a clever way to part fools from their money, I am very dubious about the value of this tool for activists. As presently constituted, this tool gives what I think is very misleading information about each candidate's relative depth of support, while giving (so far) precisely no information on the breadth of support or positions on critical issues.
¶ 3:17 PM
