I'm wondering about the pros/cons of that approach. I suppose it makes
the LP in general look stronger if our pres nominee is visibly
bringing in more money (which is one reason I wish they'd ditch the
web-counter until and unless they start getting some pretty
enthusiastic fundraising to build on).

The email ('from the desk of Bob Barr') includes these two bullet points:

• I just talked with Chairman Bill Redpath: by his analysis, we'll
need more than $200,000 to petition and secure ballot access in 48
states.
• In order to move forward with full, 50 state ballot access, we'll
need to begin to petition immediately in Oklahoma and West Virginia
and raise at least $300,000 more to pay petitioners.

It's not clear to me whether he means the LP needs 200K for 48 states
PLUS another 300K for OK and WVA, or only an additional 100K for OK
and WVA. But in any case, this actually won't give the LP 'ballot
access' in OK, as I understand it. The best than can be accomplished
is getting Barr on the OK ballot as an independent. I'm not sure I
want to pour money into an effort to get Barr on the OK ballot *as an
independent*, which apparently is what they're working on:

http://blog.bobbarr2008.com/2008/05/30/oklahoma-lp-begins-ballot-access-drive-for-barr/

and

http://www.oklp.org/

I'm don't care for this strategy because I don't see it as the best
use of funds after the LP already poured tons of money into OK, then
gave up on it. Also, while it may get more votes for Barr, it won't
really help other LP candidates (or, more importantly, Libertarian
voters) as far as I can tell, and apparently Barr will be listed as an
"Independent". Even this would be OK with me except that I'm not
convinced they can actually get it done - at least not without
seriously hampering their efforts in other states.
Back-of-the-envelop: they'll need 60K sigs in about 40 days, which is
1,500 signatures per day, which will take about $2-3K or more per day.
Doable, certainly, but at the rate Barr is fundraising that's
committing a major chunk of what he is bringing in.

Frankly, I am not sure why more people aren't making an issue of this.
Tying Barr to the national LP for *LP* ballot access is certainly a
reasonable strategy, but asking people from the LP mailing list to
send Barr's campaign for money to get "full, 50 state ballot access"
when in fact the LP *won't* be getting that seems just a little bit
dodgy to me.

My preference would be for the LP to concentrate on raising money
itself or in tandem with the Barr campaign for the original 48-state
plan, and let Barr (and the OK LP, if they wish) pitch separately for
the OK effort.

I wonder if there has been discussion on the LNC about this strategy
and the LP's support of it.

¶ 5:16 AM