I got to know Tamara Clark in 2002 when I was in Arizona investigating the take over of the Libertarian Party there by an entirely inactive person, who appears to have been motivated by Michael Emerling Cloud.
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 19:15:48 -0500
From: [removed] (Carol Moore in DC)
Subject: Re: [lpaz-discuss] How to contact Tamara Clark
To: [removed]
Reply-To: [removed]
Below is her letter describing the whole fiasco:
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 07:29:44 -0700 (MST)
From: "Tamara.Clark." [removed]
To: "libernet-d." [removed]
Subject: Re: A FEW FACTS
Mr. Woolsey:
We seem to operate in two different worlds, when it comes to
our ideas of what practical Libertarianism means. Where I come from,
we're proud of folks who are willing to assume the personal risks
involved in defying the absurd licensing and regulatory tyranny of
government at any level, in order to demonstrate that peaceful,
honorable commerce requires no government seal of approval. But you seem
to view fraternizing with such real-life Libertarians as "patronizing
the despicable black market."
Around the country in many states I've visited - from
Massachusetts to Nevada, and Minnesota to Virginia - dedicated party
chairs, though they may not be overjoyed about it, often work hard to
draw 35 or 40 activists to a state convention. We work with what we've
got, and I'm very proud of what many, many of those chairs *have*
accomplished. Yet you say any state that turns out as few as 50 members
for its convention "deserves to be taken over" by single-issue,
anti-abortion zealots.
I have always figured anyone elected to chair even one state
party - I have been elected state chairman in both Nevada and Arizona
within the past five years - has demonstrated considerable character,
integrity and talent to the people who know him or her best. That
doesn't mean they're infallible, but I do figure I owe it to such a
person to contact them and hear them out, before I publicly blast that
person as a thief, a coward, and a felon, without any evidence except
hearsay. Apparently your sources of information are so infallible, that
you feel no need to proceed with any such caution.
I'm taking the time to respond to your personal attack on me
because you seem to be an intelligent person. Since I don't believe
we've ever met, I can only believe you've heard third-hand reports from
people hostile to me, or my politics. They - and you - have every right
to criticize and oppose my ideas about party strategy, of course. Yet
you choose to copy those whose only goal seems to be to hurt me and my
family personally, and to tar with the same broad brush my friends and
those who have trusted me with their overwhelming vote to chair the
Arizona party.
Here are a few facts.
By the winter of 1994, mine was a household name in much of
Nevada. Let me just name a few of the projects that made the front pages
of the daily newspapers there, not just once, but over and over:
I participated in - eventually becoming vice chairman of the
campaign - the first referendum ever in the country that put the
question of abortion choice to a vote of te people. Not only did I help
organize the successful statewide Nevada petition drive (1989-1991), but
we also faced highly active opposition from "Operation Rescue," with
clinic blockades almost every weekend for a year. So, we launched the
lawsuit that also became the first ever in the country to stop Operation
Rescue and others from blocking the clinics by making the blockers pay
restitution to the clinics each and every time they walked onto their
property.
Finally, the voters of Nevada had to cast ballots on our
referendum in two successive elections, since we were amending the state
constitution. This was no "theoretical" classoom exercise. It was
down-and-dirty politics, with the other side slinging all the dirt. Yet
we won with 84 percent of the vote. No one can be obliged to have an
abortion in Nevada today because of our efforts. I consider this a 100
percent victory for the freedom of choice ... for liberty.
Then there was the business Employee Head Tax (a tax levied
against business owners, penalizing them for each new hire, though with
a "cap" which benefitted the state's largest employers, the
hotel-casinos - thus falling heaviest on small businesses.) From the
first months the Democratic governor proposed this to the Democratic
Legislature, I was the chair of Nevadans for Lower Taxes, an
organization of small business owners. We did a petition drive to submit
the tax to a vote and attempt to repeal it, which was front page news.
So, the state Department of Motor Vehicles decided to say we couldn't
petition at their buildings. We sued, and that became front page news,
again.
Then, the patronage-clogged county Elections department "had
some trouble" processing our signatures. When people wanted to sign our
petitions but it turned out they weren't registered voters, we
registered them and *then* had them sign. But the Elections departments
"forgot" to enter most of the new voter registrations into the computer
until after the deadline for validating our signatures. These re the
kind of tactics they used to keep the people from voting on that very
damaging tax, which was later revamped but is still in effect. More
front page news, very favorable to our efforts, exposing more typical
government corruption and/or incompetence.
Then there was my state Senate race in 1992, in which I became
the first Libertarian ever to win the endorsement of the state's largest
newspaper (the Las Vegas Review-Journal, circ. 160,000), not to mention
the first Libertarian ever endorsed or such a race by the Chamber of
Commerce. I also interviewed for and received endorsements from 18 other
organizations. It made big news that a Libertarian was doing so well.
Then, starting the very day after the election, there was the front page
in the Las Vegas Sun (the Democratic daily) about what a great candidate
I had been and about how there might have been some "problems" in the
election.
"Problems"? The fraud had many aspects. Start with the stories
about all the candidates who were going to challange the results -
several Republicans as well as me. (Although midday exit polling on
election day - admittedly based on small samples - reported me ahead,
and although the first live network affiliate TV report of the
just-opened absentee ballots announced me leading 56-44 in a two-way
race, the computers "had to be shut down" for more than an hour just
after counting started. When they came up again, I was losing 56-44, a
mirror-image reversal which turned out to be the final official tally.)
Then there were all the stories about how I and some of the
other candidates were in the election department every day finding all
kinds of problems with how they processed the absentee ballots. Then
there were the stories about the grand juries that the state Legislature
requested to look into the election problems. The county Registrar of
Voters was demoted, then fired. I was appointed to a committee to search
for a new registrar - and I was clearly identified as a Libertarian in
all these stories. Then there were all the followup stories about how
the election laws needed to be changed, and about how I lobbied to
reduce the requirement for LP ballot access to only 1 percent of the
vote total in any statewide race - probably a vain attempt to "buy me
off" and get me to shut up, but a long-term benefit to the party for
which they never extracted any such promise from me.
This type of heavy news coverage went on until about June of
1993 - all educating people about the problems facing Libertarian
candidates who try to break in, not a word of it critical of the LP or
its message.
Then, in September of 1993 I became front page news again, for
reasons I hope none of you ever have to go through. I lost my pre-school
aged son in an auto accident that happened in my front yard. The media
was in my front yard even before some of the rescue crews arrived. They
followed us to the hospital, where they filmed my devastated family
saying goodbye to my young son because they thought it was big news.
Because of my son's death I was in the news for about six months, with
new issues arising because my husband and I wanted to donate our son's
organs but the hospital didn't bother to ask until it was too late. I
helped form a group that changed how the county hospital handled
families after the death of a child. It was a volunteer group that got a
lot of press. I still do such work here in Arizona on a volunteer basis.
I'm glad I've been able to help others in similar straits, because -
believe me - no one who has't been through it can have any idea how
devastating this is.
Unfortunately, we are not a wealthy family. We are working
class. Because of the bills arising from my son's death (Did you know
they bill you thousands of dollars for the surgical staff, even if they
never leave their homes? I didn't know that. But they do.) we were
forced to file a medical bankruptcy. You see, our homeowners' insurance
would not cover the bills because it happened on our own property, and
my husband's work coverage wouldn't cover it for the same reason. We'd
been in the process of refinancing the home we owned at this time, but
of course we ran out of time to do that and settle our other debts, so
we lost the house and pretty much everything else.
So that brings us up to about the time that you say I
committed fraud - the year leading up to the 1994 election. Just by the
amount of media that has been involved, don't you think that if I had
really stolen any money - if anyone and even *accused* meof stealing
any money - it would have been news? Has anyone ever shown you such a
news clipping? Of course not. No charges of theft or fraud were ever
reported, because there NEVER WERE ANY - have never been any, except
those invented by a few sleazy Internet back-biters, usually operating
under psudonyms, who had apparently long harbored some kind of jealousy
because of all the media I attracted in Southern Nevada without "paying
my dues" for as long as they had, or because I don't have the kind of
academic credentials that they felt would make me welcome in the kind of
late-night graduate economics beerhall discussions to which they
apparently felt party activism should be limited. Yes, they apparently
saw my circumstances in 1994 as a chance to finally "bring me down to
size." And they continue to do so at every opportunity, even now. This
is the crowd you are helping.
My run for a 1994 office in Nevada was aborted. I started
campaigns for two different offices in turn, but the Republicans and
Democrats had become much more savvy about blocking me from another
two-way race, shifting candidates into races against me at the last
minute before candidate registration closed, to create three and ever
four-way races which I considered unwinnable - a waste of contributors'
money. This, combined with our financial straits, meant that by
September of 1994 I was already in Arizona, where that affiliate party
offered me a much-needed temporary salary to manage a number of very
strong campaigns.
What I did was refuse t provide detailed information on my
1994 Nevada vendors to the National Committee. That's what I was
censured for. So far as I know, I'm the only candidate in the history of
the party who's ever been asked for such information. I might speculate
as to why I was the only one, but I'm sure you would brand anything I
could say "paranoia."
I did not steal any money. Any of us who have been active in
this party for a number of years know there are candidates who help
support their lifestyles by virtually "perpetual" fund-raising and
campaigning. The kind of money that they might have trouble accounting
for - if anyone ever asked, which no one ever does - could easily be in
the hundreds of thousands of dollars. To accuse me of embezzling or
"stealing" $4,500, with no evidence - when even those who voted to
censure me have volunteered that there was never any such charge - is
real manly of you, Mr. Woolsey, sitting a safe 3,000 miles away, not
even having bothered to check the basic facts, or asked to see any
written evidence.
In hindsight, should I have not even considered campaigning on
my own in 1994, so soon after my son's death and during the trauma of
losing our home, etc.? Probably. Was I scattered and poorly organized,
finally moving in borrowed vehicles to another state where I and my
remaining small children,and my husband had to sleep on matresses on the
floor of borrowed quarters for the first few days until my husband could
find work and a new house? Yes, I'm sure I was.
Now that I see others going through that first year after such
a tragedy, practically sleepwalking, I'm a lot more knowledgable about
what they're going through, and I advise them not to launch any new
ventures for at least a year. Judging from what I see now in my
volunteer work, we count ourselves lucky we're still married, and
functional as a family for our remaining two young children. But you
don't care about any of this, do you? As long as you see a chance to
take a cheap shot at someone who stands in the way of Harry Browne
walking down the aisle to a unanimous, unopposed coronation, because she
dares to ask some questions about his principles, tactics, devotion to
keeping promises, and chameleonlike ability to "adapt" his strategies
and tax proposals on demand?
You have a choice, Mr. Woolsey. You can continue to call me
all kinds of horrible things. Or you can find out what I am about. It
might just be that I am a great activist. That I don't take shit from
outside the party or inside, that if I see things going on inside the
party that I believe are wrong I will stand up and point them out.
All of this started because a couple of guys in Nevada who
liked to call themselves libertarians, don't like me. I used to beat
their faction when it came to electing officers, choosing candidates ...
the standard stuff. So, although they scoot like rabbits whenever I'm
around, and decline to confront me in person, they've found the Internet
a wonderful place from which to take pot-shots, to spread rumors that I
stole money, and that I lie.
Then, although I sit quietly for months at a time and take
this stuff, watching it hurt my family and my friends as well, vainly
hoping, like any rape or stalking victim might hope, that it'll fade
away and be over with if I'm just strong enough to shut up and take it,
when I *do* finally dare to try to set the record straight, any attempt
to explain the motives of those who spread these lies is dismissed as
"paranoia."
How would you like it if the tables were turned, Mr. Woolsey?
How would you like it if you were accused of a crime based on no
evidence whatsoever, and when you tried to point out why someone might
be lying about that, they said "Hmm, how sad, he's obviously delusional
and mentally ill as well. ..." Sound like something out of a
totalitarian script to you? How could you "win," at that point?
Is it "paranoid" to believe those who promote Mr. Browne might
have turned my vendors in to government agencies for doing business
without a license, if they had acquired that list? Steve Dasbach says
Mr. Browne's campaign manger is Michael Emerling Cloud of Nevada,
although they won't admit even that. Why, I wonder? Possibly because
Michael Emerling Cloud turned in his own candidate, Andre Marrou, to the
Federal Elections Commission in 1992? Mr. Browne's own fall campaign
mailers put Mr. Emerling Cloud in Tuscon last August, "helping" the
Schmerl-Kerschen forces, at precisely the time they were drafting their
lawsuit in which they attempted to turn in every officer of this Arizona
affiliate party to the IRS for not filing some obscure tax form. In a
sworn deposition, now public, co-plaintiff Mr. Kerschen has since
admitted he didn't know what that tax form was, either, but that the
main benefit he saw in joining this suit was the chance it gave him to
broadcast these "charges" all over the nets, specifically to "hurt Rick
and Tamara," specifically to make it harder for us to raise money for
Rick Tompkins' current presidential nomination campaign against Harry
Browne, whom Mr. Kerschen vocally supports.
All this has been documented. But when we document it, this is
taken as evidence that we're "paranoid." Turn in fellow Libertarians to
a government agency? Absurd!
Am I "paranoid" to believe every staffer at the LP national
headquarters is on the Harry Browne payroll? You can find the
expenditures listed in Mr. Browne's own FEC reports. Am I "paranoid"
about the fact that I first requested the 1993 Salt Lake City delegate
list from that headquarters seven months ago - in label form for a
Tompkins fund-raising mailing - and that it finally arrived this week,
seven months later, after repeated requests, on a disc and not in label
form, with a note that we're "not allowed" to use it for fund-raising?
No, there can't be any conflict of interest at that
headquarters. Only us paranoid nuts could imagine such a thing! God
forbid - after Harry Browne's 18-month head start, during which he tried
to drain every penny he cold from this party's usual donors, with
promises that he was going to establish a residence in New Hampshire and
launch a huge media campaign there with their money prior to the Feb. 20
primary - that we should use party lists for fund-raising, to perhaps
raise $40,000 to Harry Browne's $400,000, to give this party an honest
campaign and open debate on its presidential nomination.
Well, Mr. Woolsey, if you are dumb enough to believe this kind
of crap about an activist who up until a year ago was really well
respected in this party, and who has continued to be well respected by
those who work with me on a regular basis, it may well be your loss.
First, because this is *your* party whose nomination they want to make a
fait accompli, without anyone allowed to debate or raise any serious
questions. But second, because I am good at what I do, and someday it
may be you and your party who might need my help.
Tamara
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