Libertarian History

Libertarian Rituals and Notes

2007-09-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

Libertarian Ritual: Republicans have prayer breakfasts – Libertarians have the Statement of Principles, Nolan Chart, None of the Above, the Pledge, and the Dallas Accords.

There is no ritual more important to Libertarians than the Statement of Principles. Written by a small clutch of people, including Dr. John Hospers and Sarah O'Connor Foster in a hotel room during the course of the national Convention in the Statement is mortared into the platform of the LP and cannot be excised with less than a 7 / 8^th vote of all of the delegates attending the convention. The wording reflects the verbiage of Ayn Rand, sacred to so many early Libertarians.

The Statement of Principles

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.

We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.

We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life -- accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action -- accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property -- accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.

Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.

The Nolan Chart

If you go on line to most Libertarian groups, including the Libertarian Party, you will find an announcement about the World's Smallest Political Quiz. It is very handy and useful as a tool for ascertaining your political viewpoint. David Nolan designed it many years ago when tech was not so high and we relied on things like vacuum tubes, wires and switches.

When I was Southern Vice Chairman for the California LP from 1979 – 1984 we used much the same quiz, minus the computer references, naturally. The Quiz was housed in a big, clumsy metal box filled with wires and little lights that lit up to tell you the same thing. It was built by Ed Ogawa, a long time Libertarian from Pasadena, and burned up in a barn fire at my then home in North Hills in 1989.

You can find the test at several Libertarian sites on the Internet. No matter what they call it, Diamond or whatever, it is the Nolan Chart Quiz.

The test became one of the main Libertarian ritual and you will come across people tabling with it at all sorts of places across the United States. Sometimes they have a computer sitting there and sometimes the test is on paper. Tabling a means used by many groups to spread their ideas; Libertarians now often share tabling with Greens, who are curiously enough, frequently working in coalition with Libertarians in parts of the country.

Personal Issues

(Choose A if you agree, M for Maybe, D if you disagree.)

Government should not censor speech, press, media or Internet

There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults

Military service should be voluntary. There should be no draft

(Choose A if you agree, M for Maybe, D if you disagree.)

Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs

There should be no National ID card

Economic Issues

(Choose A if you agree, M for Maybe, D if you disagree.)

End "corporate welfare." No government handouts to business

End government barriers to international free trade

Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security

Replace government welfare with private charity

Cut taxes and government spending by 50% or more

None of the Above

In all Libertarian elections None of the Above is always a candidate. Libertarians recognized that sometimes all of the choices are so bad that you need a way to register that disapproval without having to vote for the lesser of two or more evils.

Over the past decades occasions have arisen when None of the Above filled the office. When this happens it means that none of those flesh and blood candidates who presented themselves for consideration are eligible to be considered in the subsequent election for the same office.

This took place in California when I was active when a candidate named William Wagner presented himself as a candidate for party office and was soundly defeated by None of the Above. B. J. was certainly disappointed but remained a Libertarian to the chagrin of many.

Since 1996 the champion for None of the Above has been unofficially Dean Ahmad. Dean is an astrophysicist who is also the President and Founder of the Minaret of Freedom located in Bethesda, Maryland. Dean Ahmad has become Mr. None of the Above for all those occasions when it is clear that the power-maddened have again grabbed the steering wheel.

Rituals tell us a lot about organizations and their histories if we know what to look for. Rituals always focus attention either towards something or away from something. American rituals, such as the Pledge of Allegiance, familiar to all Americans, was adopted to displace a previous focus on the founding documents of our nation, for instance the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution which were at that point in time routinely studied in schools along with the Federalist Papers so that all Americans would be aware of their rights and history. Ironically enough, today it is the Liberals and Progressives who oppose the Pledge to the Flag without realizing that it was originally their idea while those opposed to its adoption, Conservatives, defend the Pledge with fervor.

Life is filled with strange reversals.

The Libertarian Pledge was dreamed up by David Nolan, a very busy guy back then, and used the emotionally powerful language familiar to the two groups who made up the majority of those who then considered themselves to be Libertarians, the Randians and the Miseans. Randians followed the ideas of Ayn Rand and Heinlein and Miseans followed the ideas of Ludwig von Mises, one of the economists who most influenced the work of Murray Rothbard. To join the LP you have to sign the Pledge which is as follows:

“I certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.”

Today, David Nolan says he only inserted the Pledge to ensure that Libertarians would not be accused of being engaged in attempts to violently overthrow the government. But that is not how most Libertarians view the Pledge. The idea of asserting standards and values for behavior has been an issue within the Libertarian Party for as long as it has been around and many believe firmly that the Pledge should be broader and read more like,

“I certify that I will initiate deceit, manipulation, or violence to achieve any of my goals, personal, social, or political.”

The idea of a pledge would give those involved in political action the security of knowing that the organizations had objective standards for what is acceptable and what is not tolerated. This is a blind spot for many Libertarians who, like the stereotype referred to at the beginning of this chapter and others now still sleeping on those Star Wars sheets, that a political party can be an excellent way to redirect funds, power, and sexual favors into your own use. Libertarians and their movement brought with them the seeds of their own destruction and those we will be examining a little later.

All organizations that survive past the first beer bust develop ritual that knits its members together. If organizations persist long enough they develop a working mythology that functions to set the limits and expectations for behavior within the group. The Pledge is effectively a piece of Libertarian Ritual that could have grown from its original form to the foundations for an internal justice system. This did not happen. The LP is a State sanctioned political party that has no consistent and reliable means for conflict resolution. It could have adopted one, as did the Green Party. It did not so choose.

David Nolan, the LP founder, claims that the Pledge was just a PR gesture to ensure that whatever administration did not stamp down on LPers as potential terrorists. For the record, that is not the understanding of most long time LP members, who believe it is supposed to mean something. What that is they are not sure. Attempting to excise or change the Pledge could result in blood being spilled along with a lot of yelling. Messing around with theology is likely to make people testy.

The National Pledge has been around since before I was first a member, meaning at least since 1973.

The New York Convention and the exit of Crane

The Heady Rise of the Rhetoric of Freedom

Ronald Reagan Administration: the ideas are rhetorically adopted while the mission shifts through misapplication.

You can's eat a description of an apple pie.

How the rhetoric was misused.

The lying lips of Liberty

While the rhetoric is in use by Republicans the Libertarian Party heads South to its own brand of burn out.

Michael Emerling Cloud and the LPs culture of deceit. Perry Willis, the Berglandista,

Running Campaigns for Profit

1972 – Denver, Colorado

1973 – Strongsville, Ohio

1974 – Dallas, Texas

1975 – New York City

Roger Mac Bride, David Bergland

1977 – Palace Hotel, San Francisco, California

1979 – Bonaventure Hotel, Los Angeles, California

Ed Clark, David Koch

1980 – Alternative '80, Century City Hotel, Los Angeles, California

1981 – Denver, Colorado

Alicia Clark, elected Chair

1983 – New York, New York

David Bergland, John Lewis

1985 - Phoenix, Arizona

1987 – Seattle, Washington

Ron Paul, Andre Marrou

1989 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1991 – September, Chicago, Illinois

Andre Marrou, Nancy Lord

Hiatus on Conventions due to change on nominating protocol

1996 – July 4-7 - Hyatt Regency-Capitol Hill Hotel, Washington D. C.

Harry Browne, Jo Jorgensen

Dean Ahmad nominates None of the Above

Nearly 1,000 Libertarians gathered

1998 - Washington D. C.

2000 – Anaheim, California

Harry Browne, Art Olivier

2002 – July 2-7 Indianapolis, Indiana

George Phillies and jousting with windmills

2004 - May 27 to May 31.- Marriott Marquis Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia Memorial Day weekend, Michael Badnarik, Richard Campagna

The theme of the convention was "LIBERTY Works!"

2006 – Hilton Hotel Portland, Oregon

Sources:

Nixon: Wage and Price controls

http://www.econreview.com/events/wageprice1971b.htm

The Harry Browne – Emerling (Cloud) – Willis Campaign 1996 and 2000

2007-09-28T07:59:00.000-07:00

A meeting of need and opportunity

"Why did you decide to run for President?" "It was my wife's idea." -- Harry Browne

"I have no temptation to vote, to campaign, to try and stop a candidate who promises new follies." -- Harry Browne, "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World", 1973

Harry Browne wrote, “How You Can Profit from the Coming Devaluation,” in 1970. The book sold well because of the instability of the market and was soon followed by, “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.” The two books were self-help books that appealed directly to those who were concerned about the state of their finances and about ways to detach themselves from the control of both government and the constraints of society. While “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World,” purports to be about freedom this is not really true. It is actually about avoiding the constraints that human culture devised to protect those who are vulnerable from manipulation. For example, marriage by contract or agreement is an institution that precedes government but today has become an instrument of government, asserting control into the personal lives and relationships of men and women. Freedom as envisioned by the Founders mandates informed consent and mutual benefit, each acting without constraints imposed by the State.

Harry Browne was well known throughout the Libertarian Party and Movement as an adherent of the “non party' faction, meaning he did not approve of political process. Other long time adherents of that viewpoint, including Kenneth R. Gregg, expressed shock when they learned he was seeking the Libertarian nomination for President. Browne had been influenced by the work of Andrew J. Galambos, an astrophysicist living in Los Angeles who began giving workshops in the ideas of freedom around 1960.

Galambos is one of the few prominent Libertarians who died without having written at least one book. Students taking his workshops had to sign a contract guaranteeing they would not use his ideas. His structural understanding of freedom was based on the idea of private property, and whether Browne had already accepted this as a basis for his own ideas or borrowed it from Galambos it became central to his own work. Those thinkers who came through the Galambos workshops in large part were nonpolitical. Browne remained nonpolitical up until the time he decided to run for President.

Running for office was Browne's own idea. Harry Browne contacted John Hix, the respected expert in internal political events, and paid $1000.00 for a days advice in how to secure the nomination.

The reason for this change is clear. Browne's book sales were falling, each one selling less than the one before and he had accustomed himself to a lavish life style.

Soon after he announced Browne had acquired a supporter who was very enthusiastic about a possible Browne candidacy. That was Michael Emerling Cloud who would have the help of those then in control of the Libertarian Party, the Berglandista.

The Long Tour of the Book was about to begin. It would prove to be lucrative for all involved. Browne's venture into politics yielded $100,000.00 a year from his campaign or the LP from 1995 – 2001 just for him personally.

Securing the nomination for Harry Browne began in August of 1994. To secure the nomination the Berglandista were prepared to do anything necessary. Perry Willis, then National Director but covertly working for the Browne Campaign, did all within his power to ensure that other candidates had no access to mailing lists or other Libertarian resources.

Crane would have admired the means and the outcome. Browne secured the nomination handily and those who had helped him were set to profit. Later, Perry Willis would write a 30 page letter, “confessing” to but justifying his actions. The hope of a campaign and LP that would support and empower local organizing again fizzled.

Both Browne campaigns and those in control of the LP during what became known as the Brown Cloud Years, were actively hostile to local organizing. Perry Willis, in particular, discouraged serious local campaigns.

Perry Willis had begun his career as an activist in San Diego in the wake of a highly profitable state convention run there by the local LP. He approached the San Diego leadership with the proposition that they hire him as their paid executive director. They did so. A year later he moved on, having exhausted the money in their treasury. The pattern would repeat.

Eventually, having worked his way up the food chain and building heavily on personal charm, Perry met Michael Emerling Cloud. The synergy developed in the wake of the Marrou for President campaign. The two men clicked. During his early years as a Libertarian Emerling had openly admitted that he was a con artist with activists such as Gail Lightfoot of California. This only stopped when he became involved with a woman in Massachusetts named Carla Howell. Carla, a professional women who owned her own home, became Emerling's significant other. For her he needed to be respectable. Howell was connected to a moderately old New England family and moving towards respectability meant that Emerling had to publicly reform.

Therefore Emerling reinvented himself, manufacturing organizations and a presence in the LP that spun him as the Great Communicator of Libertarianism. The two Browne campaigns and those carried out in Massachusetts served to profit him personally while avoiding the possibility that any local organization would arise to challenge his hegemony. The Berglandista planned to run Howell for President in 2004 began even before the 2000 Libertarian Convention in Anaheim. This would whimper to a slow death as activists in Massachusetts began the process of retaking their state party.

In effect, the LP had been converted into the private property of the same clique who had ousted the Crane Machine. The group followed the same patterns of self-dealing, top down management, deceptive practices, and overweening arrogance. Another round of the same behavior would be repeated in the largest State organization of the LP, the Libertarian Party of California. That continues to this day.

The following is just one incident in a reaction against the Berglandista that eventually ousted then entirely from any positions of respect in the LP.

=====LP of Pa. Board of Directors resolution passed 3:01pm 9/23/2001====

"Whereas, certain individuals associated with the Libertarian Party conspired to violate National Libertarian Party policy, libertarian principles, and normal standards of business ethics, and

Whereas, we have in the past supported, promoted and endorsed these individuals by our official actions and in our publications and appeals, and

Whereas, we have an obligation to keep our membership informed;

Therefore, we the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania withdraw any expressed or implied endorsement of any of these individuals or organizations or projects in which they are involved. The individuals are, in alphabetical order:
Sharon Ayres
David Bergland
Harry Browne
Michael (Emerling) Cloud
Jack Harris Dean
Perry Willis

The grip of the Berglandista on the LP was finally wrested away by a determined coalition of activists at the 2002 Convention in Indianapolis. The Berglandista candidate for National Chairman, Eli Israel, went down to defeat, opposed by Jeff Neale from Texas and George Phillies of Massachusetts. George, a professor of physics, would be the central force in excising the Emerling influence from his own state several years later.

Today, four years later, the LP remains disjointed and without a strategic vision that connects to a plan of action. However, it remains an effective meeting point for people seeking personal freedom and political alternatives and, as with all life, there is yet hope. If the LP assembles a strategically sound plan, taking into account the need for governance and began building at the most local level, becoming itself a model for the solution, anything would be possible.

Through its origination of 'idea tools,' the LP changed the direction of politics in America. Those tools include privatization (Bob Poole of Reason Foundation), outsourcing, deregulation, and others intended to make the process more efficient. However, efficiency is neither a substitute or equivalent for freedom though many have confused these things.

Additionally, these ideas were not used as originally anticipated because, as with all ideas, they were sold through such outlets as Cato as tools that actually served to decouple profit and accountability and applied through legislation. These did not, therefore produce the benefits of a free market but rather allowed for the optimization of profit by corporations that also used the legislative process to minimize or even eliminate their potential for liability.

The issues of Global Warming, which is now acknowledged to be supported by overwhelming evidence was evaded for the last 30 years in large part through the actions of Cato, which assumed the role of objective third party while accepting most of its funding from the oil industry. Cato performed similar services on issues related to women, dismissing all issues that go to the foundational, Constitutional difference between the rights of women, which are only supported through legislative action, and of men, which are guaranteed through the Constitution.

Just because you feel like someone is not proof they aren't trying to do so.

This was probably not all by design. The underlying mythology of Objectivism is pointedly pro-business and anti-woman, ironically enough since Rand was herself a woman. Ideas always have consequences, which is one of the reasons we need to be careful about how well the ideas that represent action match the action to be taken. To this day libertarians bemoan the absence of women who are willing to invest time and money in the LP. Never have they thought to question if this decided preference might reflect a real problem internal to the LP itself. If the car doesn't run better check the engine.

On the issue of global warming it is curious that a movement that endorses accountability ignored the need to ensure that if global warming was real when the consequences would impact all uf us while the profit for creating the conditions would be specific to certain industries and individuals.

That doubtless comes from romanticizing business and ignoring the deceptive and unethical practices so prevalent in large corporations today. Bill Hunscher and Roger Mac Bride, both now deceased, would not be surprised.

Life is itself a joke on all of us.

(Author's Note)

I noticed the tendency to turn the Libertarian Party into a hierarchal, for profit, institution in at the time of the Clark Campaign. I also noted the behavioral strategies and the disconnect between rhetoric and reality. Libertarianism was supposed to make us freer. I strongly objected to it instead being used to make a few richer.

Until you give freedom to everyone none of us are free.

The Howie Rich - Crane - Koch Machine is launched.

2007-09-28T07:55:00.001-07:00

The Crane Machine launches a stealth campaign, using initiatives – 1992

After probing around in the Republican Party and working to get visibility for themselves through Cato with Congress for nearly a full decade the cadre of people around Crane, which was pretty much unchanged since their exit from the New York Convention in 1983, acquired a new toy. That was an organization that the Koch Brothers had not been able to use effectively, this was the Citizens for Congressional Reform. Acquiring this not for profit spawned an incredible proliferation of identical not-for-profit organizations, each dedicated to doing pretty much the same thing and many created by the same web designers. That was to use a stealth approach to employing the initiative process to change the laws in states where this was allowed. This fit in exactly with the original game plan of the Crane Machine. Crane had always viewed local activists as an obstacle to action within the LP unless those acting locally were directly under his control.

In employing this growing collection of nonprofits Crane had extended that approach to Americans as a whole. The first of these organization, U. S. Term Limits, focused on limiting the number of terms for any elected legislator. It would be followed by initiatives that promoted an end to eminent domain, school choice, and spending caps by government and eventually measures such as legislation relating to end of life issues raised by the Terry Schrivo Case.

Many individuals in various states had worked for these kinds of measure; the problem was not the use of the initiative process, a tool introduced by the Populists to allow local people to change government, making it responsive to their needs. it was the means that made the Crane – Rich strategy questionable.

The initiatives themselves often caused problems because they did not reflect the needs of those who had to live with the resulting law. Even more egregiously, the initiatives were deceptively run as 'grass roots' efforts to potential donors outside the state when they had not real support within the state and left no body of local expertise or enhanced organization in their wake. It was a reprise of the Crane – Clark Campaign, this time run at a profit. Unused funds were transferred into the accounts of those who Crane and Howie had known and worked with since the 70s.

But worse than this pilfering of funds was the lack of goals and a consistent strategy to achieve goals that advanced the cause of freedom and local control.

In the original vision of American government the Founders had assumed that local towns and the people who lived in them would make their own rules in how they structures their lives. This could be seen as a multitude of small experiments in living that would allow for a learning curve, helping a free people develop the means of reducing conflict as they learned to live outside of a traditional hierarchy imposed from the outside. The model for local government had fallen victim to the centralization of power both by states and by the Federalizing of power. Presumably, returning to this original model should have been on the agenda for all libertarians, both those within the Party, those in think tanks like Cato, and those who were in the non-party movement. It was not. Instead these variously followed strategies of conquest, disinformation, and withdrawal into insulated groups that ignored the mainstream entirely. Only a few individuals within the movement as a whole followed strategies that served to focus their activism on local organizing on issues that then could serve to develop the skills of small governance using persuasion and consent.

Sometimes things are just too obvious to grasp, especially, perhaps, when those making the decisions have a very different conception of what freedom means.

Through the next 15 years the Crane Machine would produce cookie cutter nonprofits by the dozens hat only served to develop local organization when their activities antagonized local people so much they organized to oppose the initiatives that the Crane Machine fielded, using out of state contractors, signature gatherers, and outside millions. In some cases the Crane – Howie Machine would outspend local activists six to one to get their measures passed into law. Those who provided the funding would be, ironically enough, the same corporations who had become of entrenched subsidizers of big government who demonstrably had strong economic incentives in this serial campaign that changed law without educating or empowering local people and grass roots democracy.

This leaves the question of whether or not the Crane Machine intended to sell its services to Big Government to the judgment of the reader. It is possible they were blinded by their own ideology, which was founded in the naïve, bodice ripping unreality of Rand. The Richs especially had come to the movement through the NBI in New York and through wealth and age had become elder statesmen in this micro cult.

Michael Emerling-Cloud

2007-09-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

Emerling's financial habits caused problems both within his marriage, which ended in 1990, and for the LP, though this never became known at the time.

Over the years Emerling-Cloud had borrowed money from friends and supporters. He declared bankruptcy, including in this a debt to a woman who had loaned him her life savings believing that they were about to start their lives together. When Marrou began his campaign for vice-president he was called and warned by Ed Clark that having Emerling-Cloud as his campaign manager was a mistake. Clark was clear about the personal habits and questionable ethics Emerling-Cloud had demonstrated over the years. Marrou chose to ignore this advice – but most probably knew Marrou did not know perfectly well what Emerling-Cloud was about.

The irregularities in accounting for funds began immediately along with slip shod campaign scheduling. According to Emerling's then wife, Vickie Emerling, Michael's attempts to cut corners on their IRS return in 1987 caused them to be confronted with an obligation and penalties of around $40,000.00. Michael negotiated this down to $15,000.00 of which he forced Vickie to pay $500.00. The rest most likely was taken from the money then coming in as funds raised for the campaign because while no money went out of their joint income when Vickie asked she was told that the obligation had been handled.

The campaign was run out of a house in Las Vegas and later moved to Marrou's own home. During the campaign period Marrou fired Emerling-Cloud. Andre said this was because Emerling-Cloud insisted on putting out fundraising letters that made promises of which he, the candidate, was unaware.

Money from the campaign was routinely used for personal purposes by both Marrou and Emerling-Cloud, according to their wives. The Marrou Campaign became the means for Emerling-Cloud relaunched himself into a career his own behavior had destroyed. His campaign to remove Marrou from the ticket caused some in the LP to characterize him as, “an enemy of freedom.” But with the facility of the cat with nine lives Emerling would be back. For Marrou the ride ended with election day, 1992. For Emerling-Cloud the ride continued for another ten years.

Selling Liberty for a Profit

2007-09-28T07:39:00.000-07:00

Marshall Fritz, a computer salesman from Fresno, California, first learned about the Libertarian Party while living in Torrance, California from a bumper sticker. He commented to the driver that the only place the Liberal Party was on the ballot was New York. He then learned that the LP was not the Liberal Party and received literature, including the State Newsletter, CalLiber, the newsletter for Los Angeles County, then edited by Sandy Webb, and a brochure titled, Uninflation, by Murray Rothbard. He went on to read Rothbard's, “For a New Liberty,” and was hooked. 1980 found him living with his wife and many children in Fresno, where he began becoming active for the Clark Campaign, making calls to registered Libertarians, an innovation in Fresno, and passing out literature. In 1982 Marshall ran for office and after election night he knew that he wanted to sell Libertarianism for a living.

Encouraged by such figures as Murray Rothbard, Sharon Ayres, David Bergland and others he decided to apply for the post of Executive Director for the LP of California. His long time friend and mentor in politics, John Hix, the man whose ability to win floor elections were unparalleled, helped him put together a proposal which was accepted in February of 1983. Marshall's tenure in the position lasted until June, 1984. The separation had come about because his position depended on raising the money to fund his position and this had never happened and because his work failed to result in any growth for the Libertarian Party in California and loss of productivity by the existing LPC.

In the immediate wake of his resignation Fritz received a call from Paul Grant, then National Chairman of the LP, asking him to come to work as a ballot drive consultant. After a consultation with John Hix, Marshall accepted, service to start when his first month's salary was in the bank. Over the next three months Marshall learned the business of signature collection on the ground, from Georgia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and Missouri.

After a brief consideration of the position of National Director, Marshall founded The Advocates for Self Government in January of 1985. Its mission was to take the educational functions of the LP and focus on these, thus supporting the LP. Unfortunately, as was the case in the earlier incarnations of Marshall's activism, the wishful motive of making a living selling Libertarianism, became the goal. Others, including Students for Individual Liberty were already selling educational materials and programs.

Eventually, Advocates would recycle the Nolan Chart idea, originated by founder David Nolan, into the World's Smallest Political Quiz, which made the transition onto the internet and is now used in many forms. Previously, the best known use of the Nolan Chart had been, perhaps, when it was rendered into an electronically switched machine for use in Los Angeles County. That small, trusty, device, built by activist Ed Ogawa, was used at the LA County Fair from the late 70s until the late 80s. Fritz's use of the Nolan Chart concept sent it into the Computer age.

It had been their overlooked duty of the LP to oversee the management of the Libertarian Party of California and should have foreseen the consequences of hiring someone whose salary needs outstripped the resources of their organization.

The lack of any cohesive strategic vision on how a political party could be used to achieve the goal of local governance and individual rights went unconsidered, as it had been for twenty years.

The parallel lack of professional standards for hiring, the lack of a strategic vision and intermediate goals, and the influence of those who were profiting by the use of the rhetoric in ways that did not advance the reality of freedom acted to further skew the course of events.

This oversight made the Party and Movement vulnerable to become a means for manipulating opinion. This opportunity was not overlooked.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and the lines are painted on later by the greedy. ://www.theadvocates.org/celebrities.html

The Ron Paul Campaign - 1988

2007-09-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

The Family Doctor, and Congressman, from Texas

Ron Paul made the ballot in 46 states, which is not at all bad for a campaign that is, as always, underfunded and without its own personal billionaire. The Paul Campaign, coming as it did, in the immediate wake of the defection of Dick Randolph in Alaska provided a shot in the arm – but again failed to focus on strengthening local organizations. This time the problems with top down management came from the State Parties, however.

It had become a fact of life for the LP that those willing to run normally did so because there was some other motive that could be served by the monumental investment of time and energy necessitated by a campaign that could take most of two years. With Hospers this had not been an issue because he was not asked to invest the time. For Mac Bride his independent wealth made this possible and justifiable. Clark had promised and delivered a very limited period of time to the active campaign and returned to work. Bergland's campaign marked an alteration on how presidential campaigns were run. The potential for such campaigns to serve secondary agendas was a natural development and potentially allowed candidates to run who would not otherwise have been willing to make the necessary investment possible candidates. This alteration came with hazards that were never openly discussed.

In the case of Ron Paul running for President also allowed him to augment the mailing list for his gold investment business, according to various gold bugs. There was no essential conflict between the two goals but this sea change, carefully watched by those who had run the Bergland campaign and working with Marrou, enabled future use of the ticket that would prove to be hazardous to the integrity of the Libertarian Party as a whole. Andre Marrou, first running for the nomination, accepted the nomination for vice president.

Again, the lack of a clear vision for goals and a well thought out plan for achieving those goals impacted the course of action; the LP was off course without even realizing it. It was about to get worse.

The Burns/Bergland/Ravenal Campaign - 1984

2007-09-28T07:24:00.000-07:00

The Crane Machine leaves, the Berglandista fills the niche

At the beginning of 1983 all was quiet in Libertarian Land. A popular talk show host had declared to run for the Libertarian nomination and all sides expressed satisfaction with the candidacy of Gene Burns. It was the unexpected announcement by Gene Burns that he would not be seeking the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party in the summer of 1983 that eventually resulted in the exit of the Crane Machine from the battle for control of the LP. Burns, a popular radio personality who had come out publicly as a Libertarian, had been up for the idea if there was enough money to run a creditable campaign. Unlike Mac Bride, Hunscher, and Koch, he was not independently wealthy. Also, taking the nomination would have had an impact on his ability to work as a radio talk show host, something of which the station management made him very aware.

Told over and over again by David Bergland that money would not be a problem, he discovered that this was not the case. The money was an issue because those who had persuaded him to seek the nomination were unable to raise any for him. Therefore just a scant month before the nominating convention he dropped out. This caused shock waves through the LP, naturally. The waves resulted in two candidacies, that of David Bergland from California and Earl Ravenal, a professor at Georgetown solicited to run by Edward H. Crane, III.

The Bergland candidacy began the day the Burns announcement was made when a friend of Bergland's answered the phone with, “Bergland for President Headquarters.”

At that time a group of individuals were meeting for leisure and dialog at the seashore home of Roger Mac Bride in Biddeford Poole, Maine. The vacation turned into a strategy meeting. Various members of the cadre associated with Crane met and discussed the nomination.

To the surprise of many Mac Bride and Bill Hunscher supported Earl Ravenal while Ed Clark supported David Bergland. There had been a gentleman's agreement that no matter who won the sides would shake hands and work on the campaign. That ended the moment David Bergland achieved nomination.

The Crane machine walked out, in mass, leaving only Howie Rich to report back on further developments. But was not to be the last word from Crane and Company.

Bergland's vice presidential nominee was Jim Lewis, a tax protester who had spent time in prison in support of his beliefs. The campaign would be run by Williamson Evers, a long time Libertarian from California, his wife, Mary Gingell, a former Chairman of the California LP and Perry Willis. The campaign for the nomination had been run not out of enthusiasm for Bergland as a candidate; David was generally acknowledged to be a lackluster public speaker. It had been run because no one who had experienced the Clark - Crane Campaign could tolerate the idea of what was bound to be another Crane candidacy.

Therefore from the beginning actually running a campaign was an after thought and the realities of raising money, planning a national strategy, and ballot access were slipshod. The Bergland/Lewis ticket were on the ballot in only 39 states. The Crane Machine had run the ballot drives previously; Howie Rich, acting as commissar. The expertise had not been shared.

The personnel had changed but the world view had remained the same. The next two decades would be controlled by the Berglanista as the past had been by the Crane Machine.

Dave Bergland's campaign was hampered by his insistence that fundraising be handled by someone flown in for each event. Since the designated pitch man, Dick Boddie, was teaching twice a week at a college in Southern California, this meant that the cost of airline tickets was increased dramatically with Dick flying to and fro and costing more in transportation than the candidate himself. Dick was an excellent pitchman. It was an unnecessary cost. Bergland's personality and eccentricities drove decisions that should have been made of a more professional basis. Campaign staff was drawn from a small circle of personal friends and competence was ignored.

During the Clark campaign there had been a flawed campaign strategy. During the Bergland campaign there was no strategy. The campaign failed to take advantage of issues then receiving national prominence. The campaign book was not as good as either previous book and available only late in the campaign period. The campaign staff insisted on running the campaign from the top down. Little local grown was achieved.

However, several libertarians who wanted very much to be employed as professional libertarians got the opportunity to hold jobs that provided national titles. As had been true with the Crane Machine credentials and previous experience were ignored; those hired were close friends of the candidate.

Chief among these was Perry Willis, who would make the LP his career for the next decade.

Meanwhile, in Alaska, a state with a population of only one million and an unusual set of circumstances due to the Alaska Pipe Line things had been developing. They continued to develop, but in very different directions. Several people had been elected to the state legislature as Libertarians. No matter what the size of the legislative body this was a major accomplishment.
It began with a guy named Dick Randolph, who had served two terms as a Republican state legislator in 1974 and 1974. After that he dropped out and did some thinking. Then he ran again, but this time as a Libertarian, in 1980 and then in 1982. This caused an explosion of popularity for Libertarianism in the Far North. Dick was the kind of guy who was well liked and thought of in his community. Dick encouraged another Libertarian, Ken Fanning, to run in his district in 1982 and Fanning squeaked in, too. Then Randolph decided to run for governor as a Libertarian in 1984. He lost, naturally. But Alaskans were happy that Randolph had managed to rescind the state income tax. It looked like anything was possible.

In the wake of the Alicia firing of O'Keefe, Eric O'Keefe and another youngish Libertarian, Duncan Scott, were dispatched to Alaska. Both worked on the gubernatorial campaign there and then Duncan Scott was hired as state Executive Director. Randolph managed the floor campaign for Earl Ravenal and, along with the rest of the Crane Machine, walked out of the LP. Back in Alaska another Libertarian legislator had been elected to serve from 1985 – 1987. That was Andre Marrou, an MIT graduate who had spent several years living in the wilderness. Randolph had committed to another run for governor and then suddenly, in March of 1986, he changed his registration back to Republican and ran and lost in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Duncan Scott resigned as Executive Director and moved to New Mexico, changing his registration to Republican. He also became a Republican activist.

At the same time a long time associate of Crane and company called and urged another long time activist in California to re-register Republican. The man had worked as Crane's political operative in California during the run up to the Clark campaign. His name was John Fund. While John Fund has been sold as a Libertarian he, in fact, was never registered Libertarian even when he was paid staff for California.

The LP in Alaska sputtered and died. At the time no one considered the possibility that a campaign to move activists into the Republican camp had been going on. But this is the case.

Andre Marrou moved down to the lower '48. Although in most cases candidates needed to be coaxed in this case no encouragement was needed.

The Libertarian Party

2007-05-19T12:42:00.000-07:00

Most Americans know now that there is a Libertarian Party and associate it with marijuana legalization, yearly tax protests on April 15^th, and no longer quite young men who live in their mother's basements, sleeping on Star Wars sheets. While it is politically incorrect to engage in stereotypes it is also true that stereotypes exist because they contain a grain of truth.

But the above ignores the real significance of the Libertarian Party and the movement that preceded it Third parties have driven the evolution of political thinking since the calcification of the two party system which effectively reformatted American politics in the aftermath of the Civil War. So third parties, while they do not elect do direct the political dialog and so exercise far more power than is normally ascribed to them. This was how the Socialist Agenda became adopted by the Democratic Party in the first half of the 20^th Century. But the impact of the Libertarian Party and Movement has far more directly impacted politics as we see it today. How that happened shows just how connected those in power really are.

You will see parallels here that will remind you of those who now control the Republican Party. That is not a coincidence. The Libertarian Party, as are all organizations, is a tool people use to carry out action working together. This is equally true for a political party and the Girl Scouts. However, with organizations that fail to agree on their goals or how to achieve those goals more than cookies can be sold. This was the case with the Libertarian Party and, for that matter, with all political parties.

The Libertarian Party, referred to as the LP by much of its membership, started in a living room in Denver, Colorado on December 11^th, 1971. While the LP remains small in numbers that Movement has taken over the Republican Party, displacing the previous ideas with their own through a process of slow but steady adoption.

The tail is wagging the dog and the dog was asking for it. This has been true of the relationship between the Green Party and the Democratic Party, also.

Nixon and his politics must be credited with the surge of popularity that swelled the ranks of the Libertarian Party for the last two years of the Nixon Administration beginning with that auspicious moment in the living room of David Nolan then the LP was founded.

David Nolan, a graduate from M. I. T., had been a member of Young Americans for Freedom and Students for Goldwater and a leader or active in similar groups since the heady days of the Goldwater Campaign. The bubbly bottles of 'Goldwater' were not alcoholic but the ideas were intoxicating, firing their proponents with zeal.

In early 1971 David Nolan was a candidate for Vice Chairman of the National Young Republicans and missed winning that office by one slim vote at their national convention. Emil Franzi, who Nolan would later know well in the Libertarian Party, had suggested that the California Chapter 'Unit Vote' , meaning that the delegation be polled and vote as for a single candidate. If this had happened Nolan would have received at least 10 additional votes and been elected Vice Chairman of the Young Republicans.

So do the accidents of time determine more than we know. Soon, Nolan was working on the article for the Individualist, a libertarian oriented magazine.

Individuals across the country had been debating and making attempts to establish a base of operations since election day, 1964. Their hero, Senator Barry Goldwater, lost but they did not give up.

In August of 1971 the Nolan article appeared in one of then three publications that knit the nascent movement together. "The Case for a Libertarian Political Party," appeared in the Individualist; it had been in process for several months prior. Within a few days of Richard Nixon's television appearance on the 15^th of that month to announce his Wage and Price Controls Republicans all over the country had dropped out, disgusted. Young, intelligent, and activist oriented Republicans signed off on the party of Nixon.

In New York an attorney named Ed Clark called his wife, Alicia Cabo Clark, to vent his rage. Alicia, the daughter of a former Mexican Senator and the CEO of a multinational Corporation, sympathized. One of the things that had brought them together was their shared belief in the ideas of freedom. The Clarks also left the Republican Party. Clark would become the third Libertarian candidate for President and Alicia would eventually serve as National Chairman.

The article written by Nolan had called for the creation of a political party not primarily to elect candidates but to become a voice for the unadulterated ideas of individual freedom. It was aimed at a group of people who shared many of the same ideas about how the world should be, ideas that started with Ayn Rand, Robert Heinlein, and Ludwig von Mises for their generation but which resonated with the ideas of Thomas Jefferson.

Wage and Price Controls would prove to be an absolute failure. The controls did not stem inflation and yet, with the logic of other government programs, continued to be used as a tool until 1980.

Similar scenes played out all over America as young people who had worked feverishly for Goldwater and burned their draft cards as members of the Libertarian Caucus of Young Americans for Freedom, began to coalesce into a group.

As Nixon settled into a grumpy retirement in Yorba Linda, California on August 8, 1974,

the newly fledged Libertarian Party was experiencing a surge of growth and excitement along with internecine warfare.

The LP began as an organization that looked to individuals to take action themselves because the moral structure for individual rights viewed these as existing before any government people might adopt. This was the mission statement of the Declaration of Independence; it was not the structural reality of American politics. As the structure of the organization congealed a conflict of visions began, pitting the top down style of traditional American political parties with the spontaneous, local organizing that had characterized its first several years.

The Libertarian weapons of choice in their war for the soul of America would be ideas; these activists believed in the concept of individual rights; they assumed the battle would be won in their lifetimes but did not account for the need to translate the ideas and words into behavior that sent the same massage. The fact that words mask behavior as well and as often as they match action was a slow lesson to sink in. Thirty years later the lesson would remain yet to be learned.

Even in those early years all was not sweetness and light and unanimity. Libertarians come in several varieties and these fell, roughly, into two categories, limited state or minarchist, (which has nothing to do with Rhode Island but with the eventual size of the government envisioned as necessary to the smooth functioning of American society) and anarchist; anarchists are those who think you can realistically return control to individuals using only cooperation and consent. Note that used in this way 'anarchy' does not mean the lack of order but spontaneous order or dynamic, quantum, ordering for human action.

Disagreement on this issue nearly destroyed the LP at its third convention. A convention had taken place the year before in Strongsville, OH from June 8-10.

At the 1974 Libertarian National Convention, held in Texas, the issue of planks to be added to the platform erupted into vitriolic debate on whether the platform would reflect the minarchist or Anarchist viewpoint. From this threat to the very existence of the LP the Dallas Accord was born. This mutually useful and gentlemanly agreement mandated that planks would all allow for how a state would function if it existed and not assume the existence of a state. Thus peace was restored in Libertarian Land.

It was at the 1974 Convention that a young guy not long out of college was elected National Chairman. That was Edward H. Crane, III. The man who managed Crane's floor campaign would also manage all the significant floor campaigns for the first decade of LP history. That man was John Hix of Fresno. Hix's involvement with the LP was fortuitous for Ed Crane.

Over the next several years more young people left the Republican Party, propelled by the ideas on individual freedom and economics expressed by Libertarianism. Ideas have always been the building blocks of human society and Libertarians believed they were building a new world forged from the unrealized vision of the American Revolution. Those ideas included personal accountability, control of their own lives, and free markets. Libertarians viewed these ideas as their distinct heritage. The existence of the Libertarian Party provided the medium for popularizing those ideas and served as a meeting place for like-minded individuals.

The Ideas of Libertarianism

2007-05-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

Nolan, along with most Libertarians, had cut his teeth on the writings of Robert A. Heinlein and Ayn Rand. He was one of many who followed that same intellectual path to adulthood, surviving the trauma of the break up between Rand and her First Disciple, Nathaniel Brandon, in New York in 1969 with the closing of NBI, the Nathaniel Brandon Institute. NBI, which taught the ideas of Rand as the philosophy of Objectivism, was named not for her but
for her disciple and lover, a man twenty-five years her
junior.

In the mid 70s the Libertarian Party was a hot bed
of activism, excitement, and ideas. The first two

presidential campaigns sent a message of local organizing, educating on the ideas of freedom, and individual cooperation. Volunteers and activists spent their own time and money on projects they devised. It was a spontaneous ordering of energy that would be stifled by the emergence of influences whose attempts to redirect those energies to their own purposes were largely successful.

Political parties are designed to be miniature bureaucracies; the rules and practices imposed by government makes it difficult to avoid the pitfalls of that system and no one really tried because the issue was not raised at the time. There was a vague agreement that freedom was the destination. There was no thought to how freedom for everyone could be achieved in the absence of other, formal means for ordering society. In the early years most activists assumed there was agreement on the mission, never considering how that mission would be accomplished. .

The model for organization adopted within the LP began with local organizing and swiftly moved towards a centralized system of control, enforced by rules and deception. Some few state parties resisted this, for instance Maryland, adopted operating rules that helped keep an internal bureaucracy from developing, but in the 70s this was still far in the future.

The potential for abusing power is the most attractive of nuisances. The egos and personalities who were attracted to the potential for power brought with them assumptions about how organizations must operate that ignored the need to devise real alternatives to those that had been produced by a society that assumed the existence of government at every level.

The Icons of Libertarianism

2007-05-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

The front line issues as seen by libertarians reflected their youth and the fact that most of them were male. This was natural. Each of us sees through the lense of our individual assumptions and experiences.

Therefore the Vietnam War, the illegality of pot, economic issues, and gun rights dominated the minds of most activists who were also living out the sexual revolution. The most emotionally compelling heroes of the movement were the idea spinners who spoke through the images of fiction.

Robert Heinlein's “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,” Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged,” brought the emotional focus that popularized the ideas considered in such nonfiction works as Rose Wilder Lane's “The Discovery of Freedom,” and Isabel Patterson's “God of the Machine,” and more academic treatments. In much the same way Harriet Beecher Stowe's “Uncle Tom's Cabin” had penetrated the mainstream of American consciousness a century before, Rand and Heinlein achieved in the 20^th Century presenting ideas woven into fiction.

“Shrugged,” and Fountainhead were in effect intellectual bodice rippers that today still sell more books than anything else but the Bible. “Stranger in a Strange Land,” the novel Robert Heinlein wrote to break the stifling contract he had tied himself into for writing juvenile potboilers became one of the influences that supercharged the sexual revolution as groups experimented with alternative forms of marriage and grokked the winds of social freedom.

Robert Heinlein's many science fiction novels continue to be read by new generations despite the fact they have been outdated in many cases. Written as juvenile potboilers they became classics, reframing the ideas of human organization through stories that allowed young readers to think about alternative forms for human society.

The willingness to think outside the box characterized the libertarian movement in these early years.

While no one much thought about it at the time a wrestling match was taking place between two men who would be acknowledged as the greatest writers of science fiction in their time, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. The battle between centralized power and cooperative action took place simultaneously to the beginning of the libertarian movement. This theme repeated itself in science fiction and also, some years later, in the Libertarian Party itself.

The early years of libertarianism were filled with battles over ideas, and egos were very present in those ongoing wars for a share of the intellectual market.

The Market in Markets

Always present in economics were the many works of Murray Rothbard. Rothbard, growing to intellectual maturity in New York in the years that preceded and included the Second World War, was a diligent student of economics, history, and politics. An economist of rare insight, Rothbard prodigiously produced books and papers that included incisive points on the cause and effect of Austrian Economics. However, Rothbard liked internecine warfare the way some men like football and beer; through the late 60s and 70s Rothbard engaged in political maneuvers using ideas like Conan the Barbarian used his trusty club, ripping his way through the developing libertarian movement leaving a reputation for dissension in his wake.

Murray delighted in the blustering idea battles of politics that took place as he attacked what he characterized as the 'libertarian right,' digging his own divide between the admirers of Goldwater and the 'libertarian left.' He had initiated this avenue for activism when he lead a group of Libertarians into the convention of the Peace and Freedom Party in 1968 in an attempt to create solidarity with the new left that was less than successful. This approach was a product of his upbringing and the cultural icons of his youth, which were populist and socialist; Rothbard celebrated the success of the 'common people' without really understanding that viewing people through the lens of labels limited his understanding of the very human action he was trying to change.

Rothbard, who was too young to serve in WWII and too old for Vietnam, never faced the violence of war and sublimated a male hankering for war in his approach to political action. He was short, plump and academically brilliant. His oversights were few but significant and replicated the mistakes of the previous century, setting the stage for yet another round of idea manipulation to be played out through the 80s and 90s.

Not himself inclined to take such conflict personally, he did not realize that he was accumulating a reputation that would eventually exact unexpected costs. Rothbard and his cadre of 'left libertarians' had left the Peace and Freedom Convention far less peaceful that it had been, although Eric Garris, an early Libertarian and founding member of the Radical Caucus, would work as an organizer for the Peace and Freedom Party's efforts for ballot access.

Unaware of the dynamics in play he set himself, and the Libertarian Party, up for as successful a take over as any in history. Actions as well as ideas have consequences and the personae who present those ideas become part of the message conveyed to those whose ears – and eyes, who are taking it all in.

The Clark Campaign: Winning the battle, losing the first round of the war. - 1980

2007-05-19T12:26:00.000-07:00

The Crane Machine's Presidential Campaign

At the close of the '76 presidential campaign most Libertarian activists believed that the future was going to be about fighting for individual freedom. But behind the scenes personalities were beginning to grate on each other and the divergence of goals, personal, social, and political, were getting ready to unleash a tsunami of conflict.

Roger Mac Bride had a good friend named William Hunscher. Hunscher was a former Army Col. who had the unusual background in the LP of military training. Bill joined the military serving in Germany with the First Airborne Brigade. He found himself jumping out of airplanes - and also being trained to command and accept responsibility for a full range of needs related to his position. He had always been chosen as a leader in school, and so military life continued his life training in this regard. His military service lasted from 1960 - 1964.

He told friends he would not trade the years for anything because of what it taught him. Bill had four much older brothers who all served in World War II with distinction. He said also that he would not want to do it again. He was a strong, forceful man who was used to being in charge. His career after leaving the military would take him into the application of technology to business.

After leaving the military Bill’s first entrepreneurial start-up was Terminal Systems. This company became a success, first being listed on the the New York Stock Exchange, and then being bought out. After that success Bill started FasFax, producing point of sale terminals for fast food restaurants.

Hunscher, a model for American success, had been committed to the ideas of freedom his entire life, having encountered Ayn Rand while building his own career in business. In 1974 Bill met Roger Mac Bride. Over the next several years the two would become good friends. Both were committed to building a viable alternative to the political system that had brought the LP into existence. The Mac Bride campaign had accomplished much and Roger briefly considered running again to be told that there were factions within the LP who would actively oppose him. Instead, Hunscher agreed to seek the nomination.

While both Roger and Bill were very well off their money had come from the entrepreneurial efforts of Rose Wilder Lane, in Roger's case, and from his own business savvy in the case of Bill Hunscher. These sources for wealth, derived from books that carry a subtext for individuals living and caring for themselves, and wealth created from providing products to the market that would reduce the cost of doing business, epitomized everything that Libertarianism actually said. They would be opposed by even bigger money derived from big oil and government contracts.

Hunscher's model for a presidential campaign was for local organizing and a full time presidential candidate; this followed the Mac Bride model that had worked to empower local organizations in 1975 – 1976. Hunscher started his campaign for the nomination in 1978. He committed to a full 18 months of campaigning, self-funding part of the campaign, and to leaving the local organizations stronger and more autonomous.

In the period between the end of the Mac Bride Campaign and the nominating convention for the 1980 presidential ticket several things had happened in the Libertarian Movement that would impact the future direction of the LP and the action that would take place in the constellation of think tanks that spun off from that explosive energy.

The largest Libertarian National Convention ever held took place at the Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles in 1979. As had been the case four years before the need to qualify the ticket for the ballot made it essential that the ticket be known beyond doubt far in advance. When the first attendees started to trickle into the hotel that September 4^th Roger Mac Bride and Bill Hunscher had been in town for several days meeting with delegates. The Hunscher Campaign had run into some problems early on due to needed changes in the head quarters, back on the East Coast. One of these changes had been the firing of Michael Emerling, later Michael Cloud, as Hunscher Campaign Manager for incompetence. Emerling – Cloud would play a pivotal part in later chapters of LP history that recycled the pattern for power conversion first seen with Ed Crane.

Hunscher had spent months traveling across the country, attending state conventions and meeting delegates. He had pledged to give the LP a full time candidacy and along with traditional fundraising put his hand in his own pocket.

When They Hijack the Freedom Train

2007-05-19T12:20:00.000-07:00

Author Injection: (Author injections make it possible for me to talk about personal experiences and insights that as the Author I would skip. Freedom was not about making the least ethical people rich; it was about freedom for everyone.)

In 1979 I was wearing several hats. While serving as Southern California Vice Chairman and the first LP Party Chairman for Los Angeles County I was also Chairman of the local region of the California LP for the San Fernando Valley. This meant I had to make sure our local organization, which had been pretty dead when I moved there from West Los Angeles, was rejuvenated and able to undertake the goal of having a full slate of candidates on the ballot. That meant coming up with candidates and money.

(items with this graphic are available on my cafe press site, in the Libertarian Legends Section. There is also a Ron Paul section, if you are interested. People seem to like those parts.)

Cunningly figuring out that people would always come out for food we put on a crepe dinner and then a Picnic. I personally wrote up the flyer for the crepe dinner, describing the food in graphic detail. RSVPs started coming in the moment they hit the mailboxes. It was an all you can eat event as was the picnic.

Any event sells better if you provide celebrities. The upcoming nominating convention was bringing in multiple libertarian celebrities and we made use of that to persuade Roger Mac Bride to allow us to honor him at a Birthday Party. Roger was always a good sport and was happy to help out.

A few days before the Bonaventure Convention began the San Fernando Valley, known then as Region 11, threw a Birthday Party for Roger Mac Bride that would fund its slate of candidate for the next year. It was Roger's 50^th birthday and he spent the day chatting with activists, candidates, and their families at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post. We had arranged for a cake and a case of very good wine, chosen by Bob Binsley, one of our local candidates.

The Mac Bride Picnic netted nearly $2,000.00.

Two of the fundraisers we did were the Dessert Book and the Atlas Slugged baseball shirt designed for the monumental softball game wherein the Atlas Sluggers challenged the Rest of the World to come and have at it. My kids were the cheerleaders in outfits that coordinated nicely with our blue and gold shirts with the Atlas Slugged logo. We narrowly missed being sued by Jack Dean, the originator of the Sam Adams Award, who did not notice that the bases were cardboard. I had never actually seen a softball game that had fancy equipment, one of the outcomes of spending my life with my nose stuck in a book.

Naturally, we lost. But to play The Rest of the World All Stars had had to pay for the Picnic so the campaigns won and that was the idea.

We cut the costs of campaign literature for the slate of candidates by producing artwork that could change out one side to put in the name of the candidate, his or her race, and a statement. This cut our costs and kept us within the budget. Budgets were something that Ed Crane never seemed to understand but he had his own personal billionaire.

In the immediate wake of the Picnic I learned a valuable lesson on the mind set of the Crane Machine. At our executive committee meeting for the local region the report on fundraising was read; the money raised was in the bank and the campaigns were ready to go. A long time activist raised her hand to suggest that the money be donated to the Clark Campaign. I did not say a word but if looks could have killed her body would have been stretched out cold. She had not been of any conspicuous help with the events but I knew, because she had told me, she had been fraternizing with Ed Crane.

The money stayed in our own Treasury. But having listened to her reasons for this proposal, that focusing on the top of the ticket would be a far better use of the money she had not helped raise, I gained an insight into the mind set of Ed Crane that would be borne out over and over through the next decades.

End Author Moment.

The opposition to the Hunscher nomination was not focused around Ed Clark as a candidate, but around Ed Crane and the kind of campaign he would run with funds provided by the Koch Brothers. Koch money had put the Libertarian Party on the ballot in California and was spent lavishly on everything but resources for local organizing. The Clark Campaign bifurcated inquiries to the campaign and only those who made low levels of donations were shared with local regions. Those in the 'alpha' group, meeting local activists expressed surprise that there was already a local organization there.

Crane was not liked. Even with billions on tap obtaining the nomination for Clark was not easy. If Ed Clark had not been well liked and respected in his own right it would have been impossible. So unpopular was Crane at that point that he could not assume the title of Clark Campaign Chairman and instead a beard was used to hold that title in the person of Ray Cunningham, a former Libertarian mayoral candidate from San Francisco; Cunningham had no control over decision making.

Ed Clark was an attractive, intelligent candidate who as far as any of us could tell had no input on issues or campaign strategy. He was articulate and good natured but he was chief legal counsel for Arco, with offices in the Arco Towers in Downtown Los Angeles and he could spare only four months for active campaigning. The campaign, as designed by Crane and laid out before John Anderson was in the race, was structurally flawed as an electoral strategy to build an effective organization for promoting local solutions to social and political issues; it was also flawed as a vehicle to secure serious attention for the ideas of freedom nationally.

The battle for the nomination had been intentionally deceptive. Material that would have made delegates aware of the intention of the campaign were withheld and attention was focused on the glossy materials and the exciting possibilities presented by having a billionaire as the vice presidential candidate. Money is always seductive.

Crane had persuaded the younger brother of Koch Industries, David Koch, to run for the vice presidential nomination. Both he and his brother, Charles, were at the convention for the occasion. Crane had seen that fundraising would be far easier if the billionaires who were funding Cato were also funding his first chance for calling the shots in presidential politics.

Concern and outrage over the control exerted over the convention program reached a peak in the spring of 1979, necessitating a meeting between Crane and activists from the Southern California area. The meeting took place at the home of Bruce Lagasse, a former LPC chairman and resulted in some grudging additions to the program by Crane. One of these was a workshop by Michael Emerling, another was an evening of folk music by a software engineer named Craig Franklin.

The lies retailed by Crane and Co. included hiding their intention to run a campaign that presented as 'low tax liberal.' This was known before the nominating convention. The presidential candidate in fact was presenting not so much his own views but the strategic vision and views of Ed Crane. The effect of this was to reinforce an internal party culture that used lies to achieve its goals as a matter of course; a sort of early Straussianism served up without the underpinning of ideological justification. Crane acted as if local activists were incapable of organizing themselves. If this was so one had to wonder how he thought they would manage to govern themselves if libertarianism was successful. This question, among others, was never formally raised in the discussions of goals and strategy that evidently never took place.

Deception practiced by those in control and justified as necessary because those perceived as 'lower down' in a hierarchy is the classical justification of any tyranny. The issue of transparency in government and the right of the people to have all of the information essential to make informed decisions had been defenestrated before the LP was out of the single digits. This would prove to be a constant over the next decades.

The Clark – Crane Campaign reinforced this message by running a very much top down campaign. It did nothing to encourage or build local organizations. This reflected the organizational philosophy of Ed Crane and not that of the Clarks.

The issue of local organizing had been decided; the issue had never been formally raised.

Cato had been organized in 1977 when, in the wake of the Libertarian National Convention in San Francisco, Ed Crane moved to D. C.. Crane was just leaving the office of National LP Chairman and at the close of the convention had announced to an elevator full of libertarians that he was, “going to Washington D. C. to get rich.” That he accomplished.

For a successful take over you need people of influence

2007-05-19T12:08:00.001-07:00

And to Grab Control you need to be sneaky

Murray Rothbard was arguably the most influential voice for Austrian Economics in the world; he was asked to serve on the Cato Board of Directors and was given stock in the enterprise. Being an economist does not usually make you rich, so a little stock meant a lot of to Murray.

Murray Rothbard enthusiastically supported the Crane Machine and the Clark candidacy going into the nomination process. After the campaign's lackluster showing in November of 1980 Rothbard used his Libertarian Forum to exhaustively critique the campaign and the White Papers Crane had produced; these glossily produced policy pieces effectively superseded the LP platform and were produced under the direct oversight of Ed Crane. There is no evidence that Clark himself had any input in the matter. The subjects included the privatization of Social Security.

The criticism from Rothbard focused on Ed Clark in the immediate wake of the Clark Campaign. Clark had been left holding the debt Crane and the campaign had run up in the last few weeks. This focus on Clark by Rothbard continued until Rothbard was ousted from the Cato Board in January of 1981. In the immediate aftermath of that highly irregular proceeding, which took place at the Cato Board Meeting in Oklahoma, Rothbard began characterizing Ed Crane as the personification of the devil. But Crane had consistently used the same methods, deceit and misdirection, to achieve his goal, which was a concentration of power that remained in his own hands as he slid from position to position within the LP. This should have come as no surprise to Rothbard.

At the close of the 1980 presidential campaign Crane still had absolute control of the National Libertarian Party; he had hired most of the employees and they were personally loyal to him. Many among these individuals, who were listed by Rothbard in Libertarian Review, remain active today in the constellation of nonprofits that are funded from the same sources as Cato. All of these individuals became wealthy because of the association; some few were well to do before they got to know Ed Crane, but those were the exceptions.

Author Digression:

The White Papers were a great potential resource for local candidates. For Congress they provided a well thought out plan for action that could be used to make libertarian candidates sound far more knowledgeable and well briefed than they generally were. For state level candidates they provided insights unusual even in major party candidates.

The first time I saw a sampling of the White Papers I lusted after them for my candidates. The San Fernando Valley had a full slate and I wanted to thriftily have full set copied for each candidate. Chris Hocker was pointed out to me as the Commissar of White Paper Copies.

For the next three years I requested, asked, demanded, and pleaded for a set. I even offered to pay money. No White Papers appeared through they were promised several times.

Finally I got the Chris Commissar on the phone and he told me to memo him. I promised to do so and sent on the request forthwith. Again, they did not appear. This was the second round of elections I had been through without the White Papers. I had first asked for them in 1979. So finally I sent the following to Commissar Hocker. I know it was not exactly nice but I was getting pretty annoyed.

Note of A Political Nature to Chris Hocker

Privily speak I of promises well made

For I would have you know I them remember

For pen to paper thus I put - for so you bade,

And hearing thus your words could I malinger?

You said that you would give me many wonders

For papers writ with wisdom good and clear

That Clark did read to parry many blunders

Of policy when run he did last year.

And murmured you of booklets that you wrote

Designed to teach my candidates of things

That will make them yet less clumsy with the votes

And credit to the cause of freedom bring.

So find the stuff - tout suite, and make it fast!

For I needed it all months ago, you ass!

I sincerely apologize for calling Chris an ass. He is really rather nice for a toadie or lickspittle, there being two of the terms used by everyone to refer to the hierarchy within the Crane Machine. Murray Rothbard called them Craniacs, actually. The levels of status went: Crony, Toadie, and Lickspittle. It is very possible Chris was a Crony, level B. I was never sure which he was but I am sure he was a very high ranking one, which ever category he fell into.

The Clark Campaign was a real disappointment after the warm, friendly, experience of the Mac Bride Campaign but everyone pitched in and tried to make it work. I was asked to be co-chair for the Clark Campaign for California along with a friend of mine named Gary Meade. This changed afterwards. Crane was always a great one for rewriting history. But I did not mind, I was relieved that I did not have to shoulder any of the debts.

The Most Magnificent Moment of the Campaign was planned for autumn and was called, Alternative '80. The idea was a series of events across the United States linked by television. Today that sounds like nothing much but then it was a Big Deal. The Central Diamond in this tiara of triumph was to take place with a posh event attended by hundreds or thousands of people at the Century City Hotel.

The Clark Campaign shipped in an organizer to handle this, which was a good thing because we already had our hands full with local campaigns and fundraising. I suspect that rather than kindly intent what was going on was a centralizing of control but as it turned out in this case that did not matter.

The day came and hundreds of people did in fact turn out for the lavish event and for the great food. The television worked and there were celebrities. Sort of. Honestly, I did not think of Howard Jarvis, who stole Proposition 13 from Libertarians who lived in the San Fernando Valley, a celebrity. Perhaps my standards are too high, however.

On the way out I did have one moment of amusement and illumination. I had attended the event with a fellow activist, Janice Vargo. She and I, without any plan that this would happen, found ourselves climbing into an elevator with Ed Crane and Charles Koch. For once Ed was quiet and Charles was talking rather heatedly. In this way I learned that Alternative '80 had lost a quarter of a million dollars instead of making a profit and, worst of all, Little Brother David had to use Capital instead of Interest to pay for it! (Exclamation point is his and not mine.) Even billionaires have their limits. I somehow did not feel sorry for Ed although he looked very sad right then. Charles Koch went on to vehemently demand that Crane either focus on Cato or the LP, but not both.

It was a good moment. But we discovered that Crane was not going to accept this kind of limitation, even from his own personal billionaire.

End Author Digression:

The ideas of Libertarianism were about individual rights, individual action, and taking back power for the individual. The absent but needed component for allowing individuals to exercise their own power were alternative organizing structures that allowed individuals to make their own choices and so exercise both control and personal accountability on the most local level possible. Many had originally seen the LP as the natural starting point for this.

However, the structure adopted by the LP as a political party centralized power and there was no means for exacting accountability. The By-Laws had mandated a Judicial Committee to meet as needed but no rules, standards or protocols had been created or evidently even contemplated. As a result it was not useful as a means for resolving conflict, becoming itself a weapon of political warfare.

The problem of ensuring accountability is one that systemically plagues government today and this is mirrored in all the political parties through which the people are forced to act. It is a curious oversight that Libertarians, theoretically committed to the concept of individual rights and accountability continue to fall for the trappings of power and control.

The lack of an effective, internal mediation agency would soon cause shock waves to ripple through the LP.

The LP organizes itself around presidential campaigns for the most part, but in the wake of the Clark Campaign talk started on giving the LP different leadership. The race for National Chairman became a hot issue and three candidates eventually threw their hats in the ring. One was John Mason from Colorado, running as a unity candidate. The Crane Machine opposition was Kent Guida from Maryland. But the surprise candidate was Alicia Clark.

The Crane Machine worked hard for Guida but made it clear that they preferred Mason over Alicia. On the last ballot the Crane Machine delegates had thrown their support to Mason, so this was the outcome they least preferred.

Alicia won. Crane, even with Koch money, was just too much.

Alicia was dedicated to decentralizing the LP but much of her time was spent fighting battles with the National Chairman, Eric O'Keefe. After months spent trying to work with him Alicia fired him and had the locks changed on the National Office. The guy she chose for this was Craig Franklin, the folk singer who Crane had slighted at the Clark Nominating Convention. Franklin also was on the Judicial Committee.

Alicia was far better qualified to be National Chairman than the other two candidates on the basis of her background and experience. When she married Ed Clark she was the CEO of a multinational corporation with headquarters in New York. She had an earned Ph. D. in Chemistry and her family had been prominent, and dedicated to reform, in Mexican politics for many years. Despite this, the Crane Machine treated her with barely concealed contempt and concealed the facts on her background where ever possible as they had done, evidently by their own internal policies, with Hunscher and others.

The Judicial committee would be called to act for the first time in LP history before the Crane Machine was finished.

Firing the director of an organization is the prerogative of its chairman normally, and this firing was supported absolutely by the bylaws. That did not stop the Crane Machine from trying to overturn the firing, however. The rancor and vicious assaults on Alicia and the new Director astonished those attending but were very much in line with a cadre who had been ousted from a sinecure they assumed they would control in perpetuity.

The Crane Machine: Who is Edward H. Crane, III?

2007-05-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

We try to bifurcate the issues of what we do politically and professionally from who we are personally but the nasty fact is that all too often we use the political and professional to justify behavior that would make us cringe if we had to acknowledge it openly. Character is a constant, be it good or bad, and character marks out the blending of family culture, what was learned at the 'mother's knee,' and how we use that to mark out our own personal path through life.

It is clear that one of the possibilities that pulled Bill Clinton into politics was the presence of women, mostly willing. Sex is one of the three basic human motivators, these being sex, money and power. Power is actually also the means by which many people get the two former, so we have to keep this in mind.

That said, it is natural that politics tends to pull in people who are highly motivated by the attractions of power and its adjuncts, money and sex. It also follows that those who are in politics who are so motivated tend to want to grab as much power as possible to realize these unstated goals since if they were open and transparent about it, for instance if they said, “I want to have sex with every good looking woman in this room.” this would not further these goals but given what events had told us about Bill Clinton we can imagine Bill thinking just that.

But Bill is not the only man in politics, and not the only man whose sexual ambitions powered a drive for power.

Author's Digression:

I have known about Ed Crane since the early 1970s. I sent him the button above during the Clark Campaign. I met him for the first time at the California LP Convention in 1977 where I was serving as assistant manager but I had heard about him much earlier. When you are working in a movement with the same people for many years you get to know them pretty well both directly and through the reports of others. Small communities are like that. Politics is all about people and their relationships and, as the saying goes, if you let them keep talking you find out the truth. Applied to character this means that over a period of time you see the interior, hidden contours that define character of the individual written out through the life they lead and how they handle life's challenges and temptations. The first inkling I had to Crane's personal character came at a party I attended at the home of Sarah O'Connor Foster, an activist living in the Sherman Oaks in around 1975 – 1976.

When you go to a party that is mostly libertarians and take your small children along you spend most of your time sitting watching them play. I was doing just that when I fell into a conversation with a woman I will refer to as Rebbecca. Rebbecca was married but had no children., as I remember. As we shared stories about the libertarian personalities and campaigns we had experienced Rebbecca brought up Edward H. Crane, III. I had heard about him but he had moved on to National politics about the time I became active very locally in West Los Angeles. Rebbecca recounted to me her volunteer activities on behalf of freedom with Ed Crane. The story was so incredible that it was hard to believe but over the next several years I bumped into another woman who told much the same story.

Rebbecca was scheduled by Crane to come into his office and work for a period of one hour. She spent the first half hour typing and the second half hour in sexual congress with Crane. Departing, she met the next woman scheduled. I told you it was incredible. My mouth dropped open. This was strange even for Libertarians.

From one of the locals who worked with Crane I also learned that when he entered a Libertarian event he would scan the room for the youngest, dumbest, woman present who passed his standards for acceptability and engage her in conversation, passing her his room key as soon as possible. I did not believe that one either until a good friend told me about her 30 minute interlude with Ed under exactly these circumstances.

I had never seen Crane until the 1977 California LP Convention. As assistant manager I was sitting next to Roger Mac Bride, our speaker and guest of honor, at the head table; I had also picked Roger up at the airport. All of a sudden someone sat down next to me and introduced himself.

Frankly, my first thought was that my brother had gained weight. Cap, my older brother, stayed thin during that period of his life because he was still flying for the National Guard while attending law school and working as a legislative assistant in Sacramento. He had served in Vietnam as a Load Master and been decorated for bravery.

Ed Crane looked just like a softer version of my older brother. I told him that and continued talking to Roger. I have never spent a significant 30 minutes with Ed Crane and do not see the attraction myself. Over the years I was told also that Crane insisted on photos accompanying the forms used by interns who were applying for scholarships for Cato Seminars. Women were the most likely to be chosen, especially if they were attractive.

Women working at Cato are required to have sex with Ed Crane. This came from a very reliable source who has asked to remain nameless who was telling the story of a young woman who was distraught because she was informed of this, naturally after she had been there for a while, and did not want to comply. I was given to wonder if this requirement was disclosed before she was hired and if the Koch Brothers know they are subsidizing Crane's sex life.

Over the years I bumped into Crane at events. At the first large Reason Foundation Dinner in Los Angeles we attended as a family, myself, my husband, and three daughters, 16 – 26. I found my oldest daughter chatting with Ed. He looked annoyed when he saw me until I brightly asked him if Morgan had introduced herself. Then he realized that this lovely young thing was my daughter and turned slightly white. There was a slight history there.

After my first encounter with him in '77 I started watching him at these events and noticing the pattern he had for engaging young women in conversation. So I started making it a practice of spending time chatting with him when he was 'hunting'. He hated seeing me looping over to say hello, but what could he say? I know I was breaking the rules about ignoring his behavior but I really enjoyed it and also viewed it as a sort of rescue mission. I am sure at the moment he realized this was my daughter he was thinking about what I would have done if his ploy had worked.

Crane used power to get sex but that is not to say that Crane was absolutely unwilling to share or that he failed to recognize that sex was a useful commodity in other ways.

There are an unusual number of good looking young women employed at Cato, I noticed that when I attended their Gala Dinner in D.C. In 2003. I am sure that many donors find that the benefits of affiliation with Cato are rewarding in many ways.

Crane is married to a woman who was married to his best friend before he started an affair with her. He was disinclined to marry her when she came up pregnant and refused to do so through the next two children as well. Then, by report from a very close source, he told her he would marry her when he could do so in Red China. This looked like never at that point. She waited. When the climate of

politics changed, opening up the China Wall, the wedding took place in Red China while they were there on a political junket.

The odd nature of the above reports over a period of many years and his tendency to grab control by any means possible lead me to the conclusion that Ed's work in the cause of liberty may have an agenda that has more to do with personal gratification than with inherent rights and that he may not understand that this kind of behavior is not generally acceptable even if someone really is as wonderful as he thinks he is.

I have wondered from time to time if Bill Clinton was Ed's understudy.

End Author Digression:

The Burns/Bergland/Ravenal Campaign - 1984

2007-05-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

The Crane Machine leaves, the Berglandista fills the niche

The Bergland candidacy began the day the Burns announcement was made when a friend of Bergland's answered the phone with, “Bergland for President Headquarters.”

The Crane machine walked out, in mass, leaving only Howie Rich to report back on further developments. But that would not to be the last word from Crane and Company.

Bergland's vice presidential nominee was Jim Lewis, a tax protester who had spent time in prison in support of his belief the Income Tax was illegal. The campaign would be run by Williamson Evers, a long time Libertarian from California, his wife, Mary Gingell, a former Chairman of the California LP and Perry Willis. The campaign for the nomination had been run not out of enthusiasm for Bergland as a candidate; David was generally acknowledged to be a lackluster public speaker. It had been run because no one who had experienced the Clark - Crane Campaign could tolerate the idea of what was bound to be another Crane candidacy.

Therefore from the beginning actually running a campaign was an after thought and the realities of raising money, planning a national strategy, and ballot access were slipshod. The Bergland/Lewis ticket was on the ballot in only 39 states. The Crane Machine had run the ballot drives previously; Howie Rich, acting as commissar. The expertise had not been shared.

The personnel had changed but the world view had remained the same. The next two decades would be controlled by the Berglanista as the past had been by the Crane Machine.

Dick was an excellent pitchman, however, and his personal and charismatic style made him very popular with Libertarians, so much so that in the wake of the Bergland campaign entirely untrue and unflattering stories about him began to percolate to the ears of activists. Boddie had made the mistake of disagreeing with the Berglandista and becoming a threat to their control.

Campaigns of covert slander, a favorite tool of the Crane Machine as well, were used routinely by those around Bergland. In addition, Bergland's personality and eccentricities drove decisions that should have been made of a more professional basis. Campaign staff was drawn from a small circle of personal friends and competence was ignored.

Dave Bergland's campaign was hampered by a campaign staff that included Perry Willis, a close personal friend of both Bergland and Bergland's wife, Sharon Ayres. Willis's career through the LP would be characterized by a series of sweetheart deals, guaranteeing him an income without producing any discernible benefits for freedom.

Meanwhile, in Alaska, a state with a population of less than one million and an unusual set of circumstances due to the Alaska Pipe Line, things had been developing for the LP. They would continue to develop, but in very different directions.

Several people had been elected to the state legislature as Libertarians. No matter what the size of the legislative body this was a major accomplishment.

It began with a man named Dick Randolph, who had served two terms as a Republican state legislator from 1974 to 1976. After that he dropped out and did some thinking. Then he ran again, but this time as a Libertarian, in 1980 and then in 1982. This caused an explosion of popularity for Libertarianism in the Far North. Dick was the kind of guy who was well liked and thought of in his community. Dick encouraged another Libertarian, Ken Fanning, to run in his district in 1982 and Fanning squeaked in, too. Then Randolph decided to run for governor as a Libertarian in 1984. He lost, naturally. But Alaskans were happy that Randolph had managed to force an end of the state income tax. It looked like anything was possible.

In the wake of the Alicia firing of O'Keefe in 1982, Eric O'Keefe and another youngish Libertarian, Duncan Scott, were dispatched to Alaska; Alaska would be the beginning of a new Crane political takeover. Both worked on the gubernatorial campaign there and then Duncan Scott was hired as state Executive Director. Randolph managed the floor campaign for Earl Ravenal and, along with the rest of the Crane Machine, walked out of the LP. Back in Alaska another Libertarian legislator had been elected to serve from 1985 – 1987. That was Andre Marrou, an MIT graduate who had spent several years living in the wilderness. Randolph had committed to another run for governor as a Libertarian and then suddenly, in March of 1986, he changed his registration back to Republican and ran and lost in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Duncan Scott resigned as Executive Director and moved to New Mexico, changing his registration to Republican. He also became a Republican activist.

At the same time a long time associate of Crane and company called and urged another long time activist in California to re-register Republican. A scattering of moves back to the Republican Party took place across the country. The man had worked as Crane's political operative in California during the run up to the Clark campaign. His name was John Fund. While John Fund has been sold as a Libertarian he, in fact, was never registered Libertarian even when he was paid staff for California.

The LP in Alaska sputtered and died. At the time no one considered the possibility that a campaign to move activists into the Republican camp had been going on. But this is the case.

Andre Marrou moved down to the lower '48. Although in most cases candidates needed to be coaxed in this case no encouragement was needed.

The Ron Paul Campaign - 1988

2007-05-19T11:52:00.000-07:00

The Family Doctor, and Congressman, from Texas

Ron Paul made the ballot in 46 states, which is not at all bad for a campaign that is, as always, underfunded and without its own personal billionaire. The Paul Campaign, coming as it did, in the immediate wake of the defection of Dick Randolph in Alaska provided a shot in the arm
but again failed to focus on strengthening local organizations. This time the problems with top down management came from the State Parties, however.

It had become a fact of life for the LP that those willing to run normally did so because there was some other motive that could be served by the monumental investment of time and energy necessitated by a campaign that could take most of two years. With Hospers this had not been an issue because he was not asked to invest the time. For Mac Bride his independent wealth made this possible and justifiable. Clark had promised and delivered a very limited period of time to the active campaign and returned to work. Bergland's campaign marked an alteration on how presidential campaigns were run. The potential for such campaigns to serve secondary agendas was a natural development and potentially allowed candidates to run who would not otherwise have been willing to make the necessary investment. This alteration came with hazards that were never openly discussed.

In the case of Ron Paul running for President also allowed him to augment the mailing list for his gold investment business. There was no essential conflict between the two goals but this sea change enabled future use of the ticket that would prove to be hazardous to the integrity of the Libertarian Party as a whole. Andre Marrou, first running for the nomination, accepted the nomination for vice president.

Retailing Liberty

2007-05-19T11:51:00.001-07:00

Encouraged by such figures as Murray Rothbard, Sharon Ayres, David Bergland and others he decided to apply for the post of Executive Director for the LP of California. His long time friend and mentor in politics, John Hix, the man whose ability to win floor elections was unparalleled, helped him put together a proposal which was accepted in February of 1983. Marshall's tenure in the position lasted until June, 1984. The separation had come about because his position depended on raising the money to fund his position and this had never happened. The effective management of the LPC did not integrate Marshall's efforts into their own. Yet Marshall was a gifted salesman for the ideas of freedom. The problem, which would play out again and again, was the lack of a strategically sound plan on the part of those in charge of the direction of the LP of California.

In the immediate wake of his resignation Fritz received a call from Paul Grant, then National Chairman of the LP, asking him to come to work as a ballot drive consultant. Marshall was surprised; he had never been involved in a signature gathering effort. After a consultation with John Hix, Marshall accepted, service to start when his first month's salary was in the bank. Over the next three months Marshall learned the business of signature collection on the ground, from Georgia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and Missouri. Marshall was paid many times the $900.00 a month paid to the previous, very experienced, consultant, John Robertson.

Ballot access was an enormously important aspect for the presidential campaign. Marshall performed but it would have made more sense to continue to use Robertson. Personnel problems continued to plague the campaign.

Soon, Mary Gingell would be asking Robertson to work for them again – without paying what he was already owed. The Bergland Campaign consistently failed to honor its commitments to anyone who was not a close friend of its 'in' group. Demanding payment in advance was the only way to ensure you would be paid unless you were a member of that group.

After a brief consideration of the position of National Director, Marshall founded The Advocates for Self Government in January of 1985. Its mission was to take the educational functions of the LP and focus on these, thus supporting the LP. Over the years Advocates would make a variety of educational materials available across the country.

Their inability to use the skills of individuals in ways that promoted positive growth for the Libertarian Party would continue. At the core of this was a world view that saw control as necessarily centralized.

The lack of strategic planning, connecting the ultimate goal to the means through well thought out, rational steps, again took the LP and its Movement in directions that failed to advance the cause. Political action is undertaken by a group to accomplish specific ends and these were not taken into account, either by Marshall or by those who were then running the Libertarian Party. In this those in charge of the course of the Party were more guilty than was Marshall. It had been their overlooked duty to oversee the management of the Libertarian Party of California and they should have foreseen the consequences of hiring someone whose salary needs outstripped the resources of their organization. Marshall's skills, applied nationally for candidate trainings or membership could have created real forward progress for the LP. Instead, the tendency and centralize control continued.

The lack of professional standards for hiring, the lack of a strategic vision and intermediate goals, and the influence of those who were profiting by the use of the rhetoric in ways that did not advance the reality of freedom acted to further skew the course of events.

This oversight made the Party and Movement vulnerable to become a means for manipulating opinion. This opportunity was not overlooked.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and the lines are painted on later by the greedy.

The Marrou – Emerling Campaign - 1992

2007-05-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

Greed and low habits win out yet again.

Andre Marrou was originally from New England and of French Canadian descent. A graduate of MIT he moved to Alaska to avoid supporting his family after he left his wife with several small children. In Alaska he lived out in the wilderness for several years, married again, and then became a candidate for the state legislature there as a Libertarian, winning election in 1984 and serving in the legislature for two years. In the wake of the Randolph return to the Republican Party Marrou and his wife, Eileen, settled in Las Vegas.

Marrou had run for the vice-presidential nomination in 1988, securing that position at the 1987 convention in Seattle. At that time he had chosen as his campaign manager another Libertarian who also lived in Las Vegas, Michael Emerling, now known as Michael Cloud.

Michael Emerling Cloud had enjoyed a run of semi prosperity early in the LP's history as a writer and trainer of what he called, “The Art of Political Persuasion;” He had worked for Hunscher and been fired and gone to work for Woody Jenkins, a republican legislator in Louisiana for a short while. While there Emerling would send copies of the mailing list to friends.

Emerling ran workshops for candidates that allowed Emerling to make money while introducing him to the Libertarian Party across the country. In the early years Michael was open about the fact he was basically a con-man, making money and using his visibility to sleep with various women across the country. It was easy work and the perks were attractive. But in the aftermath of the Crane – Clark Campaign his behavior grew increasingly abusive and this resulted in a cessation of invitations to speak or present workshops. He then got a job selling cars in Las Vegas and married a woman much younger than himself who had a steady income.

Michael Emerling Cloud

Vickie, who was intellectually unsophisticated and trusting, believed she was entering into a classical monogamous marriage. This turned out to be very much not the case. In fact, given the evidence that accumulated over the years Vickie eventually came to the conclusion that her husband was actually bisexual, but preferred men. His many sexual relationships with women were more about power and profit than sexual gratification.

Emerling's financial habits caused problems both within his marriage, which ended in 1990, and for the LP, though this never became known at the time.

Over the years Emerling had borrowed money from friends and supporters. He declared bankruptcy, including in this a debt to a woman who had loaned him her life savings believing that they were about to start their lives together. When Marrou began his campaign for vice-president he was called and warned by Ed Clark that having Emerling as his campaign manager was a mistake. Clark was clear about the personal habits and questionable ethics Emerling had demonstrated over the years. Marrou chose to ignore this advice.

The campaign was run out of a house in Las Vegas and later moved to Marrou's own home. During the campaign period Marrou fired Emerling. Andre said this was because Emerling insisted on putting out fundraising letters that made promises of which he, the candidate, was unaware. Marrou directed Emerling to stop; Emerling continued to send out mailings without showing the letters to Marrou in advance. As a result, Marrou fired Emerling as his campaign manager, unleashing a fire storm from Michael Emerling Cloud.

The Marrou Campaign had became the means Emerling used to relaunch himself into a career his own behavior had destroyed in the early 80s. After the firing Emerling began a campaign to remove Marrou from the ticket. The campaign included charges of credit card fraud and theft from the campaign. The National Committee held meetings with Marrou and decided that the credit card charges were unsubstantiated. Emerling and friends of his began sending out news releases to towns where Marrou was scheduled to speak in attempts to derail the campaign. This behavior caused some in the LP to characterize Emerling as, “an enemy of freedom.” But with the facility of the cat with nine lives Emerling would be back.

For Marrou the ride ended with election day, 1992. For Emerling the ride continued for another ten years.

The Crane Machine launches a stealth campaign, using initiatives – 1992

In 1983 Howie Rich acquired a new toy from the Koch Brothers. Charles and David had run into nothing but trouble with the Citizens for Congressional Reform and 'sold' it to Howie, though there was no evidence that money actually changed hands.

After spending ten years probing around in the Republican Party and working to get visibility for themselves through Cato with Congress the Crane Cabal had failed to accomplish much. Duncan Scott had been elected as a state legislator in New Mexico, moving on from there to Montana. Howie and his wife, Andrea continued to invest in real estate in New York.

The first Tax Credit Initiative had been fielded in 1982 in California by Manny Klausner, one of the founders of Reason Magazine.

Howie's new acquisition had promise soon to be realized. From 1992 on the Crane Cabal, as always managed for Crane by Howie Rich, spawned an incredible proliferation of identical not-for-profit organizations, each dedicated to doing pretty much the same thing. All were mostly virtual organizations; Many were created by the same web designers. These were used to build out a stealth campaign to employ the initiative process to change the laws in states where this was allowed. This fit in exactly with the original game plan of the Crane Machine. Crane had always viewed local activists as an obstacle to his accumulation of power. Now, local activists were no longer an issue.

In employing this growing collection of nonprofits Crane took the logic of centralization of power to a new application. These modeled on the National Taxpayers Union, a real organization that had provided a steady income for its originators, one that would eventually lead them to partnership with those who would eventually be known as NeoCons.

The first of the Crane-Howie organizations, U. S. Term Limits, focused on limiting the number of terms for any elected legislator. It would be followed by initiatives that promoted an end to eminent domain, school choice, and spending caps by government and eventually measures such as legislation relating to end of life issues raised by the Terry Schivo Case and abortion recovery. Each of these offered opportunities for moving money and for profit.

Many individuals in various states had worked for these kinds of measure; the problem was not the use of the initiative process, a tool introduced by the Populists to allow local people to change government, making it responsive to their needs. It was the means that made the Crane – Howie strategy questionable.

The initiatives themselves often caused problems because they did not reflect the needs of those who had to live with the resulting law. Even more egregiously, the initiatives were deceptively run as 'grass roots' efforts to potential donors outside the state when they did not have real support within the state and left no body of local expertise or enhanced organization in their wake. It was a reprise of the Crane – Clark Campaign, this time run at a profit. Unused funds were transferred into the accounts of those who Crane and Howie had known and worked with since the 70s.

But worse than this pilfering of funds, illegal but justified as an acceptable means for advancing their agenda, was the lack of goals and a consistent strategy to achieve ends that advanced the cause of local control and individual governance by consent and persuasion. .

In the original vision of American government the Founders had assumed that local towns and the people who lived in them would make their own rules for how they structured their lives. This could be seen as a multitude of small experiments in living that would allow for a learning curve, helping a free people develop the means of reducing conflict as they learned to live outside of a traditional hierarchy imposed externally. This model for local government had fallen victim to the centralization of power both by states and by the Federalizing of power after the Revolution. Presumably, returning to this original model should have been on the agenda for all libertarians, both those within the Party, those in think tanks like Cato, and those who were in the non-party movement. It was not. Instead these variously followed strategies of conquest, disinformation, and withdrawal into insulated groups that ignored the mainstream entirely. Only a few individuals within the movement as a whole followed strategies that served to focus their activism on local organizing on issues that then could serve to develop the skills of small governance using persuasion and consent.

Sometimes things are just too obvious to grasp, especially, perhaps, when those making the decisions have a very different conception of what freedom means.

Through the next 15 years the Crane Machine would produce cookie cutter nonprofits by the dozens that only served to develop local organization when their activities antagonized local people so much they organized to oppose the initiatives that the Crane Machine fielded. In some cases the Crane-Howie initiatives quashed ongoing local efforts to achieve similar goals, again destroying the learning process for local organizing. The Crane – Howie initiatives used out of state contractors, paid signature gatherers, pouring in hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, sometimes swamping local opposition. In some cases the Crane – Howie Machine would outspend local activists six to one to get their measures passed into law. Those who provided the funding for the Crane – Howie initiatives would be, ironically enough, the same corporations who had become of entrenched subsidizers of big government who demonstrably had strong economic incentives in this serial campaign that changed law without educating or empowering local people and grass roots democracy.

This leaves the question of whether or not the Crane Machine intended to sell its services to Big Government and to the corporations which control government to the judgment of the reader. It is possible they were blinded by their own ideology, which was founded in the naïve, bodice ripping unreality of Rand. The Richs especially had come to the movement through the NBI in New York and through wealth and age had become elder statesmen in this micro cult.

The Harry Browne – Emerling – Willis Campaign 1996 and 2000

2007-05-19T11:47:00.001-07:00

A meeting of need and opportunity

"Why did you decide to run for President?" "It was my wife's idea." -- Harry Browne

"I have no temptation to vote, to campaign, to try and stop a candidate who promises new follies." -- Harry Browne, "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World", 1973

Running for office was Browne's own idea. Harry Browne contacted John Hix, the respected expert in internal political campaigns, and paid $1000.00 for a day's advice in how to secure the nomination.

The reason for this change is clear. Browne's book sales were falling, each one selling less than the one before and he had accustomed himself to a lavish life style.

The Long Tour of the Book was about to begin. It would prove to be lucrative for all involved. Browne's venture into politics yielded $100,000.00 a year to him from either his campaign or the LP from 1995 – 2001.

Securing the nomination for Harry Browne began in August of 1994. To secure the nomination the Berglandista were prepared to do anything necessary. Perry Willis, then National Director through a previous manipulation of events, was already covertly working for the Browne Campaign. He did all within his power to ensure that other candidates had no access to mailing lists or other Libertarian resources.

Crane most likely admired the means and the outcome and later did cooperate with Willis and Browne in other efforts.

Browne secured the nomination handily and those who had helped him were set up to profit. Later, Perry Willis would write a 20 page letter, “confessing” to but justifying his actions as necessary to the cause of liberty. The hope of a campaign and an LP that would support and empower local organizing again fizzled.

Both Browne campaigns, 1996 and 2000, and those in control of the LP during what became known as the Brown Cloud Years, were actively hostile to local organizing. Perry Willis, in particular, discouraged serious local campaigns.

Carla Howell

Eventually, having worked his way up the food chain and building heavily on personal charm, Perry met Michael Emerling Cloud and began working with him when he replaced Emerling as campaign manager for the Marrou Campaign. There was both synergy and similarity of goals. The two men clicked. During his early years as a Libertarian Emerling had openly admitted that he was a con artist with activists such as Gail Lightfoot of California. This frankness only stopped when he became involved with a woman in Massachusetts named Carla Howell. Carla, a professional women who owned her own home, became Emerling's significant other. For her he needed to be respectable. Howell was connected to a moderately old New England family and moving towards respectability meant that Emerling had to publicly reform. Howell also had other attractions, ones that could extend the never-ending Presidential campaign.

Howell had, through fluke of timing, run against Ted Kennedy for US Senate in a race where the Republican was Jack E. Robinson, who lost the support of the Republican Party when accusations of drunk driving surfaced before his campaign had really started. Howell did well against the Republican while Kennedy walked away with the seat yet again. Emerling – Cloud managed the Howell campaign and a report from by Dean Chambers on June 6, 2000, “ Cloud, ....convinces his clients to spend large amounts of money on direct mail fundraising of questionable effectiveness. The Howell campaign's disclosures with the Federal Election Commission show its expenses for fundraising are not much below the money those efforts brought in. So after Cloud receives his 15 percent fundraising commission, and his preferred mailing house gets their cut, there's not much money left for the actual campaign." Several other campaigns followed, taking advantage of Howell's social capital as the grand daughter of a socialite of the 1950s.

. The Berglandista plan to run Howell for President in 2004 began even before the 2000 Libertarian Convention in Anaheim. This hopeful sinecure would whimper to a slow death as activists in Massachusetts began the process of retaking their state party in the wake of the 2002 defeat of Berglandista candidate Eli Israel in Indianapolis.

Real Li bertarians Fight Back

2007-05-19T11:45:00.001-07:00

The following is just one incident in a reaction against the Berglandista that eventually ousted them entirely from any positions of respect in the LP.

=====LP of Pa. Board of Directors resolution passed 3:01pm 9/23/2001====

"Whereas, certain individuals associated with the Libertarian Party conspired to violate National Libertarian Party policy, libertarian principles, and normal standards of business ethics, and

Whereas, we have in the past supported, promoted and endorsed these individuals by our official actions and in our publications and appeals, and

Whereas, we have an obligation to keep our membership informed;

The grip of the Berglandista on the LP was finally wrested away by a determined coalition of activists at the 2002 Convention in Indianapolis. The Berglandista candidate for National Chairman, Eli Israel, went down to defeat, opposed by Geoff Neale from Texas and George Phillies of Massachusetts. George, a professor of physics, would be the central force in excising the Emerling influence from his own state several years later. Stubbornly refusing to be silenced he, like the energizer bunny, just keeps going. Phillies lost, but took enough votes to deny election to Israel.

Today, four years later, the LP remains disjointed and without a strategic vision that connects to a plan of action. However, it remains an effective meeting point for people seeking personal freedom and political alternatives and, as with all life, there is yet hope. If the LP assembles a strategically sound plan, taking into account the need for governance and a community model based on persuasion, building at the most local level, it holds the potential of becoming itself a model for the solution.

An effective model for action would focus power on the most local level, building the state and national components entirely as support and networking points through which such useful functions as an effective mediation system would operate with transparency. This could be done entirely online, allowing the National Office to be eliminated or decentralized. The Presidential campaign could then be handled by a candidate who would focus attention on local organizing by providing a charismatic presence. If the local organizing accomplishes what it well could there would be acceptable candidates.

The national site would, in effect, be a collection of resources using a vetting system for information that would disallow the predatory inclinations of such figures as Ed Crane, Michael Emerling, and Perry Willis.

Additionally, these ideas were not used as originally anticipated because, as with all ideas, they were sold through such outlets as Cato as tools that actually served to decouple profit and accountability and could be enforced through legislation. These did not, therefore produce the benefits of a free market but rather allowed for the optimization of profit by corporations that also used the legislative process to minimize or even eliminate their potential for liability.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they are not trying to get you.

The chain of events that drove the Libertarian Movement to its present condition was not all by design. Those involved failed to examine the past dispassionately. It is always hard to question the actions of those we accept as heroes, though doing so is essential since we are all only human. Many were soon so emotionally and financially invested in the 'system' they had created that questions brought into doubt their own egos and financial well being. Some had secrets to hide. It was all too human, as are all human enterprises. But to excuse the past is to ignore the need to build a better future, and that none of us can afford to do.

The underlying mythology of Objectivism is pointedly pro-business and anti-woman, ironically enough since Rand was herself a woman. Over the years those who were most impacted by Rand's work have either confronted the contradictions or lapsed into antagonism towards those who do question.

Ideas always have consequences, which is one of the reasons we need to be careful about how well the ideas that represent action match the action to be taken. To this day libertarians bemoan the absence of women who are willing to invest time and money in the LP. Never have they thought to question if this decided preference might reflect a real problem internal to the LP itself. If the car doesn't run when by all you know it should you had better check the engine. You might be missing the crank shaft.

On the issue of global warming it is curious that a movement that endorses accountability ignored the need to ensure that if global warming was real then the consequences would impact all of us while the profit for creating the conditions would be specific to certain industries and individuals. That doubtless comes from romanticizing business and ignoring the deceptive and unethical practices so prevalent in large corporations today.

Bill Hunscher and Roger Mac Bride, both now deceased, would not be surprised.

Life is itself a joke on all of us.

Libertarian Rituals:

2007-05-19T11:44:00.001-07:00

Republicans have prayer breakfasts – Libertarians have the Statement of Principles, Nolan Chart, None of the Above, the Pledge, and the Dallas Accords.

There is no ritual more important to Libertarians than the Statement of Principles. Written by a small clutch of people, including Dr. John Hospers and Sarah O'Connor Foster in a hotel room during the course of the first National Convention, the Statement is mortared into the platform of the LP and cannot be excised with less than a 7 / 8^th vote of all of the delegates attending the convention. The wording reflects the verbiage of Ayn Rand, sacred to so many early Libertarians.

The Statement of Principles

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.

The Nolan Chart

2007-05-19T11:37:00.000-07:00

If you go on line to most Libertarian groups, including the Libertarian Party, you will find an announcement about the World's Smallest Political Quiz.

It is very handy and useful as a tool for ascertaining your political viewpoint. David Nolan designed it many years ago when tech was not so high and we relied on things like vacuum tubes, wires and switches.

You can find the test at several Libertarian sites on the Internet. No matter what they call it, Diamond or whatever, it is the Nolan Chart Quiz.

Personal Issues

(Choose A if you agree, M for Maybe, D if you disagree.)

Government should not censor speech, press, media or Internet

There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults

Military service should be voluntary. There should be no draft

(Choose A if you agree, M for Maybe, D if you disagree.)

Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs

There should be no National ID card

Economic Issues

(Choose A if you agree, M for Maybe, D if you disagree.)

End "corporate welfare." No government handouts to business

End government barriers to international free trade

Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security

Replace government welfare with private charity

Cut taxes and government spending by 50% or more

None of the Above

Life is filled with strange reversals.

“I certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.”

“I certify that I will initiate deceit, manipulation, or violence to achieve any of my goals, personal, social, or political.”

The National Pledge has been around since before I was first a member, meaning at least since 1973.