Although I know that all of the candidates for State Chair have the same basic goals; those goals are to grow the party and get Libertarians elected to partisan and nonpartisan offices here in California. The difference is how each candidate plans on achieving those goals in the position of Chair.

I believe to grow the party we need to focus more on increasing the registered Libertarian voters in the state, getting more people involved in activism and growing our donor base. These things need to happen at the local level first so I think the number one responsibility of the Chair is to make sure that each county organization has the tools and resources necessary to do outreach in their communities. I don’t believe we need to focus on only on an arbitrary percentage of registered voters or those being dues paying members, as those things will happen organically if we can send the right message. The way to get new members isn’t to send out something that simply asks for $25 a year, but rather to first let people know our message, second find out what they are most interested in and then giving them the tools they need to achieve those goals. Once they’re engaged they will be willing to make the investment of joining and donating to the party. As we grow our base of voters, volunteers, members and donors we will better be able to achieve the ultimate goal of getting Libertarians elected!

And to get Libertarians elected, I want to help serious candidates become viable candidates. In the past we have looked for numerous “paper candidates” to get the Libertarian Party on the ballot and to put forth our message. These candidates were given little support from the Party, and generally little was expected in return. However, the tide changed in 2016 when serious candidates were recruited who wanted to run viable campaigns but we continued to offer little to no support; I was one of those candidates. This is the major change I want to make! I want to insure we provide each serous candidate the support they need to win, which would include a treasurer to help them meet all of the stringent FPPC filing requirements; I want to provide candidates and their campaign teams training and resources to run effective campaigns; and I want to insure we raise significant amounts of money for their campaigns to be competitive. I want to help Libertarians become competitive enough to win elections across the State of California! I want to have more WINS like that of the Jeff Hewitt campaign of 2018!

Last year when I ran for Chair I said I was in it to win it! I said we all needed to put on our “big boy pants” and get the job done and I believe we are doing just that! We are resonating with the voters in California which can be seen in the fact that we had our first partisan candidate progress to the general election in a contested primary and we had a HUGE win in Riverside County when Jeff Hewitt was elected County Supervisor. Please give me the chance to keep this train rolling toward our ultimate goal of achieving a world set free in our lifetime!

Lastly, I know that to be successful as a political party we need funds to further our outreach. Although our contributions are up in the past year from where they were, there is much more to be done. I have been actively meeting with donors and am optimistic that in the next year we will be in a position to be a force to be reckoned with? This is truly a work in progress so for transparency I will be reporting the outcome of y outreach at the convention.