The Colorado Liberty Newsletter
is the official publication of The Libertarian Party of Colorado.
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It is important for all of us to spread the message of liberty, wherever we are and whomever we are with.
Recently, I had the opportunity to fill in for Amy Oliver, host of a radio show on KFKA 1310.
I also got to speak to about 40 people at the Red Rocks chapter of Liberty on the Rocks, as well. You can see it here:
http://qik.com/ppcalpha
Every day, there are examples of how statism is taking over our lives from both the left and the right. These examples give us fodder for discussion.
For instance:
* I don't think Denver Post columnist Tina Griego would disagree with being characterized as "liberal."
But even she, inherently, understands the problem with government control of any program. In a recent column, "Panel's hard knocks may open doors," she writes:
"I've spent too much time in poor neighborhoods watching people drown in myriad contradictory and confusing government policies..."
And yet, knowing this, and acknowledging this, liberals want the same government to take over health care in the entire country.
* NFL player Plaxico Burress plead guilty to charges that will put him in prison for two years because he failed to ask the state of New York for permission to exercise his 2nd Amendment right.
He took the plea because he was looking at 3 1/2 years if he was convicted by a jury. And he was, in fact, guilty of carrying an unregistered handgun. The problem is that New York has a law with such steep penalties for simply possessing a handgun without permission from the government.
It is outrageous. The State of New York must have plenty of prison space and resources if it can spend them on keeping Burress locked up for two years for this. Good to know New York is in such good financial shape.
* According to the Denver Post, at a recent town hall on health care, Senator Michael Bennet "used Veterans Affairs as an example of a public insurance program that is working for one group of people."
When we see these examples in the media, take note of them. Use them to show how the government is taking over our lives and how much better off if everyone is in a free, capitalist society.
Nothing is perfect. After all, society is made up of humans. But in an effort to make society "fairer," the government inevitably makes it worse.
Freedom is dangerous. Live dangerously.
And Let Freedom Ring, David K. Williams, Jr. Libertarian Party of Colorado State Chair
Write letter to affiliates and nascent affiliate organizations including:
Introduction and description of Vice Chair job
Summary of state-level resources, including Meetup, available to affiliates
Encouragement to provide updates, event schedules, etc. to (affiliate?) newsletter
Affiliate handbook and related affiliate documents
I am continuing to work on my medium-term goals.
Mike Spalding and I are discussing hosting a Jefferson County LP event in order to recruit a new affiliate chair.
With Mary MacFarlane appointed the new Records Director, I will be providing her with all the electronic versions of the last four years of LPCO records.
For years, and in the current Candidate's Handbook, I have
recommended that candidates not announce to early. There
are two reasons for that:
As an announced candidate, your access to media is limited as media outlets tend to be wary of printing articles by announced candidates. It sort of obligates them to print all the other candidates as well.
Average voters have no interest in politics until the month prior to the primary.
THIS ELECTION CYCLE IS DIFFERENT!!!
This August and September the average voter is all fired up.
There is anger out there. They are interested in politics
and all incumbents are in trouble.
So, all Libertarians considering a campaign for this next
election should get their campaign started: NOW!!!
Announce your intentions.
Start a blog with your name in the URL. The blog is free, it costs $10 to have your own URL. DO it now, and keep updating it twice a week.
Get some business cards printed with your basic campaign information on the front, and an attention getter on the back.
Something like this on the back:
Are you angry yet? www.TomeJones.com
Make it big enough to fill the entirety of the back of the card.
Start leaving these cards everywhere you go.
We need 10 candidates for our goal of 4 candidates on every
ballot in Colorado. We have 6 at the "seriously considering
it" stage. So, we're half-way there.
8,894 active + 2,680 inactive for a total of 11,574. The monthly growth rate was 1.20% and the projected growth rate for the year is 16.63%. Since Van’s is the last major outreach event this year, we will have to focus on high schools, colleges, personal outreach and precinct building if we want to keep our growth rate up.
Event Planning
Work is concluding on an LP presence at each Van's Warped Tour venue throughout the country. In Denver, we had seven activists staffing our booth, and we got 40 Libertarian registrations and 217 contacts in 7 hours.
I am using Donny Ferguson's July 13 Monday Message as a template for organizing efforts at precinct building. I am working on lists and maps of the precincts with the highest concentrations of active (meaning voted in 2008) Libertarians and contact info of those Libertarians for Arapahoe and El Paso counties, and plans to do the same for Adams, Boulder, Denver, Douglas, Jefferson, Larimer, Mesa, and Weld. The basic idea is to start with inreach, initiating personal contact with our members, get them into regular communication with us and each other, and then expand to activism and outreach.
Equipment and Materials
The links card needs to be finalized and produced in significant quantities. I printed 1,000 for use at Van’s (of which perhaps 200 were handed out), but inkjet printing is not water-resistant.
It turns out that 5,000 “Pro-Choice on Everything” buttons for use at all the Van’s Warped Tour venues was wildly optimistic. To date, only about 1,150 of them were deployed (including 250 by us), and a couple of states even complained that such a slogan was too antagonistic to pro-lifers.
Voter Registration Drives
There has been little further work on automating parts of the process, and in fact I missed the deadline to file the forms from Pridefest by one business day. I am waiting to hear back as to whether there will be any penalties as a consequence.
There has been no further progress on modifying the national form and manual from the Election Assistance Commission.
Contact Processing
All the contacts for Van’s Warped Tour were entered, thanks to assistance from Kate and Jaime; the data needs to be cleaned and the forms scanned. Some contact forms from other events this summer have been scanned, but with the exception of Boulder Creek Festival, they have not been entered.
One-on-One Outreach
I am still hoping to get Gene Freeland to give another one of his training seminars.
Speaking Program:
Event Planning
I gave my card to a high school teacher at Van’s. We’ll see if he invites us to come speak.
Speaker Recruitment
No activity to report
Speaker Training
No activity to report
High School Program:
Curricula Kit
No activity to report
Scholarship Contest
Rob McNealy is writing up a how-to for contacting schools based on how it is done by his fraternal order (Masons).
Student Groups
No activity to report
College Program:
Student Groups
No activity to report
Activism Training
No activity to report
Alliances
I had an email exchange with Kevin Hotaling, one of the activists associated with the Boulder Young Americans for Liberty. He is planning on running for Boulder City Council and proposes some kind of joint fundraising effort. The voter registration database from January shows he is affiliated with the Green Party.
I have ordered 500 license plate frames, which will be delivered to me on 8/12.
They are a dark blue background with white lettering. The top says Libertarian, the bottom says Party.
Affiliates wanting to have license plate frames at their events will need to purchase the frames from LPCO.
Concealed Carry Class:
I have contacted an instructor and received some pricing information, class size limits, fundraising dollar potential, etc.
I still have more work to do on this, and it's not something I'm an expert in.
Right now it looks like for a 10-person class the cost per person would be $150, and the LPCO could make $250.
Monthly Pledge Program
Monthly donations are the best way to help make a political difference.
Although contributions are not tax-deductible, we have fixed expenses. Campaigns and events cost money.
Choose an amount per month below, and PayPal will automatically send us your donation each month.
Don't have a PayPal account? Click any button below and use your credit card or bank account instead.
We've made it so easy, there really is no excuse for not contributing right now.
Join the "Nickel Club!"
Donate $5.00 each month easily using PayPal.
Receive a Libertarian bumper sticker and outreach handouts for friends.
Join the "Copper Club!"
Donate $10.00 each month easily using PayPal.
Receive a Libertarian bumper sticker, outreach handouts for friends, and a Libertarian cap.
OPPORTUNITY to help liberty: Volunteer Coordinator for the Libertarian Party of Colorado.
This person will use their people skills to find, motivate, and guide the various volunteers
that contact the LPCO, matching the volunteer interests to the needs of the organization.
This is a volunteer position for a political party that showed 62% growth in the past year
and has a Board of Directors that is committed, interesting, and active in the community.
A one year commitment with an average of 4-6 hours per week is needed.
Please contact membershipdirector@lpcolorado.org with interest and questions
Clint Jones
Libertarian Party of Colorado
6989 S. Jordan Road
Second Floor, Suite 5U
Centennial, Colorado 80112
(303) 936-3874
The following groups are looking for individuals to collect signatures for three new statewide petitions. This effort is a joint petition drive with a joint flyer. Visit these websites to read the proposals and get other information:
There is also the possibly of compensation for signature gathering.
If you are interested in gathering signatures, please contact: Jim Frye or Debbie Schum.
Among other reforms, these petitions will:
Undo the new exorbitant fees on vehicles.
Undo the illegal property tax increase.
Ban future state debt and limit local debt to voter-approved bonds. Local debt limited by total amount and 10 year-term.
Colorado voters would appreciate the opportunity to vote on these matters.
I've been working with Justin and Dave on an active Letter to the Editor writing campaign. My goal is to have two letters published each week in different papers around the state.
In negotiations to have Dave appear on Independent Thinking with Jon Caldara.
Beginning to reach out to radio producers to have Dave on their shows.
Dave and I talked about sending the WSPQ to statewide candidates and then reviewing them for our members on a few key issues.
Future of America TV is a new network in Denver broadcasting on Channels 56 and 57 through the Denver Open Media. They have reached out to the party about recording a weekly television show.
I am starting to develop ideas for our blog. I'd like to meet with Severin to discuss various ideas we have for the blog.
Supporting Libertarian candidates with contributions,
Supporting the LPCO with activist time and/or contributions.
I am on "active" voter number 839 (by alphabet in the W's).
I have added 150 people to The Colorado Liberty Newsletter Subscriber List.
I have emailed/mailed Contribution and/or Activist forms to 140 active voters.
Almost all of these 140 are willing to place a yard sign/bumper sticker for a Libertarian candidate.
A few did not know the Libertarians were even organized to this extent or that the Libertarian Party had a State Board of Directors.
I plan on following up with these 140 once we have another premium gift to entice them.
If anyone is thinking about running/managing a serious campaign for political office as a Libertarian, NOW is the time to start laying the groundwork to find out which of your Libertarian constituents will support you with a contribution or with signs/bumper stickers (see #1 above). Make your list using our calling script and the SOS list of registered Libertarians. Call/email me to get signed up with Google docs and get the script and list.
I am still looking for five to ten more volunteers to help in calling Colorado Libertarians using a short 3 minute script and putting the results in Google Docs. Email me if you want to volunteer calling as few as 100 people this summer. membershipdirector@lpcolorado.org.
If you would like to be informed about the activities of the Libertarian Party of Colorado,
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The Libertarian Party of Colorado welcomes Mary MacFarlane
who was nominated and appointed as Records Director in August.
She has been in touch with Steve Gallant, the previous Records Director (now Vice Chair),
who briefed her on the duties. Mary has a Bachelor's degree in English from Hofstra
University in Hempstead, New York, and currently works as a Development
Coordinator for the Independence Institute. She will continue to compile
and file in order to advance liberty in America. Welcome Mary!
Thank you to our 1776 Club members.
Thank you to our 1776 Club members.
These are the people that keep the doors open and the lights on at the State party. Please consider joining them!
Clint Jones
Curtis Harris
Daniel Underkofler
Debbie Schum
Deni Cates
Doug Anderson
Eva Kosinski
Frank Atwood
Greg Woods
Grace Reed
Jaime Brown
James J. Frye
Jeff Lucius
Jeff Orrok
Jennifer Amerkanov
Joe Klauser
Kathryn Chappell
Leah Kelley
Martin Buchanan
Michele Poague
Monte Poague
Mike Spalding
Norman Olsen
Rand Fanshier
Richard Randall
Shannon Murphy
Steve Adams
Steve Gallant
Stu McFarland
We have increased our Membership to nearly 12,000 members. Still, there are only Twenty-Nine 1776 Club Members.
Please join these 29 dedicated individuals who help us build the voice of liberty, support local Libertarian Candidates, and increase outreach/education to Colorado Voters.
A friend of mine managed to get tickets to the "inner sanctum", so on August 15th, I went to Grand Junction to see President Obama. I did not get to ask a question. Basically, it was like being an unselected contestant in the audience of a game show.
I was approached by several TV journalists (mainly by virtue of my seat—in the back, in front of the press section). A couple of hours later, I found myself on a panel of 3 people, live on CNN. We were told we were doing an hour long debate about health care reform. One was the "I'm all for it" guy, the other was the "I'm on the fence" guy. And I was supposed to be the ignoramus backwoods buffoon opposed to everything. I was told by CNN I was not to say "Libertarian" (too controversial) or "constitution" (not pertinent). I "forgot" and said Libertarian right away.
The so called debate with the other 2 panelists never happened. Instead, the "interviewer" appeared to want to debate me himself. He put me in a time out for saying I don't have insurance and don't want insurance, and that mandatory insurance is a corporate welfare subsidy for insurance companies, which doesn't help me or my doctor…only insurance companies. He told me he'd come back to me after I'd had a minute to think about the inaccurate things I'd said. He went on to the other guys, then came back to me by asking didn't I think I was selfish (yes, he said that…TWICE. View the interview here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyHYVizifhA&feature=player_embedded ). I explained that insurance companies are a big reason health care costs are so high. What I later wished I would have said was "I'M selfish? I'm not the one proposing thousands of dollars in fines for people who can't afford insurance!"
Apparently, I wasn't enough of a buffoon, because the "interviewer" decided to cut the hour long debate off after 5 minutes. He didn't even let the other guys respond to what I'd said. And indeed, afterwards one agreed with me.
Had the debate actually happened, I would have talked about these things:
Health care reform discussion goes around and around in a circle. Many people have come to believe that we HAVE to have insurance to afford health care, which IS very expensive; that insurance is the solution, and an integral part of our health. They try to figure out how to make sure everyone has insurance, instead of focusing on health care prices and how to bring that down. Were that the focus, they’d see that insurance raises health care costs directly by approximately 60%. Hospitals and doctors have contracts with insurance companies. Because insurance companies are dealing in "bulk" they get a discount, typically paying about 40% of the actual bill. Medicaid/Medicare (M/M) does the same thing. So the hospital raises their prices in order to make up the difference. And they are frequently not reimbursed for anywhere from months to years. Now add in what it costs them to deal with insurance and M/M. I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement in health care pricing—I'm saying insurance clearly doesn't solve the problem. Especially when the insurance companies themselves are forced to deal with ridiculous mandates—laws—about what they have to cover and you have to pay for. Like men paying for pregnancy coverage, breast reductions, birth control pills, etc. This is comparable to what your car insurance would cost if you had to be covered (by law) for tire rotations, oil changes, all maintenance, and even things that don't apply to your car at all.
How much does a broken leg cost? How about stitches? Cyst removal? What other industry can get away with not telling you the cost up front?
I urge all of you to read the health care reform bills yourselves. States will NOT be allowed to "opt out". Neither will citizens or businesses. Sure, you can keep your current insurance…as long as you don't change ANYTHING about it. And if you can't afford insurance (you have to pay for the public option, too), well, too bad…you'll be fined.
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