It was only one month ago, just one month after the election, that the Libertarian Party announced its ambitious goal to run double the number of candidates in 2013 and 2014 than it did in 2012. As detailed by the Party’s Executive Director this week, they’re well on their way to achieving that number, and maybe more.
Candidate recruiting
Libertarian Party Executive Director Carla Howell is still smiling these days. And she has plenty of reason to. The Party tracks the number of citizens who contact the LP each year to get more information about possibly running for elective office on the Libertarian ticket. Since the November election, they’ve received 370 candidate inquiries. According to Howell, that’s more than double the number the party received in either 2008 or 2010. Added to the hundreds of party members that are recurring candidates every election, and it creates quite a slate of potential elected officials.
Considering the Libertarian Party ran 580 candidates nationwide last year, that forecasts to over 1,100 Libertarian Party candidates on the General Election ballot in 2014, possibly more. For the record, out of those 580 Libertarian candidates in 2012, 7 received over 1 million votes each. That’s not bad if you remember that the Republicans and Democrats outspent the Libertarian Party $666 to $1 in the last election cycle - $2 billion to $3 million.
For further details, read the Dec. 1, 2012 edition of this column, ‘Libertarian Party Strategy to run Double the Candidates in 2014’.
Libertarian snowball effect
Another statistic that analysts might consider an ‘indicator’ is that in the 2012 Presidential election, the Republicans and Democrats had to spend 666-times the amount of money to receive 99-times the number of votes. One could argue that if their money were to dry up, so would the resulting votes. In the Libertarian Party, money is less of a necessity and more of a benefit.
While the two establishment parties are accused of selling their political souls to obtain the massive amount of corporate and special interest funding needed to prop up their candidates each election, the Libertarians actually turn a profit on each new member. But then, it’s easy to be a successful salesman when you’ve got a legitimate product to sell.
Speaking to new Party members, Libertarian Executive Director Howell said, “Based on past prospecting efforts, every $51 you donate up front will bring in one new LP member. However, during the next three years, that new member donates over $153 to the Libertarian Party – plus votes Libertarian and supports Libertarian candidates – a triple win. It’s an investment that pays off for liberty.”
Let this column rephrase that – If the Libertarian Party had received the $2 billion in contributions the Dems and GOP did in 2012, they’d have a campaign chest with over $6 billion in 2015 and 39,215,686 new Libertarian Party members – each year. And unlike the Democrats and Republicans, not one bit of it is from multinational corporations buying influence. It’s all from the American people. For comparison’s sake, President Obama’s final vote total in the 2012 General Election was 65,899,660.
Read ‘2012 General Election Presidential Results for all Candidates’ for the final 2012 vote totals.
The Libertarian Party’s Carla Howell says that’s not all either, adding, “Plus, every 25 new Libertarian Party members generates 1 additional Libertarian candidate on the ballot during the next election cycle.” Again, if the Libertarian Party had spent the $2 billion the Democrats and Republicans did in 2012, they would have had 39 million new members, generating 1.5 million candidates in 2014.
If the Republicans and Democrats are watching, they might want to take note. While their two establishment parties continue to shrink and need to spend more and more money each year to acquire fewer and fewer votes, the Libertarian Party is functioning under the opposite paradigm. The more they grow, the bigger their voice. And the bigger their voice, the more they grow.
For more information on the Libertarian Party, visit LP.org.
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Related Articles:
Libertarian Party Strategy to run Double the Candidates in 2014
2012 General Election Presidential Results for all Candidates
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