| Vol. VIII, No. 6 | Editor: Robert Giedt | August 1998 |
In preparation for the November elections and to gain valuable exposure, a statewide candidates' barbecue will be held on Saturday, October 10. San Mateo County Libertarians will join East Bay Libertarians at the picnic to show support for candidates at Garin Regional Park in Hayward (located on Garin Avenue off Mission Boulevard). A $5 donation is requested for each person attending. Specific times and complete details will follow in September's newsletter, but mark your calendars now!
Statewide candidates Steve Kubby (Governor), Ted Brown (U.S. Senate), Gail Lightfoot (Secretary of State), Joe Farina (Attorney General) and Jon Petersen (Treasurer) are expected to attend. This is your chance to hear the leading Libertarians in California while enjoying a great barbecue!
Volunteers are always welcome. Anyone interested in helping out in the planning or staffing of the barbecue should call Steve Marsland at 650/738-5926.
As July is a notably slow month for spectator sports, I channel-surfed across coverage of the Tour de France cycling event only to be jolted out of my seat by the sponsor name of the U.S. team. It was none other than the United States Postal Service--a government agency. The USPS was not simply "a" sponsor of the team, they were the primary or "name" sponsor. This meant that they put up the most cash to support the 15-person team and support staff. Now, I'm all in favor of both cycling and corporate sponsorships, but enough's enough with our tax dollars. If I'm going to spend money on cycling, I'd rather contribute to local organizations like the Silicon Valley/Mid-Peninsula Bike Coalition which takes efforts to improve cycling safety.
According to the voluminous United States Code, Title 39, Part I, Chapter 4, Section 403 (b), It shall be the responsibility of the Postal Service--(1) to maintain an efficient system of collection, sorting, and delivery of the mail nationwide; (2) to provide types of mail service to meet the needs of different categories of mail and mail users; and (3) to establish and maintain postal facilities of such character and in such locations, that postal patrons throughout the Nation will have ready access to essential postal services. I must have missed out on (4) to establish a national cycling team at the expense of the unwilling taxpayer.
This is the third year the USPS has sponsored or helped to sponsor the team and while there are a number of other lesser corporate sponsors ("small" companies including Visa, Nations Bank and Volkswagen), the thought that a government agency is putting up big dough for an elite group of cyclists is ridiculous. Even if one could say that this is some demented form of "advertising," how does that condone their sponsorship of RAGBRAI (The Des Moines Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa) or becoming a "World Partner" at the Nike World Masters Games this month in Portland (like Nike needs the help)? As Congress spins its wheels to "control" spending, the flagrant and constant waste of our tax dollars do nothing to repair our government's "flat tire" image.
The Libertarian Party of San Mateo County will be holding its next social event on Sunday, September 27 at the Howard Johnson's in San Mateo. The speaker for the afternoon will be Mark Hinkle, Chairman of the California Libertarian Party. A Libertarian activist for many years in Santa Clara, Mark has led the effort to professionalize the California state party over the few years.
The event will start with a social hour from 23 pm where light beverages and snacks will be provided. From 3-4 PM, Mark will give a short speech and then provide the opportunity to ask questions.
This talk will be a unique opportunity to talk to the leadership of the California Party, and we look forward to a rousing turnout. Don't miss it!
The Stephen Marsland for State Assembly Campaign has established a general-purpose Libertarian Party contact phone number for San Mateo County. The number, 650/572-3268, was established to allow the campaign to respond to voters interested in information about the Libertarian Party. The phone line will also accept credit card donations to the Marsland for Assembly Campaign.
The contact phone line has two options. Callers can request information about the Libertarian Party by phone. This phone line will be cleared by the Membership Chair, Lacy Nelson, who will send out general-purpose information about the party. Callers can also select an option to donate funds to the Marsland for Assembly campaign. The credit card charges are cleared through the banking system with the assistance of the Libertarian Party of California.
Campaigns Chair Bernie Jackson reported on the success of LPSM candidates in the June primary. Of all California's third-party candidates in races including both major parties, Mike Moloney received the top congressional vote percentage, and Steve Marsland received the second-best state assembly percentage. Steve dubbed this success the "one-two punch."
Steve showed us the draft of his campaign ad which he plans to run in the six Independent Newspaper Group papers from Redwood City to Daly City, and we had a general discussion about campaign strategies, publicity, and debates.
Vice Chair Lacy Nelson, also our new Membership Chair, reported that he will handle routine information requests but will not have time to implement the membership plan proposed by former Membership Chair Frank Minishak. Since one difficulty with Frank's plan is uncertainty about the return from direct mail, Steve offered to use his campaign funds for an experimental recruitment and fund-raising letter promoting the Moloney/Marsland "one-two punch." Steve will compose a draft and pass it on to Bernie and Newsletter Chair Robert Giedt for editing and layout.
Publicity and Activities Chair Barbara Less reported that we are unable to book our usual Howard Johnson's room for July, so the next social event is set for September 27.
We then discussed staging other publicity events featuring Mike as California's top third-party vote-getter. These events would give us material for news releases, direct mail, and appeals to other third party voters, especially Reform and American Independent voters. We even discussed staging our own debates, instead of waiting for others to invite us to theirs. We made no specific decisions for now; the first step is to run Steve's ad and mail his "one-two punch" letter, hopefully raising funds for this fall's campaigns. November elections will be our main focus for the next four meetings.
David Graulich informed us of a 4-to-2 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision in favor of a Milwaukee school voucher program with strong support in inner city neighborhoods. The court rejected arguments that it violated separation of church and state by allowing parents to redeem their vouchers at religious schools. The court explained that as long as parents are freely directing where these vouchers are redeemed, the parents--not the government--are the ones patronizing these religious institutions.
There was no compelling reason to publish a newsletter in July, so we decided to save our time and your money by skipping an issue. Despite the lack of a printed announcement, the July meeting was attended by 11 members and officers!
Steve reported on campaign details on which he and Bernie have been working: setting up a campaign voice mail phone line, and preparing a print ad that will run on 'standby' in the Independent Newspaper Group publications. As many as 200,000 readers may be exposed to the print ad! Lacy and Robert have been working with them on the design of a mailing to broaden the base of supporters for our campaigns. If the mailing is well received, it will be sent to other groups of potential supporters.
Steve talked about more campaign details and related the encouraging results of an experiment he conducted during the primary. A test group responded favorably at the polls: Steve drew votes from the older parties in roughly equal proportions and in sufficient numbers that he could have bested the Republican, if the results can be extrapolated to all precincts. That's not enough to win the seat, of course, so we need to keep experimenting...
Secretary's note: After the meeting Steve told me that his campaign is accepting donations for outreach projects like the newspaper ad and direct mail. His contact info is in the masthead, if you wish to contribute to his campaign.
Mike reported that he was less happy with the vote totals in his race (despite receiving 8,372 votes (7%)!). He had hoped that having met roughly 30,000 people over the past year and having distributed over 18,000 brochures, he might at least have out-polled the Republican. He concluded that overcoming party loyalty at the ballot box will be much tougher than he had originally believed. Others present were not discouraged. After all, the trend is the one we want: People are increasingly voting and registering Libertarian and getting out and supporting Libertarian campaigns. Mike did a lot of campaigning and people responded positively. We've just got to keep up the good work, and draw encouragement and support from the public's increasing libertarian sentiment!
A member told a chilling first-person account of being hauled down to the police station, fingerprinted, and photographed for the non-crime of declining a police officer's request for his social security number (having already presented his driver's license). He was not charged with a crime and was released.
The story pretty much gives lie to government's ongoing claim that social security numbers are not being subverted for use as a national identity device. You be the judge...
A former Chair of the Oregon State Libertarians--Tom Cox--presented an idea for a campaign against yet another ill-considered measure (this time a constitutional amendment) to fight the "War Against Flag Burning". He would like to build a coalition with potential allies in the ACLU and in veterans' organizations. Reactions to his idea were both positive and negative, but we all look forward to the likelihood that Tom will be an active member in our region!
We touched on several other topics, including the LP of Santa Clara County's booth at their county fair; the "Ron Paul Amendments" to the Shays-Meehan political reform bill; and the county's desire to stop administering our primary elections (which would suit us fine).
Congratulations go out to Bernie Jackson, who will have an article printed in the October issue of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education.
"Where did my July newsletter go?"Not to worry, you didn't miss an issue. There wasn't enough relevant information for an issue in July, so we saved a couple of bucks and compiled it into this one. Remember, if you have an idea for a newsletter article, send it on over to the address on page 2 or by e-mail at spaceman@best.com! |
Steve Marsland's campaign is planning a mailing party for Sunday afternoon, August 23, 1-4 PM. This mailing will promote his campaign and Libertarian Party to the registered Libertarians in San Mateo County. 1500 pre-addressed envelopes will need to be stuffed with pre-folded letters that afternoon. It will be a fun opportunity to help the party for a few hours, and meet with other Libertarians. Snacks and light beverages will be provided.
The location and will be finalized at the August meeting of the officers. If you would like to help the effort, even if only for an hour or two, please call Steve Marsland at 650-738-5926. Our last mailing party, in December, was a lot of fun.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Wednesday, August 19
Prime Time Athletic Club
1730 Rollins Road, Burlingame (between Broadway and Millbrae Avenue)
Informal
chat/dinner: 6:307:30pm in the café
Business meeting: 7:309:00pm in the multipurpose room.
Business
agenda: