Four years ago the Libertarian Party of Florida ran candidates for statewide office, placing third in races for governor and attorney general; but something changed this year: there are no Libertarian candidates running for governor or any cabinet office in Florida. Why?
To find out, WMNF News interviewed Ryan Ramsey, the Bradford County chair of the Libertarian Party of Florida. He says it’s a new strategy by the party to focus on winnable local elections and building a team of experienced campaigners.
“Operation First Step was basically an idea that — understanding reality, understanding all politics is local and understanding the enormous amount of money and such that is poured into these campaigns. A governor’s campaign or an attorney general campaign, if you have a great candidate — even if you know you’re going to get a low percentage of the vote — is a good way to get your message out there. For our past differences, Adrian Wyllie was an excellent candidate for governor (in 2014). He actually was one of the people that got me interested in the LPF by seeing him out there. So, it can be beneficial, but for the most time it’s not. If your candidate is not really charismatic and good it could almost hurt you.
“What the goal of the Operation First Step is to run large amounts of candidates for smaller offices: counties, localities. And also to put an eye on unopposed seats, or even vacant seats. I’ve actually got some guys I installed on the Bradford County Soil and Water Conservation District because it was vacant seats — nobody was even interested. They actually were filing to be candidates, went and met with the body to just kind of get an idea of what they were doing and kind of get up to speed and ended up getting appointed [laughs] by the current Soil and Water Conservation District.
“So, on June 22nd [closing of qualifying for candidates in the 2018 election], because of those two seats that basically are unopposed and our candidate qualified — basically they’re going to be elected, Florida took the lead in the United States with elected Libertarian [Party] officials. We are surging around the state. I’ve got a mayor of Newberry, Florida, over in my Alachua affiliate. I’ve got all sorts of county-level candidates. That’s basically the reason that you’re not seeing a lot of these statewide races. We’ve got a few guys running for [State] House.”
“The idea: we want to build a cadre of qualified candidates for statewide offices and House and Senate races in the state, you know. Like, we’re not going to go from zero to Governor, you know. The idea is to get more people involved, let the cream rise to the top, empower people in their local communities where 70% of the laws that affect your business and your life really happen.
“The big difference you’re going to see is: you’re probably going to have a local campaign that you can support and go meet the people and get yourself involved in. And do more than you’ve done than you maybe have in the past. And that’s another thing of it is, if we have dozens and dozens of campaigns for smaller offices, all those people are going to gain experience in being a campaign treasurer or doing the social media outreach for the campaigns or all these various things that campaigns need to succeed. So, it’s basically training a cadre of both candidates and staffers to really build the party and take it to the next level.
“Last election we were 1.4% away from crossing that magical 5% threshold where we would qualify for the election money and get in the debates and everything.
“So, basically we have a plan to focus locally over the next couple of cycles. And then we’re going to break into the State House and then a couple of cycles later start trying to break in to the Federal government.”
Listen:
Some former members of the Libertarian Party, like 2010 U.S. Senate candidate Alexander Snitker, have decided to work inside the Republican Party instead, through a group called the Republican Liberty Caucus.
2 Responses to “A new strategy for Libertarian Party of Florida: no statewide candidates”
Leave a Reply
I am the Region 4 Representative as well, lest anyone get the idea you were not talking to a state officer.
I think the headline may be a bit decieving, although I did cover it. We are not saying “No Statewide Candidates”. We are shifting focus to local candidates in larger volume.
“Operation First Step” was the brainchild of LPF Chair Marcos Miralles, who campaigned on the program. His landslide election gave him the mandate from the membership. The success in Florida is now spreading to other states.
I wish the RLC success, and respect Alex as one of the hardest working liberty activists in the state. I think Bob White is a great guy, but the GOP made their opinion of liberty leaning candidates known in 2008, when the men behind the GOP curtain rejected Ron Paul. These guys just passed draconian gun control measures on Floridians, jockeying for a US Senate seat.
More competition in the political free market is what we need, they should run Bob White….. but they wont.
A couple things were left off that I want to note, perhaps because the tape was not rolling.
– In 2017 Florida regjstered more Libertarians than all of 2012-2016.
– Florida now leads the US in elected Libertarians.
– LNC elections just improved national leadership dramatically.
– The Legislative Review Committee of the LPF was overhauled at the annual business meeting. It is now the “Legislative Action Committee”, and we will be writing bills and doing more on the legislation front.
I have authored the first LPF legislation, which is in legal review before going back through committee, followed by final approval by the EC.
The “Jason Westcott Uniform Florida Body Camera Act” will mandate and standardize body cameras for all LEO’s in Florida. It includes procedure for disclosure and punishment for tampering or obstructing, and we anticipate support from civil rights groups and law enforcement.
Thanks for reaching out.
The party might want to try getting the word out to college voters in Florida. The democrats and Republicans have tables set up all the time at UCF, no libertarian party table. In Orlando people are really big on the Democratic Party. Libertarians should do what the Dems do in Florida, get the big city’s like Orlando, Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, etc. Most people vote based on the political party and the Libertarian brand is very unknown to most voters. Over 40% voted for a sheriff candidate that was arrested 13X because he was the only person with DEM next to his name. The funny thing is all 3 sheriff candidates are democrats but voters apparently don’t do any research at all about candidates. Great brand recognition is the only way the Libertarian Party can actually be relevant in big political races. Do you know why tourist stay at Holiday Inn and eat Pizza Hut in Orlando…. brand recognition! In my opinion as a marketing manager, the Libertarian Party needs to get better at Marketing the brand county by county in Florida.