Letters on Libertarian Strategy #5

Strategic Planning is not a new idea. Successful businessmen have been doing strategic planning for millennia. 25 years ago, it was understandable that the newly-founded Libertarian Party would lack a strategy. It is now 2000, not 1972.

This letter discusses a particular strategy — the Local Organization strategy. In the previous letter, I discussed activities that every Libertarian group needed to support, each in its own way. In this and the following letters, I consider activities appropriate for particular types of Libertarian groups. This letter considers activities that are particularly appropriate for the national party and national operations.

Someone might ask: National party? This is the Local Organization Strategy, isn’t it? Doesn’t that mean that you want to get rid of the national party organization?

To that question, I would answer: Not at all. The assertion that the Local Organization Clean Slate program would eliminate the National Party is a base canard intended to discredit us, and has no other basis. The Local Organization Strategy identifies critical tasks to be performed at the local level, at the state level, and at the national level. There is no question but that there are important tasks to be performed by Libertarians working on a national scale. In most cases, a reasonable person could imagine different Libertarian groups that would get the same work done in different ways. However, if a task is to be performed on a national scale, it is often the case that the National Committee can rationally perform the task or arrange for it to be performed.

TASKS FOR THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE

• Cooperation with other national Libertarian groups
• Lobbying and Congressional Testimony
• National Party Operations
• 50 state ballot access
• Bolster state and local organizations
• Activist Training
• Libertarian Congressional PAC
• Pro-Liberty Special Interest Groups
• Take back the Internet

The above analysis is an example of strategic planning. I looked at the issues confronting us, and worked out a piece of what we need to do to build a strong future for the Libertarian Party. A capable leadership of our party would have done this sort of analysis years ago, would have presented its analysis and underlying rationale to our Party’s members as a strategic plan, and would have led by example in putting the Plan into effect.

The Libertarian National Committee meets regularly. Its minutes are on the record. Go take a look. What have they been doing this past quarter century? did they get us the quality strategy that our party deserves and needs? The record is at http://www.lp.org.