2016 Liberty Candidates

Alright, the incumbents are listed in the top four links for the federal and state level. Still working on the state specific pages. Let's make the list better and find every liberty candidate around the country and ensure they get the proper support!

I am still working on going through a couple of submissions from invisible and others too. Will try and do another scrub of incumbents before the candidates start declaring (and also give some time for some of the borderline ones to get voting records)
 
jurgs01 said:
We had chances to throw out Cochran, Graham, Alexander, McConnell, and Roberts this year. We failed in all of those. In order to take out a sitting senator, you need a massive grassroots effort throughout the state. These incumbents have millions upon millions to throw at the problem.
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Not only that, we also failed to get a Liberty Candidate into the open US Senate seat in OK. There was a pretty massive grassroots effort behind Randy Brogdon, and yet we still ended up with Senator wankford. Overcoming a media blackout and out of state PAC money pouring into a statewide race is difficult. Maybe we'll have better luck in two years, but it'll be more difficult to get wankford out, now that he's there. Not to mention insult added to injury by wankford's open CD5 seat being taken by warmonger russell, the biggest missed opportunity for a Liberty Candidate in 2014.
 
invisible said:
Not only that, we also failed to get a Liberty Candidate into the open US Senate seat in OK. There was a pretty massive grassroots effort behind Randy Brogdon, and yet we still ended up with Senator wankford. Overcoming a media blackout and out of state PAC money pouring into a statewide race is difficult. Maybe we'll have better luck in two years, but it'll be more difficult to get wankford out, now that he's there. Not to mention insult added to injury by wankford's open CD5 seat being taken by warmonger russell, the biggest missed opportunity for a Liberty Candidate in 2014.
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You are the grassroots in OK. Keep building your organization so you can pull a Dave Brat upset there soon!
 
jeffro97 said:
There definitely needs to be a good liberty candidate in that race. An opposition to McCain neo-con ways is almost a must.

That being said, I know nothing of Schweikert nor Jones. I'd need to do me some research.
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Schweikert hinted the timing might not be right for a Senate run, noting that he just got back on the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, which allows him to "go back to much of the work that I really enjoy doing." Schweikert lost the prestigious committee assignment in 2012, shortly after defeating fellow incumbent U.S. Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz., in his primary. At the time two other fiscal conservatives were similarly rebuked by House Republican leaders.
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Schweikert seems good on some issues. As stated above, he stood up to the "establishment".
 
Brian4Liberty said:
Remember, we have a sub-forum that serves as a list of liberty candidates, where every candidate has their own thread:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/forumdisplay.php?343-Liberty-Campaign-Evaluation

We may need to create a single summary thread for all candidates related to those individual threads.
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If it had a current and archived version and was constantly kept up to date it would be useful for that purpose.

I deal with a lot of people asking me questions, and most people aren't tuned in to politics like we are. They don't have time to sift through a lot of information and need consolidated info. My whole goal was to provide that to people who have had to piece together information in the past. On the federal level it's manageable. Believe me, when you start getting down to the state level it is difficult to keep up and maintain a steady standard.
 
jurgs01 said:
If it had a current and archived version and was constantly kept up to date it would be useful for that purpose.

I deal with a lot of people asking me questions, and most people aren't tuned in to politics like we are. They don't have time to sift through a lot of information and need consolidated info. My whole goal was to provide that to people who have had to piece together information in the past. On the federal level it's manageable. Believe me, when you start getting down to the state level it is difficult to keep up and maintain a steady standard.
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Hopefully the info I've provided has helped. Your last sentence raises an interesting point. How exactly do we measure this at the state level? Different states have different issues and problems. Sure we can see how legislators vote on issues such as gun control, taxes, education, abortion, etc. But those issues aren't necessarily the best for determining true Liberty Candidate status, you have to look beyond standard party line type of votes for that. Another problem is lots of good legislation gets killed in committee, and never makes it to a floor vote. It takes a lot more research to see who actually introduces good legislation. Measuring Liberty Candidate status at the state level is much more difficult, there isn't a one size fits all solution that can universally be applied.
 
invisible said:
Hopefully the info I've provided has helped. Your last sentence raises an interesting point. How exactly do we measure this at the state level? Different states have different issues and problems. Sure we can see how legislators vote on issues such as gun control, taxes, education, abortion, etc. But those issues aren't necessarily the best for determining true Liberty Candidate status, you have to look beyond standard party line type of votes for that. Another problem is lots of good legislation gets killed in committee, and never makes it to a floor vote. It takes a lot more research to see who actually introduces good legislation. Measuring Liberty Candidate status at the state level is much more difficult, there isn't a one size fits all solution that can universally be applied.
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If they vote no on all the bad stuff, they are generally liberty candidates.
 
invisible said:
Hopefully the info I've provided has helped. Your last sentence raises an interesting point. How exactly do we measure this at the state level? Different states have different issues and problems. Sure we can see how legislators vote on issues such as gun control, taxes, education, abortion, etc. But those issues aren't necessarily the best for determining true Liberty Candidate status, you have to look beyond standard party line type of votes for that. Another problem is lots of good legislation gets killed in committee, and never makes it to a floor vote. It takes a lot more research to see who actually introduces good legislation. Measuring Liberty Candidate status at the state level is much more difficult, there isn't a one size fits all solution that can universally be applied.
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All very true. It's easier for me if they have a voting record. What takes me a ton of time is reviewing candidates vying for office at the state level. Combing through speeches, public statements, social media, etc. is difficult. They get a boost when you find out that they were a Ron Paul delegate in 2008 or something similar, but it's not always easy to differentiate the liberty candidate from the cookie-cutter Republican saying things to get elected.

It's all worth it though if a few people notice a good candidate and help to get them elected. Just as the effort you are making to build a network in OK will pay off. Take over all of the local politics with liberty lovers and the bigger fish will follow!
 
William Tell said:
If they vote no on all the bad stuff, they are generally liberty candidates.
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But that's not always a true measure of a Liberty Candidate. The generic Republican can vote against just about all of the bad stuff, but if no legislation genuinely advancing liberty makes it to a floor vote, then it's much more difficult to separate the generic Republican legislator from real Liberty Candidates.
 
jurgs01 said:
All very true. It's easier for me if they have a voting record. What takes me a ton of time is reviewing candidates vying for office at the state level. Combing through speeches, public statements, social media, etc. is difficult. They get a boost when you find out that they were a Ron Paul delegate in 2008 or something similar, but it's not always easy to differentiate the liberty candidate from the cookie-cutter Republican saying things to get elected.

It's all worth it though if a few people notice a good candidate and help to get them elected. Just as the effort you are making to build a network in OK will pay off. Take over all of the local politics with liberty lovers and the bigger fish will follow!
Click to expand...

The network here in OK was already well built before I got here, I just pretty much joined it.
Aside from any online evidence of being a Ron Paul supporter, I've found that one of the best measurements has been looking at legislation that has been introduced, but got killed off in committee. Some great legislation gets written here in OK, but only a tiny fraction of it ever actually makes it to a floor vote. The statists who are chairing the committees kill it all off, so there is no choice but to look at who authored what, and who cosponsored before it got killed off.
 
jurgs01 said:
He looked like he would be, but he didn't run for reelection in 2014.
http://ballotpedia.org/Jason_Overstreet
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:( this is who took his place: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/05/09/3633271_luanne-vanwerven-says-she-will.html?rh=1

VanWerven, vice chairwoman of the Washington State Republican Party, appears likely to take over the seat in a Republican-leaning district. She is also a former chairwoman of Whatcom County Republicans.

During his two terms in Olympia, Overstreet staked out political territory on the right wing of a conservative party. Among other things, he endorsed Sharam Hadian for governor instead of then-Attorney General Rob McKenna, the candidate favored by the party mainstream. He also endorsed Ron Paul's presidential bid.
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