Mel Watt's NC District 12 will be an open seat

[FSP-Rebel]

Finding a suitable candidate for CD-12 is actively being discussed. I have little to add to it as I am not familiar with the CD, but the CD-12 leadership is. I am just a curious listener. Interestingly, the CD-12 convention was the past weekend and all leadership positions were swept by liberty candidates, including the chairmanship. So at the very least, we won't have an establishment candidate shoved down our throats in the primary. Whether the candidate will win or not in the general in a Dem heavy district, at least the primary candidate will be liberty-friendly even if not 100% liberty.

Hope that clan shows up at state to help Gunny get in.

 

[devil21]

Here's an interesting possibility. Watt's primary challenger last go round was Matt Newton. He's younger (32), expressed some solidarity with the Occupy movement and has made overtures to Tea Party. He's a Dem but sounds like what we could leverage to get an open minded anti-corporatist into the Dem heavy district. Check him out.






http://teapartycheer.com/bios/the-south/north-carolina/matt-newton-nc-bio/

 

[lib3rtarian]

Yeah, right. The NC establishment would want nothing more than catching "red-handed" the liberty movement making overtures to or supporting a Dem. That will kill any statewide gains we have made and cast us as "traitors".

 

[devil21]

Yeah, right. The NC establishment would want nothing more than catching "red-handed" the liberty movement making overtures to or supporting a Dem. That will kill any statewide gains we have made and cast us as "traitors".

No offense but fuck the NC establishment. Are you trying to climb the establishment ladder or get more Liberty minded people into Congress? Im still not buying into the false left/right stuff just because the establishment isn't quite as dickish here as in some other places. Do you have a better suggestion that doesn't include handing the district over to yet another statist bankster lover like Watt?

 

[aclove]

I was at the convention last Monday when we took over. I was the Chair of the Resolutions Committee (we passed a resolution censuring Richard Burr for voting for cloture on gun control, over some loud objections). The battle was unfortunately between so-con Tea Party activists and the Liberty crowd; the establishment drew the 12th to be pro-Democrat as a Voting Rights Act district and couldn't care less who controls it. They know that no one but a Dem is going to win here.

We took every officer position and most of the State Executive Committee positions. I'm currently involved in a dispute over a State ExComm position because even though I was part of a slate of suggested nominees sent by my County Chairman to the District Chairman, the outgoing District Chairman didn't bother to check his email the day of the convention and didn't get the memo. He then reported that I'd won a position, but then came back later and said that was wrong, I was one of the ones that didn't get on.

The new Chair is a 26-year old Army veteran and college student who's working every angle he can to get me on the State ExComm, while at the same time looking to recruit a pro-liberty minority to run for the now-open seat.

 

[devil21]

Adam, do you mean a pro-liberty minority Republican?

Here's a thought. Why not take a page out of the establishment's own playbook and stack the deck by supporting pro-liberty (or at least anti-bankster/anti-corporatist in the case of Newton) candidates in BOTH parties? I mean, the big players do that all the time, so they know the outcome will be positive for them regardless of who wins. We can use their tactics too.

 

[devil21]

Actually, could NC-12 be an example of crossing the aisle to build partnerships like Ron Paul advocated?

If you think the movement is getting stronger within the GOP now, wait until we can elect Dems that stand with us on most issues and aren't blinded by partisan bias and money.

I think NC-12 and a candidate like Newton be a good testbed for breaking through to Dems electorally. The odds of such a strategy working are slim but if we can start making inroads on the left (and there IS room to do this.....RP proved this) then we really are a movement, not just a partisan branch. Now Im not "pushing" Newton here since I just learned about him today and haven't even spoken to him....just kicking around thoughts.....but damn, a candidate in a blue district that is friendly to both angry Occupy and angry Tea Party is a heck of a candidate when he's someone that people already voted for as a Dem in a heavy Dem district.

 

[aclove]

The problem is one of limited resources. Daniel Rufty (the new Liberty chair of the district) spent months combing through FEC records looking for Paul donors and matching those to NC Board of Elections records to identify and activate Liberty activists in the district whom he could get to the convention. Even with all that work, he won by just the skin of his teeth.

There simply aren't enough activists out there with the skills, time, and money to start all over again in the Democratic party. We're still a small minority in the Republican Party, although we're growing that minority through hard work and building coalitions.

I'm afraid it's all we can do to turn out enough Republican-registered Liberty activists to win victories like this one. None of our leaders (myself included) have the stomach to chuck all the work we've put into making GOP inroads to start over from scratch in the NCDP, and there don't appear to be any previously-inactive volunteers stepping up to the plate for that, either.

 

[green73]

Need to be bankster friendly

The Next Head of Fannie and Freddie
Posted by Ryan W. McMaken

Now that GSEs Fannie and Freddie are basically government agencies, they are run by FHFA, the GSE regulator. And it looks like the next head of FHFA will be Mel Watt, the Congressman who gutted Ron Paul's Audit the Fed legislation. According to Bloomberg:

Paul, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said Mel Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, has eliminated “just about everything” while preparing the legislation for formal consideration. Watt is chairman of the panel’s domestic monetary policy and technology subcommittee.

Keith Kelly, a spokesman for Watt, declined to comment and said Watt wasn’t immediately available for an interview. Watt’s district includes Charlotte, headquarters of Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender.

Protecting the Fed has many benefits in DC.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/137009.html

 

[Bastiat's The Law]

I was at the convention last Monday when we took over. I was the Chair of the Resolutions Committee (we passed a resolution censuring Richard Burr for voting for cloture on gun control, over some loud objections). The battle was unfortunately between so-con Tea Party activists and the Liberty crowd; the establishment drew the 12th to be pro-Democrat as a Voting Rights Act district and couldn't care less who controls it. They know that no one but a Dem is going to win here.

We took every officer position and most of the State Executive Committee positions. I'm currently involved in a dispute over a State ExComm position because even though I was part of a slate of suggested nominees sent by my County Chairman to the District Chairman, the outgoing District Chairman didn't bother to check his email the day of the convention and didn't get the memo. He then reported that I'd won a position, but then came back later and said that was wrong, I was one of the ones that didn't get on.

The new Chair is a 26-year old Army veteran and college student who's working every angle he can to get me on the State ExComm, while at the same time looking to recruit a pro-liberty minority to run for the now-open seat.

Do you have a write up or video of what went down at the convention last week? Congratulations are in order for you guys!

 

[Bastiat's The Law]

The problem is one of limited resources. Daniel Rufty (the new Liberty chair of the district) spent months combing through FEC records looking for Paul donors and matching those to NC Board of Elections records to identify and activate Liberty activists in the district whom he could get to the convention. Even with all that work, he won by just the skin of his teeth.

There simply aren't enough activists out there with the skills, time, and money to start all over again in the Democratic party. We're still a small minority in the Republican Party, although we're growing that minority through hard work and building coalitions.

I'm afraid it's all we can do to turn out enough Republican-registered Liberty activists to win victories like this one. None of our leaders (myself included) have the stomach to chuck all the work we've put into making GOP inroads to start over from scratch in the NCDP, and there don't appear to be any previously-inactive volunteers stepping up to the plate for that, either.

Well stated. Going adrift in a dozen directions doesn't make sense for a number of reasons. It's all about resources and warm bodies. It's basically like the free market weeding out crazy projects like building a 60-acre private city in the desert. The resources and costs don't merit that project for a reason.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

Then drop the other shoe, and admit we aren't a big enough movement to win half the open seat winnable races out there (i.e., the seats in Democratic districts), and basically, have not really abandoned the two-party paradigm. What happened to our claims that half of Ron Paul's support came from Democrats and Independents, if we didn't ever bother to build a network of those people? What's so complicated about going though the contact info on some past meetup rosters or donation lists, and identifying liberty people from both parties?

If you can't find a liberty Democrat that way, how about connecting with some LP or CP people in the area, and recruiting one to run a liberty campaign in the Democratic primary? If you put out an ad (or went to a local LP meeting) to say "seeking libertarian to run a pro-liberty campaign in the District 12 Democratic primary"), are you really saying there would be no response?

This project is not supposed to be about going "a dozen different directions," but about installing liberty candidates into office where we can. The current resource drain comes from self-mousetrapping ourselves into one major party, as it divides making liberty inroads with making "GOP inroads." An effort focused on open races in both Dem and GOP districts IS one direction oriented and resource efficient, as it doesn't waste half its time on building one party's infrastructure. The result will be more liberty folks elected, be they nominally Republican or Democrat.

 

[devil21]

Then drop the other shoe, and admit we aren't a big enough movement to win half the open seat winnable races out there (i.e., the seats in Democratic districts), and basically, have not really abandoned the two-party paradigm. What happened to our claims that half of Ron Paul's support came from Democrats and Independents, if we didn't ever bother to build a network of those people? What's so complicated about going though the contact info on some past meetup rosters or donation lists, and identifying liberty people from both parties?

If you can't find a liberty Democrat that way, how about connecting with some LP or CP people in the area, and recruiting one to run a liberty campaign in the Democratic primary? If you put out an ad (or went to a local LP meeting) to say "seeking libertarian to run a pro-liberty campaign in the District 12 Democratic primary"), are you really saying there would be no response?

This project is not supposed to be about going "a dozen different directions," but about installing liberty candidates into office where we can. The current resource drain comes from self-mousetrapping ourselves into one major party, as it divides making liberty inroads with making "GOP inroads." An effort focused on open races in both Dem and GOP districts IS one direction oriented and resource efficient, as it doesn't waste half its time on building one party's infrastructure. The result will be more liberty folks elected, be they nominally Republican or Democrat.

+1 That's what Im saying.

 

[lib3rtarian]

Then drop the other shoe, and admit we aren't a big enough movement...

We aren't. If I could get a dollar for every guy I come across who like Rand/Ron or is a libertarian or minarchist or any other strain of anti-statist,but who absolutely refuses to participate in the political process, I wouldn't be a rich man, but I would have made $300-$400 by now. I have tried to talk to about that many people to get them involved and got snubbed. They are elites in their own way in their minds. Hell, our NC RP campaign manager from 2012 refused to get involved in the political/convention process.

 

[aclove]

If either of you guys would like to volunteer to do the work necessary to build an inside-the NCDP-movement, by all means, knock yourselves out. I've spent the last 5 years working to infiltrate Ron Paul's party, as he requested, while at the same time holding down a full-time job, getting married, starting a family, and trying to spend time with that family. If you don't like how those of us who're doing this work for no pay are doing it, please feel free to do it better.

 

[wormyguy]

Then drop the other shoe, and admit we aren't a big enough movement to win half the open seat winnable races out there (i.e., the seats in Democratic districts),

We aren't.

and basically, have not really abandoned the two-party paradigm.

Exactly, and in fact that would be a tactical error to split our extremely limited resources and manpower. Yes, extremely limited. What we call the Republican "establishment," that is to say conventional Republicans, party activists, and large donors, can outspend us 50-1 and mobilize vast grassroots support for barely-known candidates instantly (Rick Perry, for example, immediately shot up to 40% in the polls after announcing, as did Fred Thompson. That both ran awful campaigns afterwards is besides the point). The only reason we are ever able to "take on the establishment and win" is because we have 1. co-opted some elements of the "establishment" grassroots (that's why Rand is doing so much better than Ron at this point), and 2. the establishment chooses its battles and does not consider us as bad or as much of a threat to their own careers and goals as the Democrats, so they mostly ignore or even offer faint praise to our efforts.

What happened to our claims that half of Ron Paul's support came from Democrats and Independents,

They weren't true.

 

[devil21]

If either of you guys would like to volunteer to do the work necessary to build an inside-the NCDP-movement, by all means, knock yourselves out. I've spent the last 5 years working to infiltrate Ron Paul's party, as he requested, while at the same time holding down a full-time job, getting married, starting a family, and trying to spend time with that family. If you don't like how those of us who're doing this work for no pay are doing it, please feel free to do it better.

Im more talking about supporting good candidates in both parties when the opportunities arise, not starting all over within the D party. "Support" means different things to different people so ymmv. Just seems like the movement has started hunkering down in the GOP and not really doing much to expand appeal by reaching out to others outside of the party when those opportunities arise. Just my .02.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

I'm hearing lazy, or lame responses. The key issue is plainly not 'limited resources,' but a limited desire to ever stray from the Republican universe. My 2 key questions, again:

1) What's so complicated about going though the contact info on some past meetup rosters or donation lists, and identifying liberty people from both parties? How much time and effort would that take? Maybe one person, one evening. Is it that hard to open a spreadsheet file, or do folks simply don't want to? The lists are people who already identified themselves as pro-Paul, and are already familiar with the liberty agenda.

2) If you can't find a liberty Democrat that way, how about connecting with some LP or CP people in the area, and recruiting one to run a liberty campaign in the Democratic primary? How much time and effort would that take? Maybe one person, one evening. Is it that hard to contact third party people, or do folks simply don't want to? The third party activists are already active, and there would be no problems getting them to run on a pro-liberty platform.

So I'm not buying the "extremely limited resources" ruse. The above are simple, slam dunk, low-labor initial steps, that were not done. Rather than do them, and step out to build a new liberty establishment, or at least network, we have folks seeking to lazily piggy back on the old establishment's back, or fill out another comfy wing of the GOP. If you're not committed enough to develop a power base apart from the statist establishment, there won't be enough commitment to succeed within the establishment either, and you'll be squished inside a big party's hip pocket.

The big parties expect this piggy back approach of most people, and so eventually co-opt the movement, as they have all previous alternative groups. "This will be the sixth time we have destroyed Zion, and we have become exceedingly efficient at it." So, this is how liberty dies, with thunderous non-commitment.

 

[lib3rtarian]

Look, none of the people active in the NC liberty movement can openly support any Democratic candidates. Period. All of these folks are trying to work the GOP ladders to gain positions within the party structure to push the party more libertarian. We have enough troubles as is, one of the main accusations being that we didn't support the GOP nominee in 2012 (which is true to a certain extent). When we are trying to win hearts and minds of the mainstream, but anti-establishment conservatives (there are more of them than liberty folks), if they feel like we are screwing the party by supporting Democrats, then they won't even give us a listen, let alone try to come our way. Besides I don't really trust someone who claims they are liberty and then run under the Dem ticket. WHY? If he is a liberty candidate, then he should run under the GOP ticket where folks at least agree with us 60% rather than the modern Democratic party which has nothing in common with us. The Dems are not even civil libertarians or anti-war at this point. Obama killed all that. The only things the Democratic party care at the moment is expanding welfare and increasing taxes. So what's the point?

 

[Peace&Freedom]

Neither is the Republican leadership committed to liberty, despite the 60% rhetoric (compare Ron Paul's voting record to virtually all other Republicans). The point behind the real liberty movement is to look past the rhetoric, to stop relying on a party structure as a 'home,' and to start electing more liberty candidates by using the major parties as a vehicle instead. At least the above admission is honest, and stops saying the issue is resources, when the real issue is two-party-paradigm-itis.

Fighting the battle with one arm tied behind our back (by only leveraging one big party), is not getting the job done. Running liberty Republicans against entrenched Democrat incumbents in 70% Democratic districts is a waste of resources. And vice versa. The higher percentage path to victory and efficiency is to run liberty Republicans when a Republican district seat is open, and to run liberty Democrats when a Democrat district seat is open. If NC liberty activists can't realize that, perhaps a new group should be recruited.