On April 15, the New Hampshire Libertarian Party held a state convention and nominated George Phillies for president. The national Libertarian Party won’t choose a presidential candidate until May 2008. Phillies is seeking the national nomination.
Under the United States federal structure, national party conventions actually have no legal ability to enforce their decision on any state, or any state party. There are many instances in U.S. history at which a state party chose a presidential candidate who was someone different than the choice of the national party. Under U.S. election laws, state parties choose candidates for presidential elector, and state parties are completely free to choose presidential elector candidates who are pledged to someone other than the national convention choice.
Thus in 1948, the Democratic Parties of Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Louisiana chose Strom Thurmond as their presidential candidate, and Harry Truman had to qualify as an independent in those states (in Alabama it was too late for Truman to qualify, so he was off the ballot). The Democratic Party of Alabama also nominated George Wallace for president in 1968 instead of Hubert Humphrey, and Humphrey was on the ballot as the nominee of a minor party. In 1912 the Republican Parties of California and South Dakota refused to put William Howard Taft on the ballot, and instead listed Theodore Roosevelt. In 2000 the Arizona Libertarian Party refused to list Harry Browne on the ballot and instead chose L. Neil Smith.
If George Phillies fails to win the national convention nomination next year, he is free to tell the New Hampshire Libertarian Party not to nominate him. However, the New Hampshire Libertarian Party says it will immediately start circulating a petition with Phillies’ name on it. If that petition is submitted, but Phillies resigns the NHLP nomination, and the NHLP asks the Secretary of State to let it substitute the actual choice of the national convention, no one is sure what would happen. New Hampshire’s Secretary of State, who has been in office almost 30 years, permitted John B. Anderson to substitute a new candidate for vice-president in 1980 (Anderson had listed Milton Eisenhower on the petition for vice-president, but the actual v-p candidate, chosen too late to be on the petition, was former Wisconsin Governor Patrick Lucey). But Gardiner says he won’t permit substitution for president. A lawsuit to force him to accept presidential substitution would be likely to win; all the precedents from lawsuits in other states on this issue are favorable.
Isn’t it kind of early to say who should win the Presidential nomination? I’d like to see who all else jumps in the race and what all of the candidates do. The nomination convention is still over a year away.
So, New Hampshire is going to screw up the libertarian presidential campaign *again*!
Phillies is a man who has said training on Libertarian ideology is ‘brainwashing’ and thinks the Federal Reserve is wonderful according to his own posts and news accounts.
The Republicans in NH just paid an enormous settlement for engaging in dirty tricks against Dems and according to insiders the Libs. But the Libs never complained, so they didn’t get a dime.
NH has up to this point been head and shoulder over other State parties in getting people in office. They atrtibuted it to getting involved and clear training on ideology and current Libertarian successes. But they stopped their ideological training and lord knows where they’re going.
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