What about the ballot access failures this year in Maine, Washington DC, West Virginia, and Louisiana? If the Libertarian Party had a decent, competent Political Director it would have achieved ballot status in these places and would be on the ballot in Connecticut as well.

If the figure I see is correct, I could have been the difference-maker, and it doesn’t matter what other variable is present, short of, as Jake says, the state’s deliberately meaning to destroy enough petition sheets as to make the LPCT fail (which I highly doubt; probably only Sean Haugh would deliberately mean to destroy perfectly good petitions).

How is it that the LPCT made it other years I was working there? Ask Courtney Hough, Walt Thiessen and Rich Loomis. I worked CT every presidential year since I started petitioning, plus 1998, my streak stopping only this year.

Gary, I didn’t want you to take direction, or something like that from Jake; I wanted you to get my phone number from him for you to call me if you want to discuss some of the dynamics of what went on in Connecticut. If you are going to blame people for failures in Connecticut, you need to know the facts first, or you are going to look foolish.

I tried to explain myself above (without going into detail), but it is clear you were not listening to what I tried to say. If you want to talk about it, call Jake for my phone number.

That said,

If the CT SOS maliciously threw out over 100 pages of LP signatures, then (and only then) it might not have mattered if I or Gary had gone to CT (for instance if the State simply “made certain” that they threw out or ‘invalidated’ enough signatures to invalidate our drive).

I say “might” because perhaps they actually did lose exactly those pages, purely accidentally, in which case it appears that either my presence OR Gary’s would have certainly saved the CT drive (since we both always photocopy our petition sheets). I say _appears_, because Andy has assured me he has additional information about CT that has not yet come out, and that he is not at liberty to divulge with anyone other than Bill Redpath (a neutral and unbiased 3rd party), until after the election.

However, that does nothing to ameliorate the seriousness of Sean Haugh’s use of his official title to interfere with the employment of high-performance, longtime LP petitioners (to cover up for Scott Kohlhaas’s 2006 instance of fraud in NE, documented here: http://www.lp.org/archives/lnc20070721.pdf see page 14 ).

Nor does it excuse the unforgivable crime of failing to copy the petition sheets, as “Coming back to the LP” duly noted.

Sean Haugh is one of the most deceiful, least competent people I have ever met in my life (I have to put him second to Russell Verney, but it’s neck and neck). Kohlhaas has the skill to run a ballot access drive without using Haugh as his expendable dirty work shield (with a fancy title), but apparently not the desire to, this year. 2008 is the “revenge” year for LP HQ hires, I guess.

…Let’s hope they’ve gotten it out of their system. (For the sake of their future private sector employers.)

The Arizona LP is now paying through the nose for Sean’s (and George Squyres’) dedication to blackballing me, by getting student “soft registrations” from Scott Kohlhaas (or someone else like him). (Because I’m pretty damn sure noone else will do what I did for them in 2005 in Williams, AZ, and I certainly am not going back there as long as George Squyres has any kind of leadership role in AZ. Nor as long as “thank you’s” from State Libertarian Parties mean less than nothing.)

The LP (its image, reputation, and integrity) has been seriously tarnished by Sean Haugh. Not only have they lost ballot access in several “give me” States, they have lost their integrity by hiring Haugh, Verney, Dondero, Kohlhaas and Cory and a host of other mercenaries. Of those, only Kohlhaas has any significant competence (unfortunately he’s documented above as being willing to defraud and avoid those who work for him, rather than take a paycut or delayed pay himself).

And they also lost out in terms of reputation: they hired lower-performing mercenaries over their own people.

If Haugh (or Cory or Verney) stays hired with the LP, then the LP will rapidly cease to be seen as a credible and moral organization. It will instead be seen as “just another compromised political party” full of people kissing ass and leveraging seniority for pull.

No doubt, this is what many people would like to see. No doubt, they are the enemies of liberty in America. They can only succeed if we fail to govern ourselves.

I reject the possibility that petty criminals like Haugh will be able to destroy the LP. Instead, I belive that they will be sent on their way, sometime soon after the election, and that all “big L” Libertarians will be better off for the experience they gained in 2008, minus the actual destructive presences in question.

If I’m wrong, the LP will rapidly follow the now defunct Reform Party in both form and function.

There’s a fork in the road. “On and upward” or “down-and-out”?

Note: I can outcompete Haugh, but I lack the authority to fire him.

Best of luck to all libertarians in these trying times.

In Tyranny (Looking Towards Liberty),

Jake Witmer

No thank you. I’m quite capable of independent thought without consulting with someone with fewer years’ experience than I. What are you thinking???