Libertarian Party 2004 Convention

I been a delegate at all of the Presidential nominating conventions of the Libertarian Party. As far as I know, the only other person who has accomplished that feat is, of course, David Nolan, the Founder of the Party. Here is a summary table of all of the Presidential nominating conventions, their locations and the candidates selected.

The 2004 LP convention in Atlanta featured a thrilling 3 way race for the presidential nomination and a reformating of the party platform. There were a lot of people attending their first LP convention. One of the highlights of the convention occurred when I was tapped on the shoulder by a delegate and Tim Mahar shook my hand. Tim, whose photo is below, and I had worked together at Bell Labs. Tim left twenty years ago to join another company and I had not seen him since. Tim explained that I was the one who had gotten him interested in the Libertarian Party. I was pleased to learn that.

Tim Mahar, who is active in the Libertarian Party in Florida, wrote an eloquent response to a liberal who took the world's smallest political quiz. Regardless of your political viewpoint, I believe that you will be moved by Tim's low-key well-reasoned essay. As a preview here is part of Tim's essay: I find that my Liberal friends tend to agree with Libertarian positions on personal freedom issues while my Conservative friends agree with Libertarian free market positions. Which of course makes sense; but I find it interesting that in each case, there is the belief that the government is benevolent, competent and efficient managing one aspect of our lives, while at the same time being malevolent, incompetent, and inefficient in another area of our lives. IT'S THE SAME GOVERNMENT! Tim is a modern day Thomas Paine.

The LP party platform is remarkably stable in content because the LP consistently stands for individual rights and limited government. To make the platform clearer and more readable, it was reordered and each of the sixty some planks were re-written in a now standard format: what the issue is, what the principle is, what the solution is, and what some transitional actions toward that solution are.

This year, Gary Nolan, Aaron Russo and Michael Badnarik actively campaigned for the LP nomination for President all over the country. It was a spirited campaign and there were a number of debates. Each would have made an excellent candidate. At the convention, on the first ballot, the 805 delegates were split in almost equal thirds. It was amazing. Michael was the underdog, but he won the nomination. He is the only person on the ballot in 2004 who was selected in a convention. I was so busy at the convention that I didn't take many photos.