The Free View-- weblog of a presidential candidate

I respond to a "Why are you wasting your time?" inquiry

Moti Silberstein wrote me an e-mail recently, saying:

Even if you win the 2008 nomination what will it help everyone? You are not going to win? Wouldn't it seem better to try to bring your local government under control or even your state. We need dedicated people but nationally as a Pres candidate is a waste of time and money?

It turns out that my long-winded reply didn't really answer what moti was trying to get at, and I may post more of our discussion tomorrow, but my repsonse ended up covering a lot of ground in terms of explaining myself and the campaign, including my thinking when I started it in 1994, and a bunch of other things.

Here's my reply:

At the very least, I think my campaign will help to advance the progress of the freedom movement. The LP is going to have a presidential nominee in 2008 whether I run or not -- I think I will be the best representative available for that position at that time. And the LP should have a presidential nominee, regardless of whether that person will win or not. It's the single best opportunity the party has to state its vision to the country at large. It also earns the party necessary (and justified) credibility in politics. The LP has had a presidential candidate on 50 ballots for three elections in a row -- no other third party in history has done that even twice in a row. That means something -- it means that the LP has historically unprecedented staying power as a national third party. And that matters, in terms of the respect the party gets from the media and other entities.

Changing a country this size -- and a government this size -- doesn't happen overnight. There are and will be short-term gains to be made, and there will also be long-term victories. I've decided to focus much of my energy toward long-term gains, and primarily at the national level. Everyone who cares has to focus on some thing or things to do to advance liberty in their own way, and one way I think I can add unique value to the movement is by dedicating a significant portion of my time, over a very long period of time, toward developing a presidential campaign that will shake the foundations of the modern political scene. I think most people who know me would say that I have many qualities that lend themselves well to potentially achieving that goal. I decided long ago that it was an achievable possibility, and I have allotted a great deal of time and energy in my life toward giving it a try. My view has long been that if I *am* capable of achieving that goal, and I didn't try, I'd be cheating myself -- and everyone who would benefit from being liberated from our corrupt and dysfunctional political system.

I reasoned that there must be a certain limited pool of people who could or would possibly be able to manage to break through in the necessarily-impactful way, and manage the situation well enough to get the job done if elected. I also reasoned that for each of those people, the odds of them successfully achieving that goal were astronomically low. Many people are resigned to the view that there will never be such a breakthrough opportunity, which gives an indication of how insurmountable-seeming a goal it is. Many of the folks who could be the president we need won't ever consider even trying, and many more who do try will never make it past the starting gate. Of those remaining, many will make a misstep, or have a weakness which renders them inoperative. And only a few, if any, of the people left will have the dedication or commitment to go through the entire trial by fire that getting elected (and serving as) President is.

Which I figured leaves America's chances of escaping the quicksand looking pretty bleak.

I determined that I was one of those people who could possibly do it, and decided that I was going to devote most of my life toward trying to be the one who didn't give up and didn't fail. I decided that almost ten years ago, and I am still on course. I still think I could be the one that successfully breaks through, and as long as I believe that is a possibility, I will work to pursue that goal.

While my broad focus is on that goal, my activities consist of a wide range of political and societal efforts on many different levels. I am Chairman of my county Libertarian Party group, and I spend a great deal of time working to advance liberty (and the party) locally. I have participated in over a hundred local events of that sort in the past few years -- from organizing multiple major public events, to tabling at street fairs, to attending other political party's meetings and Board of Supervisor's meetings and rallies, to appearing regularly on the local cable news, to holding a Candidate's Forum, and a Bill of Rights Essay Contest for high schoolers...I could go on -- a lot. In the past two years or so, I've been involved in a positive way with all but one of my county Supervisors (and the two who were defeated in 2002), the local DA, the police chiefs of all three cities, the county Sheriff, the head of the local CHP, the county librarian, Nevada City's mayor, the leadership of the local Greens, Republicans and Democrats, the Superintendent of Schools, both local radio stations and all local papers -- specifically, the Editor and Publisher at the major paper, the Editors of all the others, the News Director of one of the local radio stations and the Station Director at the other, and I'm on very good terms with the Director of the local community access TV station. I'm a certified broadcaster with the local community radio station, and a certified TV producer at the local cable station.

I'm involved with my state party as well -- I was a delegate at this year's state convention in fact -- and I have been involved with a wide range of efforts involving medical marijuana, which is very much a state-wide issue -- and I have worked closely with many of the most prominent people in that movement here, from Steve Kubby to Elvy Musikka, and many more. I'm helping the Recall Gray Davis effort, and I'm almost half-considering running for the job in the recall election. (Ballot access is relatively easy for the race, and there are likely to be many candidates, because it's not a one-per-party election. The winner doesn't need to get a majority of the votes, which means that someone could potentially win with less than 10% support.)

I also keep in touch with campus organizations, both locally and nationwide. I've attended at least 5 meetings of our (not directly libertarian) local campus action group this year, generally playing a primary role in the meetings. I was a major planner in their Books Not Bombs rally this March, at which I worked a table for my local LP, along with the Chairman of the party in the next county. It was there that I met the county's most prominent gun control advocates, with whom I am on very good terms now. I subscribe to the LPCampusActivist e-mail list, where I keep up on most of the libertarian groups around the country, and offer advice from my years of experience as a successful campus organizer when possible. In my upcoming road trip, I intend to make fostering local and campus efforts one of my primary focuses. I will help groups improve and advance their efforts in whatever way I can, and I will work with them to start new groups in unrepresented locations.

Not everything I do is overtly political though. For the past three years, I've lived on the grounds of a land stewardship project, and have worked hundreds of hours clearing the land for fire safety (and to help restore the pine tree population), building trails, and doing maintenance and cleanup work, while helping to pay off the mortgage on this protected property. I volunteered at the local radio station for a while, and helped produce a late-night music show there for a while too. I'm developing a project called the Free School on the Internet, which will aim to be a cost-free alternative for families who want to escape the public school system. I hope to have the school open and showing positive results before 2008. I am also setting my sights on running a series of job fairs for the homeless in the major cities around the country -- an idea I've had for a long time. Through my non-profit organization Future Solutions, I intend to create solutions to the problems that government is so often looked to to solve. There are a lot more projects on the list, but those two will be the likely first round. I plan to gradually phase out of my responsibilities (and pay) as CEO of PeoplesForum.com and into the role of Director of Future Solutions over the course of the rest of this year. I will seek foundation funding for my Free School project, and go from there. I am quite certain that I can obtain funding to further develop that project.

I have also created a number of websites dedicated to inspiring change or action in individuals in states and localities all over the globe, and many of them have done exactly that. I will continue to create more websites of that nature. I run CampusLP.org, which offers free websites to any campus libertarian club, and plan to launch CountyLP.org, which will be dedicated to information-sharing and coordination among the county libertarian groups around the country. One of my other websites Stopcarnivore.org has had hundreds of thousands of visitors from over 150 countries. One of my newest sites, PNAC.info, had almost 15,000 visits in its first month, and another site that I'm planning (coalitionoftheunwilling.net) has the potential to attract and affect millions of people.

All of which is to say that my presidential ambitions don't detract from my efforts to achieve short-term change, on every level, in a number of ways. I have "wasted" very little time or money in the past 9 years of running for president, and most of my plans for the next decades fit the same pattern. Very little of what I do is directly related to running for president -- but it's all part of becoming the presidential candidate I'll need to be. All that stuff (and enough more to bore you to tears) is my presidential campaign, in a way.

I acknowledged long ago that any non-bipartisan presidential candidate has the game stacked against them, and I concluded that my biggest asset (besides myself) was time. Time to develop a thorough and comprehensive strategy and time to bring it together. And time to develop a thorough and comprehensive character and system of ethics, and bring that together. I plan to continue running, if necessary, until 2024 -- every 8 years. I have a deep well of skills, strategies, and ideas devoted to increasing my chances of becoming the presidential candidate this country wants and needs, and I have the dedication and tenacity to see it through the whole way. If it can be done, I aim to do it -- and if it can't, then I will have spent 30 years doing a massive amount of work to help advance the ideas and practices of individual liberty, on every level from the personal to the global. Which is the best I could hope to do with my life.