In keeping with solidarity:

Hello everyone, Austin Petersen is at your service! I’m hard at work building strong new coalitions across the country for our cause.

Ballot access is coming slowly but surely. I am scouring the internet for volunteers, placing ads, sending emails to Libertarian and Ron Paul meetups in specific states, making promotional videos, and doing the best I can to get people out there petitioning for ballot access. I have been directly emailing college students who are registered as libertarians on Myspace, and have deployed several volunteers using that method. Most of the volunteers I get come in from my direct emails, and randomly from surfing our website. Some have suggested I branch out into Facebook and am looking into that as well.

I recently scheduled an event for next Thursday evening here in D.C. Everyone is welcome. Join the meetup if you haven't already at: http://libertarian.meetup.com/364/

I am still very low on volunteers for South Dakota, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Anyone who is fired up and ready to defend their principles to the last man, should contact me to throw their hats in the ring, and collect signatures in your state. Or for those who filed their income tax, consider donating your stimulus check we borrowed from China to our ballot access efforts.

Join me: http://www.lp.org/action/volunteer.shtml

In Liberty,

Austin Petersen

If you have any poll suggestions for May, please email them to Andrew.davis@lp.org as you come up with them, and they may be used.

4/1/08

Do you consider Barack Obama to be "outside" the political establishment? (198 votes)
Yes - 34 (17%)
No - 150 (75%)
Maybe - 2 (6%)
Don't Know/No Response - 2 (1%)

4/2/08

What Democratic presidential candidate would be best for the LP to face in 2008? (98 votes)
Barack Obama - 33 (33%)
Hillary Clinton - 65 (66%)

4/09/08

Should the Iraqis be forced to spend oil surplus revenue on rebuilding their own country? (123 votes)
Yes - 90 (73%)
No - 27 (21%)
Maybe - 4 (3%)
Don't Know/No Response - 2 (1%)

4/10/08

Do you believe John McCain's military experience gives him more credibility as a presidential candidate? (164 votes)
Yes - 62 (37%)
No - 81 (49%)
Maybe - 21 (12%)
Don't Know/No Response - 0 (0%)

4/11/08

Out of these three political issues, what do you consider to be the most important in the 2008 elections? (329 votes)
Fiscal policy - 153 (46%)
War in Iraq - 64 (19%)
Civil liberties - 112 (34%)

4/14/08

Do you support the death penalty? (194 votes)
Yes - 97 (50%)
No - 86 (44%)
Maybe - 10 (5%)
Don't Know/No Response - 1 (0%)

4/15/08

What type of tax reform would you prefer? (125 votes)
Flat income tax - 25 (20%)
Consumed-income tax - 7 (5%)
National retail sales tax - 29 (23%)
"Fair Tax" - 36 (28%)
Other - 28 (22%)

4/17/08

Do you believe the government has a legitimate role to play in stopping climate change? (135 votes)
Yes - 27 (20%)
No - 93 (68%)
Maybe - 11 (8%)
Don't Know/No Response - 4 (2%)

4/24/08

What type of LP presidential candidate do you want? (409 votes)
A "purist" - 30 (7%)
A long established Libertarian activist - 22 (5%)
Someone who can communicate our basic message to voters outside our party - 357 (87%)

4/28/08

Has the price of gas impacted your driving habits? (95 votes)
Yes - 58 (61%)
No - 33 (34%)
Maybe - 1 (1%)
Don't Know/No Response - 3 (3%)

4/29/08

Do you support strengthening the GI Bill to help it cover today's tuition rates? (139 votes)
Yes - 72 (51%)
No - 50 (35%)
Maybe - 7 (5%)
Don't Know/No Response - 10 (7%)

Wayne Allyn Root
LD '08: $15,764.00
Individual: $29,988.00
Candidate: $4,421.90

Daniel Imperato
LD '08: $10,474.00
Individual: $0.00
Candidate: $0.00

Michael Jingozian
LD '08: $8,490.00
Individual: $13,090.79
Candidate: $0.00

Mike Gravel*^
LD '08: $895.00
Individual: $447,378.97
Candidate: $0.00

Steve Kubby**
LD '08: $1,280.00
Total: $2,951.22 [A typo on the candidate's filing incorrectly stated Election Cycle-to-Date contributions. The correct number is $16,219.77.]

Alden Link
LD '08: $885.00
Individual: $259.00
Candidate: $4,225.00

George Phillies
LD '08: n/a
Individual: $16,727.75
Candidate: $81,527.01

Mary Ruwart***
LD '08: $1,060.00
Individual: n/a
Candidate: n/a

Christine Smith**
LD '08: $2,460.00
Total: $16,244.00

Bob Barr (still in Presidential exploratory phase):
Total Reported by Candidate Web site: $53,163.64

Most Individual Contributions Raised: Root
Most Personal Money Contributed: Phillies

*Numbers reflect previous campaign for President in different political party
**No electronic report available. Only total available is net contributions that do not separate individual contributions and candidate contributions
***No FEC report available
^Candidate had failed to file April Quarterly Report when data was compiled

(LD '08 totals current as of May 5, 2008. FEC Filing data taken from Election Cycle-To-Date totals from candidates' April Quarterly filing. This information can be viewed at www.FEC.gov.)

What type of LP presidential candidate do you want? (408 votes)

A "purist" - 30 (7%)

A long established Libertarian activist - 22 (5%)

Someone who can communicate our basic message to voters outside our party - 356 (87%)

The Libertarian Party has received a lot of positive attention by the high profile defections of former Rep. Bob Barr and former Sen. Mike Gravel from the Republicans and Democrats. Although these events get national attention, this process is happening at the state level as well.

One fine example, is Kent Marmon, our Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate in Idaho. Until recently, Marmon was seeking the Republican nomination for the seat being vacated by Sen. Larry Craig. After swimming upstream against a state GOP that had already decided for the people who Idaho's next Senator should be, Marmon began to examine his other options and discovered a party which not only would give him a fair chance to win the nomination but also already advocated for everything he believes – the Libertarian Party.

A lifelong Idaho resident, Marmon previously served on the Caldwell City Council, where elected Libertarian Rob Oates now sits. The list of service organizations in which he is active includes Kiwanis, the Boy Scouts, the National Federation for Independent Business, the Chamber of Commerce, Crime Stoppers and the Early Parenting Support Services. As a city councilman, Marmon is especially proud of winning his battle with the Federal Aviation Administration, forcing them to make good on their promise to expand their local airport. Before he even got on the council, his design for a local Senior Center was realized, although once in the hands of politicians his plan to raise the money for the project from private donations only was abandoned in favor of taxpayer funding.

Marmon's issues are ones that would make any Libertarian proud. When one examines his record and his platform, it becomes clear that he was a Libertarian all along. He just needed our party to become successful enough to catch his attention and welcome him to his rightful political home.

The Idaho Libertarian Party has given us a fine example of how our success in electing Libertarians who serve well in office, like Rob Oates, recruits more successful candidates who are well prepared to take our message to the people.

Much like many of the tough issues facing Americans, people often rush to the government looking for a solution. And in the day and age where neither Republicans nor Democrats hesitate at taking on new powers, the federal government is all too ready to play the part of the hero. However, reality is much different from Hollywood movies, and far too often these reforms have disastrous consequences. Government manipulation of the free market has consistently made recessions worse and economic downturn more severe, and nobody doubts how ineffective the drug war has been. So, why should environmental regulation be looked at any differently?

It takes a very heady detachment from reality to believe that one can simultaneously protect the economy from any sort of impact while calling for new regulations against the private sector. Instead of rushing to the government, which passes legislation that directly impacts private businesses, the power of the market should be the driving force behind environmental reform. Essentially, leave it in the hands of the people to decide.

Unfortunately, the global warming paranoia created from a hyper-sensationalist news media and Hollywood documentaries that play fast and loose with bad science has created a sense of panic and agitation among the American public. Waiting around for the market to speak is too slow, people say; government regulation is much quicker. However, despite all the past legislation that seeks to stymie the impact of global warming on the environment, little good or change has come. In fact, nearly almost every single piece of notable legislation has all seemed to backfire -- and many with worse environmental impact than the legislation originally intended to fix.

The following list is in honor of the tried and failed environmental-based legislation that ended up causing more harm than good:

Banning the light bulb - Among the mountains of pork in last year's energy bill that received the stamp of approval from the Bush administration was a very surreal ban on the light bulb. Starting to be phased-out in 2012, the incandescent light bulb will be replaced by the compact fluorescent (CFL) bulb, despite it being more costly, requiring different consumer-use patterns, known to cause migraines, complicated to recycle and having a higher mercury content. What the government forgot about was that CFL bulbs cannot simply be tossed out because they pose a significant environmental risk as a result of the mercury levels in the bulb, but recycling centers for these bulbs are not well established across the country and prevent proper disposal.

In response Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann has proposed the "Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act," which would reverse the ban unless the GAO can prove the bulbs: save money, reduce carbon emissions and don't pose a serious health risk. Though, while based more on the merit of expediency than the actual belief in consumer freedom, Bachmann's bill accomplishes what sensible politicians (oxymoron?) should have considered in the first place.

FlexFuel - One of the first major moves towards going green in the automotive industry was Congressional pressure to move towards biofuels -- namely those fuels like E85 that are mixed with ethanol, which comes from corn. Many car companies, most notably General Motors, has produced variants of their popular models that can run on these biofuels.

Great idea, right? Not exactly. The demand that biofuels has put on the agriculture industry has sent food prices through the roof. "Congress has already authorized billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies for farmers who grow corn and the producers who turn it into the fuel that's pumped into your car," says David A. Ridenour, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. "Never mind that ethanol is helping spike food prices. Corn prices have already increased by 70 percent since 2005, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects they will rise an additional 10 percent to 20 percent this year."

Then, too, there is the fact that ethanol fuels actually hurt the environment while increasing the cost of any type of food coming from corn or animals that feed from corn. "A second study, by researchers at Princeton University, came to a similar conclusion, finding that corn-based ethanol would produce twice the greenhouse gas emissions as conventional gasoline over the next 30 years," says Ridenour. "The recently passed energy bill is expected to create even greater demand for ethanol, since it requires the United States to ramp up biofuel production to 36 billion gallons by 2022 from 7.5 billion gallons today."

Federal Land Reserves - Is it any wonder that the area of the United States where the federal government owns the most land also happens to be the area of the United States that seems to be on fire the most? Coincidence? Maybe, but it's doubtful. Regulations on federal land often prevent the burn-off or control of debri on the forest floor, which is one of the leading catalysts of monstrous forest fires. While ranchers and owners of private land can safely maintain their property, federal land adjacent to their property quickly becomes a fire hazard.

Of course, interest groups that lobby for anti-logging legislation and wish all federal land to be left alone as nature intended are all for such asinine legislation. There again, many of them have never lost a home to a preventable forest fire, but that's neither here nor there.

ANWR - Almost anyone that drives a car and has to fill up with gas that costs $3.50 or more might not think twice about running down an Alaskan caribou just for spite. After all, if it weren't for the caribou, the United States might have been able to tap into precious oil deposits in the Artic National Wildlife Reservation, bringing in an untold amount of U.S. produced petro into the American market. However, environmentalists unwilling to disturb the pristine environment of a region of the world where most Americans will probably never venture (nor think about) was blocked from drilling, despite the approval of local Alaskans who would benefit from the jobs and money such operations would create.

To get an idea of how small the footprint of the drilling operations would be, check out this map of ANWR. In case it is hard to see, it's the little red dot.

While Americans are dumping their life savings into their gas tank, they're also paying for the idea that there is a little piece of Alaska untouched by man, where caribous roam free and happy. It's really a nice thought, though not worth price.

If you have anything more to add to the list, please email them to Andrew.davis@lp.org.

This past week I sent out an email to request volunteers for the Ballot Access project and received a very good response. I want to thank everyone for contacting me let you know that someone will be contacting you soon to follow up.

For those of you who might be sitting on the fence and wondering if it's worth your time, I had a thought this morning as I was reading the news. The national debt stands now at around 9.3 trillion dollars, and next year's budget has been submitted to be 3 trillion dollars. The Iraq war is estimated to cost 2 trillion or more by itself -- all of it paid for in "emergency spending." That's around $30,000 for every man, woman and child in America.

This election cycle is crucial, and petitioners are badly needed in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Illinois and Connecticut. If you are still on the fence about volunteering, consider that the Libertarians are the ones who are tasked with ending these wars and out of control spending, as we are the ones who understand the consequences of history.

If we don't do it, who will?

Join me today http://www.lp.org/action/volunteer.shtml.

Sincerely,

Austin Petersen

Hello everyone,

This is Austin Petersen, the new Volunteer Coordinator! I have lots of ideas and am working on plans to revitalize volunteer efforts nationwide. Soon I will be running an active Meetup Group that will be used for volunteer recruitment, networking, and fun! If you're in the D.C. Area, please join, and encourage others to join, as this will be a great way to make friends, and get active with the Libertarian Party.

As the Volunteer Coordinator, my job will be to make sure that we have ballot access in the following regions: Alabama , Connecticut , Washington DC, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia.

If you live in one of the above areas and are able to, please register to volunteer with us, so that we can work together to help Liberty minded candidates elected in your communities. It's comforting to know that there are many Libertarians who hold elected office in their hometowns, but we must continue to increase our numbers. That's where you come in. By volunteering a weekend or more, you can make a real difference.

If you have questions you may contact me at austin.petersen@lp.org for more information. Thank you and I am very excited to meet and work with all of you.

Sincerely,

Austin

Current issues that you should know about:

Real ID Act:
Last week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced the final plans for the Real ID Act, which included at two-year delay. States now have till 2011 to become compliant with the new regulations that have gone largely unfunded by Congress, leaving the states responsible for the bill. However, all but a handful of states are mounting protests. Joining the 17 states that have already balked at the program, 20 more have passed legislation protesting the program in at least one chamber of their legislature.

The Libertarian Party of Alabama has been working diligently to get its state government to join with the many other states that will not be instituting the federal mandates. Party Chairman Stephen Gordon, along with fellow Libertarian Mike Rster, have found a legislative sponsor to bring up a bill that would block the Real ID Act from Alabama. "Alabama is prime territory for a repeal of any state funding or involvement in a federally mandated invasive program such as Real ID," says Gordon. "We value our privacy and don't mind telling Uncle Sam to get off our backs."

So far, the states that are refusing to the Real ID Act include Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington.

FISA:
After becoming law in August of last year, the amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are once again up for a vote. This time around, the Bush administration wants to see the amendments made permanent. As it stands now, the amendments that legalized the Bush administration's surveillance of American citizens' communications with people "reasonably believed to be outside the United States" -- whatever that means -- are set to expire Feb. 1.

Without a strong Democratic protest to the FISA amendments, the Bush administration just might get their way as it has on nearly every issue related to the "War on Terror." The Bush administration calls FISA an essential tool in the "War on Terror," saying that without it, Americans would be at a high level of risk of terrorist attacks.

Libertarians can help by writing letters to Democratic Senators urging them to stay strong in fighting the FISA amendments. The Senate Democrats who voted for the bill last time around include:

Bayh (D-IN)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Conrad (D-ND)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Salazar (D-CO)
Webb (D-VA)

A full breakdown of the voting statistics can be found here.

Economic stimulus package:
The economy is in trouble, or at least it's quickly headed in that direction. While the "R" word hasn't been thrown around just quite yet, recession is certainly on everyone's mind. In an attempt to stave-off an economic downturn, which is the last thing Bush wants right before he leaves office, Congress is proposing a hefty economic stimulus package.

Details of the package are just being worked out, but some estimates of the cost put it at around $100 billion to $150 billion. Congressional economic stimulus packages are largely ineffective because of the time it takes from their passage to actual implementation. Additionally, the idea that Congress can micromanage the economy is relatively absurd. Tom Firey, of CATO, wrote in a recent blog entry that "stimulus packages have a much shoddier record, however: they take months to move through Congress, and additional months to implement — long after the recession has come and gone."

A crucial part of the stimulus package, if Congress decides to go ahead with it, would have to be assurances that any tax cut would be offset by a spending reduction. Otherwise, the government takes on more debt, and goes right back to where it started. But given the propensity of the Bush administration to spend like a Democrat with a complicit GOP tagging along, it's doubtful this will happen.

The best thing Congress can do for the economy is cut taxes, cut the size of the government and cut spending.

Trimming the fat from the omnibus spending bill:
Last month's $555 billion dollar omnibus bill was hailed as a conservative victory by the GOP, which had convinced their Democratic counterparts to ditch many of their projects at the last minute. However, that didn't stop Democrats and Republicans alike from throwing in mountains of pork barrel projects--more than 9,000 in all. In reality, most of these projects were created in committee reports, and not actually a part of the bill itself.

One option the Bush administration has, and one that the National Taxpayers Union has suggested, is that Bush issue an Executive Order telling the federal agencies to ignore these projects. The Bush administration hasn't really said what it plans to do. Given that many of these projects come from Republicans themselves, don't hold your breath.

The NTU letter to Bush can be found here.

According to D'Souza, who recently blogged about Christopher Hitchens' appearance at a Reason magazine Christmas event, "many libertarians are basically conservatives who are either gay or druggies or people who generally find the conservative moral agenda too restrictive." Because D'Souza believes libertarians embrace "much wider parameters of personal behavior," he sees most libertarians as hedonistic atheists, and uses a tipsy Hitchens as the chief example of our disdain for morality.

As a devout Southern Baptist, I was taken aback. After all, I am neither gay nor a drug user, and consider myself to be very socially conservative. But such petty stereotypes demonstrate that the accuser has either a very tenuous understanding of the libertarian philosophy or is just stupid. In D'Souza's case, I would hope it is merely the first.

D'Souza's view of freedom and humanity is incredibly pessimistic. Not only this, but it contradicts both the values of his own religious faith and the founding philosophy of the United States--two things that D'Souza supposedly champions. Both Christianity and the founding philosophy of the United States teaches that all men should be free, and the choices they make should be of their own volition. However, D'Souza seems to believe that freedom begets immorality, and it should be the role of the state to define moral conduct.

For me as a Southern Baptist, I saw the Libertarian Party as the only political party committed to the basic principles of my faith, and D'Souza could learn a lot from my experiences with it. Unlike the Republican Party, which has been overrun by those who wish to impose their concept of morality on all people by way of legislation, the Libertarian Party believes that all people should be free to live how they choose by the rules they set for themselves (with the caveat that they do so without causing harm to others).

People like D'Souza see the Libertarian Party's social tolerance as an endorsement of what he would see as negative behavior, rather than an endorsement of the principle of liberty, which leaves the individual free to live how he chooses. This is a very serious misinterpretation, and one that can lead to foolish generalizations such as the one D'Souza made last week. The Libertarian Party promotes no moral code other than that people should live in freedom and do no harm to others.

But if D'Souza believes that liberty and morality are mutually exclusive ideals, then he can neither fully believe in the American values he supports, nor the Christian principle of free will. You can be both a Christian and a libertarian, as I clearly am. And if you're not, well, that's perfectly okay with the Libertarian Party too.

By and large, libertarians are peace-loving individuals who simply want to be free from government. These people are pastors, police officers, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, school teachers, college students, business men and anyone else who believes in limited government, fewer taxes and more individual freedom. It is safe to say that most Americans are libertarian at heart--be them gay, straight, Christian or atheist.

That's the unifying magic of liberty.

We challenge D'Souza to rescind his simplistic generalization of libertarians, and ask him not to make broad assessments of topics he doesn't fully understand.

Additionally, Redpath will be live on KDKA 1020 out of Pittsburgh to talk briefly at 5:50 p.m. about the resolution. Redpath and Barr were on KDKA earlier this year during the LNC meeting in Pittsburgh. To listen live, please click here.

The interview is posted below, and for a link, please click here.

The National Convention will be held May 22 - 26, and there, many important decisions regarding the future direction of the Party will be made. If you haven't signed up, you should do so as soon as possible to take advantage of the great room rates. Right now, rooms are going for $99, $150 off the regular price.

This year's convention will be held in Denver, CO, which makes for an amazing vacation spot as well as a perfect location for a National Convention. Conventioneers are encouraged to take some additional time to enjoy the natural beauty and entertainment opportunities Denver offers.

For more information on the 2008 National Convention, please visit www.lpconvention.org. You can't have a hand in crafting the vision and future of the Party if you're not an active player. So, come meet us in Denver and let's make the Party better than it's ever been.

But unlike what Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, suggests, this is not an open invitation for the government to step in to help protect financial and other personal information. The same idea that we want to keep this information secret from everyone, including the government, is still just the same.

"Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety,'' Kerr said at a recent intelligence conference in October. "I think all of us have to really take stock of what we already are willing to give up, in terms of anonymity, but (also) what safeguards we want in place to be sure that giving that doesn't empty our bank account or do something equally bad elsewhere.''

Kerr's comments come at an interesting time, as that Congress is looking to finish up amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Privacy advocacy groups like the Electronic Freedom Foundation say the amendments being discussed would give unprecedented power to the government to spy on the communications of U.S. citizens. A power for which people like Kerr desire.

"There is something fundamentally different from the government having information about you than private parties,'' Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the Guardian Unlimited this past week. "We shouldn't have to give people the choice between taking advantage of modern communication tools and sacrificing their privacy.''

Opsahl brings up a good point: The government is to whom most people want to remain the most private, not advertising corporations and other Internet-based data mining companies. Of course, it is preferred private data not be shared with third-parties like these companies, but when it comes down to who scares people the most with private information, it's always going to be the government.

The reason is that private companies can't put people in jail. And in a post-9/11 society where the law becomes ambiguous when relating to what the government determines to be a "national security" issue, the less information the government has on people, the better things are.

It does appear however that the United States is heading in the direction of the omnipresence of government in day-to-day communications of every citizen. While it may not be in the form of a "telescreen" built into the apartment wall as it was in Orwell's 1984, it is no less sinister.

Take for instance the confession of retired AT&T technician Mark Klein, who exposed a National Security Administration data-mining program at AT&T that sent a copy of all Internet traffic and voice calls to the government. Unlike what FISA specified, the vast majority of these transmissions were domestic, and the government received a copy of them without a warrant. In essence, the government could potentially sift through any search-engine query, email or text message sent through AT&T--domestic or foreign.

Congress is now debating whether or not telecommunication companies who assisted the government with this type of spying should be given immunity from prosecution by citizens seeking compensation for this breech of trust.

It should be fairly obvious for what the Bush administration is pushing. A show of trust between the government and these companies would mark the beginning of a relationship disastrous to American privacy rights unlike the U.S. has ever seen. Nixon would be pleased.

But people like Kerr are calling for more power and more trust when it comes to government and privacy. Should the amendments to FISA be passed, and should telecommunication companies get off for assisting the government in illegal domestic spying, there won't be much stopping the government from getting its way. After that, there won't be any question to whether or not Internet communications are private.

The only question that will remain will be if one says is determined to be a vague threat to national security. Just think: One little joke sent in an email could land a person on the no-fly list without trial, notice or warning.

You just have to trust the government to have a sense of humor when reading your email.

This election year is a special year for Libertarians, despite being an "off-year" election. We have several strong incumbents running today, as well as two incumbents who are running unopposed. It is a great sign for the Libertarian Party when our members who have faithfully served their constituents are given the honor of running again--and running without an opponent for that matter!

Today, 93 Libertarian candidates will be on the ballot across the United States increasing our yearly total to 156. This may fall short of the number we ran in 2006; however, it is important that every election we do all that we can to support our candidates and add to the vote totals.

Historically, third parties have been integral in social and political change. This is the role of the Libertarian Party. While we certainly can't win every election, and we're years away from becoming a formidable polarity in American politics, but even small off-year elections can show the main two parties that libertarians are not to be taken for granted. Our influence will grow as more libertarian-defectors join the party after leaving the Republicans and Democrats.

From Election Day 2007 to Election Day 2008, the Libertarian Party encourages you to think about running for an office as a Libertarian, and continue to support the party. The Libertarian Party is only as strong as our candidates and our members' supports. The power of the party is in the individual Libertarian.