Advice to Libertarians who wish to run for City Council:

You may or may not follow my path.  It’s a change of life and a lot of work.

Find a leadership area in your community that’s of interest to you.  Seek a volunteer or appointed position in a community organization such as PTA, charity, local committee, city board or commission.  Attend City Council and commission meetings regularly.  Know the agenda topics. Write and speak to the City Council. Write letters to the editor.  Establish name recognition.

After you have a community resume and some name recognition, start a city council campaign 6-12 months before the election.  Know approximately how many votes it takes to be elected and focus on getting those votes.  Votes are all that matter.

Form an organizing committee.  Recruit campaign committee members to coordinate volunteers, manage a bank account, file state forms, and prepare your printed material (brochure/door hanger, signs, newspaper ads, campaign mailer).  You the candidate must do fund raising (about $15,000 for my successful re-election campaign for the Nov 2012 election).  You also must develop your campaign priorities and platform to reach voters, answer questionnaires, attend press interviews, attend candidate forums and walk precincts to meet voters.

Those are the essentials.  As an elected official you do not need to preach everything that is contained in the Libertarian Party Platform. There are enough bad policies and squandered taxpayer dollars to reasonably argue against.   You must have complete command of the facts involving a wide range of Council agenda topics and just use common sense in policy making.

But the results of last weeks elections are challenging that notion.

“After 32 straight losses for same-sex wedding laws, four states approved marriage-equality proposals last week. Two other states legalized marijuana for recreational purposes. Wisconsin elected the first openly homosexual U.S. senator in history, Tammy Baldwin,” The Los Angeles Times reports.

“But Americans appear to remain more receptive to conservative viewpoints on spending, debt and the size of government. A bare majority, 51%, of voters last Tuesday told exit pollsters that government should do less, with 43% saying it should do more.”

The Times comes to a promising conclusion:

“A more precise verdict would be that the majority of the country remains slightly right of center when it comes to supporting lower spending, decreased debt and smaller government.  But America appears to have shifted left of center in allowing more liberal policies on drugs and the institution of marriage. So, left on social issues and right on economics. If you eliminated the desire to tax the rich, it would sound like we had a center-libertarian nation.”

What are you doing to reach out to voters in a practical and credible manner on the issues they care about?

Email all of your supporters and remind them to vote.  Don’t just assume they know the election is Tuesday, or that they will even remember to vote for you.  Your supporters are intelligent, but they are also busy people with families, jobs and businesses.

Prepare your election night speech and press statement for three potential outcomes: a win, a loss and an inconclusive result.

Use your email, Twitter account and Facebook to post updates and tweets throughout the election day.

The minute the race is called, post a thank you note on your website, and any social media feeds, thanking your volunteers and donors.

Prepare list of people you must call after the results are announced.  The first should be your opponent to either congratulate (should he or she win) or thank (should you win.)   The next on the list should be your biggest donors.

BEFORE Election Day, contact an attorney experience in election law.  Let him know you may need his services should your voters or poll workers need assistance.

Speaking of which, if your race is called, and the margin is close enough to be in doubt, DO NOT CONCEDE!  Simply tell the press and your supporters very politely and professionally you will wait until all the votes are counted AND VERIFIED before declaring victory or defeat.  Immediately contact an attorney experienced in election law.

No matter the result, be gracious and professional.  Remind your supporters of the same.

“So how can a campaign with limited staff and financial resources get the voter data they need and radically increase the power of their field operations? Enter the Internet, and more specifically, affordable political software.”

Finding a good database program to manage the voter file could deliver tons of extra votes simply because you are better at identifying active, undecided voters than your opponent.

Having a good website that automatically loads content to social media networks could help you reach voters your opponent can’t.

Some programs available on iPad or iPhone allow you to update and automatically sync databases, allowing you to flag supporters and favorable voters for your Get Out The Vote from right there at their front door.

So talk to past candidates and political pros.  Ask what they use.  Try new programs. Find what works for you.  Political technology decides elections.

There’s no such thing as Election “Day.”

Thanks to more states opening up early and absentee voting, the use of mail-in ballots in states like Colorado and Oregon and because of our increasingly busy lives, in many elections more than half the votes counted on Election Night are cast in the weeks ahead of Election Day.

That while it’s a good idea not to spend all your money in the early days of a campaign, it means campaigns must hit mailboxes, phones and doors earlier than ever.

If you’re a Libertarian candidate, or running a Libertarian campaign, find out when absentee and early voting begin.

Make sure the voter registration list you purchase has the voter’s history on it.  Most voter registration lists also mark who cast an absentee ballot or voted early in person.  Make sure your campaign has contacted those voters as soon as early voting begins.

[Make sure you spend all of your volunteer's time only mailing, calling or knocking on the door of people who are 1) Registered to vote. 2) Show up to vote and 3) Aren't supporting your opponent(s.)  Don't waste time contacting people who don't show up to vote, knocking on every door, "converting" your opponents or doing voter registration drives.  There's a reason they didn't bother to register to begin with.]

In many places you may contact election officials, who will agree to send you a list of voters who have requested mail-in ballots.  Have someone devoted specifically to knocking on their doors to hand them a flyer or call them on the phone as soon as possible.

There’s no such thing as Election “Day” anymore.  Many, if not most, of the votes cast in your race will already be cast by the time Election “Day” comes.  Make sure you are specifically contacting those voters as soon as voting opens, and BEFORE they cast their early vote.

“Colorado may legalize marijuana on a state level this November. Oregon and Washington will hold referendums on the subject as well. Meanwhile, six states and the District of Columbia currently recognize same-sex marriage. Maryland and Washington state each passed laws legalizing same-sex marriage this year, but opponents managed to delay enactment until after referendums. One more state, Maine, will also hold a referendum this November. It is therefore possible that by the end of the year, nine states, or almost 20 percent of the nation, will have full marriage equality.”

“The Libertarian Party is gaining ground on a national level as well. For the first time ever, they have a presidential candidate with previous executive experience – former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson. With a former governor running on the Libertarian Party line, it is clear that their ideas have gone mainstream.”

The western office will direct efforts for U.S. Senate candidate Paul Passarelli and 5th District Congressional candidate Robert Lombardo, according to Reale.

The Eastern Connecticut office will be staffed fulltime, he said. The party will be getting an official phone number, something it hasn’t had since 2005. A phone bank is expected to fully operational by October, Reale said. Acquisition of a campaign bus is being considered, he said.

“It’s been a great year,” Reale said by telephone. “We’re getting ambitious. We’re looking to buy a bus.”

The Connecticut branch of the party has broken its annual fundraising record by collecting more than $40,000 this year, Reale said. The party is looking to hire additional fundraisers, he said.

“They did. They gave us five tax proposals — plus one change to the criminal code — that every one of them could support wholeheartedly, from left to right.”

What were they?

1. Eliminate the mortgage tax deduction
2. End tax deductions for health-care
3. Eliminate the corporate income tax
4. Eliminate all income and payroll taxes
5. Drop the income tax, tax consumption
6. Legalize marijuana

Libertarians are the only party dedicated to eliminating income taxes and ending costly drug prohibition, and many Libertarian officeholders

Please go here to chip in $25 or more to help Brett win on July 31!

Can I count on you to help Libertarian Brett Bittner win his race, which is just a few days away?

Brett is running for the Marietta School Board in Marietta, Georgia.

And I can tell you few places need Libertarians more than government schools.

Brett is running a hard-charging campaign that is competing for a win.

Brett has been an active Libertarian for over a decade.

You’ve probably seen him supporting candidates, tackling issues, and working for solutions.

And As a member of the school board, Brett will continue to stand for his libertarian principles and ideals, seeking to do what’s right for the students and the taxpayers of Marietta.

Brett is no unknown.  He’s served as an appointed member of Marietta’s Historic Board of Review, as well as its Historic Preservation Commission, representing Ward 1 on both since 2010.  He is also active in county and state politics.

Brett is also partner in Forward Focus Media, a libertarian strategic web consulting firm with offices in Atlanta and Birmingham.

Needless to say, Brett is just like our hundreds of elected Libertarians.

But he needs Libertarians like you to push him over the finish line.

With just days left until voting, Brett needs help getting out the mail, getting literature on doors and driving voters to the polls.

Please go here to chip in $25 or more to help Brett win on July 31!

Thirty-one percent (31%) say “the economy” is “the most important problem facing this country today.”  The second most pressing issue is “jobs,” coming in at 26 percent.

Combined, 57 percent of Americans cite jobs or the economy as the issue most in need of attention.  Immigration garnered only three percent.  Drugs, war and climate change did not even register on voter’s list of concerns.

The poll also found:

* “Seniors as well as Americans in households earning less than $30,000 annually join blacks in putting the greatest emphasis on unemployment and jobs as the nation’s top problem. By contrast, middle- and high-income Americans and those aged 18 through 64 are more likely to name ‘the economy.’”

* “Blacks focus more than either whites or Hispanics on unemployment as the nation’s top problem. However, whites worry more than blacks or Hispanics about the federal budget deficit…”

* “About 10% of adults in every major age group mention the federal budget deficit as the top problem, but it is of particular concern to Republicans (16%), adults earning $75,000 or more (12%), whites (11%), and men (11%). Relatively few blacks, Hispanics, low-income Americans, or Democrats mention the issue.”