Santa Clara Libertarian
	Volume 27, Issue 7
	August / September 1999
	For Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Inside This Issue

• Fair Results
• Chair's Column
• Libertarian Talk Radio
• Bill Carr Speaks at Exchange Club
• Speakers' Bureau Shines!
• Schedule
• Officer List
• Membership Form

The County Fair Booth

It Was A Success!

Frank Groffie
LPSCC Publicity Chair

Our booth at the fair was a success by any measure. We put up an attractive booth the night before the 1999 Santa Clara County Fair, and staffed it continually for the ten days of the fair from July 30 through August 8.

These 25 hard-working members of the Santa Clara County LP staffed the booth this year and deserve your thanks: Don Cormier, Joel Johnson, Lenora Kaposhilin, Markus Krummenacker, Richard Bass, Leyla Hanson, Anthony Gregory, Monica Silva, David Scott, Roger Ver, John Webster, Alan Furman, Hiram Pierce, Steffan Carroll, John Hugdahl, Ray Strong, Jeff Hanson, John Inks, Marv Rudin, David Wood, Steven Wells, Jascha Lee, Al Newman, Sam Grove, and Tom Parks.

These are the numerical results of their efforts: $93.50 in donations, 106 new LP voter registrations, about 100 voter reg. forms taken home by leaning libertarians, 156 inquiry forms filled out with names and addresses, 1 new paid member, at least 515 political position quizzes administered (a Nolan Chart variant), hundreds of fairgoers scoring libertarian on our Nolan Charts, hundreds of pieces of literature passed out, lots of words of encouragement, and many tired but happy and satisfied booth staffers. The cost was substantial: $1,220 and 200 hours. This is what party building and grassroots efforts are about, and the return on our investment seems satisfactory.

Especially pleasing is getting the 106 new registered LP voters. That's a very healthy number in itself. Roughly half were people fed up with the big lazy parties and half were new young voters or those that had moved into the area. Consider this though: our gains came largely at the expense of the Democrats and Republicans. I walked by the Democrats' booth about six times, and only three times did they have anyone staffing it. I saw practically no voter registration action going on. The Republicans manned their booth fairly continually, and I saw some completed reg. forms. So, assuming the DemoPublicans got about 100 registrations, we just may have cancelled out their efforts! We have better ideas, and we worked harder than our complacent RepubliCrat counterparts, who just sat behind their desks. Most of the time we had two booth staffers giving people quizzes, and on the busy last Sunday afternoon we had three.

Roger Ver, our membership chairman, will have his work cut out for him with the 156 inquiry forms. These have contact information of people who were impressed with their newly discovered libertarianism but want more information from us before taking that next step of registering or becoming dues-paying members.

And we can't discount the intangible benefits of thousands of people seeing our presence and being exposed to the word "Libertarian." A friend of mine who is active in local Democratic Party politics told me that a fair booth is very important just for reasons of visibility and advertising. We were seen as being on an equal footing with the two older parties. Besides the three party booths, no other parties were there. Several already-hard-core libertarians saw us and just said "right on." How many of those people, encouraged by what they saw, will stick with the party at least another 10 years instead of dropping out a year from now? I think a lot. Dozens of people came up to stare at our two big celebrity posters. These showed a montage of well-known personalities with libertarian quotes attributed to them, thanks to Marv Rudin's efforts. These 2'x3' and 3'x4' posters featured Hugh Downs, Clint Eastwood, Drew Carey, and others publicly declaring their libertarianism.

Our 1999 outreach effort built on and far outdid the 1998 booth. For example, new libertarian registrants surpassed the previous year's total by a factor of 4. We surmise a number of reasons: a 10% increase in fair attendance, cooler weather and more people passing through the building, a brighter booth in a corner location, more-experienced booth staffers. But a 4X increase?! Is there something else going on? Is it that we're closer to the 2000 elections? Libertarianism gaining steam? A Jesse Ventura spillover effect? Go figure. Anyway: we came, we were seen, and we conquered.

Chair's Column

Serious Growth Has Begun!

Marv Rudin
LPSCC Chairman

Congratulations to new Membership Chair Roger Ver! Since he came on, a surge in membership growth appears to have begun.

LP registrations have risen more than 4 times faster than normal. From January to May we averaged +11 per month. But in June it was +56, and including the first two days of the SCC Fair, it was already 65 in July. That's over 1% per month for June and July. For many years it has be negative in an odd numbered year (no elections). Also, compare this with the record growth of 11% (about 1% a month) for the state in '98 - an election year.

While we've still got a good way to go to reach the target rate of 25% to 40% growth per year I arbitrarily set as a goal at the start of the year, this news for a non-election year when registrations traditionally decline is very encouraging.

It's particularly encouraging because it came at a time just after our local party stopped dissipating our funds on an office (we moved out the end of April) and began using them for outreach efforts (OEM cards April, May, and June; and DMV tables twice in June). In addition, Roger has been consistently mailing literature and a registration form to all local inquirers, which no doubt has been contributing some of the growth, and wasn't done before he came on. We won't know for sure what is causing the much higher rate of registrations until our Telephone Team conducts a thorough poll of the new LP registrants starting the end of August, but the OE cards and DMV tables probably have had a lot to do with it.

From my one shift at the Fair and some estimates by Fair manager, Frank Groffie, the fair probably garnered about 60 new LP registrations in August after the 20 the end of July. If Roger can manage some DMV outreach days in August, and those who hadn't yet passed out their OE cards, the trend can be expected to accelerate when the results come in the end of August.

Thanks to all of you who've been leaving your TVs, computers, and other favorite pursuits on occasion and are passing out Operation Everyone cards (I'm now up to 49 myself), and helping Roger at the DMV. and Frank Groffie at the Fair, to help grow our local party. If you keep this up the Republocrats better watch out!

From known results thus far, the DMV still looks like the surest way to achieve predictable rapid growth with the least time and cost. We need to design and purchase one-person kits and we need Libertarians who live near to a DMV office to store the kits and handout supplies and registration forms and pens. The kit will consist of a portable foldup 2' x 6' table like those used for camping, two posters - probably an LP Celebrities and a Register LP - and a Nolan chart easel. The DMVs are open only during workday hours, so those of you who are retired, self employed with flexible schedules, please consider doing a table once a quarter, and help get us the rapid growth we need. And even you 9 to 5 workaholics can find happiness by adding 4 or 5 times your number to the LP registration rolls each year if you put in just half a sick, vacation, or goof-off day once a year.

Operation Everyone

For those of you who are new, OE cards are inexpensive (2 to 2.5 cents each, two-color printed) LPSCC promo cards with the LIFE version of the Nolan quiz on one side and a sales pitch to visit the LIFE web site (http://www.lpty.org) and register LP on the other side. Ten cards were mailed out inside every newsletter in April for ALL members (ergo, Operation "Everyone") to personally pass out their 10 cards to friends or friendly strangers in the normal course of their everyday activities (not going out of their way). If you are new and want to see one, or want 40 more (for donation of $2 or more) let me know. The idea of OE is to tailor the program to what evidence shows most members are willing to do - which I've determined by trial and error, is to give practically no time, energy, or money (If this doesn't apply to you, remember I said "most members"). We had 720 names on the list of members and donors received from the national LP in July. I estimate that less than 4% of them come to meetings, less than 3% volunteer to do or donate anything. So the question was how to get the other over 90% to contribute to LP reg-voter growth. I thought maybe if we made it easy and cheap enough, they'd do outreach. So we tried giving out free OE cards to them. At the end of May a sample poll of 60 members indicated that a little more than 10% had passed or intended to pass out their free OE cards. But maybe some more still will. We'll see.

With the free cards in April, an offer was made to mail out 40 more cards for a donation of $2 or more. The enthusiasm hasn't exactly been overwhelming. Just 3 members have thus far accepted the offer. Thank you John Hards, Hiram Pierce, and Tom Spielbauer! This was discouraging, but I'm not giving up. I think once you members realize how easy and fun it is, upwards of 50% of you members will be passing cards out on a regular basis especially after we have found a card design that gets the best results.

A Way We Can Have An Impact Now!

We're not big enough to affect many elections yet, but the following news summary about the LP using the courts to stop the use of the public's tax money to fund local bond campaigning ought to be of interest to you. We intend to do more than just slow up the seemingly inexorable growth of government, but such successes are a start.

"Wed. July 28, 1999. Santa Barbara Libertarian Party Wins Roosevelt School Bond Abuse Lawsuit. Superior Court Judge Thomas Adams this week signed an out of court settlement in the 'improper use of taxpayer funds' lawsuit brought by the Libertarian Party of Santa Barbara County against the Santa Barbara City School Board. Attorneys for the Libertarian Party won $16,500.00 in attorneys' fees. Principal Michael Caston of Roosevelt School selected Dale Scott & Co. at a higher price ($50,000 versus under $10,000) than other bond sales firms because Dale Scott & Co. promised to advise advocates of the school bond how to produce success at the polls. Using tax money to campaign for more tax money is illegal under California law since it violates the principle of morally limited government. A tax election machine self perpetuated by funds from tax money is offensive in contemporary law because it assures unstoppable growth of unlimited government."

School administrations are using similar illegal contracts all over Santa Clara County. The law firm that won this case will be contacted for possible actions here.

Petitions & Initiatives

Some state and local initiatives with broad appeal are being launched. Notable are the two repeal initiatives -- versus Prop 10 and the one at http://www.vetothegovernor.com versus SB23 -- and probably the most popular of all "Let the Voters Decide 2000" which would cut CA legislators pay from $145,000 to $95,000 and take setting their pay out of their hands. The two repeal initiatives should be popular because one is friendly to smokers (about 20% of adults) and the other to gun owners (over 25% of adults). We may be able to capitalize on the popularity of initiatives as they arise, especially if they use the technique launched by Geoff Metcalfe of KSFO in which his web site has a list of places to get and sign the initiative. If we Libertarians make them available for pickup at our homes and stores or offices, and LP information is offered in conjunction with them, growth can result with little effort or expense. Do you have an office or business or home that you can make accessible for this purpose?

Can You Help Find Speaking Opportunities?

At last one of ours will be talking to many of them to persuade them to our viewpoint, instead of vice versa as the local party has been doing. I'll be assisting Speakers Bureau Manager Ron Berti by calling various clubs and groups and sending them an offer to provide speakers, with speech titles and lengths to wet their interest and give them a choice of topic. Do you belong to or know of a group that might like a speaker? It doesn't have to be a civic or business group. It can be a hobby or technical group that might want to hear something different for a change -- everyone is a potential voter and has some interest in their political choices and government related problems.

Sim Is Worked For Anti Measure B Argument!

Some of you may be aware that I and the ex-chair of the Shasta LP, Al Swain, proposed a plan for the LPC (state LP) called "Reality Growth Plan", in which a major component was a proposal to have "Specialty Information Managers" or "SIMS". Well it has since been embraced by the LPC Executive Committee as a resolution, and implemented by LPC Executive Director Juan Ros as a list of "experts" in the last LPC Monthly. Recently I was approached by a lady Democrat, Kim Adams, asking for help to defeat Measure B, on Berryessa school bonds. I capitalized on the SIM program by asking SIM and LP notable Richard Rider of San Diego to provide a generic anti argument. He provided brilliantly conceived arguments for both original and rebuttal, plus good advice, and all I had to do was adjust the wording and add a bit to cover the situation at Berryessa. Unfortunately I was unable to sign the original and get the LPSCC name on the ballot because no authorization had been proposed to our LPSCC in time for a vote. But Campaign Chair, Ray Strong managed to get LPC chair Mark Hinkle to sign my argument with Ms. Adams, and at least get the party name on the ballot. I did get approval to sign the rebuttal on B. But by a strange and maybe fortunate quirk (not sure -- may be by design of their bond consultant), the proponents neglected to turn in an argument in favor of B, so there could be no rebuttal.

Libertarian Talk Radio

Libertarian Night on Naked Radio

Jascha Lee
LPSCC Newsletter Chair

As you may know, our tireless Marv Rudin has convinced a local talk show host to feature "Libertarian Night" once each month (for those of you who don't know, it's the third Thursday of each month from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on KSJS 90.5 FM).

I managed to tune in during this transition time between work and dinner (when, I must admit, my mind is more on dinner), and was pleased to hear another Libertarian star Thomas Spielbauer featured on the show. Mr. Spielbauer was discussing the merits of his initiative petition to make the Public Defender an elected position. (This is a move that is endorsed by us, please visit the web site http://www.electpd.org for the complete scoop.) While the discussion was marred somewhat by an engineer with a fondness for sound effects, it was very refreshing to hear "naked libertarianism" out in the open.

The host, Archimedes Garcia, was open to much of the argument in favor of making the Public Defender an elected position on par with the Prosecutor. He did his best, however, to play devil's advocate in some of the general discussion. I managed to call in twice and make a couple of points. It would have been more effective if the phones were ringing off the hook, but we'll take what we can get.

So next month, make a point to tune your radio to 90.5 FM between 5 and 7 p.m. on September 16, and better yet practice for your 15 minutes of fame by calling in!

Bill Carr Speaks at Exchange Club

Ron Berti's Speakers Bureau Begins Spreading The Libertarian Message with Class

Marv Rudin
LPSCC Chairman

Titling his very imaginative speech "Simple Solutions to Persistent Problems", our LPSCC Activities Chair and Schools Program Manager, Bill Carr, had the rapt attention of all 15 members of the Exchange Club attending a very classy luncheon at Jora's restaurant at the San Jose Airport's Jet Center on August 10th. While the 15 business and professional people attending gazed out over the beautiful panorama of the air strip, Bill used a number of effective speaking techniques from his experience as a Toastmasters leader.

The persistent problems he spoke of were those the U.S. is confronted with by social security and education.

He used having an illness that conventional medicine hadn't cured after many tries as a metaphor for the country's failure to solve persistent problems in social security and education, saying "wouldn't you at some point try alternative medicine." A lady chiropractor at my table seemed to see the wisdom in that statement.

On social security, he put out an open hat on the lectern as a symbol of the Social Security Trust Fund into which he motioned money taken from paychecks for social security was thrown, only to be withdrawn and replaced with IOUs known as U.S. bonds and spent as part of the general fund just like any other tax. He said such a scheme was tried by a man named Ponzi in the 1920s and was made illegal at that time for all of us, but not the government. The simple solution he said is to phase in personal savings accounts which people could put into real investments like the stock market which he pointed out returned enough on average, that members of even the lower middle class with mediocre incomes could retire with over a million dollars from which to draw many times more income than social security provides. To cover those who are too old for this solution he advocated that their social security payments continue, but the source - payroll taxes be replaced by investment funds set up from proceeds from the federal government selling off its huge land holdings and buildings now used for numerous unconstitutional departments and activities -- citing Education and Energy as two examples.

The subject of education seemed to be of great interest, judging by the questions after the talk. Bill said the federal government has thrown a lot of money at the education problem with little in the way of results to show for it. He said the government at all levels does a poor job of providing education because it's a virtual monopoly, even though there are private alternatives. He likened the private alternatives at the present time as being like saying to parents, "you can buy any car you want after you first pay for a GM car." He said the real solution is separation of school and state -- to not force people to pay taxes to support government schools and to allow free market alternatives.

He closed with a rousing appeal that registering Libertarian would send a message to the old party politicians that the alternative solutions offered by the Libertarian party are what is needed. It became obvious that the audience was interested in his proposals when on completion, they wouldn't let him step down without answering questions even though it was getting late and time to return to work. One question that several wanted answered was what about education for the children of the poor? His answer that free vouchers to pay for poor children during a transitional period may be used if the greater prosperity arising naturally from elimination of income taxes weren't enough to lift the lot of the poor, and if the greater charitable support to be expected with elimination of the income tax wasn't sufficient during the transition. In further support of the idea that ultimately, probably no government support would be needed for education, I pointed out that the unskilled are likely to be in short supply in a Libertarian economy, as small and new companies tend to use more people instead of machines because of small-run adaptability.

I handed out the Libertarian Alternative tabloid, an OE card, and my LPSCC business card to all attendees before the speech. Afterward nearly all left the tabloid, but about 10 took the cards with them. I offered to provide a registration form at the close of questions, but sadly, although not surprisingly, there were no takers. These were 40 and 50 something people with formed opinions and party affiliations, who don't change their minds instantly. But by getting out there with our message, Bill Carr certainly did a great job of opening their minds at least a crack.

Speakers' Bureau Shines!

The August 11th Speakers' Bureau meeting provided another fine evening of socializing, discussion, and provocative speeches. This time Victoria Stein, Richard Relph, and Anthony Gregory were on stage. Ms. Stein gave a calm presentation regarding her introduction to libertarianism. Richard Relph spoke of his experience attending Cato University (sponsored by the Cato Institute). And finally, Anthony Gregory gave a humorous speech aimed at the college age crowd in which he described a libertarian world complete with libertarian answers to potential risks from such a world.

Schedule

Speakers Meeting

The next Speakers Meeting will be Wednesday September 8th, at 7 o'clock at Coco's Restaurant. Come and critique a libertarian speech, discuss and debate, socialize and eat. We use these meetings to polish presentations/speeches that we will be giving to various groups. If you wish to deliver such a speech or have a group that would like to hear a libertarian speaker, please call Ron Berti at (408) 255-0248 or email at boomer@batnet.com.

Business Meeting

Business meetings are held every third month at 8 o'clock at Coco's Restaurant. The next will be Wednesday, October 13th. These are meetings in which, with a quorum, we are able to conduct official party business. The day of both these and the Speaker's Meetings is the second Wednesday of the month.

Directions To Coco'S

Coco's restaurant is located on the corner of Oakmead Pkwy and Lawrence Expressway. From 101, take the Lawrence Expressway exit south to Oakmead Pkwy.

Officers

This newsletter is the publication of the Libertarian Party of Santa Clara County, a non-profit political organization. For further information, call (408) 243-2711. Or see our web page at http://www.sc.ca.lp.org. Do you have something to say, and want it to reach all the Santa Clara county Libertarian members? Submit a newsletter article! lpnews@sebastian.com or 2301 Shibley Avenue, San Jose, CA 95125-4068. We especially appreciate articles related to local Libertarian news or activities.

The Libertarian Party of Santa Clara County Membership Application

Please print out and mail with payment to:

Libertarian Party of Santa Clara County
663 South Bernardo Avenue
PMB 107
Sunnyvale, CA 94087

Please Print

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