7 Lessons as a Libertarian Loser
Some thoughts and lessons on running for Senate as a Libertarian in the Free State of New Hampshire.
Go direct to break through
The legacy media will only talk about libertarians when it serves their interests, which means they will never allow us to put our ideas and arguments forward in our own words.
Big tech moderation policy is certainly hostile to libertarians, but social media nonetheless allows anyone to go viral and get attention with the right message. During my campaign, I released seven video ads:
For under $10,000 in production costs, we got around 1.5 million direct video plays. These counts exclude Tiktok, where my channel had a few million views on videos before getting banned, for somewhere between 3-4 million plays total. These counts also exclude restreams and re-embeds of these videos, which would easily add several hundred thousand more plays.
If the corporate press will ignore or be hostile to Libertarians, go around them. Go direct with a message that cannot be ignored.
While the ads weren’t enough to make the campaign an electoral success, they accomplished their primary goal of getting our message out there and raising the profile of libertarianism in New Hampshire. This was definitely an encouraging experiment, and the team behind the videos (myself, Dan Smotz, Bill Barger, and Reed Coverdale), are likely to continue making them.
We succeeded in the most important goal
While we’re disappointed that we were unable to reach the 4% threshold for major party status, this was only one goal, and a short-term one. Long-term, the most important goal is to increase the density of libertarians in New Hampshire.
We succeeded in this goal directly, by being unequivocally libertarian and raising awareness of the state as a great place for libertarians to live.
We also succeeded indirectly, by helping the media paint New Hampshire as full of extremist libertarians. While the media is never going to give libertarians a fair shake, they will talk about you if they get to paint you as extreme and crazy. We’re happy to lean into this, furthering the reputation of New Hampshire as a state where people who do not love liberty will be unhappy.
There’s more to do to grow in-state
Our biggest failure this campaign was not succeeding enough in breaking through to libertarian-leaning or politically apathetic New Hampshire residents. While we hosted a number of public events with 30-50+ people, we reached very few people who were actually new to liberty or libertarianism.
Figuring out a way to grow the party with people who aren’t already friendly to the Free State movement remains our biggest challenge. Additionally, while the party is more popular with Free Staters than it ever has been, we need to do more to convert these people into engaged and active members.
Political campaigns are a group of people pretending to be one person
Until I became a politician, I never really considered the degree to which a politician’s role is to be the physical embodiment of an abstract set of ideas held by a group of people.
My Substack (other than this post), was written by
and Reed Coverdale. Bill Barger and several others made memes of me. Erik Sawyer managed a variety of social media profiles.On one level, I was selected because I’m me, and people wanted me to “be myself” and “speak truth”. But in another sense, a politician is selected because of his ability to speak for and channel the energies of a crowd. You’re this weird mix of an individual and something like a shaman that channels the energy of a larger group.
I’m not sure there’s a lesson in this comment, but it’s something to consider if you ever run for office yourself.
Libertarians can win… if they run as Republicans (at least in NH)
One of the most foolish notions some Libertarians have is that each voter individually considers candidates. The reality is that about 80-90% of voters are not reachable as soon as you have an L next to your name.
In 2018, three New Hampshire state representatives, Brandon Phinney, Caleb Dyer, and Joseph Stallcop joined the Libertarian Party from the Republican and Democrat party. Phinney and Dyer both ran again in 2020 as Libertarians and each got under 10% of the vote. In 2022, Phinney ran again, this time back as a Republican, and won reelection.
Brandon Phinney is a principled libertarian. New Hampshire is better with him in office. What persuasive reasons could the Libertarian Party give Brandon to run with them again? I can’t think of any.
If there’s one idea I’d like to die in the Libertarian Party, it’s that voters individually consider actual policies in how they vote. In reality, most of the small percentage of people who do this are already relatively libertarian.
The Libertarian Party must find unity
The Republican Party manages to have Mitt Romney and Marjorie Taylor Greene in the same party.
The Democratic Party manages to have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Joe Manchin.
The Libertarian Party is way too small and weak to not be able to have people like Chase Oliver and Reed Cooley working together.
Throughout the election season, the amount of infighting among Libertarians was absolutely crazy. There appears to be a substantial group of Libertarians that care more about fighting each other than the state.
Among both Libertarian Party leadership and membership, more needs to be done to shift the mindset among Mises Caucus members from underdog/fighter to being in control. It’s now the Mises Caucus that need to be magnanimous and attempt to heal the divide where possible. This is not a suggestion that the LP should return to the time when socially progressive libertarians and economist/neoliberal types were in control, but there’s more that could be done to have the party include them.
This might sound unexpected coming from me, but I genuinely want Libertarian Party unity. I do not want to fight with people I agree with 95% of things on and argue over who is a “real libertarian”. I’m happy to go first and offer an apology to anyone who has a beef with me.
The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire is stronger than ever
The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire was in bad shape in 2019. In New Hampshire, libertarians have had so much success running and winning as Republicans that the party was left primarily with those that had very progressive social views or were soft on property rights. Think of the type of LP member that likes to hate on Ron Paul - it was mostly those types.
Today, LPNH is bigger than ever, has more members than ever, has no problem getting over 100 people out for events, and has grown its social media following by more than 10x to be the most popular state affiliate.
We’ve got a lot more to do, but if we look at where we were two years ago, we’ve gone a long way. If you want to be a part of it, join the party and come on out to our convention on January 28th at Backyard Brewery.
Very well said on all points -- thank you Jeremy for taking on this responsibility AND rising to the challenge like a badass
As a principled libertarian, like yourself, I morally oppose “leadership” in the typical vernacular with coercive connotations
That being said, I’m proud to voluntarily follow you as an important leader making real progress both unifying and growing the Liberty Movement!
Jeremy - we're building a new social campaigning platform set to disrupt the $16.7bn election campaigning industry, save democracy, and create a new platform/network for people to review candidates, select favorites, and share with friends. I'd like to talk with you about how the Libertarian Party could benefit from this new platform/network/app most. I'd be happy to demo the platform any time. Jim Gillis https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgillis/