State Chair’s Conference

For the third year in a row, state chair Bob Sullentrup and executive director Greg Tlapek attended the Libertarian Party State Chair’s Conference. Houston was the site of the 2003 event held the weekend of February 22.

This year’s conference reflected a degree of maturation over the previous two conferences.

The 2001 conference in Indianapolis, our first in this series, was one in which participants got to know one another. The chairs got a sense of which states were progressing well and had scored successes in various areas. Those states inspired the others who were struggling or just getting started. The contacts made at that conference benefited MO, for example, when it came time to find mentors for our radio advertising initiatives (MI and ME).

The 2002 conference in Nashville provided all the benefits we accrued in Indianapolis and more. The prepared presentations delivered a wealth of information and were supplemented with the reports stemming from first-hand experience from the field. From those discussions a pattern emerged: The message at that conference was to use “high touch in addition to high tech – talk to people and don’t be afraid to ask for what you want”.

The first inkling that the 2003 conference would have progressed that much further came from Dianne Pilcher’s multi-page survey distributed before the conference asking for income statements, press release counts, website statistics and so on. The Libertarian Party affiliates are now focusing on the LNC strategy with its six goals and 20 strategic items.

This was a definite maturation. At last year’s conference the presentations would have listed the attributes and practices of a well-run LP affiliate. At this year’s conference, the affiliates began to measure themselves.

As a result, the 2003 conference moved toward a “nuts and bolts” convention. Rather than reporting on isolated successes built on independent initiatives, the presenters and discussions covered topics such as branding. Branding is a coordinated, focused, sophisticated and forward-looking template that promises to change the tenor of the Libertarian Party’s message and forces us to step out of our issues-based methodology into the language of a constituency group. Who knows how that will turn out, but for the time being it has injected hope, direction and vigor.

As several indicated in the wrap-up, it is great to spend our time with like-minded Libertarians. We share the common bond that we are not fooled by government pronouncements, and we understand that coercion where unnecessary leaves us worse off. 

Throughout history, not many people have ever understood that. But Bob, Greg and Thomas Jefferson do, as well as the rest of the folks in that room and Libertarians in general. It is great to be in that crowd.

A 33-page write-up is available at:

http://www.dehnbase.org/lpus/library/scc/scc2003-report.