At every convention I’ve been to, when it comes to at-large spots most people don’t even know who all the candidates are the day before the election. I get the feeling that a significant number of candidates themselves don’t know that they’re going to run until the day before the convention.
The main reason delegates make poor choices when voting for candidates at convention is that enough information about them isn’t available to make a good choice. In general, I trust the judgment of the delegates when given access to adequate information.
So how do we get that information out there? There should be a website that lists every LNC or JC candidate and the relevant information about them. LPedia isn’t the right place for that, although I bet that it would be a nice resource for people writing LPedia articles in the future.
I’d like for the website to have the word Meritocracy somewhere in it. When I first started dreaming this up I thought I wanted to start a caucus called the Meritocracy caucus, but a platform instead of a caucus will do the job I want to do much better. The central premise of the Meritocracy website will be to select the person who is most deserving and would do the best job in every LNC and JC role.
How would it work?
Sort of like ballotpedia, each candidate would have a page. On that page the candidate themself would write in answers to the following, or similar, questions:
- Please describe any experience you have with database management.
- Please describe any experience you have with social media account oversight.
- Can you name a successful, large convention that you helped to plan?
- Describe any ballot access campaigns that you’ve helped to organize or supervise, and what the result was.
- Can you name a time when you resisted taking on a project that was outside the scope of your organization’s core functions?
- Do you have any experience making budgeting decisions for medium-sized organizations?
- During your best year, about how much money were you able to fundraise for the Libertarian Party, for a state or local party, or for a candidate?
- Describe a time you were able to effectively work with someone who you didn’t like or who didn’t like you. Do you tend to make other people you work with angry?
Why those questions?
I’ve had conversations with a couple of people I trust about what makes a good, or even ideal, LNC member. I’m not going to violate their privacy by saying who it was I talked to, although I doubt that they would object to being known. Here’s one quote:
“I think the LNC tries to do too much. The national party should be focused on putting on a convention, maintaining a database, having a social media presence, getting presidential ballot access. That’s about it. LNC members like to “do stuff” so they can get reelected. That causes them to spend a lot of time debating and passing irrelevant or counterproductive things.”
Here’s another:
“Questions: What makes an ideal LNC member, and what skills overall would a complete LNC have?
“Knowing their role is oversight and overall direction, not management or execution. Good brand ambassadors, histories with finances or achieving goals or something that brings credibility to the org. Team member rather than in it for themselves or ambassador for others.”
And here’s me. If you were going to program Mr. Data from Star Trek for the function of being a member of the LNC, the ideal LNCBot would be programmed with:
– Advanced convention planning
– Database management
– Social media expertise
– Ballot access experience
– Reject other projects fortitude
– Medium sized organization finance
– Minor fundraising capability
– Disagree with other LNCBot without harming LNC functionality
A side benefit of having these functions listed on the website is that if anybody wanted to aim for being an LNC member in the future, they could build those skills up in the years before and know that they would be valued by the delegates.
I also think on the website there should be a box where other people should be able to write in favor of the candidate. There should also be a box where other people should be able to write in opposition to the candidate. Every editorial in favor of or opposed to a candidate should be limited to some number of characters, like 300 or 400 maybe.
For judicial committee candidates a similar page should exist, asking for their opinion on one or more decisions the JC has made in its history. Pick a case, then write or cite an opinion. Similar boxes should also exist for people writing in favor of or in opposition to them.
I’m adamantly of the opinion that the LNC meritocracy website should be true neutral between all caucuses, Classical Liberal, Mises, Radical, or whatever. If we simply got the best talent from each group there wouldn’t have to be a group that was kicked out after a takeover. The balance would be restored naturally.
