REPUBLICAN LIBERTY CAUCUS NEWS

Fiedor Report On the News #279 ^ | 7-21-02 | Doug Fiedor

[forest]

The primary goal of the Republican Liberty Caucus is to help Liberty minded candidates -- those who will "support and defend the Constitution of the United States" -- get elected to office. Our secondary goal is to provide a viable organization that will help Liberty minded Republicans join together to succeed in our primary goal.

Texas, of course, has the RLC's first Chairman, Rep. Ron Paul, and other office holders. They already have a slate of candidates ready for this election cycle. Kentucky RLC helped six out of seven RLC candidates get elected in the last election cycle and is already working on a very impressive slate for this and the next cycle.

[Jim Robinson]

I'm very interested in the idea of the Republican Liberty Caucus. I sincerely believe that it is feasible to move the entire party to the right if enough Liberty-minded people would join the RLC and get active in their local committees. I've recently joined a fledgling local RLC Chapter myself. I'd like to offer an RLC forum here on FR.

[rb22982]

being a small l libertarian, I would definately sport any RLC candidate for office

[Eagle Eye]

The primary goal of the Republican Liberty Caucus is to help Liberty minded candidates -- those who will "support and defend the Constitution of the United States" -- get elected to office.

Is this implying that the main body of the GOP is not oriented this way?

[nofriendofbills]

Is this implying that the main body of the GOP is not oriented this way

If they were the RLC wouldn't be necessary.

[gcruse]

I have received mailings from the RLC, I think as a result from their web site. My initial impression was that the RLC was used to pull Libertarian votes, without actually including any libertarian ideas in the Republican platform. The RLC was a placebo. I could be wrong, and am willing to hear more.

[Doug Fiedor]

I think Doug Lorenz will be good for the RLC. When I talked with him, he suggested that the group is in immediate need of good communications between the National Board and the State chapters -- as well as between the State chapters themselves. That's something we all agree on 100%!

Some chapters have had great success helping liberty minded candidates get elected to office. Their techniques should be shared with other RLC chapters. Because, my feeling is that, working together, we should be able to send Rep. Ron Paul about forty friends in two years. Imagine what a difference forty-some Liberty Minded Congressional office-holders could make on Capitol Hill!

But, Doug Lorenz makes an excellent point: We must also elect liberty minded candidates to offices in every level of government. Every position can be significant for the protection of liberty. Therefore, every elected position is important.

There is yet another important point that should be made. The Republican Liberty Caucus is a club and not officially an arm of the Republican Party. Therefore, the RLC can often operate under different rules -- with much wider latitude -- than the "official" Republican Party can. This presents many rather interesting possibilities for positioning liberty minded candidates in the primary elections and helping them to get well known by the voters early in the game.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

I'm very interested in the idea of the Republican Liberty Caucus. I sincerely believe that it is feasible to move the entire party to the right if enough Liberty-minded people would join the RLC and get active in their local committees. I've recently joined a fledgling local RLC Chapter myself. I'd like to offer an RLC forum here on FR. 3 posted on 7/20/02 2:30 PM Pacific by Jim Robinson

....ping.

[Texaggie79]

son, where in the HELL have you been?!

[Mike4Freedom]

That has been my experience as well. It is a mechanism to draw libertarians away from the Libertarian Party, weakening it. In the meantime, their activity is lost in the "far from liberty oriented" Republican Party.

I once had an e-mail discussion with a high level member of the RLC and asked him his position on jury nullification. He gave me the standared libertarian answer favoring it. When I asked if the main line RNC shared his view, the answer was NO. So what good is being a part of the RLC with no influence on the RNC?

If your opinions are libertarian, join the Libertarian Party or you are being used as a patsy.

[RAT Patrol]

It depends on if you mean liberty or license. If you mean liberty, join the RLC; if you mean license, join the Libertarian Party. I believe there is a link to the RLC website on the main FR page. It is not a libertarian group. It is a local control group. That was my take.

[madfly]

ping

[Mike4Freedom]

It depends on if you mean liberty or license. If you mean liberty, join the RLC; if you mean license, join the Libertarian Party. I believe there is a link to the RLC website on the main FR page. It is not a libertarian group. It is a local control group. That was my take.

No, the RLC claims all the same values as the Libertarians. They regularly advertise in Libertarian publications and I have seen them at Libertarian state conventions at times. They are specifically trying to suck up the true freedom lovers from the Libertarians and put them in a harmless debating society.

The liberty lovers have no influence in the overall Republican party.

The Libertarian position and platform is not some kind of libertine license but true constitutional liberty. It is just what you conservatives say that you want.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

.

[logician2u]

I'd like to offer an RLC forum here on FR.

Jim, with all due respect, you have an uphill struggle ahead if you expect to find many other activist Republicans who are as devoted to liberty as you are. Kind of like finding black conservatives, only a little tougher.

It's not that all the folks deeply committed to seeing a rollback of government in our lives are in the Libertarian Party. Obviously, they're not or we're in deep doo-doo.

But the very few Republicans -- who remain Republicans after years of disenfranchisement and obscurity -- that truly believe in personal liberty are just not likely to join up in a political organization that goes so counter to the prevailing orthodoxy. It puts them at risk if they ever plan to go somewhere in the party.

Or, putting it another way, the party activists who plan to ascend to the State Central Committee or the RNC won't touch the RLC, even if they agree with its positions (which few of them do) because they're looking for support from the "broad middle."

The RLC may have decent ideas, and they do, but as far as gaining a foothold in the Republican Party is concerned, it just ain't gonna happen. The numbers are too much against us.

I gave up on the Republicans in '96 and haven't looked back. Friends of like persuasion who stayed with the party are now ostracized for not falling in line with the Bushies. "We're at war, don't ya know? We can't get all wrapped up in ideological battles now!"

I hate to say it, but chances of reforming the GOP are about the same as reforming the government schools.

[RAT Patrol]

I am not impressed with the Libertarian Party. I haven't made up my mind about the RLC but my first impression was positive. If I were to change parties it would be to the Constitution party I think.

[rwfromkansas]

Exactly. The Libertarian party is well, psychotic. The TRUE Constitutional party is just that....the Constitution Party.

I am a Republican because I believe good chance can be made from within. There may come a day when I may lose this youthful naivete.

[RAT Patrol]

Exactly. The Libertarian party is well, psychotic. The TRUE Constitutional party is just that....the Constitution Party.

I am a Republican because I believe good chance can be made from within. There may come a day when I may lose this youthful naivete.

rw, my friend, well said! I feel exactly as you do about being in the GOP.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

JimRob, I've been involved in the RLC for a couple years now. Like everything else in politics, it's about ideas. Ideas that promote liberty and return the focus to the Constitution. Ideas that should be integral to the Republican Party but which, sadly, often aren't.

We're working to change that. And succeeding!

In reading through the thread, it seems there's a few folks who have given up on the GOP. I feel their pain. Here in California, we just had a tumultous primary in which the GOP's anointed candidate was more of a leftist than the DemocRat incumbent! This promised a dismal general election in which their selection would be a competent socialist and an incompetent one.

Except, it didn't happen that way. The blood drained from the Establishment candidate's campaign as an attractive, liberty-oriented, limited-government Constitutionalist came from way behind and took the nomination in a landslide. It's no accident that Bill Simon won-- he had hundreds of energetic activists (including a thriving contingent here on FR) pulling for him. In fact, the RLC was the first major organization to endorse his candidacy, more than a year before the primary. And we pulled out all the stops for him. Here in the Bay Area there were phone banks and whistle-stops and leafletting efforts that reached hundreds of voters directly and exponentially more indirectly. And as the article notes, Simon won even here, arguably the most liberal area in the state. Riordan was held to his home county, period. It was stunning!

This is proof positive that the GOP need not be the party of Socialism Lite. It's the base, stupid. Voting participation has trended downward steadily for decades. Who can blame 'em? The GOP kept nominating inoffensive pablum-for-brains country-club types, then getting creamed at the voting booth when the base stayed home, over and over again. That's done! As Bill Simon showed, give the base a reason to go vote and they will.

The RLC, in my own personal view, gives hope that we might incrementally, step by step, methodically return to the small-government, Constitution-respecting philosophies that originally animated the GOP. It gives liberty-minded voters a home within the GOP and the opportunity to make a difference.

There's much work to do, but if California is any example, the RLC can be highly effective. But it needs liberty-oriented members; people who are willing to put in some hours to preserve and extend liberty and the Constitution.

To the big-L Libertarians on this thread, I'd say: no harm in joining us and the GOP; you can always vote big-L in the general election if you feel you must, but meanwhile your efforts will count for more by helping drag the GOP back towards liberty principles. After all, the Libertarian party splintered off the GOP in the wake of Goldwater's defeat, and IMHO it's time it came home again and worked to re-integrate its philosophies into the Republican Party.

Besides, look at it this way: if a handful of liberty-minded voters had worked for libertarian principles within the GOPs of New Mexico and Washington in 2000, perhaps the Senate would not be led by Daschle today.

One thing the socialists have all over us on the Right is their patience. They have bided their time for a century, ratcheting the DemocRat party and the nation leftward at every opportunity, content to make progress inch-wise as they can and by leaps when they may. We would be well-advised to study their playbook: it works.

For me, that's what the RLC is all about.

BTW, JimRob, a RLC Forum is a wonderful idea. Where do I sign up?