Excellent Convention

I spent Saturday in Clarksville, Indiana (north of the Ohio River of Louisville) for the joint conventions of the Libertarian Party of Indiana, and of Kentucky. I was rather impressed.

Right off the top, I liked the cost savings made available by working jointly. Rather than having two sets of expenses, one set allowed for more money to be allocated for speakers, and I have no doubt that the quality of them had a great deal to do with the record attendance for an off-year, where not a single candidate for office was nominated. I also enjoyed the opportunity to discuss regional differences with our neighbors to the south.

I suspect the attendance growth also can be explained by the sense I get of growing dissatisfaction with the two older parties. There were many new faces among the Indiana delegates.

But due to my 2006 campaign for Secretary of State, it was terrific to be with so many of the people who worked alongside me, and in support of me. I only wish I could have stayed an extra day.

On to business, the convention was a gold mine of interview subjects for the podcast. In no particular order, I interviewed:

Al Cox, Brown County
Ed Coleman, Indianapolis
Ryan Liedtke, St Joseph County
Doug Horner, Fort Wayne
Rebecca Sink-Burris, Bloomington
Sam Goldstein, Chair, Libertarian Party of Indiana
Ken Moellman, Chair, Libertarian Party of Kentucky
Luke McKellar, Ohio Central Committe Chair
Wayne Allyn Root, candidate for President 2012

I also recorded the speeches of:

Daniel Williams, on drug policy
Goldstein, acceptance speech
Radley Balko, Senior Editor, Reason Magazine
Root, on the media and his campaign

Look for much to come from the convention on the podcast in the next several weeks!

Podcast Posted

The latest is an interview with Mark Rutherford, former Chair of the Libertarian Party of Indiana. Mark reflected on his tenure, and the many ways the party grew during that time, and since. 

I think the most insightful comments were about the Party surviving certain transitions. Small and growing organizations can become stale if one person leads for too long. Worse than that, weak organizations fail to make transitions when the time comes. 

Here's the link to the podcast archive.

Rutherford will be speaking at the LPIN's joint convention with the Kentucky Libertarians this weekend, in Clarksville IN, just north of Louisville KY. The convention has a pretty exciting list of speakers, topped by Reason Magazine contributor Radley Balko, who also runs The Agitator blog, which has long been linked on my blog, at the right. Dr. Eric Schansberg, Wayne Allyn Root, and Daniel Williams round out a list of fine speakers.

See me in Clarksville. Who knows? I may interview you for a future podcast!