[EM] Announcement from Paul Hager

[hager2002 at lsh107.siteprotect.com]

I regret to say that I lost the nomination for Secretary of State
yesterday.  Accordingly, please don't sent further money to my campaign.

The source of the opposition was cognitive dissonance -- an unwillingness 
to accept the unpleasant truth that without voting reform the Libertarian 
Party was moribund.  New ideas are difficult for any organization, and 
this one was particularly challenging because it meant that no matter how 
hard you worked, you could never win.  Even worse, it meant that the party 
strategies that leaders had invested so much of they prestige in had no 
hope of working.

It's unfortunate, but not unexpected.

In my final address to the convention I announced that I was leaving the
Libertarian Party to join the Republicans.  I have been invited and,
although the issue fit isn't as good, I can have an impact as a Republican
that I can't have with a party that is dying.  My campaign intimates knew
I was leaving the LP if I lost but it stunned everyone else.

The Libertarian Party is dying, BTW.  Membership in Indiana and nationally
is down 15% in the past 2 years and the latest round of campaign finance
regulations will make it even harder for the party to raise needed
revenues to stay afloat.  "Turn out the lights, they party's over..."

Regards,

-- 
paul hager		hager2002 at hager2002.org

"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason."
			-- Thomas Paine, THE AGE OF REASON


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