Dear Libertarian,
Michael McDermott
Chris Edes
I’m happy to report that our petitions in Alabama and Illinois are finished. That’s great news — and we thank our donors and volunteers who made that possible.
However, we’re still $4,977 short of our $45,000 online fundraising goal for ballot access, which puts New York in danger.
New York’s petitioning starts next week, and the deadline for collecting over 15,000 valid signatures is Aug. 19. That gives them only six weeks! And they’ll need to collect 25,000 to 30,000 total signatures to be safe.
Our LPNY chair, Mark Axinn, tells me they have a strong ticket headed by Michael McDermott for governor and Chris Edes for lieutenant governor.
Our focus in New York is getting 50,000 votes for governor, which would automatically qualify the LP for ballot access in the future without having to collect expensive petition signatures. In 2010, our candidate received 48,300 votes — just a little bit short. So we’re very hopeful we can hit 50,000 votes this time.
Please donate $200 or $100, or even just $25 today if you can.
You can visit the donation page for real-time updates on our progress towards closing our $4,977 shortfall.
By the way, I thought I was going to have to ask you to help me raise $7,000 to get our U.S. Senate candidate from Kentucky, David Patterson, onto the ballot. But good news — that money was raised last week at the national convention!
That’s lucky for Kentucky, because Patterson will be challenging the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell.
I can describe Mitch McConnell’s voting record in one word: ugly.
McConnell voted for the TARP bailouts, ethanol subsidies, Medicare Part D, the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, and Bush’s 2008 stimulus checks.
Libertarian David Patterson is a cop — a cop against the war on drugs — and of course he’s against bailouts.
I expect plenty of Republicans will bend over backward making excuses for McConnell and begging Libertarians to vote for McConnell. But Libertarians would be insane to vote for Mitch McConnell.
Separately, I’m delighted to report that our fantastic 2013 candidate for Virginia governor, Robert Sarvis, just successfully finished his petition drive to qualify for the November ballot for U.S. Senate.
Let’s keep this momentum going! Please support our ballot access efforts today!
Yours in liberty,
Wes Benedict
Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee
