My Experience at the Colorado LP Convention
The Mises Caucus swept the Colorado LP elections, taking 10/11 executive committee/board positions.
How did it go down?
A lot of work went into this takeover. Marc aka Funkhauser worked his ass off to get everyone to show up and vote. I can't stress enough how important the organizer role is for convention purposes.
It takes a lot of coordination to get people to check all the boxes for participation: membership, voter registration, hotel/travel logistics, showing up on time, getting credentialed, getting plugged into internal communications (Discord, Telegram, Signal, etc.), passing out voter guides, explaining RONR, understanding the bylaws & communicating the relevant portions to new members in a digestible way...the list goes on and on.
Here are two important tips for organizing at convention: 1) Know what hotel rooms people are staying in so you can knock/wake them up if they oversleep from partying, and 2) Keep people fed and supplied with alcohol.
*If you want to keep people in the convention room for voting, make sure to keep alcohol and snacks on hand. These are two main reasons people want to leave the room.*
Anyway...
When I arrived Friday night, Colorado libertarians were very friendly to me. There was only one rude loser brigade person. I carefully called him out to his face for being rude to me and he slunk off into the shadows - which is good. I'd prefer not to have confrontations, but I'm not going to let anyone disrespect me.
Saturday and Sunday, convention business took place and the LPMC politely dominated the room. They helped to facilitate business by not knit-picking every proposal to death and they called the question when debate got too long-winded. I recommend that other states adopt this strategy. It makes you the good guy and shows that you have the best interests of the party in mind. The outspoken loser brigade guy rubbed everyone the wrong way by repeatedly being rude and confrontational on the mic, and he was boo'd on Sunday for trying to disenfranchise voters. The tide in CO has turned.
I like the former Colorado Chair, Victoria Reynolds. She was outspoken in her opposition to lockdowns and she's a solid libertarian. I believe she'll continue to work with the party and be an ally of the LPMC. Colorado had a lot of drama in their party but it wasn't LPMC-related. A fairly common theme in the LP is the "social club" dynamic: people who hold onto positions of leadership and do very little. This was a grievance that the Colorado LPMC expressed about the leadership in Colorado and I believe a large contingency of non-caucus membership felt the same way (hence, the election outcomes).
Wayne Harlos was elected Chair, Hannah Goodman was elected Vice Chair, and Caryn Ann Harlos was elected Secretary. This is a solid lineup and I'm optimistic about the activism the Colorado party will be doing during the next year.
The LPMC has a healthy alliance with the Radicals. I believe it will continue to grow in the coming year as we continue to make the Libertarian Party libertarian again.