I know a lot of Keene activists who think of politics as immoral, ineffective, or, worse yet, boring. At the same time, many are generally supportive of libertarian candidates, and would enjoy seeing one win an election.
For those of you who fit this description, you can be much more helpful to political activists than you realize– and without ever getting involved in politics. The help I have in mind is simple and fun, and much more effective than merely voting. In fact, it might be the single most effective way you can help out local liberty-friendly candidates. I’ve been doing it for years, with great success.
What is this wild new form of activism? It’s outreach. (more…)
Bazil notes that “Even if [monthly sign-ups] don’t continue to increase we should see the 20k mark by the end of the decade,” triggering thousands of liberty-lovers to move to New Hampshire en masse.
Political commentators often lump libertarians in with conservatives on the right, but how accurate is this?
To get a start on this question, I compared New Hampshire legislators’ liberalism or conservatism, as measured by W-NOMINATE, with their libertarianism, as measured by the NHLA’s Liberty Rating. (To make the comparison easier, I used the raw Liberty Rating scores. An “A” is 80-100%, 60-79% is a “B”, 40-59% is a “C”, etc.)
Did you know that Steve Lindsey is the most libertarian representative from Keene, according to the NHLA? Or that Molly Kelly is the most economically liberal senator in the New Hampshire Senate? Or that State Representative Sam Hawkes voted with conservative Republicans 18% of the time? (Chuck Weed only voted with them 5% of the time.)
These are the kind of things you can learn on Free Keene’s new Voter info page, where I am collecting data on local Keene legislators. The new page is intended to be a tool to help voters, and non-voting activists, keep track of their elected representatives. (Therefore it is under the “Tools” tab.)
Because knowing is half the battle.
With luck, I will eventually be able to expand the page with information about city councilors and other local officials, to help with city elections.
Unfortunately, I was not able to attend Pete Eyre and Ademo’s trial today, but that means I can relay the results before those attending get back to Keene.
