The Libertarian National Convention of 2024 is one for the history books. It featured two major presidential candidates – Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It also featured Vivek Ramaswamy, who did a short informal debate with Clint Russell, who was running for the vice-presidential nomination.
While Trump got most of the attention, the party was there to take care of business, including picking a nominee for president and vice president.
In a somewhat surprising turn, Chase Oliver got the nomination for president after 7 ballots. You have to get 50% or higher of the delegate vote to get the nomination. After each round of voting, candidates are eliminated.
When it got to the 6th ballot, there were two candidates left – Chase Oliver and Michael Rectenwald. Rectenwald was the candidate backed by the Mises Caucus, which essentially took over the party in 2022 and put in Angela McCardle as the chair of the party.
The nominating process basically saw the Mises Caucus versus the field. As each presidential candidate was eliminated from each ballot, the supporting delegates generally went to someone other than Rectenwald. The only exceptions may have been Joshua Smith and Jacob Hornberger, who already started out low.
When Mike ter Maat was eliminated after the 5th ballot, most of his supporters went to Chase Oliver as opposed to Michael Rectenwald. On the 6th ballot, Oliver got 49.5% of the voting delegates, and Rectenwald got 44.7%. There were a few delegates still writing in candidates, and “None of the Above” (NOTA) got 5.2%. NOTA is an option when voting for candidates in the Libertarian Party.
Since Oliver still didn’t have a majority, it went to a 7th ballot. He had to compete against NOTA. On this final ballot, Oliver received 60.6% of the vote, thus securing the nomination. NOTA received 36.6%.
The unprecedented thing is that on the 1st ballot, Chase Oliver got 19.7% of the voting delegates. He was actually just below 20%. For comparison, Rectenwald got 28.2% on the 1st ballot. When you get a bunch of libertarians in the room, especially members of the Libertarian Party, they agree on almost nothing. I think almost everyone agrees that Ross Ulbricht should be freed from prison, and that’s about it.
This means that the candidates not named Rectenwald and a large chunk of the delegates, coalesced to defeat the Mises Caucus candidate. This is certainly a setback for the Mises Caucus, which I consider to be the libertarian wing of the Libertarian Party.
On the vice-presidential nomination, the Mises Caucus again barely lost. Clint Russell, a great spokesman for liberty, received 47.0% of the vote on the 2nd ballot. Mike ter Maat received 51.3%. It is obvious that Mike ter Maat cut a deal with Chase Oliver to team up and get their supporters to support each other.
Work to Do
This showed that there is still a lot of work to do for the Mises Caucus. Some longtime members of the party see the Mises Caucus as taking over and don’t like it. Perhaps the words “take over” never should have been implemented by the Mises Caucus. It should have been sold as just making the party better. And to be sure, the party is far better with a large chunk of the Mises Caucus in there.
I don’t know much about Chase Oliver at this point. I did attend a debate once that included him. He is very good on foreign policy if he is telling the truth. We’ll never find out because he won’t ever be president. The only true test for any candidate is to actually win office and then see if they try to do what they said. I can say for certain that Oliver is by far the best presidential candidate on foreign policy as compared to Trump, Kennedy, and Biden.
In fact, Oliver is better on most issues as compared to the others. Even though Oliver is considered more of the left wing of the Libertarian Party, he is still really good on issues of war, the economy, the drug war, guns, and other big libertarian issues. Again, that is if his rhetoric is truthful, but I have no reason to doubt that it is.
Oliver is for open borders, which is a term that perhaps shouldn’t be used by libertarians. I have come to this conclusion recently, as it is a confusing term when libertarians support private property rights. I think immigration is a tough issue for libertarians, especially when living in a statist world. For me, it isn’t really a disqualifier in most cases.
So why wouldn’t I support Oliver, when I would have supported Rectenwald? It is a bit hard to explain. I looked at his positions on his website. There is nothing that is really bad. There are probably some areas that I would emphasize more. There are some areas that I would address that he doesn’t, such as the so-called intelligence agencies and the Department of “Justice”.
I have an open mind about Chase Oliver, just as I had an open mind about Jo Jorgensen in 2020. I would have preferred Rectenwald. I really would have preferred Dave Smith, but he didn’t run for personal reasons. I prefer Trump and Kennedy to Biden, but I disagree with both Trump and Kennedy on many major things. No matter what, I will be voting the lesser of evils unless I decide to not vote for president or write someone in. It’s just a matter of how much evil I am willing to accept.
If Oliver runs a solid campaign that emphasizes the major issues of foreign policy, the economy, and the national security state, then I may be able to vote for him. I hope he doesn’t go off the tracks like Jorgensen did and start trying to please the so-called social justice warriors. If I am going to give a protest vote to someone I know can’t win, then he or she better be very solid on the issues. I have my strong doubts about Chase Oliver, but I am at least willing to listen to him going forward and give him a chance.
It would have been interesting if Dave Smith had run. It would have been very close, I think. Rectenwald, despite being a former Marxist, is very solid and well-versed on libertarian issues. He does not have the personality of Dave Smith. Almost nobody does. If Dave Smith had run, there might have been more enthusiasm from his supporters to become delegates and attend the convention. We won’t know for sure what would have happened.
Angela McCardle is still the chair of the party. The Mises Caucus is just a few dozen people away from becoming a majority within the party in terms of those very actively involved. If Dave runs in 2028, I think he has a good chance of becoming the nominee. And without Trump in the running (most likely), he can have a great impact on the country just by helping to educate those who are willing to listen. He has already been making major appearances on other shows, including Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson.
I hope that the radical libertarians of the Mises Caucus don’t give up just because of the results of the 2024 convention. They were very close. The last time I voted for a Libertarian Party candidate for president was Michael Badnarik in 2004. It has been a long time since we have had a Libertarian Party presidential candidate who is radically in favor of liberty. 2024 may not have broken this streak, but there is light ahead. I think the principled libertarian wing of the Libertarian Party can get the party to send a strong message for liberty in the years ahead.
UPDATE: The more I read and learn about Chase Oliver, the worse it gets. It seems he was on the crazy side of COVID. He is also part of the “woke” culture where he has to virtue signal everything sacred to the left. It will be interesting to see what he emphasizes on the campaign trail, but it’s not looking good.