10/10/10 fund raising goal a success!

The Vermont Libertarian Party recently raised $10,000 to support candidates
for state representative races. The races a routinely won by candidates who
spend anything from $0 (local boys or girls who everyone knows) to $3-4000
(in the more competetive or multi-seat districts. The working plan is to be
able to provide seed money to get 10 quality candidates up and running.

Vermont allows mutli-party (of fusion) candidacies and the primaries are
open, i.e. our canidates cannot be barred from entering the Democratic or
Republican primaries. Even better, it’s likely that some of our candidates
will be welcomed, even encouraged, to seek a cross nomination by one of the
major parties. In addition, the Vermont house of representatives all ready
has a sizable number of independent and third party members. For all of
these reasons and more we are optimistic that we can win some seats in the
Vermont house.

$10,000 may not sound like much to some of the folks in big states, but that
is a hugely successful fundraising effort. In the past $1,500 would have
been a major return. The simple fact that this was our most successful
fundraiser ever seems to indicate that our donors want us to run canidates
in winnable races. Who knows what their reasoning is, but I absolutely
agree with there conclusion.

After being with the VTLP for 15 years and watch hundreds of canidates get
2% or less, I’m sick of losing. It may not be as glamourus, but a win in a
state rep. race beats the heck out getting your tail whopped in a run for
the U.S. Senate.

Scott Berkey
VTLP Chair, 1999-2001 & 2004-2005