Bad Day at Red Rock

I have been following Mike Kole’s updates at the Libertarian National Convention via Facebook. Mike is working for the Mark Rutherford for party chair team. A few days ago, Mike offered this bit of foreshadowing:

One thing I really like about the Libertarian National Conventions is that things are very rarely decided before the voting starts. These are real conventions- not the coronations that the Rs & Ds host. Gary Johnson is the frontrunner for the presidential nomination, but I’ve been at conventions where the frontrunner was surprised very late in the day (e.g.: when Michael Badnarik overcame Gary Nolan in 2004). The Chair elections are always contentious. This one will be no different, as Mark needs to unseat current Chair Mark Hinkle, so I will have to work to earn votes for him.

The nominating process for Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates was apparently uneventful. The nominee is former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson who unsuccessfully participated in this cycle’s Republican primary campaign before jumping ship to the Libertarian party’s system. Former Orange County, California, judge James Gray – himself a refugee to the Libertarians after a failed 1998 Congressional campaign as a Republican, is the Vice-Presidential nominee.

But, true to Kole’s prediction, all hell broke loose when the Libertarians got to voting for a national party chairman.

After a relatively uneventful president and vice-presidential nominating process, all hell broke loose at the Libertarian National Convention when the Libertarian Party attempted to pick a new national committee chair. The race between current chair Mark Hinkle and vice chair Mark Rutherford fell into disarray when a group of delegates associated with Lee Wrights made a push for the option of None Of The Above.

Wrights was the last remaining challenger to Johnson for the Presidential nomination. Speculation is that he’s involved in upsetting the nominating apple cart so he can take the party chairmanship if Hinkle and Rutherford are procedurally barred by a successful “None of The Above” (NOTA) vote. He apparently denies involvement.

(Mark Rutherford is a Hoosier, former Libertarian Party of Indiana chairman and current vice-chair of the national party; otherwise, I probably wouldn’t be taking much of an interest.)

In the first round of voting, Hinkle was eliminated but Rutherford didn’t get over the 50% mark, so it went to a second round. At that point, a guy seen as a Wrights surrogate spoke on behalf of None of the Above. Second round, NOTA beat Rutherford 273-269, but improprieties were alleged. A revote put Rutherford on top. The other side alleged improprieties. The recount was thrown out. And a third round of voting was underway which, if I’m reading the stories correctly, yielded a Rutherford win over NOTA 278 – 277 but then the chair declared a write-in vote valid which created no winner for failure to carry a majority. The meeting was adjourned for the night.

While Mike said this process was always contentious, I have to think that this one is going to leave a mark.

Update So, it looks like on Sunday, the results were essentially vacated and nominations from the floor were accepted. Lee Wrights, Mark Rutherford, Geoff Neale, Bill Redpath, Ernest Hancock, and Wes Wagner were nominated. Wrights declined and endorsed Neale. By the fifth round of voting, Neale and Mark Rutherford were the two left standing. The vote that round was Neale 212, Rutherford 205, NOTA 29. Rutherford was eliminated and, head to head with “None of The Above,” Neale won with 264 – 159 and is now the chairman of the Libertarian National Party.