Austin political activist Wes Benedict will take over as the executive director for the National Libertarian Party today.
Benedict previously served as the director for the Libertarian Party of Texas from 2004 to 2008 and has run for Austin City Council three times.
He makes the move to Washington following Libertarian Bob Barr’s presidential campaign in which Barr garnered 523,686 votes, according to the Federal Election Commission. The result was the second-most by a third-party candidate in the 2008 election as well as a Libertarian Party record.
Although this accounted for only 0.4 percent of the vote, it was seen as a success by third-party voters who hope that taking votes from the two major parties will force people to consider their issues, said Rock Howard, the Travis County Libertarian Party chair.
“Libertarians support individual liberty and small government controlled by a clearly worded constitution,” Howard said. “We feel less government is better than more government, and we are for fiscal responsibility.“
Benedict said he hopes to raise the amount of funds available for candidates by increasing the number of donating members. Despite recent increases in members, the group has seen less donor support in the past few years, he said.
“I’ve got to get state parties focusing on membership growth. Libertarian paying memberships dropped from about 30,000 to 15,000 in the last several years,” Benedict said, “We’ve got to turn that around, I think that will help increase morale.”
The party is hoping that the recent recession will cause people to question current leaders and the predominant political parties, he said.
“With the economic downturn, which was totally caused by the Democrats and Republicans, people are waking up to our ideals even more,” Howard said.
Howard said the position calls for Benedict to be a behind-the-scenes leader, making sure the party runs correctly on a managerial and fiscal level, not out in public pushing its cause.
“Wes is a very experienced business executive. He has bought, run and sold his own companies. He has a combination of business skills and experience [working for the party] at the state level,” Howard said. “The party could use better leadership running the day-to-day business operations.”
Following the success of candidates like Republican Ron Paul, who targeted college-age voters, many parties are implementing their own strategies to gain the youth vote.
Benedict said that although some initiatives are in place to target university students, no new projects can be created until their fundraising efforts are successful.
“Students are usually good volunteers but don’t always have the funds to donate,” Benedict said. “We’re at that point now when we need to get our funding and membership up.”
Libertarian Longhorns is a UT group that promotes the ideals of individual leadership and responsibility, said Norman Horn, a chemical engineering graduate student. The group believes government should be limited only to the protection of personal liberty and property, he said.
Horn said that although the group is not actually affiliated with a political party, it has worked closely with the Libertarian Party because no other parties have supported their ideals.
He worked with Benedict personally and described how the local party has been successful because of Benedict’s leadership.
“[The Libertarian Party of Texas] has increased its numbers, Texas has done very well. He has spearheaded the effort that put forth more candidates for office than any other state combined,” Horn said. “He has also done a marvelous job fund-raising.”
He believes Benedict has proven that he can successfully lead the party.
“Wes has been instrumental in making the Libertarian Party the best state party in the nation,” Horns said. “There is no one I can imagine that would be better for this position.”
