Today, Saturday, May 23, 2020, the Libertarian Party held a bifurcated national convention online — the first-ever for any political party to . The Libertarian Party will hold an in-person convention in Orlando, Florida from July 9-12, 2020. The party’s national convention was originally scheduled for this weekend in Austin, Texas; however, due to the COVID-19 crisis, it necessitated these changes.
Libertarian Party delegates elected Jo Jorgensen as their presidential nominee after a session lasting over twelve hours and four rounds of voting. Jorgensen is a lifetime Libertarian Party member and is well known in Libertarian circles; though time will tell if the general voting public in the United States will learn who Jorgensen is before the general election on November 3, 2020. Jorgensen is a candidate for those seeking a principled, freedom-based candidate who also happens to be a woman.
Today’s nomination process was challenging; however, Chair Nick Sarwark expertly threaded through the many interruptions (Robert’s Rules of Order) to get the hundreds of Libertarian delegates to vote for their nominee. Sarwark and all members of the Libertarian National Committee deserve a tremendous amount of gratitude from the delegates and the general membership of the Libertarian Party for handling the difficulties of putting on an online nominating convention. This weekend’s convention will continue tomorrow at 11 a.m. Eastern to nominate the party’s Vice-Presidential nominee. Although delegates will be participating on ZOOM, the public will be able to view tomorrow’s nomination via YouTube and other channels.
Jo Jorgensen will face the Republican Party and Democratic Party presidential nominees who are Donald Trump (incumbent) and Joe Biden, respectively. Jorgensen’s success in the 2020 general election will largely depend upon her ability to garner media exposure. Whether the mainstream media chooses to give Jorgensen equal or significant air time and print alongside Trump and Biden remains to be seen. Jorgensen also gives Republicans and Democrats a better option than the two other candidates who will likely be on the ballot in all 50 states.
The Libertarian Party is accustomed to making history, so today is not unusual. The party’s first presidential candidate was openly gay and had the first female to receive an electoral vote in the 1972 general election. The Libertarian Party was supportive of marijuana legalization decades before the rest of the nation came around to their way of thinking. The same can be said on a multitude of issues like asset forfeiture, same-sex marriage, foreign policy, etc. The Libertarian Party has been the most-advanced political party when it comes to maximizing the freedom of the individual.
Karl Dickey 