Let the non-scientific polling begin!

Susan Hogarth's got a couple of polls running over at lp-discuss.org: One for the Libertarian Party's 2012 presidential nomination, one for Libertarian National Committee chair, 2010-2012.

Non-scientific, yes -- but that doesn't mean they lack value. Absent active fraudulent stuffing and such, they might tell us something about which actual or prospective candidates either inspire spontaneous support, or can mobilize "organized" support in the form of poll participation.

Yes, I am a presidential nomination candidate. Yes, I am asking you to vote in that poll. I won't presume, at this early point, to plead with you to vote for me in it unless you're already predisposed to do so or unless you really find me the most attractive candidate from among those offered.

In the poll for chair, however, I am going to ask you to support a particular candidate. That candidate is Jim Lark. Dr. Lark hasn't announced that he's running for chair, and I have reason to believe that it would take a good deal of persuasion to get him to do so. Now's the time to get with the persuading, and the poll seems like as good a place as any to start.

My endorsement of Dr. Lark for chair is, believe it or not, entirely non-ideological. In point of fact, I endorse him for chair because I believe -- on the basis of past performance -- that as chair he would refuse to allow faction fights to turn the LNC into a perpetual three-ring circus.

To put a finer point on it, for example, I don't believe that "the Keaton affair" would have happened had Dr. Lark been at the head of the LNC table last year -- not because I believe that he unquestioningly supports Angela Keaton and all of her works (indeed I very much suspect that he doesn't), but because he proved in his first chairmanship (2000-2002) that he won't tolerate the degeneration of LNC meetings into faction cage matches ... regardless of which faction or factions are looking for a fight.

I see a number of other qualified prospective candidates on the poll list, some of them close friends. My endorsement of Dr. Lark is not intended as a slight against any of them -- if he doesn't run, I'm going to have a hard time picking a candidate to support. But if I had to pick a first choice for chair from any list, no matter how long and full of distinguished names, I'd pick Jim Lark without hesitation.