If you are an event organizer or speaker, keep in mind that pretty much everyone will agree with your fiscally conservative message. The Second Amendment is probably pretty safe turf, but not necessary for the purpose of this coalition. Conservatives or libertarians wandering off into territory such as abortion, gay rights, immigration, medical marijuana, and the Iraq War will be creating unnecessarily divisive issues.
And from the same account, his evaluation of one of the events he attended on the 4th of July:
During the candidate speeches leading to the main event, one candidate (I couldn't hear him well due to the poor accoustics backstage) went off on a rant about our participation in the Iraq War. He was immediately facing a roped-off section of veterans, and I couldn't hear the end of his speech at all because of the boos he was receiving. To their credit, everyone else pretty much stayed on topic. Fortunately, there were plenty of Campaign for Liberty, Ron Paul, Libertarian Party and other folks there who were bright enough to focus on coalition building, as opposed to pressing issues destined to kill a team effort.
In other words, these events are political dry humps: The function of libertarians in the whole scheme is to help conservative Republicans achieve their daydream fantasy of pseudo-smaller-government orgasm without ever getting so fresh as to suggest that they should put out for real.
What, precisely, is such a "coalition" supposed to achieve? Libertarians have relentlessly stroked the conservative Republican ... er, ego ... for 45 years now, and what has it got us except used? For the love of God, Steve, get up off your knees and wipe that big white glob of "family values" off your face.
The Tea Parties were supposed to be a popular revolt against big government. In the space of a few months, they've become just another GOP astro-turf "revolt" against a few selected bits of big government that conservative Republicans dislike, and "hush, now" if anyone brings up the parts of big government -- marriage apartheid, the war on drugs, foreign military adventurism -- that they desperately want to save.
"Coalition," my ass. When are you going to realize that there is no "Republican" in "team?"
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