Post-Convention Note #1

Hey, everyone ...

I'm home.

I'm also tired.

And the closest I got to any "sight-seeing" in Washington, DC was a glimpse of the top of the Washington Monument as reader GregL and I passed by on the train from Reagan National airport to the Washington Hilton as we came into town.

In a fit of insanity, I figured I should be willing to serve as a delegate to the Libertarian National Convention since I was going to be at the Libertarian National Convention.

Thanks to the heroic efforts of many friends, I was seated as a delegate and faithfully attended the business sessions from opening gavel until early this morning, when, after casting a first-ballot vote for the party's vice-presidential nomination, I was simply too tired to go on any more (the convention had been, with the exception of lunch recesses, etc. been in session for about 16 hours of the day at that point), and needed to catch three hours of sleep before leaving for the airport. So I did my duty to the party as best I could.

Won some, lost some. I'll have more thoughts for you later on the results of the convention.

If you were there and I didn't get a chance to run into you and say hello, I apologize. I tried.

Lots of work, very little play (but fun play as it went).

Among opponents, only one out of several hundred insisted on being an enemy too. And some opponents became friends.

As far as my own attitudes go, I came away from the convention less "anti-Mises" than I was when I went in.

A particular note regarding Angela McArdle, who was elected to a second term as chair:

I did not support Ms. McArdle's first election as chair. I did not like the job she did as chair and vote against her re-election.

BUT!

She did one thing I've never noticed a chair doing before, a thing I appreciate.

As the Sunday session wore on and the fundraising gala approached, instead of stomping a foot and demanding that we adjourn for it, she encouraged the delegates to stay in the hall and get the party's business done. That was the right thing to do, and it also took considerable guts. If she'd not shown real leadership on that, the party might not have ended up with a presidential slate and a full new Libertarian National Committee by election rather than appointment. THANK YOU, Madam Chair.

For years, I've been yelling about -- and at -- convention delegates who think the whole weekend should be mostly partying rather than party work. This year, both the chair and the convention body buckled down and got the important things done rather than blowing those important things off. THANK YOU, delegates.

Again: Tired. But kind of stoked about how this convention turned out, even where I "lost."

More later.