LP RELEASE: Seehusen appeals for 'second revolution'

===============================
NEWS FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY
2600 Virginia Avenue, NW, Suite 100
Washington DC 20037
World Wide Web: http://www.LP.org
===============================
For release: June 3, 2003
===============================
For additional information:
George Getz, Communications Director
Phone: (202) 333-0008 
E-Mail: Pressreleases@hq.LP.org
================================

Libertarian Party's new executive director
appeals for 'second American revolution'

WASHINGTON, DC -- The incoming executive director of the nation's 
third-largest political party is issuing a bold appeal to the American 
electorate: Help us fire the government.

"There are just two things standing in between the American people and 
their freedom: Democrats, and Republicans," says Joe Seehusen,  
incoming head of the Washington, DC-based party. "Government at all 
levels has become too big and too bossy, and it's time to cut it down 
to size."

Seehusen, 50, comes to the party with a background in business, media, 
and politics, and ran for U.S. Congress in 2000 from Iowa's Third 
District. He plans to put that experience to work building a political 
party large enough to "fire the government" by electing Libertarians to 
statehouses around the country and ultimately to governorships and 
Congress.

"By most objective standards, the Libertarian Party is the nation's 
largest and most successful alternative party in history ?- and 
therefore the only one with a realistic chance of challenging either of 
the two older parties in the near future," said Seehusen, who listed 
the following "political indicators":   
 
* Number of officeholders: Currently 340 Libertarians hold elective 
office, more than all other third parties combined.  

* Number of candidates: During the 2002 election cycle, the party ran 
1,642 candidates, the largest slate of third party candidates since 
before World War II. 

* Number of voters: 3,424,123 people cast at least one Libertarian vote 
on Election Day, 2002. Libertarian House candidates have earned 1 
million votes for two election cycles in a row -- making it the only 
party in history other than the Democrats and Republicans to have done 
so.

* Ballot status: A Libertarian presidential candidate has appeared on 
all 50 state ballots for the last three election cycles. No other third 
party has done so twice. 

* Impact on national elections: Libertarian candidates have been 
credited with controlling the outcome of several gubernatorial and 
Senatorial elections in the past two years.  

"Of course, no one can guarantee that we'll be able to break up the 
duopoly created by the Democrats and Republicans," he said. "But over 
the next few election cycles, Libertarians clearly have the potential 
to break through on the federal level, and I'm asking every American 
who wants smaller government to help us achieve that."

What should be clear to everyone is that the nation will benefit from 
having a real choice at the polls, he added. 
 
"Republicans and Democrats have been running this country for decades, 
and they're running it right into the ground," he said. "They have 
racked up over $7 trillion in debt, squandered trillions more on 
welfare programs that leave the poor worse off than before, created a 
phony retirement fund filled with IOUs, jailed hundreds of thousands of 
Americans for victimless crimes, waged war around the globe, and taxed, 
regulated and plundered the people they're supposed to be serving.

"Thomas Jefferson said, 'God forbid we should ever be 20 years without 
such a rebellion' -- and by that standard we are 200 years overdue.   
It's time to ignite a peaceful, second American revolution, and restore 
our heritage of freedom."



-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Libertarian Party                                http://www.lp.org/
2600 Virginia Ave. NW, Suite 100                    voice: 202-333-0008
Washington DC 20037                                   fax: 202-333-0072
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For subscription changes, please use the WWW form at: 
http://www.lp.org/action/email.html