Chase Oliver for president
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Give me Liberty
Rodger Williamson
The Libertarian Party of Coosa County endorses the national Libertarian Party’s selection of 38-year-old Georgian Chase Oliver as our presidential nominee, with 62-year-old Oregonian Michael ter Maat as the vice-presidential nominee.
Oliver – who is aligned with a more traditionalist faction of the Libertarian Party, the Classical Liberal Caucus – clinched the nomination after almost 8 hours and seven rounds of voting. (FYI – most all of America’s founding fathers were considered classical liberals, which has nothing to do with the usage of the modern political term “liberal.”)
“I am extending my hand. Take it, and be a partner with me in liberty,” Oliver said in his victory speech, making a pitch to his opponents within the Libertarian Party.
Oliver continued, stating that “I will continue to bring a hopeful and positive message of liberty to both those who consider themselves libertarian and those who don’t know they are libertarian yet.”
Described by “Rolling Stone” magazine as “…the most influential Libertarian in America,” the selection of Oliver came a day after 77-year-old Donald Trump suggested he would be the best nominee for the party, drawing a sustained chorus of boos during an unorthodox appearance by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
The former president was deemed ineligible for the nomination by Angela McArdle, the Libertarian Party chair. Trump later wrote on his social media platform that, as the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, he could not have accepted the nomination anyway, while 70-year-old Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was eliminated in the first round of voting.
Even as they rejected him, Libertarian Party members fear Kennedy’s “independent” candidacy could do significant damage to their party, which typically receives from 1 to 3 percent of the national vote share.
Many Libertarian Party members predicted Kennedy, who is polling historically high for a third-party candidate, would cut into the small share of the protest vote that the Libertarian Party typically benefits from in presidential elections.
Larry Sharpe, a longtime Libertarian Party member who lost his bid for vice president at the convention, said that “we’re gonna lose ballot access in probably 22 states. We’re not gonna make more than half a percent” and “RFK sucks the money out of the room and he gets the ‘I’m mad at the system votes’ that we used to get because we were the only other guy on the ballot.”
While Libertarian Party delegates said they weren’t persuaded by Trump or Kennedy, libertarians know that members aren’t the only ones who account for their vote share. And most states require a certain percentage of votes to maintain ballot access for the next election.
Oliver is best known outside the party for his role in Georgia’s Senate race. He garnered just more than 2 percent of the vote, forcing a runoff election between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Republican Herschel Walker. In 2020, he was a congressional candidate in the state’s 5th District, also earning about 2 percent support.
As a presidential contender, Oliver focused his pitch to Libertarians on his effort to build the party nationwide. He said he has made campaign stops in all 50 states and has 500 volunteers. Oliver said in an interview that “I wanted to demonstrate to the delegates and to the voters that we have the drive and energy to push ourselves everywhere to grow our party’s foundation in every state.”
Oliver said “we were looking at who are the most likely populations to be ready to go outside of the two-party system, and we’ve identified young people, and in particular those who are upset with the war going on in Gaza, upset with the immigration crisis, and upset with cost of living. …Those are the young people that we’re going to target.”
Oliver previously spent Saturday and Sunday, February 3 and 4, at the Libertarian Party of Alabama convention at Bald Rock Lodge in Delta.
Michael ter Maat was a financial economist for the White House Office of Management and Budget from 1989 to 1992. He served as a senior economist and group director, information products for the American Bankers Association from 1992 to 2002. He founded Foreward Financial and served as its program development director from 2002 to 2008. From 2008 to 2010, ter Maat served as an adjunct professor at Nova Southeastern University and Barry University.