Political parties are legal structures that have specific benefits and specific limits. Therefore, it makes sense to focus the party’s activities on its specific and unique advantages within the legal structure of a political party.

Political parties exist to organize people and implement policies based on a set of principles. The Libertarian Party exists to build an infrastructure to elect Libertarians to office, who will enact libertarian policies. However, political parties are limited in their actions, usually through campaign finance regulations. Things political parties can uniquely do:

• Recruit and train people to work on campaigns and be better candidates
• Collect and/or build resources and share those resources with campaigns
• Candidate donation limits are often higher for parties than individual limits
• Actively engage in the electoral political process by directly supporting candidates

The broader libertarian philosophy encompasses more than just electoral politics. These other items are important, but most are best left to other organizations that are structured in other ways and with their own special benefits and limitations. For instance:

• Education and social clubs are best left to 501(c)(3) organizations; they get the benefit of being tax-free and donations to these organizations are tax deductible, but they cannot engage in electoral politics
• Public rallies and other street theater are best left to 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) organizations, unless in direct support of a candidate
• Lobbying and/or scorecarding legislators is best left to 501(c)(4) organizations or 527 PACs

These non-party functions are important, but using the correct tool for a particular task is how we can most-efficiently achieve a libertarian society. These alternative organizations may not have existed when the party began, but they certainly exist today.

All political party functions should focus on the main thing political parties can do: get people elected.