Tag: John Kanan

Former Libertarian Party of Michigan State Chair Bill Gelineau, currently on a political quest* for the Michigan governor’s race with Jeff Wood challenging him, just prior to the LPM’s state convention in Lansing on July 29 of this year and just prior to the Libertarians of Macomb County becoming affiliated at the April 4th Libertarian Executive Committee (LEC) meeting in Lansing told former State Chair and, until this year, State Vice Chair (and former LPMer) Kim McCurry that the LMC affiliation with state party was “on shaky ground” because of….me.

That’s right. My involvement in the Party had jeopardized my county affiliate’s – yes, the one I just rose from the ground up with Mike Saliba and the LMC’s help! – chances to be affiliated with the LEC. Gelineau told Kim, then Kim told John Kanan (the Communications Director on the LMC), and then John spoke with Membership Director Benjamin Joseph Dryke about it when they were having a beer together one night. While everyone was asked to be tightlipped about what they heard, everyone on the board still defended me no matter what. That’s probably one small reason why I was re-elected to my seat as Vice Chair of the LMC.

I won’t disclose the identity of my source on this latest piece of news that was given to me, but I suspected for a long, long while that something was going on. I’m neither stupid nor an imbecile to think that a couple of dark elements in the Party had tried to do whatever they could to silence me. I wasn’t born yesterday. I have the ability to sense people’s sentiments and motives, and to hear that Gelineau and McCurry were up to no good by spreading lies and shit about me is neither surprising nor deafening. It does, however, stand to reason that they are cowards, and they neither had the gall nor the cajones to face me and speak directly to my face about how they felt about me.

It’s also a known fact that Gelineau himself ran for Chair the first time back in February – April 2003, making all sorts of promises that never really came to fruition. Here’s his campaign statement printed in the state party’s old newsletter.

I ran for State Vice Chair that year. And I also lost badly, although I don’t recall the official counts then. I supported Bill at the time because he made promises, and he seemed like a trustworthy type of person at the time. I even voted for him at the convention. But during our campaign runs, and I went on the campaign trail going from Macomb to as far as Kalamazoo, not once did I ever receive assistance from Gelineau. Not once did I ever his backing whatsoever. I saw him for who he really was: an officious bureaucrat who just wanted to be elected to the Chair seat of a state political party and ruin it from the top down.

Here’s his old campaign ad back on March 3, 2003:

Here’s Gelineau’s campaign statement you can find in this March 3, 2003 newsletter:

The truth is this – Gelineau hardly did any of the things he promised to accomplish in 2003. I don’t recall any of any these vast promises that he made for the LPM that year being carried out in their entirety. With the possible exception of the old UMP agreement that the national LP had with the state parties during those years (including Michigan), the LPM never has been able to achieve these delusive landmark promises that became the bedrock principle of Bill’s campaign.

Even as State Chair in 2003, just prior to the inception of smartphones in 2007, I remember one time Gelineau had the LEC meet at some Mexican restaurant in Lansing (or close to it) that year. I remember taking a tape recorder and recorded the entire LEC meeting via audio (which I no longer have). Bill told the board that he was getting married to his now-current wife Donna, and then he pursued LEC business as usual, but my impression the entire time was this: he and the LEC then never did anything to stoke the excitement and increase of LPM voters, supporters, donors, and dues-paying members of the Party.

I’ve had a radio show, and I’ve been extremely radical and consistent on my libertarian and Libertarian views. Gelineau hasn’t. Except for 2008, I have been a consistent member of the LP and the LPM. I can’t say the same for Gelineau. I was the vice chair of the old Boston Tea Party back in 2008 after Bob Barr won the LP nomination, especially two years after the Party’s disastrous Portland, Oregon convention, which resulted in the gutting of 80 percent of the party’s platform. I even served later as an at-large director, and then I left that group, never to return to it because it had been taken over by bots, people who were never interested in liberty largely thanks to a former LPM’er and Boston Tea Party National Committee officer named Neil Kiernan Stephenson. (Yes, the same Neil who claimed to be a Libertarian Party of Michigan member is the same Neil who was later identified as an unemployed father and a big supporter of the Venus Project.)

As for what Gelineau said about me and any other statements about me that several people on the LMC never told me about, I am disappointed. I understand the reason why they did what they did – being tightlipped and all. However, I wish they had warned me what Gelineau was up to and what he planned to do to me…..if he had the absolute political authority to do anything to me at all. But he didn’t.

He’s a coward. So is Kim McCurry. Together they are a cowardly two-peas-in-a-pod people who will do whatever it takes to make their ends justify the means.

And that’s why I will *NOT* vote for Gelineau for Governor at all. In this case, I will not vote straight Libertarian at all. I’d rather eat tofu and vegetables over voting for that son of a bitch.

If Jeff gets the nomination, great! Then I will vote for him for Libertarian for Governor. If some other Libertarian Party of Michigan activist ran for Governor, I’ll vote for that guy. But noooooo, never Gelineau! I know this primary status (which will expire next year and will not continue for us because it was a once-in-a-life move that we earned because of Gary Johnson and Bill Weld’s 2016 presidential/vice-presidential campaign runs) is a joke, and Gelineau will get the nomination. But he will not receive 1% of the vote. Nope, he’ll receive less than that.

Oh well. Such is life.

How about that, Bill and Kim? They’re probably not worried, and yet they should be. They really should be.

I wish Election Day “good luck” in 2018 proving me wrong entirely. And yet I don’t think it will. I just hope it proves me right.

*Update 1: Here’s a YouTube of Gelineau’s campaign for Michigan governor. It’s hardly inspiring at all.