441: Libertarian Party Chair Candidate Angela McArdle Returns!

Brian Nichols  0:11  
Passing on winning arguments. We're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian

Nichols Show. Wow, happy Thursday there, folks. Brian Nichols here on The Brian Nichols Show. And thank you for joining us on of course, another fun filled episode. I am as always your humble host, and today we are joined by another Libertarian Party chair candidate Angela McArdle Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. How are you?

Angela McArdle  0:47  
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.

Brian Nichols  0:49  
Absolutely. Thank you for joining us. And thank you for returning to the program. I think this is your third time here on the program. First time you were on the show you were actually seeking the nomination to the LP chair back in 2018. Correct me if I'm wrong there. 2018 2020 2020. Wow, time really does fly, doesn't it? 2020. And then the last time you were on the show, we talked about who is our target market, which we will be discussing a little bit in detail today. I know I'm excited for it, because I just had Tony Durazo on the program, who is your competitor for the LP chair role? And I must say I'm gonna start off here. I am so excited the way that you and Tony have approached this campaign. You have both been so civil, you have both been so kind towards one another. And I know we were talking off air, you both have a civil working relationship behind the scenes, how refreshing and how important is it for that to have you guys leading by example. Thank you for that. So I start there, Angela. But let's start things off here, reintroducing yourself to The Brian Nichols Show audience. It's been a little bit since you're on the program. So we've been growing, we have a lot of new people who are listening to the show. And obviously, a lot has changed even though it's been less than a year since you were last in the show. COVID It just seems that make everything change really, really fast. So Angela, what's new in your world out in Los Angeles on the West Coast? And specifically, I guess you're now looking towards the LP chair role. How's that going? And what got you looking to be the candidate here for the LP chair?

Angela McArdle  2:14  
Okay, so that was a lot a

Brian Nichols  2:16  
lot. I know a lot jam on me.

Angela McArdle  2:19  
I want to answer them all. There's major things happening in the city of Los Angeles, the LA County Libertarian Party has filed an initiative to overturn LA's mandatory vaccination program, the vaccine mandate. So in the city of Los Angeles, you've got to show proof of vaccination in order to enter any indoor business, except for a church, grocery store and a drugstore. It's, it's outrageous. And so we filed an initiative to overturn the mandate. It's just like the recall petition, like it's not a change.org thing. It's a binding legal document. And we launched over the weekend, and there has been an outpouring of support, surprising, like we're getting a lot of support from people on the left to. So that's what's happening. We have been all over every single local news station we have. We have captured the narrative at this point of mainstream news. And it's really exciting, really exciting.

Brian Nichols  3:15  
It is very exciting. And I know I gave you a lot of questions that are start off shame on me, Brian, that was a bad example of how I do it to start off a good interview because I didn't get the chance to address all three of those in one breath, which I know I like to do a lot of that in one breath. I'm sorry, folks, folks here in the show. They're like Brian goes on like four minute monologue and doesn't take a breath. So of course, he's asking his guests to do the same. So let's rewind Angela, yes, you've been busy out in LA. And maybe it's good that we had you kind of start off there talking about the context of what's going on. Because I'm seeing this as I just moved to Indiana, a lot of people don't realize how bad it is on the coasts, especially in these predominantly blue cities. Yeah, it's it's tough. So thank you, by the way for doing what you're doing. Because without folks like you fighting the good fight and fighting back, frankly, I don't think that they would be really looking to get rid of any of these mandates anytime soon. But how about this? Let's kind of go back now to the first question of the set of three questions that I asked you originally. And that was being who are you? Yes, you've been on the show before but there is a new audience here for The Brian Nichols Show. And I guess the WHO ARE YOU question correlates very quickly into the why you are running aspect for the LP chair role. So Angela, let's dig into that. Who are you and why are you running for LP chair.

Angela McArdle  4:27  
So I chair the Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County. I'm on the California Libertarian party executive committee at the state level. And I am also a board member of the National Mises caucus PAC. And, you know, one of the organizers and I also chair the California Mises caucus, which is a state level PAC. So that's, that's a little bit about me. I've got you know, my hand I got my fingers in a lot of pies, very busy. And I'm very, very focused on on you know, improving messaging for the Libertarian Party and being outspoken on mandates and lockdowns. And that's what inspired me to run. So in 2020, you had me on as a guest, that's a great episode, I'm sure you can link to it in the show notes or something. And, and I talked about my frustration with the National Party and their failure to speak out against the lockdowns. They didn't say anything for an entire year, just not good. Now, I appreciate that there has been a shift in messaging, there has been a change in tone, but it is still not quite up to snuff. So that's one of that was the main reason that I started running for national chair. And once I started really digging in and looking at the budget, and the financials and the membership numbers, sort of our overall trajectory since the 1980s. I thought, Geez, this is this party is like, it's like a an amazing vehicle for the most beautiful philosophy in the world. And we had dropped the ball time after time after time, there's no solid leadership, there's no strategic planning with no one can explain how to get things done. There's no cohesive culture. So those are some of the things that I want to change. And, and I feel very confident that I can. And a lot of this is related to the work that we're doing in LA, you know, being that voice for people who are lost in the darkness right now the political wilderness, who need someone to advocate for them. So that's what I'm all about. That's why I'm here.

Brian Nichols  6:25  
That's why you're here. And frankly, this is why I think you saw such a push back in after 2020, for you to run again, because I think people saw how strongly you reacted to the lockdowns and not only just how you reacted, but also how you took charge. And you really made it a point to not just talk, but to lead by example. And you put that into action. And now you are actually fighting back and having a chance to fight back and win, which can we really celebrate too many times as libertarians actual wins. Let's let's focus on those wins. And you know, funny enough, I just had, Tony, as I mentioned on the show, your competitor, and he mentioned that as well. He was wanting to focus on really celebrating those wins. So I would daresay that'd be an area you two would would agree. And thankfully, Angela, I think right now we have, as you mentioned, seen a big change from LP national. And unfortunately, and this is one of the questions I raised that Tony as well is that it seems a little too late. It seems like we we say a little too lazy or too late we are in and some change. And one of the responses I had heard from Tony was that part of the problem was that LP national was a little slow to respond. And I see merit in that position that you know, we were just slow to respond. And frankly, it was a lot of unknowing and people being concerned with taking such strong definitive positions on a lot of things that we just frankly did not know. But there were certain things and I pushed back a little bit, you know, tongue in cheek here with Tony that we did know just how this is a complete yo you search of our rights. And this is frankly not really an area that we should be waffling too much for libertarians and I pointed out how in the greater podcasting world, you know, we had to react real time, and we didn't really have too much of an issue. I think you look at pretty much the major libertarian podcasts that are out there, those major voices, all of our audiences have been growing. And I think it's predominantly because we've been so strong on the most important issue for the past two years. So it does kind of it seems like a little bit of a weak answer. And I'm not picking on at Tony's like this is across the board. When we saw this response from folks in the more I'd say establishment LP that, well, we didn't know we didn't know well, no, there's a lot that we did know a lot that we should have known. And we didn't react appropriately. So I asked this question for Tony Angela, and I'll ask this question to you. What would you have done differently? How would an Angela McArdle campaign or campaign chairmanship chair chairperson ship chair ladyship looked like when we're addressing these these lockdowns, especially having the mouthpiece of the Libertarian Party.

Angela McArdle  9:00  
Okay, so, there were several things that happened in the past that made it so difficult for the National Party to speak out against lockdowns and, and the knee jerk response, which is also the response I had, which was like is what the hell man? This is like, obviously the most important liberty issue of our lifetimes maybe, you know, since World War Two, this is a crisis we've got to speak out. But let's actually look at the LNC. And so just kind of like you know theorizing about, well, I would just the better, you know, let's actually break it down. So here's how I would have handled it. The first thing you have to do when you get elected to the National Committee is to keep your other officers in the loop. And this is something that the two former chairs Joe Bishop henchmen and extra work did not do. So the first part of the problem started before the lockdowns is because there's a lack of communication and trust between the people at the top of the hierarchy. You've got to build those relationships. And you've got to then you've got to build your relationships with the rest of the board. And you've got to set the tone So that people understand, you're the leader. And you're, you're setting an example. And there are people too, they need to look up to you, and you need to be courageous. And you've got to sort of balance that, right, like being courageous with also being compassionate and sensitive to the needs of the people who are around you. And the country, you know, broader range as well. But then, obviously, the next thing you got to do is you got to speak out against lock downs, as soon as it happens, you need to be having your finger on the pulse, you need to be the first one there. And you need to set an example for other people to follow. Sometimes when you have a board full of timid or nervous people, as we did on the LMC, you have to start by meeting them where they're at. Now, when I'm running in the future, I anticipate that we're going to have a lot of other bold, courageous people in the LLC. But the reality is, that's not what we've had the last two years. And rather than beating them up about it constantly on social media, maybe they need a little bit of support. So I would have made a plan that started out with a little bit softer messaging that I would have wanted, initially, because that's what they would have been comfortable with. And maybe the only thing that would have passed if we had to vote on it. When I've got everybody on board and feeling good about it, then we start to crank it up over the next couple of weeks as people become more comfortable. And adjust to the messaging does that. And also, I'm sorry, I'm going on a rant here. And also you have to sort of decide how you're going to make decisions. And there are a lot of different decision making styles and leadership styles. You need to have someone when this is the third largest political party in the most powerful country in the world. So this is no joke, right? We have to put people on the board who are competent and can make decisions under pressure. You need to understand that when things are in like a state of flux, you need to meet every couple of weeks. And we have to step we have to establish short term goals when you're in a crisis. So we we need to establish short term goals for messaging. If we're like oh lockdowns just happened. We don't know what to do. Okay, this is our one week goal. This is our two week goal. We reassess where we're at what's the federal government saying? What are the state saying, and then you take it from there. And as you start to build momentum and a direction based on your short term crisis planning, then you can start to incorporate that into a longer range goal. So that's in a nutshell, how I would have approached it back then, in 2020. I wish I had run in 2020. I ended up announcing right after all this happened.

Brian Nichols  12:23  
Well, your timing now is is impeccable, because this is now the topic of conversation, especially we're starting to see a love of Democrat politician starting to say the things we were saying a year ago. It's funny how they must have just gotten all their internal polling results coming out all at the same time and realize that November is nine months away, so all of a sudden, they start scrambling, because yeah, now we're seeing this is pretty much just reaffirming why we have been as consistent as we had been not just that the voices here in the opposition, but really the voices who are standing for reason for just common sense. Anyone who could look at the data, and can look at just basic epidemiologist could see that a lot of the policies that were being promoted weren't really aimed at curtailing the virus. But it was really just to make you feel good to make you feel like government's doing something. And, and the way that honestly, Angel, you you mentioned you would approach the messaging is exactly how we did it here at the show. I think for the first two, three weeks, your average person was scared, they were like, I don't know, like, you know, I don't know what I don't know, I'm not gonna go out and make a definitive yes, no black white statement, based on my not knowing something. So we kind of all want to get as much information as possible. You saw states like Florida, like South Dakota, who were like, hold up, let's kind of look at the data first, before you start making these crazy rash decisions. And then all of a sudden, you could figure out, okay, it's the old people who are getting hit by this pretty much and you know, every now and then you'll have a maybe a little bit of a middle aged person getting hit. But by and large, this is impacting people who are in their 70s 80s 90s. So maybe shutting down society isn't a great idea. And at that point, I think is beginning of April, we pretty much knew that shutting down society was not going to give us a better tangible outcome relative to you know, going through and trying to live like COVID run rampant right. And that was the the alternative was, you know, you want to kill Grandma, you want to go get a haircut like, and that's I'm at the point. Now, I think I think everybody's at the point now that we see how those were being used to not make any real points. They are used it to keep you in line, they were used to make you feel bad for going outside of the collective group thing. So thank God, we were now at a point where your average person not only is starting to enter into these conversations that we had been having, and how Angela, they're kind of on our team, they're starting to say the things that we've been saying. And we're seeing that reflected in the messaging from even the Democrats. So I asked this question to Tony, and I'll ask you as well, based on that being said, Who the heck should we be talking to who is our target market number one and then Number Two with that target market, what are their? Would you say top three issues now we kind of discussed one of them. But what would you say would be some other top issues that we should be meeting them where they're at and discussing with them along the way?

Angela McArdle  15:12  
Absolutely. Okay. So the national party to my knowledge, and I have checked and looked, has never done a broad demographic study. So we're going to be changing that. So what that means is, we have not been able to actually identify who our target market is. It's my opinion, that we have instead at the national level than advertising to people who we wish were our target market, but they are definitely not prey. Like progressives, like progressives. So that's, that's not a good decision. So the first thing we need to do is actually do demographic studies to define our target market. Now, my personal opinion is that our target market should be, and it probably is people who are truth seekers, who are suspicious of government and who are open minded, and who are not hyper emotional. So they're more a little bit more rationally minded, and they don't get easily triggered by things they see on social media. That is a specific demographic of people. I would, for example, people who listen to Tim Poole, people who listen to Joe Rogan, they're not all necessarily libertarian, but they're Liberty inclined in some way. On the right, that's going to be people who are very passionate about medical freedom, gun rights, people who are concerned about inflation, it's not going to be so much people who are hardcore, build a wall, magnetites. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to do outreach to those people, but they're not at the top of our demographic hierarchy. On the left, it's going to be what I call the heretical left people who have been cast out because they are very pro free speech. They are anti lockdown and anti mandate. And they're probably not all the way with us on economics. But they're open minded and interested to listen to us. People who really like Glenn Beck and Jimmy Dore, for example, those people on the left are going to be open minded enough to listen to us. And, you know, I'm not going to get into it all now. But I think, you know, there's a lot of different ways that we can break down demographics, there's geographic, there's psychographic. There's all kinds of marketing segments. And I definitely do intend to dig into that so that we can get a solid answer and share that with our state parties, which is also very important.

Brian Nichols  17:21  
But the fact that you're even taking that step, Angela, I think is, frankly, shocking that that hasn't been taken yet. So thank you for how do we get to this point? We're, we're going back to something you said earlier. And I actually I said this to Tony, on the show, we are the third largest political party in the United States. And it's astonishing to me that we have so much unprofessionalism in so many different areas. I mean, yeah, I'm working with organizations, you know, I mean, to bring in my day job, but like, I'm working with your mom and pop shops, and they're investing 10s of 1000s of dollars into cybersecurity solutions, because they need to because they see it as a necessary requirement for them the cost of doing business. And I look at the LP and there are so many costs of doing business that we just haven't taken a step to do. And frankly, it's astonishing the fact that we are at that point so I guess this would be a great opportunity to turn the conversation exactly how I do with Tony as well and that is well let's paint that picture because right now your average libertarian, if they identify with the big L, I can almost guarantee they feel a little disjointed, especially after the past few years and seeing the LP really kind of be a laughingstock, unfortunately, which let's be real, we kind of have gotten in our own way every now and then. So we kind of have to look in the mirror at some point. But where do you see us if we have the Angela McArdle chair ship? What's the official term? By the way? Is it chair woman chair lady?

Angela McArdle  18:53  
I say chairman, because apparently I'm a horrible misogynist, but you know,

Brian Nichols  18:58  
okay, well, Chairman, McArdle very go, what would that look like in terms of the LP from a nationalist perspective? How we're reaching out to other folks, but also, how would you see us moving forward electorally, because I daresay that is one of the roles of the okay is to help get people elected office. So where do you see us going in that venture as well?

Angela McArdle  19:19  
Absolutely. Okay. So there are a couple of things that I think are very important, and that this is part of my strategic plan for the National Party. We need to the not at the national level, we need to elevate the voices of candidates at the state and local level, who are running in either one electable winnable races and using bold messaging, or running in very high profile controversial races and using bold messaging. So an example of a high profile race that's not necessarily going to be a winner, but it's going to get national attention is Shane Hazel's case. He's running for governor in Georgia. So elevating him. Does a lot, right. It does. It does a lot Have things it's obviously giving some help for our candidates, because our candidates deserve national attention, especially when they're getting on like Fox Kennedy, you know, Kennedy show on Fox and all that they're already getting it, why aren't we capitalizing on that Hello. It also helps for their ballot access fight. Because Ga Ga is unique, they have ballot access, but you've got to get like 1000s and 1000s of signatures, if you want to run for anything that's not at the state level, it's very annoying. So that helps them because it makes more people aware of our brand and shows how engaging and passionate our candidates are. Now, by the same token, we need to do the same thing for local winnable races. For example, in California, we have Kelly Cardin, who's running for a county board of supervisors position in Kern County, he's been going to all of his county supervisor meetings and a lot of school board meetings and really getting people fired up and excited. And the issues that he talks about, like mass mandates for children, school choice, education, these are national issues. So it does matter. Those are the sorts of things that we can do for candidates, when we don't have the funds to do ballot access drives. But I do believe that stronger messaging and better leadership is going to increase our donations, and that's going to give us more money for ballot access. Another thing that we need to do for candidates as we need to fine tune is sort of recreate the candidate support committee, we need to work on obviously external marketing and share all of those resources with our candidates and our state parties. But we also need to work on our internal marketing, so that the state parties and the candidates that we have, they actually know that we have valuable resources now, and that it's not a joke. For example, you know, Carrie Schultz works really hard. She does all these trainings. And the one that I attended was was well attended. But I think that by and large, they're very under attended. And it's because people don't have faith in the national party. So that's a that's some of what it'll look like, at least on the candidate perspective. When I'm chairing the National Party. You're muted. Brian, you're muted.

Brian Nichols  22:14  
There we go. Good call here. Angela, you should be the host. Now I said, you mentioned Kelly, you mentioned Shane. We've had them on the show. And the audience knows those names. They're familiar because they've been on the path leading these conversations showing how to have these conversations. And actually, we talked about this when they were on the show is what are some of the most effective ways to reach out to people. And guess what, both Shane and Kelly are taking what we've talked about here on the show, and to your point, now they're bringing them into real life. And they're making waves, they're showing people that you can get in front of your average person who is concerned about the prospects of where the country is headed, and meet them on the issues they actually care about in the area. They're actually caring about them. In this case, you mentioned Kelly going to actual school board meetings and getting people riled up. I hear him on local radio all the time, he's absolutely crushing it. And that's because he's out there. And he's entering into uncomfortable conversations with people who are not already libertarians that I think is super, super important. And also to make sure that we're not going after the people, we want to be our audience. I think that right there is one of the best parts, you said there, Angela, we got to stop going after the people that we want to be our target market, we have to instead just look and see who is our target market. And then we have to adapt to that and react to that. Otherwise, we're just going to be we're going to be almost going in circles, trying to better ourselves. But at the same point in time, we're just making ourselves feel better. And we're not bringing anybody else new. So that's not a way to grow. It's a matter of fact, it's a way to die. So with that being said, I know that's not a really positive way in the show. But I'm going to turn to you, Angela, maybe we can put put some nice positivity on the show here as we wrap things up. So Angela, final thoughts here for the audience, and maybe some things you want people to take away today. And obviously, they want continue the conversation, where can they go ahead and find you and also support you for chair?

Angela McArdle  24:03  
Absolutely. You know, what I want to convey more than anything is that, you know, I have a beautiful vision for the Libertarian Party. And I want the people who are already in the Libertarian Party right now to be a part of it. I really do believe that we can be a party that people value and that resonates with people's values and reflects just our innate human desire for freedom. We've got to take it to the next level though. This is sort of our last chance in my opinion, like we can't fumble the ball. This is if we if we don't speak out boldly against mandates and lockdowns, we are going to be relegated to the dusty pages of history and forgotten so now is the time and and I'm ready you know I'm ready to lead that lead that charge for everyone. So if you want to follow along and see what I'm up to and see some of the other resources and materials that I'm also putting out for candidates and state parties, you can go to Angela mcardle.com And you can follow me on Twitter at Angela for LNC. Chair. I've got a lot of exciting stuff coming up and definitely stay. Stay alert for more updates on the LA medical freedom initiative to overturn the vaccine mandate.

Brian Nichols  25:15  
Fantastic. And what we'll do is we'll make that easy for you folks will include all those links for both Angela social media as well as her website in the show notes. And by the way, we'll also make it easy for you folks will include the entire transcript for today's episode in the show notes as well all you got to do go to your podcast catcher, click the little artwork, and it will bring you right to today's episode there at Brian Nichols show.com plus all 438 39 episodes we have here in the program. So yeah, you have your treasure trove of dig through including, as Angela mentioned her past two appearances which we will obviously make sure we include there in the show notes as well. But with that being said Angela McArdle she's running for chair of the Libertarian Party, and she joins us again on today's episode of The Brian Nichols Show. Thanks for joining all right

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