760: Libertarians Can WIN - How This Nurse Became Mayor as a Libertarian with Over 60% of the Vote

Brian Nichols  
How did this libertarian win his local office race? With over 60% of the vote? Yeah, let's talk about that. Instead of focusing 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. Oil Hey there, Nichols here on The Brian Nichols Show. And thank you for joining us on a fourth got a fun filled episode. I am as always, always your humble host. Live from our N T studios. You're in lovely Eastern Indiana and today join me from a state in East skid or an East a hop skip and a jump to my West that is joining me from keansburg, Colorado. Aaron lamb. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show.

Aron Lam  
Thank you very much for having me, Brian.

Brian Nichols  
Aaron, great to have you on the program. And thank you for Yes, not only running as a big L libertarian, but winning as a big L libertarian, helping enact some positive change for keansburg, Colorado. But before we get there, do us a favor. Introduce yourself your to The Brian Nichols Show audience and of course, your path to Mayor of keansburg.

Aron Lam  
Oh, absolutely. So I was one of the many that was got into this movement. Thanks to Dr. Ron Paul. I was going to Liberty University. I'm a registered nurse by trade. So I was in nursing school during the 2012 campaign, and had a couple guys on our haul that were obsessed with Dr. Paul, and you know, really the best of us and fortunately, was open to hearing from them, because some of them were guys that I was friendly with. And at the same time going through nursing school was learning in research class about the FDA and how the whole research process works for pharmaceuticals and our, our sorry, in our country. And I was very unhappy with how the whole thing was being ran, and thought that there could probably be a better way. And so started reading into Rothbard. Of course, read Atlas Shrugged and some of these other formative works that many libertarians get into the movement through, I worked with Ron Paul's campaign was a delegate through the GOP for the state of Virginia. And were able to get, I believe two of our people down to convention in Florida that year. And of course, you know, with all the craziness that the GOP did, and completely screwing the good doctor, and you know, he really

Brian Nichols  
like Aaron, for the folks who maybe aren't familiar with that, right? Because there's actually a lot of younger folks who listen to the program, they might not be familiar with the 2012 shenanigans with the Ron Paul campaign and the GOP establishment. He talked about that a little bit in detail there.

Aron Lam  
Absolutely. That's a great point. So essentially, Dr. Paul didn't have any chance of winning the outright nomination. But he had won enough delegates through different states across the country that he had earned a speaking spot as the number two. But at the last minute, during the convention, there was a motion from the floor to change the rules, increasing the number of states that he needed to be on what he actually had. At the same time, they borrowed an entire delegation, I believe, from Maine, because that was the the state that had the strongest delegation of Ron Paul supporters. So they completely barred them, they replaced them with another group, and essentially completely screwed Dr. Paul out of this opportunity, after he had spent 30 years with the Republican Party being a champion of liberty, but because he didn't toe the line with the establishment and he called out Giuliani and he called out George W. Bush and the terrible policies of that entire terrorism regime. He was not given that opportunity, and he was pushed to the side. So a lot of us that had been very involved and very active as a result of Dr. Paul's campaign, just left the GOP because we saw how it was being ran at the time, Reince Priebus was the Chairman and I mean was as corrupt as any politician that you can find. So kind of just left at around the same time I moved to Colorado. Again, I'm a nurse by trade so did a lot of different jobs here. The mountains is what really attracted me and of course, job opportunities, and then got back involved in the Libertarian Party about three four years ago when Tom woods and Dave Smith started this movement and, of course, Michael hice with the Mises caucus to retake the Libertarian Party and make it libertarian again. So that that very much appealed to me and then Having that wealth of knowledge that I had obtained from 1000s of hours of podcasts and reading many of these formative works, I knew that this was a good opportunity and seeing the progress over the last three, four years and seeing the success that the Mises caucus has had with taking over the National Party. But even here in Colorado, we had a complete sweep at our most recent at our most recent convention, and the year before that we had 7065 70% majority. So it made for a very quick convention very efficient, because we're able to vote down quickly anything that the opposition tried to bring up just to stall for time. And again, this year, it was so overwhelming, they didn't even bother showing up, we didn't have a single opponent. That wasn't Mises caucus, or at least that friendly show up to convention. So you know, Colorado really is the model for this with a what the National Party has already done. And I'm kind of the the proto example for this decentralized revolution strategy, that the Mises caucus has really been pushing, where the goal is to find winnable, local offices that don't require a lot of money, quite frankly, don't require a ton of effort, but can be one. And I'm really excited to share with you how I was able to do that today.

Brian Nichols  
Oh, yeah, that's what we want to talk about, right is how you did that. Now, I just did a training with the Mises caucus. Part of they're running as a libertarian campaign right now. And we walked through how to sell liberty and effectively message yourself as a local candidate is like an hour or so long session. Now that was available as a bonus episode. For all podcast listeners there for The Brian Nichols Show. So yes, we have video and podcast version. That was a podcast exclusive. So if you want to catch that, you have to go subscribe to The Brian Nichols Show on your favorite podcast catcher. It's like an hour and 15 minute or so long training. And it's really into the weeds about how to effectively run campaigns. But that's all theory, right? Until we actually apply it. And then, hey, have some wins, right has some skins on the wall, which is what you were able to do, Aaron. So let's go through. Talk about as you kind of tease there for me, thank you for doing my job, how you were able to secure not just a nomination, but in this case, an actual victory. Mayor of keansburg, Colorado. How does that happen for a big L libertarian, what was the the battle plan here?

Aron Lam  
Well, the first step was finding a race that was winnable. And I can't say that I moved to keansburg. For this purpose, it was just luck, and fortune. My wife and I were in the greater Metro Denver area. And of course, during COVID, it was unbelievably oppressive for both of us. And we needed to get away. So we actually were considering going to South Dakota, of course, with Governor gnome and her very pro freedom policies throughout COVID. So we went up and did a little bit of scouting and didn't find anything that was really to our interests. And of course, the pay cuts that we both would be taking just didn't really make it a very viable option for us. But Weld County, which is where keansburg is located is where if we were going to stay in Colorado, that was going to be the county, because it is drivable for the Denver Metro area for our jobs. But first and foremost, they were one of the best counties pushing back against the COVID regime. And beyond that Sheriff Reims has made national news several times now, but anytime and in the last four years, that the Colorado General Assembly has pushed new red flag laws or different gun control measures, he has very staunchly stood up as a constitutional Sheriff saying that he is not going to be enforcing this and neither will his deputies. And fortunately, the county commission, and all the commissioners that are on it have backed him several times with different resolutions as these things have happened. So we knew Weld County is kind of where we wanted to go. And we had put in offers and a couple other communities for different houses that didn't work. And this was the last house that we went to, and just so happened that it worked out perfectly. And we were able to move to this wonderful town and get involved in the community. And so then the next step, of course, was a little research.

Brian Nichols  
No, no, no, no, no apology. They just want to emphasize something that you said it's a key to your success. And that was the last little bit you said there. Got involved in your community, right? You didn't sit on the computer and bitch and moan about things and think that was gonna make things better. You got involved you people knew not just your face and then your name and your wife's and they knew who you were, what your values were that matters so much. I just want to emphasize that one part you got involved in the community. Thank you for pointing that out. Because that's something I think a lot of libertarians forget, Aaron continued.

Aron Lam  
I couldn't agree more. And by far that was the most important factor. I think that really helped my campaign and I'll get in to that in a little bit more detail in a minute. But again, in the next step was looking researching into the recent election history. And something that a lot of people I don't think realize is that many municipal elections take place at odd times. A lot of the municipalities in Colorado have April elections, for instance, and oftentimes in off election years, so the the voter turnout even in somewhat, you know, reasonably large small communities, you know, in the 10s of 1000s, might be 10%, or even 5% Of that total population. So you can have a really big impact with some effort. And particularly again, that time of year, it's cold, it's dreary, most unmotivated, individuals aren't going to be really doing much campaigning. So it just creates a large opportunity. And in our situation, that was the case, they had just changed the law, however, so that it was now coinciding with general election in November. So But even then, in the last election, my opponent had about 126 votes total. And his opponent only had about 80 or so. So quite a low turnout for a community of 2000 or so people at this point. So I knew that it was a fairly low bar, if I were putting in the effort. And again, getting involved in the community was by far the biggest thing that I could have done to really set up the opportunity with my campaign. My wife and I participated in the chili cook off that we have at the American Legion. And I want to first place that year, first attempt. So you know, everyone that was there, of course, saw me already, and you know, and then it's a small town, we have a grocery store, or get in a gas station, a couple of each of the basic things, so you see your neighbors all the time. So just run into people and everything. And then once you start doing the actual door knocking, then it's like, oh, yeah, I recognize you, I know who you are. And it just makes it a lot easier to connect to people, and then ask where they're where their stances and with small towns. Most people don't even know who the mayor is. I couldn't tell you how many dozens of people that our door knocked and asked, and I'm like, oh, is Danny Kip, still the mayor. And he hasn't been the mayor since 2012. So the current mayor didn't even have any kind of notoriety or fame or, you know, positive or negative, he was just a neutral person. And, to my knowledge, didn't do any door knocking at all, and didn't get any signs out until after I had already had 150 around town. So you know, just having a specific strategy and being able to implement that is such an advantage with so many of these incumbents who have never had to run a real campaign before.

Brian Nichols  
Really quick, I want to touch on something, Aaron, that you you brought up there. And that was actually going out and knocking on doors. When you went out and knocked on doors. What was the feedback you got as a big L? Libertarian, because that's probably different for most folks. Right? They're used to hearing Republican Democrat. Well, wait, a libertarian. What is that? Is that? Did you ever get any objections to your political affiliation? And if so, what did that look like? And how did you overcome those?

Aron Lam  
Sure that I want to answer that. But first, just to say, dynamic in small towns like mine, where again, Weld County is a very conservative County, our town is small in comparison to the population of the state or any of the metro areas. So the Republicans don't spend any time or money here because they know we are going to reliably vote Republican. The Democrats don't waste any time or money here because they know they're not going to be able to persuade anyone. So both parties ignore small towns like this. So I had, again, dozens and dozens of people that I knocked, that they said this was the first time any politician has ever knocked on their door. So just having that and like, Oh, you're running for mayor, oh, that you know, it just has this this prestige for some reason in people's minds, and then they're more open to it. But to get to the specific question, the only person that gave me any kind of grief was a Republican who said, If you're not a Republican, then Fu and he cramped crumpled up my paper and threw it at me. And I just laughed. I mean, what else am I gonna do with that? And as I was walking away, yell back is like the other guys had a Republican either this is he's unaffiliated, I'm a libertarian. So it didn't matter but regardless, beyond that one gentleman, pretty much everyone else was very open. And as far as the specific strategy with being a libertarian, if it you know, I never hit it. I was it was on my on my Twitter, of course, I did different interviews and podcasts and was happy to share that. But that wasn't what I was going on people's you know, it wasn't my main talking point. While knocking on the door. Hey, I'm a libertarian. I'm running for mayor it's Hey, I'm Aaron lamb. I'm running for mayor because I love this town. I'm worried about the the rapid growth and expansion and don't want it to turn into one of these communities like that is all around the Denver Metro at this point all around the Denver Airport, which the people in town don't want either. And then again, very concerned about the water. And that's what got me involved in the first place was my wife and I got a 30% increase in our water bill in one month. And so he went to the board meeting to complain, give public comment, see what was going on, and realize that their policy was to allow public comment, but not to give any kind of feedback, not in the moment or not afterwards. So it was just going and talking into the void. So that was very frustrating. And then there's some other things that were being heard at that point. And we witnessed after a few more meetings of attending, that the town manager at that time, was in complete control of the town, and the board, which consists of six elected board members, then the the mayor's the head of the board, were just rubber stamping, whatever was brought in front of them. And so I had also heard of some complaints from people that wanted to do great things in our community, like bring a farmers market, but for some reason, they kept running into roadblocks, or people that wanted to open a new business in town and the same situation. So there were a lot of different things that I thought that I could help and do a lot better, just by simply removing these barriers of government and allowing people to flourish.

Brian Nichols  
Two things. So first, going back to the door knocking, right I want to just from a sales guy perspective, commend you, right, you did a phenomenal job at your, if you will cold call, right, because what we we see as content, this is consistently across the board in b2b, b2c is the you know, Hi, I'm calling from ABC Corporation, where the top XYZ provider in the industry, we do this, this, this and this, and they just go off, you know, get into verbal vomit mode versus what did you do? You start out by quickly saying, Hey, I'm Aaron land, I'm running for mayor, right? And then what you do you address the problem? You said, Hey, here's here's a problem that I see. And I'm sure that you see as well, you are addressing problems that the likely in this case constituent you were talking to would also experience. And then with that to pique enough interest to shift dally share that you have maybe a possible solution to that problem, but something that might be worth having a deeper conversation, right. And that right there that a plus Aaron, right, like that's how it's done. It's not going through and telling people who you are, what you do, and facts and figuring them death. It's finding one or two specific issues that are important to your voter, leading with those as the issues of your campaign, making it all about those problems and how you're going to help solve those issues. And now your mayor, right, so I guess now I want to hear what have you been able to do? Have you been able to actually solve these problems? Because I think that right there is where sometimes libertarians, we we hit a hurdle. It's like our ideas sound great on paper. But we really don't have many examples where we've had big L libertarian elected officials to reference and say, here's where we've done great things. So tell me, Aaron, what, what's it been like now that you've been mayor, have you been able to start addressing some of these issues? And what are the constituents saying?

Aron Lam  
Oh, absolutely, I'm very happy with what we've been able to accomplish so far. So again, we were sworn in and with my fellow board members, which should mention that with the election, too. So in addition to just door knocking, saying, you know, I'm running for mayor, I had some printed paper with my allies, as we had four board seats that were open this election. So I would say, you know, I can only do so much. But if you really want to help me make a difference. These are my allies. So I was successful in getting three out of the four elected, which did give me the majority on the board for a while. Unfortunately, two of my allies resigned for different reasons, since then, but that gave us the opportunity immediately after being elected and being sworn in. The first item on the agenda was appointing the town officers, which is again the town manager clerk, the Treasurer, the municipal judge, the attorney. So the board made the decision to not reappoint that town manager that people had been getting complaints about. And so that really was a scary moment for many people on the board that maybe weren't inclined to that direction and certainly for the town staff, but I can say with certainty that it was the correct decision. As we've had. I've had a ton of positive feedback with the department directors since then, most recently. We had an interim town manager that was incredible. I mean, just really overhauled a lot of the processes and procedures yours specifically in suggested and we implemented a reserve policy, which the state of Colorado specifies about, I think three or 10%, or something that must be kept back in the event that there's a, you know, unexpected economic downturn or lawsuit or what have you. So we increased that reserve policy to 35%, with different reasons for different things. So just economically being a lot more sound as a community. But then, again, to get specific, because that happened, we have a new town manager, we were able to get a farmers market in town for the first time which had been had been blocked previously, for unknown reasons, we were able to get a couple of the things that I'm very proud of, specifically, for whatever reason, in town, you're allowed to have chickens, backyard chicken hens, but in the ordinance, there was the line that said, it is strictly prohibited to sale any of the eggs of your backyard chickens. So I motion that we remove this, that didn't make any sense. And this was during February or so when that was huge in the news, you know, the egg price of eggs was just exploiting. And so it was very easy to convince the people on the board that weren't my allies, that this just makes sense. And even some of them that voted to make it illegal in the first place. Were asking themselves during the meeting, I don't remember why we did that, that just doesn't make any sense. So we, we only just take that away. So you know, bringing food, food freedom to our town and to our citizens, I attempted to increase the limit for chickens, because we are allowed to have less chickens than Denver is, for whatever reason. But again, that was at the time that what my allies had resigned. So I no longer had the majority. And my biggest opponent on the board at that time is looking to stop anything that I'm trying to do. So he was able to squash that and even proposed that he wanted to get rid of chickens entirely in town. So you can only do so much

Brian Nichols  
baby steps, right? And we're making progress. And the fact that you were elected right with 60% of the vote, I'd say is at the very least a positive step in the right direction. And now you're actually making some progress. From a policy perspective. That's pretty darn cool as well. So how about this, let's kick off final thoughts. I'll start here at mine if you're cool that and kind of my my thought process from today's conversation goes down the path of meeting people where they're at now for the longtime listener, The Brian Nichols Show, that expression is basically my catchphrase, right? You know, if I was Woody from Toy Story, he pulled the string in my back, one of my probably six catchphrases that will come out. Because at the end of the day, what matters is not what we care about not the issues that matter to us. But rather than the issues that matter to in this case of voter right the constituent whether it's your your prospect in the world of b2b sales, or in this case, the constituent who you're trying to get to go to the ballot box on election day, like we are still trying to tune into that individual's own radio station wi I fm what's in it for me, and that's where your average person is so weird that you're not selling yourself as a libertarian, but rather, that just happens to be a part of who you are, you're selling the solution to the problem that the person that you're speaking to, is facing, and that's where Aaron, you've had success, and that's where other libertarians will find success. That's part of what we talked about last episode on our bonus episode for our podcast episode, listeners, if you want to go ahead and catch that awesome training, I did our plus training for the run as a libertarian Mises caucus trainings. Go ahead, check that out on the podcast version of the show, also available over at Brian Nichols show.com. That's my final thoughts for today. Aaron, what do you have for us on your end?

Aron Lam  
I'll just say I could not agree more with you. Ultimately, you're not trying and nor would it be possible or you know, even worthwhile to convince every single person you talk to to be a libertarian. Your job as a candidate that's running for elected office is to get votes and convince each voter that they can trust you to do what you're going to do what you say you're going to do. So like I mentioned, I didn't ever lead with being a libertarian. It did come up quite often in the phrase of are you conservative? Are you liberal? Well, I'm not really either, you know, I'm a libertarian and probably lean more conservative ultimately, but don't you know, not really happy with either party. And usually that would be if they're Republican they but that's good enough. And the Democrats are populist enough here that it even mattered had much conversation with so so again, focus on your one or two issues. You don't have to go deep, keep it very superficial. Most people aren't as interested in going deep on these topics as we libertarians are. So meet them where they're at. I could not agree more. And I'll just say, you know, definitely check out, I did a training as well, with the Mises caucus, they posted it on their YouTube, where I went into a lot of depth about my campaign strategy and you know, more things that I found to be useful and not so much useful. And ultimately, that I was able to win, and I spent less than $1,200 for the entire campaign. So don't let anyone tell you that you can't win that libertarians don't win any offices because we can. And if we focus at the local level, we will have hundreds of mayors and city councilman and towns board in the next couple of years.

Brian Nichols  
And also, just to add one thing, you you tease there as well, Aaron, is that you you focused on? Where was it going to be worth your time? Right? You didn't just go in and say, you know, I'm gonna run for president. I'm gonna run for US Senate. Great, okay, wonderful. Like, if you're gonna do that, do that. But like, No, you're probably not going to win. But you actually want to make a real difference. And you want this difference to last long term to help build legitimate trust with the constituency that you're representing. So maybe you can actually run for Senate or maybe first will get you to run for, I don't know, legislature or assembly and then just finish Senate, right, and then maybe take a step towards, dare I say Congress, and then US Senate and who knows maybe one day President indeed, one can dream or one can start to actually do things differently. And that's what you're doing. Aaron, thank you for joining us. And folks, if you got some value from today's episode, you know the drill. Go ahead and give it a share. When you do tag yours truly at B nickels, liberty, Twitter, x.com. Also find me on Facebook. Aaron, where can folks go ahead and find you? They want to continue the conversation.

Aron Lam  
x.com Yeah, that's the new Twitter. That's. Yeah, I mean, still sounds like I'm saying something inappropriate or not safe for work. But yeah, just

Brian Nichols  
Grandma. Grandma. Just getting more good.

Aron Lam  
Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, just see it the way my name is spelled on screen. And when Aaron underscore lamb, you'll find me right away.

Brian Nichols  
Perfect. And for the audio listener, no worries. You don't have to say like why not watching on screen because the link should be included right there in your show notes. So have no fear. Just go ahead, swipe to your podcast description. And not only we find those aforementioned links, but you will also find the link to today's episode over at the Brian Nichols show.com where by the way, you can find not only today's episode, Aaron, but you can find all 760 plus other episodes of The Brian Nichols Show. We have had candidates, we have had elected officials, we've had economists, we've had entrepreneurs, political consultants, I'm trying to think we've had so many different folks here on the program. But I guarantee each and every episode has left the audience educated, enlightened and informed. So if you want to go ahead and catch all 760 other episodes of The Brian Nichols Show, well, there's only really one way to be able to do that. And that is to subscribe to the podcast version of the show because that's where our archives live. So if you go to your favorite podcast catcher Apple podcast, Spotify, YouTube music, wherever it may be subscribed to The Brian Nichols Show, and then go to unplayed episodes, download all you'll start episode one way back in 2018. Fast forward 750 episodes 60 episodes later, here we are today you're going to see the show grow you're gonna see yours truly grow, you're gonna see the audience, as we've gone through progressions here of the show change and I dare say change for the better. That's why I think we're reaching more people and frankly, we're having more success because we're teaching people yes have a meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. So that was for the podcast version. And of course Aaron teased it Thank you, Erin. Yes, we are a video podcast so it means we are over on YouTube rumble and Ben swans independent media entity that is spelled sovereign s o VREN. I'm a big fan by the way of sovereign so if you are indeed watching us over on sovereign congratulations because that means you are catching today's episode before anyone else that's a sovereign exclusive from yours. Truly. And by the way, I have to go ahead and say if you are still supporting us on the traditional YouTubes Well, hey, no worries lots of other folks are as well just do me a favor watching us here today. Hit that subscribe button, little notification bell and by the way, if you could hit a like button and give us some thoughts down in the comments, we'd love to hear what your thoughts are on the episode and then one final thing I am rocking today our magic money tree sure you can see me rocking this over here on the video version of the show. You can get your own magic money tree shirt over at Brian Nichols show.com forward slash app that will redirect you to our amazing partner that is proud libertarian. They have some amazing, amazing stuff over there. I'm so proud to have them. Yes as my proud libertarian shop and with that you use code TV and S you will get 15% off your order of your magic money tree shirt or we have lots of other goodies like I'm rocking our good ideas don't require force snapback, we have hoodies, T shirts, bumper stickers, all that and more. So head over to our shop. I said a lot. Any final things on your mind here, Aaron as we wrap things up.

Aron Lam  
Now again, just thank you for having me. If you are encouraged or interested in running, please go to run as libertarian.com. And that's the way and reach out to me again, if you are going to run I'm happy to give specific help to set me up on Twitter.

Brian Nichols  
Awesome. All right. So folks, yes, I mentioned it for the podcast version, go check out that training I did with Ron as a libertarian. Back here on our last episode for the podcast version of the show that special bonus or if you're joining us here on the YouTubes Hulu, you will go ahead and see a video pop up right about here. That's gonna be my conversation with the LP of Colorado discussing their recent partnership with the GOP of Colorado you want to see that conversation? You're gonna go ahead and have to continue over there. So we will see you guys over there other than that, Brian Nichols is signing off. You're on The Brian Nichols Show for Mayor Erin lamb. We'll see you next time. Peace

Transcribed by https://otter.ai