Lib rtarian /e Party National Headquarters April 1976 443;? Charleachh/fv??z/ C- parses?2256 ?1 Wichita, Kansas 67201 Dear Charles: Just thought Pdtake a mome paign. Overall, things are proceed we lack more than anything is respo state level. Happily, office and rising to th obtaining ballot status plishment. challenge. in 20 states all things considered. many people seem to be Edward H. Crane 111 Chairman Andrea Miller! Vice Chairwoman GreitoI'Y J. Clark Secretary Francine YounR'Stei? Treasurer Robert H. Meier National Dir?'?o?l' nt to update you on the cam? ing reasonably well. What nsible leadership at the growing up" in A year ago I thought that would be quite an accom- Today I feel confident we can make it on the ballot in 30 sta question that we could be on in an if things really get rollingthe additional 5 or 10 states In Alabama we turned in 6 9 the previously reported 7700 signatuggs?lg:3tures (as opposed to judges have verified 4,360. cordial to us and she is in the process of sen signatures and asking that judges still have our fingers crossed arles Koch One of the most important states to us is California and the state legislature there is currently discussing a bill that would greatly reduce the requirement for independent bal- lot status. We have perhaps our best organization in Califor- nia and if we were to get a reasonable signature requirement I think Roget could pull up to 200,000 names there. The party, I estimate, is capable of collecting 100,000 signatures in two months and some of the legislative proposals are in that ball park. In addition, there are two court cases pending that may have a positive impact on our situation there. We are officially on the ballot now in Utah and Ken- tucky. In Ohio we turned in 9,300 signatures which should be. more than enough given the 5,000 signature requirement. Loui- siana and New Jersey will be filing sometime this month and there are no problems in either of those states. As far as your own state is concerned we may be joining the McCarthy group in a suit to obtain independent status. I am enclosing direct mail packets we've used to send to doctors and gun enthusiasts. Our hope was that special in- terest groups would be inclined to support us given their strong feeling in their major area of concern. We also used the ap? proach of using the money to run the ad because we felt there was a more direct inducement to do that than just to support the more nebulous concept of a new political party. Unfortunate? ly, the early returns from both these mailings have been very discouraging and they tell me it's too early to tell for sure but I am already discounting the prospects we had for mailing to other specialized groups such as independent truckers, gays, hard money people and marijuana types. We shall see. Roger has turned out to be a very good candidate and I am most pleased with the way he is handling himself around the country. The media generally recognize early on that his is an intellect to deal with and they therefore do not treat us as the quixotic movement that a lesser candidate might tempt them to. Roger and I saw Reagan on TV together and both feel that Roger is already at a stage where he could do much better than Reagan. Our hope is to do something of a similar nature after the Republican and Democratic conventions. Please keep in mind your open invitation to send us comments or suggestions whenever you get the notion. Cor Ed a . Crane, _Na ona Chairman Enclosures