COVID wreaked havoc on our standard convention planning. We usually hold our conventions at a local community theater centrally located in Dover. Due to COVID restrictions, we were unable to reserve the venue as they were unsure what their capacity limit would be or if they would be open at all. We had also been discussing for some time the idea of holding a multi-day event with the first day comprised of guest speakers, workshops, and other attractions with the second day being the usual business meeting. We finally had a volunteer who was enthusiastic about taking on the planning for the first day events and we unofficially told her to explore the possibilities and if it was something we could manage on our budget, we'd move forward with it.
Two months later, a venue had offered to allow us the use of their space for free for the day one events and would contract with us for the day two event and a dinner we wanted to host afterwards. The cost was a lot more than the "free" we were accustomed to, but "free" for the day one events was exactly what we were looking for, so we approved the venue and moved forward with planning. We had also approved and raised funds to bring Tasha Cohen and her spouse to Delaware for our convention weekend.
Then, things began to run off the rails. Our new volunteer, with no experience in the party, took over communications with Spike's staff and began inviting speakers of an exclusively Mises Caucus bent. Aside from the often troublesome territory Mises Caucus folks tend to wonder into when given a hot mic, we were very clearly picking a side in an ongoing factional war in the national party. Additional speakers were invited in an attempt to balance and localize the event, but the lead volunteer and her staff of exclusively Mises Caucus members continued pressing to give the appearance of a Mises Caucus event rather than a Libertarian one. More and more Mises speakers were invited and they were consistently given top billing in promotional materials with locally relevant and less factional guests only as an afterthought.
This event was, of course, intended to raise money, so a means of accepting payments from vendors and others needed to be set up. Without even consulting the Board, the Treasurer of the event, who had been appointed unilaterally by the organizing volunteer, demanded account information from the State Party Treasurer. By asking the Chair for a ruling on the necessity of a motion to clear the disclosure of this information, even though it was the Chair who determined a motion should be required, the entire event group decided instead to break off from the LPD after using our name to secure a free venue and guest speakers, in addition to our funds to pay the travel expenses of their headliner, Spike Cohen. The LPD was initially offered the opportunity to buy a sponsorship package, but was eventually allowed to have one for free when it was made clear that no such purchase would occur.
This "Day of Liberty" event was successful. It had a clear Mises tint and did not meet the organizers' or the venue's expectations for turnout, but it did raise money that was (presumably) eventually turned over to the Party, though no accounting exists and there's no way to know if the local Mises group skimmed anything off the top for themselves. Several guests did back out of the event upon the realization that it was no longer a Party sponsored event due to concerns about the type of organization they were promoting by appearing. It's impossible to say if the event would have been more successful or better attended if it had remained a Libertarian Party of Delaware event.
This hosting of Mises events is another common practice in the prelude to a takeover of a state affiliate. A separate event is held promoting Mises affiliated celebratarians as a way to draw attention to and energize the Mises members at the expense of dividing the affiliate. By that metric, the event was surely an astounding success, particularly after the split from the Party and the bad blood engendered by their decision to trade on our name to build up the event and then go off on their own.
