This last weekend Young Americans for Liberty had their state convention in Iowa City. Nearly 200 young liberty activists attended the event. The convention was split into two sections. The first 4 hours were spent learning what makes successful campaigns tic. The campaign bootcamp featured training sessions lead by both the Leadership Institute and Iowa political operative Ryan Rhodes.
The second half of the day was the actual convention. The convention featured several speakers including Iowa’s 1st district congressman Rod Blum and president and CEO of FreedomWorks Matt Kibbe. Rod Blum spoke about his campaign that led to him becoming one of Iowa’s 4 congressman. Blum recalled, “When I arrived on capital hill and was attending an orientation meeting, led by the speaker of the house, I thought to myself, ‘How on earth did I get here’. I then started working on the house floor, surrounded by other state’s congressman and asked my self, ‘How on earth did these guys get here!'”
Matt Kibbe spoke about making progress for liberty issues by partnering with coalitions on issues that we find agreement on. He touched on how modern technology sheds light on the political process and those who are trying to regulate information gathering technologies are attempting to keep information out of the hands of the public. Monopoly on information is what keeps them in power. Finally he discussed rephrasing libertarian principles into easy to understand concepts that few people would disagree with. His book Don’t Hurt People and Don’t Take Their Stuff’ is a good example of this. Final attendance tally: 195. 