Eshoo Challenger Bets Voters $5 Each

From: Brian Holtz, Libertarian for Congress	Text/Voice/Video chat:
http://marketliberal.org/Announcement20041011.html	Day: 408-349-7240
For Release Monday Oct 11, 2004	Eve: 650-654-6589

Sunnyvale, CA - Oct 11, 2004 -- It turns out that giving away $5000 is harder to do than Libertarian candidate Brian Holtz thought it would be.

In May he issued a challenge to voters in his Silicon Valley district: "If you can pass a short quiz on my positions, and still say you won't vote for me, I'll send you $2." Despite a steady stream of around 30 visitors a day to his campaign web site, and despite news coverage that included a mention on the national Fox News, no voter has claimed her $2 by saying she'll vote against him. In fact, after hearing about the offer, a few voters sent him money instead. "I'm trying to lose money on this deal, but so far it's not working" says Holtz. So now Holtz is upping the ante. Each qualifying voter will get not $2 but $5, and he'll send another $5 to whomever first referred the voter to him.

Holtz is a Yahoo software engineer running for Congress against 7-term incumbent Democrat Eshoo in a district that stretches from Saratoga to Belmont and Scotts Valley to Half Moon Bay. Holtz is trying to shake up an election which threatens to be a replay of 1998, in which Eshoo outspent the same Republican opponent $450K to $35K and outpolled him 69% to 28%. Republican Chris Haugen, a teacher at a Christian private school in Sunnyvale, had $2K on hand in June compared to Eshoo's $378K.

The offer on Holtz's campaign site (http://marketliberal.org/Bet.html) says "If you can pass a short quiz on my positions, and still say you won't vote for me, I'll send you $5." Holtz is currently capping his payout at $5000 to minimize FEC paperwork, but doesn't rule out raising that limit. To claim the $5, a voter in the 14th district first has to answer ten multiple choice questions on Holtz's positions, with each question linked to the campaign web page that answers it. If after passing the quiz the voter can deny planning to vote for Holtz, he says he will return her stamped self-addressed envelope with $5 in it.

When asked to explain his peculiar marketing tactic, Holtz asks "what other advertising can I buy where I only pay if the voter actually considers my message? At Yahoo we're strong believers in pay-for-performance advertising, except here I cut out the middleman and pay the voter a direct bounty in exchange for her attention."

The Libertarian describes himself as a fiscal conservative and social liberal. "The Democrats want government to be our nanny. The Republicans want government to be our chaperone. I want government to be just our referee and lifeguard, and treat us like grownups." If elected, Holtz says his priorities would be "market-based reforms of bankrupt entitlement programs, eradication of corporate welfare, and protecting the environment by legally recognizing its economic value."

Currently predicting he will only win about 4% at the polls, the long shot challenger denies that a vote for him is a wasted vote. "The incumbent has won four straight elections by a 2-to-1 margin. Which vote is more wasted, a vote that ratifies a predetermined outcome, or a vote for the principles you believe in?"

Holtz claims that the two major parties buy votes from special interests. "My infant daughter Shannon already owes $94,000 in government debt and unfunded liability. 98% of Congress gets re-elected, and they buy re-election with debt and promises that Shannon will be paying for when these politicians are just a bad memory."

Payments to voters might itself be considered a form of illegal vote-buying, but Holtz doesn't think so. "42 U.S.C. 1973i(c) forbids 'payment for voting', but I only pay if they sign a statement promising NOT to vote for me. If they say they'll vote for me, then they won't win $5 -- but they might just win a free country."

Holtz's campaign site is marketliberal.org. Rep. Eshoo's campaign site is annaeshooforcongress.com. Chris Haugen's campaign site is haugenforcongress.com.


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