The RLC rarely endorses a presidential candidate. In order to preserve the integrity of the organization, an endorsement requires near unanimity among all its active state affiliates. In fact, the last time the RLC has endorsed a presidential candidate was Steve Forbes in 1996.

But the national RLC announced on the eve of the Iowa primary, after the required consultation with the state RLCs including Florida, that the RLC is officially endorsing Ron Paul for president of the United States.

“Paul has often been a lone vote against big government and big spending in the wilderness of the House of Representatives, but as president that lone vote would become a veto and stop government abuses dead in their tracks,” observed Earl Bandy, Chairman of the RLC of Colorado. “That alone is a great reason to put Ron Paul in the White House and give him that power.” 

To get involved with the Ron Paul campaign in Florida, join your local Meetup group. You can find a list of Meetups and links to other resources here.

After a near-decade of national leadership from big government Republicans, the voters sent our party packing on Nov. 4, handing the presidency and additional Congressional seats to the Democrats. Republicans of all stripes were caught up in the rout.

Still, there were victories both in Florida and the nation for libertarian Republicans.

A major victory was won in California where long-time friend of the RLC Tom McClintock - for whom Rep. Ron Paul actively campaigned this year - won a seat in the U.S. Congress. Here in Florida, term limits advocate Tom Rooney picked up a Congressional seat (CD16), replacing incumbent Tim Mahoney in a district still referred to as "Mark Foley's old seat." Meanwhile, Rep. Tom Feeney of Orlando (CD24) lost his Congressional seat.

In the Florida legislature, two of the five RLC-endorsed candidates won their seats - Rich Workman (D30) and Lake Ray (D17). Thanks to Sarah Lovett, Dean Santoro and Matt Caldwell for flying the limited government flag in their first, but hopefully not last, electoral efforts.

RLCer Bruce Reichert and Alan Burton won non-partisan seats on the Collier County and Volusia County Soil & Water Boards, respectively, as did Jeff Hunt in Duval County. Hunt is not an RLCer, but is the right-hand man for RLCer Adam Guillette, the Florida director of Americans for Prosperity.

For a full recap of RLC results, see the national RLC blog at http://www.rlc.org/blog.

Win or lose, congratulations to all our candidates! The entire membership of the RLC applauds your dedication to liberty.

It has come to the attention of the executive committee of the RLC of Florida that offensive messages were recently posted on one of the local RLC Meetup websites. We are embarrassed and apologize without qualification for this lapse.

It is difficult for the RLC of Florida to monitor the various local sites that permit public postings. If you ever see any postings under our banner that are offensive or contrary to the principles and positions of the RLC & RLC-FL, please let us know immediately and we will see that the situation is corrected.

Our official Statement of Principles and Positions can be found here.

For the future, the board adopted a new policy on linking:

We recognize that in a political context, linking to another site may be construed to be an endorsement of that site and possibly other material contained on that site despite disclaimers to the contrary. Due diligence should be exercised by members in placing links in official forums or pages operating under or associated with the RLC-FL. This includes verifying the material linked as well as other material on the linked site, is credible and worthy and that the overall pattern of links be supportive of and not detrimental to the interests and principles of the RLC of Florida.

The RLC-FL thanks the several individuals who brought this matter to our  attention and the prompt efforts of the RLC of North Florida in correcting it.