My name is Rich Tomasso, Region 1 Coordinator for the LFC. I met Dr. Tom Stevens at the LP national convention last month and he invited me to join this group.

My professional background is a software engineer, webmaster, and freelance writer. I've also done a variety of other things from librarian to mortgage investing to MLMs.

I've always been politically active. My early focus was on First Amendment issues, but that eventually broaded to other pro-liberty causes such as tax reduction, private property ownership, self defense, healthcare choice and school choice.

I joined the LP in 1998. My political activity really increased 3 years ago. I volunteered to be the newsletter editor of the LPNH and was later appointed Media Director. For the past two years I've been elected Party Secretary. I've been involved with most everything the LPNH has been doing since then, including doing media and volunteer work for all our major campaigns. I also co-coordinated our 2003 state convention and am organizing our 2004 convention.

I've been helping the LPNH improve its infrastructure, from cleaning up the membership database, improving our media appearance and products, to having more things written down for future leaders and coordinating local groups I hope to turn into county affiliates soon.

I was involved in the Free State Project from very early on and formed the Welcome to the Granite State Committee with other LPNH members. We coordinated much of the research and outreach for FSP in NH and promoted NH to the FSP. I spoke at several events in other states to highlight why NH should be chosen by the FSP. I was appointed as a media representative and did several interviews. I was recently appointed Northern New England regional coordinator.
http://www.lpnh.org/nh-welcome.htm

Last year, I co-founded the NH Liberty Alliance, a non-partisan pro-freedom PAC and civic group. I'm on the BoD as Membership Director. Our goal is to be a focus for political activity at the electoral and legislative level to move policy in a more libertarian direction. We also have a civic arm which encourages private charity and a scholarship fund to help get children out of government schools. We just had our first liberty dinner, with the governor as keynote speaker and about 30 socialist democrats protesting outside. :)
http://www.nhliberty.org

I've been involved in state and local politics very directly. I've helped write legislation, testified at the statehouse many times, and organized a press conference. I've been actively building alliances with the many pro-liberty groups here in NH, many of whom now include the Libertarians in their discussions and debates, come to our events, and even describe their views as "libertarian" on some issues.

Locally, I'm on the board of my local Taxpayers Association, which brought a stronger spending cap to the ballot. It was defeated, but did win in my ward, so I guess all my lit drops paid off. :)

I've been asked to run for office by the Democrats and Republicans, but as a board member of the LPNH I will only seek office as a Libertarian.

I am happy to see the LP finally getting serious about politics, some good changes happened two years ago and I hope more is on the way. I hope the LFC can be a voice to help move that progress forward. I'd like to see more local activity, more candidate training, and a winning attitude from Libertarians. If it means electing a few hundred Libertarian supervisors off the checklist next year then so be it.

We also need to have more fun. Not hard really, just throw in some pizza parties along with the petitioning sorting meetings.

Anything else you wanna know, just ask.

-Rich