Stanley received extensive news coverage immediately prior to the convention, due to his conviction in Denver court on a charge of openly carrying a firearm during a Dec. 15th act of civil disobedience as well as his comments that U.S. Senator Wayne Allard should be tried for treason for supporting the U.S. Patriot Act and other "unconstitutional" legislation. "Tried, and if found guilty, hung," Stanley was quoted by the Rocky Mountain News.

Due to the quirky nature of all internal Libertarian elections, approximately 140 convention goers had the option of voting for Stanley, his opponent Steve D'Ippolito or NOTA (None Of The Above). In the first round of balloting for the Senate nomination, NOTA received 19 votes, Stanley got 63 votes and D'Ippolito seemed destined for victory with 65 votes.

But D'Ippolito's two-vote margin was not enough to prevent a run-off election, and it was in the second round of balloting that Stanley surged ahead with 78 votes to D'Ippolito's 67. In his concession speech, D'Ippolito encouraged party unity: "We need to direct our anger at the S.O.B.'s in the other two parties!"

Despite predictions from some party activists that the Colorado Libertarian Party's first "primary" would split and fragment the growing third party, the record-setting number of convention delegates nominated 51 candidates to appear on 2002 election ballots in Colorado, 49 of them by unanimous acclamation.

In the only other contested race -- for the Libertarian nomination to challenge Gov. Bill Owens -- Ralph Shnelvar, of Boulder, defeated 31-year-old James Vance, the youngest Coloradan to ever seek the gubernatorial nomination of a recognized party, by more than a two-to-one margin.

Vance "did astonishingly well" as a relative newcomer to the party, Shnelvar remarked during his acceptance speech. "James is graciously supporting me. His message resonates with one-third of you, and I am going to listen to him."

Shnelvar, 51, has adopted much of Vance's strategy, including targeting young voters, actively supporting the legalization of marijuana and hemp, and seeking to build new coalitions. Vance was instead elected to the state board of directors of the Colorado LP; he will serve as Publications Director, overseeing production of the party's semi-monthly newsletter.

Convention organizers Ari Armstrong and Carol Hill chose Leadville as the site for this year's convention after Libertarians, including Hill, assumed a majority of seats on the former mining town's council. Since the January swearing-in ceremony, Councilman Joe Swyers has dropped his Libertarian Party registration but says he is still a small 'l' libertarian.

A stellar cast of speakers was arranged at low or no cost by the two organizers: TABOR Amendment author Douglas Bruce, who pitched his new Active Citizens Together (ACT) non-profit group; Sheriff Bill Masters from Telluride, the only Libertarian sheriff in America and author of the news-making book "Drug War Addiction;" Denver Post columnist and Colorado historian Ed Quillen; three-time Prometheus Award-winning science fiction author L. Neil Smith; and, among others, Boulder Weekly Editor Wayne Laugesen.

Sheriff Masters provided the keynote speech at the Saturday evening banquet, held at Leadville's National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum. "Busting dopers is not rocket science," he said, but it was a talent that in his past earned him recognition from the Drug Enforcement Agency -- when he was still a Republican.

Having held the office of San Miguel County sheriff for 23 years, Masters confessed that he would play the drug card any time he felt it would help him win a county election. "I would immediately accuse my opponents of being soft on drugs, even un-American. All the conservatives supported me, until I started arresting their sons and daughters." Masters even arrested one of his own deputies on a drug charge.

Masters' ideological conversion came during a multi-state murder investigation in which the primary suspect was a former police officer. Seeking help from the feds, Masters traveled to Virginia to consult with a specialized FBI murder investigative unit. While eating lunch at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Masters observed many young trainees populating the campus. He suggested that, perhaps when their training was done, these young federal recruits could help the obviously resource-strapped murder unit.

But he was informed that the young recruits were DEA agents, not FBI agents. "The DEA had taken over the FBI Academy to make even more drug warriors," Masters recalled.

Meanwhile, the murder suspect -- the former police officer -- was in Nevada torturing his victims and stashing them live for later torture sessions in locked refrigerators with airholes cut in them.

Something clicked in Masters' mind -- murder victims were dying while the feds wasted training resources to ensure a steady flow of easy marijuana, cocaine and meth busts. "I thought, 'Maybe you been trying to shove hay up the wrong end of the horse.'"

America's War on Drugs has busted, prosecuted and imprisoned hundreds of thousands of people, the sheriff said, but the Phoenix Memorandum -- which notified President Bush of an impending terrorist attack involving a hijacking prior to Sept. 11th -- was ignored because the FBI considered investigating several hundred Arab piloting students to be a "sizable undertaking."

The list of innocent people killed by drug warriors, including Ismael Mena, "goes on and on," Masters said to applause. "It is just total blind obedience to a zero tolerance, law-and-order mentality. Demonizing inanimate objects like plants and shotguns like they are is causing America's problems."

Among this year's Libertarian nominees are a few races to watch. Former U.S. Army Airborne Ranger Biff Baker is challenging incumbent District 5 Congressman Joel Hefley with a hellfire-and-brimstone style derived from lay preaching. John Gurley is running to win the Mesa County sheriff's position. San Miguel Coroner Bob Dempsey recently switched to the Libertarian Party, and is running for re-election under his new party affiliation. The party's 1998 gubernatorial nominee, Sandra Johnson, is seeking the State Senate District 5 seat. Another prior gubernatorial nominee, David Aitken, is going after Secretary of State with appropriate qualifications. CU student Flux Neo is running for the District 2 seat on the CU Board of Regents.