LIBERTARIANS NOMINATE BROWNE

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) -- More than a thousand Libertarians gathered at
the party's national convention on Sunday nominated Harry Browne,
their 1996 candidate for president, to run again in 2000.

The 67-year-old investment banker from Nashville, Tenn., acknowledged
he has little chance of winning the presidency. He said he hoped his
campaign would reinvigorate what was formerly the nation's top third
party.

"We're the only political party that's offering to set you free,"
Browne said. "It's the most powerful political message in the world."

Officials with the Libertarian Party, which advocates individual
liberties over expansive and expensive government programs, claims
some 30,000 dues-paying members.

It also identifies itself as the biggest third party movement in the
United States.

However, the party has lacked the star power of the Reform Party and
the Green Party in recent years.

Browne finished fifth in 1996, behind Reform Party candidate Ross
Perot and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, garnering less than 1
percent of the national vote.

He has proposed a 12-step program that would eliminate income taxes,
Social Security, the war on drugs and federal welfare.

Competing against Browne were: Don Gorman of Deerfield, N.H., a former
four-term New Hampshire state legislator; Barry Hess, a salesman from
Phoenix, Ariz.; David Hollist, a charter bus driver from Alta Loma,
Calif.; and Jacob Hornberger, president of the Future of Freedom
Foundation, a libertarian think tank in Fairfax, Va.

A first ballot to choose a nominee for vice president did not
determine a 51 percent majority winner, said party spokesman Bill
Winter. A second ballot was taken, but results will not be announced
until Monday, Winter said.

Among the candidates for the vice presidential nomination was Steve
Kubby of Squaw Valley, Calif., the Libertarians' 1998 candidate for
governor of California.

Kubby, a backer of the medical marijuana law Californians' passed in
1996, ran fourth in the governor's race but made headlines last year
when he and his wife were arrested and charged with possessing drugs
for sale after authorities found 300 marijuana plants in their home.
The case has not yet gone to trial.