Portrait of a Winning Libertarian Party Candidate

He once tried to get on the ballot as Norm "Incumbent" Westwell, but was told that's against the rules. So this tenacious Libertarian Party activist was, forevermore, Norm "Firecracker" Westwell instead, and after a string of failed candidacies in which he never broke 10 percent of the vote, this year he won a seat on the Ocean View School District board in Orange County, California, with 53 percent.

Spurred by anger over fireworks bans (he got ticketed last year in Huntington Beach for violating one), using such innovative techniques as reusing other candidates' old signs and stenciling his own name on them, his is an interesting tale of how tenacity can eventually win the day for even the most eccentric and poorly-funded of Libertarian Party candidates. The Orange County Register tells his story.