Libertarian Rich Aucoin has been active in the small-government movement for over 10 years, working side by side with fellow libertarians and other tax cutters to reduce the size and scope of harmful Big Government. In 2002 Aucoin was the Libertarian candidate for Lt. Governor of Massachusetts, as well as Outreach Director for Ballot Queston 1 - the Small Government Act to End the Income Tax, spearheaded by Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Carla Howell. During the '02 campaign Aucoin and his team of Liberty Direct volunteers reached out to voters across Massachusetts through a stealth, grassroots campaign, designed by libertarian-persuasion guru Michael Cloud, to put a million Yes-on-1 fliers directly into the hands of Massachusetts voters from Pittsfield to Provincetown. Cloud's 9 Common Sense Reasons to End the Income Tax flier was the libertarian antidote to the media's brick wall of opposition to Question 1.

Liberty Direct proved hugely successful at kicking holes through the orchestrated blackout of Howell and Question 1. The initiative ultimately won over 45% of the vote, stunning the state's Big Government media establishment whose editors and news directors had chosen to dismiss the plight of struggling Massachusetts taxpayers, while refusing to report on the devastation caused by bloated state government.

Even respected pundits and pollsters fell down on the job, wrongly predicting a dismal 15% to 25% showing for Yes on 1, while Aucoin's reports from the campaign trail proved far more accurate. His team encountered huge numbers of voters, particularly in blue-collar communities, who were delighted at the prospects of getting back their state income taxes every year and of creating 400,000 new jobs in Massachusetts -- the two most popular of the '9 Reasons' on Cloud's flier.

The following year Aucoin formed Waltham Citizens for Taxpayer Justice and experimented with an extraordinarily bold property tax cut initiative designed to give back a generous $1,000 a year to the average Waltham homeowner. This local initiative fared less well, as government-employee unions from across the state banded together - dubbing themselves "Coalition of Concerned Citizens" - and spent well over $50,000 on scare tactics to kill the giveback.

For his tireless small-government activism throughout 2002 and 2003, and for the countless speeches he delivered to students across Massachusetts at such schools as the Kennedy School of Government and the Cambridge School of Weston, Aucoin received back-to-back Lights of Liberty awards from the Advocates for Self Government.

Today Aucoin remains committed to dramatically downsizing Big Government, eager to apply the knowledge he's acquired on the front lines of bold tax-cutting.
And Rich remains confident that more Americans will turn out to vote for small-government candidates and initiatives, once they learn of the huge benefits in making government small.