Winning for Ron in 2012

A friend of mine recently had dinner with Gary Johnson and asked him if he was going to run for president in 2012. According to my friend, Johnson verbally gave a vague answer, but then silently mouthed "I'm going to run." So it appears that Gary Johnson will be running for president in 2012.

Also recently, I had the opportunity to ask Tom Woods if he thought Ron Paul was going to run again in 2012. Dr. Woods said that while he based his assessment on no actual evidence, he thinks that Ron is leaning towards a yes.

The one thing I don't want to see happen is a splitting of the vote. Ron can actually win in 2012 and splitting the vote would hurt those chances, though I don't think many 2008 Ron supporters would defect to Johnson. I also don't think that Johnson would be able to wage a winning campaign seeing as he doesn't have much name recognition and those who do know him probably most identify him with marijuana legalization; the Republican base isn't going to go for that if they perceive it to be his #1 issue. Johnson is kind of where Ron was in 2008, but Ron himself is currently in a far better position than in 2008.

Maybe it would benefit us if Johnson ran and then decided to drop out right before the Iowa caucus, because then there would be more than one person on the stage during the debates articulating liberty-friendly ideas, and anyone who was planning to vote for Johnson would likely shift to Ron after Johnson dropped out. Then again, maybe that wouldn't really help us; I don't know.

We need to keep working on convincing Ron to run. I suggest sending letters of encouragement to him at his campaign office in Texas. Do not contact his congressional offices; make sure you contact his campaign office. A physical letter will be much more influential than an e-mail. You can find the campaign office address at http://www.ronpaulforcongress.com/html/contactus.html

Our goal must be for Ron to run to win. Running to educate people without actually trying to win will dampen the enthusiasm of many current and potential supporters. Also, Ron will be able to educate a lot more people if he actually wins, and we all know many of the wonderful things he would be able to do as president in order to help restore freedom. So Ron needs to be encouraged not only to run, but to really run to win.

Some Ron Paul supporters don't seem to think that Ron has a chance at winning the Republican nomination, but that's not true. For some analysis by Doug Wead, read these posts:

http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/is-ron-paul-too-old...

http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/how-ron-paul-wins-i...

http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/ron-paul-and-karl-r...

http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/ron-paul-is-back/

http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/ron-paul-wins-so-wh...

http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2010/04/14/he-can-actually-win/

Doug Wead knows what he's talking about. Ron can win, but we (and he) have to go in intending to run to win in order for it to happen.

We should also encourage Ron to run from day one with Judge Napolitano as his running mate. I don't think it violates federal election law or RNC rules for someone to announce their theoretical running mate before actually becoming the nominee. I'm not an expert on either federal election law or RNC rules so I could be wrong, but if he's allowed to do it then Ron should definitely do so. When he announces his own candidacy, he could do it with the Judge at his side and say, "If I win the Republican nomination, Andrew Napolitano will be my VP running mate." Then they could campaign together all throughout the Republican primary season (again, to whatever extent allowed by federal election law and RNC bylaws).

Having the Judge by his side from the start would be an immense boost to Ron's chances. Even many neocons respect the Judge. He's all over FOX News, from O'Reilly, to Hannity, to Beck, and even people who are Romney, Palin and Huckabee supporters tend to think of him as an intellectual giant. He is a tea party hero. Knowing that they will have to oppose the Judge would be a big deterrent to Palin and Huckabee (both of whom are colleagues of the Judge at FOX) from even trying to run. I don't think it would stop Huckabee completely, but it might give him serious pause. I do think it has at least the potential to stop Palin completely, though, which would leave the tea party vote almost entirely to Ron. Neocons like O'Reilly and Hannity would be much less likely to attack Ron if the Judge were running with him, and Beck, supposedly being a friend of the Judge, would either be expected by his audience to endorse the Paul/Napolitano ticket, or at least refrain from attacking it.

If Ron wins in Iowa and then in either New Hampshire or South Carolina, he will be the front-runner going into Super Tuesday. Can Ron win Iowa? Well, if he follows the strategy mentioned by Doug Wead in the aforementioned posts and concentrates all of his initial efforts on winning the Ames Straw Poll, then yes, he can. Plus, Ron and Tom Woods were also recently invited to speak at the dinner held on the eve of the Iowa Republican Convention, and they were very well-received; that's a good sign.

So what should we be doing now in order to prepare for Ron in 2012? In addition to writing him letters of encouragement and providing him with ideas and strategies (many people have posted on forums about 2012 strategies for Ron; those same people should be sending those ideas to Ron in the mail; don't assume that he and his potential future campaign staff have already thought of it), we need to remove as much of the GOP establishment as possible over the next year and a half. In order to do this, you'll have to be registered as a Republican. Many of Ron's supporters are in third parties. I understand the appeal, having spent time in a third party myself, but there's two facts that have to be faced:

1. If we want Ron to win, he has to get the Republican nomination. There's no way he would win running as an independent, but if he is the Republican nominee he will very likely be able to beat Obama. No matter how much educational work you may do, it's not going to count for much in actually winning the nomination if you don't show up on caucus/primary day as a registered Republican to vote for Ron and try to become a delegate for him. If Ron has ten or fifteen million supporters who aren't registered as Republicans, they won't make much difference when it comes to actually winning the nomination.

2. Third parties almost never have the impact that they should. The election laws are so slanted in favor of the two-party system that third party candidates almost never have a real chance to win, and if you aren't winning elections then you aren't affecting policy, and if you aren't affecting policy then someone else (usually a statist) will be, no matter how much educating you do. If we take over the Republican Party from the inside and get Ron elected, and then start taking control of Congress and state legislatures with Ron Paul Republicans, we can put an end to unfair ballot access laws and stop the two-party establishment once and for all. But this has to be done from inside the system, not outside of it.

The first thing you need to do is connect with as many Ron Paul supporters in your state and county as you can. Use Meetup, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or any other method you can, and encourage any and all Ron Paul supporters you know to do the same. Look up fans of Ron Paul in your state and county, or people who list Ron Paul in their profiles. Then write to them; become their friends; network with them. It doesn't matter that you don't know them yet; that's the point. Make connections and become friends with as many Ron Paul supporters in your county and state as you can. If they're already Republicans, great. If not, you'll need to work on convincing them to register Republican so they can have the greatest impact for Ron in 2012.

Then, you and your new Ron Paul friends in your state and county need to start taking control of your state Republican party. This begins with taking control of the county parties. County parties are governed by a county central committee. The county committee elects the county party officers as well as that county's members of the state central committee. The state committee then elects the state officers and that state's members of the Republican National Committee.

How do you get on your county party's central committee? It varies from county to county, so you'll need to check with your county GOP headquarters to find out. In many counties there are so many openings on the committee that you literally just have to sign up. Sometimes, you may need to be elected by Republican voters or precinct captains in your area, but it's usually not as daunting as it sounds. Running for your county central committee is almost never even remotely as intensive as running for a government office; it usually just involves meeting some of your neighbors and getting some good name recognition as a reliable Republican by showing up at party events. Almost anybody can do it with little to no cost; you just have to be willing to put in some time and effort. A good article related to this subject is available at http://www.eagleforum.org/misc/brochures/precinct-committman... (pay attention to the party strategy discussed here, regardless of what you think about Eagle Forum's policies or political theories).

You will need to find out how your particular county party works and then go from there. It won't take as many people as you may think to make an impact (though the more you have, the easier it will be); just a few Ron Paul supporters recently elected to the Iowa state central committee were largely responsible for securing the speaking invitation to Ron and Tom Woods on the eve of the state convention.

A fairly small number of active Ron Paul Republicans in a particular county can have a significant impact on getting their people on the county committee. If you and your new Ron Paul friends throughout your state take over enough county parties, you will then be able to take control of the state party by electing Ron Paul Republicans to the state central committee. If your county or state officers are bad or corrupt, and Ron Paul Republicans have taken control of the committee, then remove the officer(s) and install people from among your own ranks. Procedures for doing this will depend on your state and county party bylaws, and possibly state statute.

The bottom line is that the more county and state parties controlled by Ron Paul Republicans, the better opportunity we have to make sure that Ron is treated fairly in 2012, and the better it will be for other Ron Paul Republicans running for office in that state. Plus, remember all of those connections with new Ron Paul friends you will have made (and hopefully have worked with to influence your county and state parties)? By mid-2011, many of those same people will then be both politically-experienced and motivated to volunteer as boots on the ground for the official Ron Paul 2012 campaign, giving Ron the volunteers he needs to start his campaign strong. And one of the great things about all of this is that as long as you do it with pure grassroots, you will not be subjected to the massive amounts of federal election rules that stop official political/policy groups like Campaign for Liberty from being able to do these things.

What I just described needs to happen in absolutely every state. Please don't just wait around to see if somebody else in your area will do it; you could be the key to getting your county or state prepared for Ron Paul 2012. But it is especially important that this happen in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. If you live in one of these states, or know any Ron Paul supporters who do (e.g., Free State Project participants), please encourage them to get working. It's already mid-2010 and the Ames Straw Poll is only about a year away. We don't have much time, but there is still a lot that we can get done.

Ron can win in 2012 and become the greatest president the United States has ever had, changing the course of history and starting the process of dismantling the statist empire. But remember that Ron is just one man. The key to all of this is activists like us. So let's get active.

UPDATE: Write to the Judge! http://www.dailypaul.com/node/142365