Just got back from CPAC!!! News from the Front Lines!
Hey everyone, Austin Petersen here from the NYC RP Meetup. I just got back from the airport after attending the CPAC forum today, and here's my brief recap. The majority of people there were McCain supporters, and these are people that have absolutely unequivocally decided to "go down with the ship". These people are for the most part not convertible in my opinion and we shouldn't waste time on anyone who supports McCain. But, after Romney gave up the fight today, their supporters were NOT in favor of McCain, they were VERY receptive to Dr. Pauls message. Oh and on another note... Hucka-who? Out of the thousands of people that were there, I had to literally search hard to find one Huckabee supporter. That should tell you something right there.
Now here is the problem that we are ALL aware of and I just can't sit back and stay quiet about it. The official campaign is NOT DOING THEIR JOB!
I arrived as a guest of the Libertarian Party and hung out with them most of the day. As I mingled around at the event, I realized that I didn't see any Ron Paul buttons or stickers anywhere. I figured that there really must not be much support for him among the conservatives, but how wrong I was. Lots of people who were not McCain supporters were very eager to hear more about Dr. Paul and wanted flyers or stickers to wear, but the official campaign did NOT SET UP A BOOTH! At CPAC! I was flabbergasted and I called over to National HQ immediately where I got someone who didn't know much, didn't have any info about why they weren't set up there, and didn't have any materials really to bring over. I wanted to rip my hair out. When Dr. Paul was speaking I handed out as many liberty cards and things that I just happened to have in my wallet but could have done more. There were a few Ron Paul supporters there who had signs but precious little literature or pins or stickers. These are so important because everyone wears a sticker to identify themselves and strike up conversations on issues related to whatever issue or candidate they are supporting. I couldn't even find a Ron Paul sticker for myself!
The Libertarian Party would do better in my opinion. These kinds of bush league (pun intended) mistakes would not be made and thousands of Romney supporters might have left there with Ron Paul slimjims.
The Republicans have decided to go down with the sinking ship (McCain) and I think we should let them. The Romney supporters, given enough time, would vote for Dr. Paul in a general election, as would many democrats and millions of other disaffected Americans. We have a chance to make history with the real possibility of a viable third party run. If the campaign presses forward on the Republican ticket, it really will be a Quixotic run. We cannot let that happen. History will judge us by what actions we take over the next few months.
Republican, Libertarian, Independent, in the end it doesn't matter. What matters is that we DO NOT GIVE UP THIS FIGHT!
Good night and good luck.
Faces in the Audience at CPAC
I saw some of Dr. Paul's CPAC speech on C-SPAN. It was interesting to watch the reaction of the audience. At first, many in the audience did not applaud, while the Ron Paul supporters went wild. But then, at some point, the faces of these people CHANGED. It looked like they were actually listening with an open mind and THINKING as Ron Paul was speaking!! Could we actually be reaching them? They have never heard Ron Paul speak like this before. Then, at the end, the audience stood up and gave him a standing ovation! It's hard to believe the national campaign was so woefully unprepared that they did not even have a booth set up and materials to hand out! I hope the Romney supporters will get online to do more research and join the revolution!!
Ann in Florida
El medico en fuego!
The doctor's on fire! That's more like it. Keep it up Doc, we're right behind you!
"He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it." Confucius
"He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it." Confucius
Another GREAT RP supporter!
McCain Madness
Make no mistake about it: the establishment wants one of its own to succeed George Bush. In order for that to happen, they must manipulate the primaries to ensure that, no matter who wins in November, one of their fellow elitists will still wield power in Washington, D.C. On the Democratic side, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fit the bill. And on the Republican side, John McCain is the ultimate insider.......
http://www.newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin426.htm
by: Pastor Chuck Baldwin
LIKE SHOOTING FISH IN A BARREL!
Drowning in debt? About to be eaten
alive by sharks? Jump in the lifeboat
right NOW! Free to join!
http://adv.justbeenpaid.com/?r=strikeforce&p=jsstripler5
That's right!
NO 3rd party unless the good doctor changes his mind! Keep moving forward with HIS plans. I'm sure he knows what he's doing!
good assessment...but
i just have a few questions...did other candidates like McCain have a booth? was it a libertarian party booth or the libertarian candidate's booth? did the GOP have a booth? were there official campaign workers for McCain handing out materials or were there just grass-roots supporters handing out materials?
Yes
McCain did have a booth. The LP had their own booth and yes the GOP had a booth. There were so many McCain people swarming everywhere with signs and buttons and stickers that it was impossible to tell who was paid and who wasn't. The glazed over look in the eyes from the pimply faced kids was usually the first sign of a McCainiac, before you saw the ugly blue sticker pasted to their scaly skin. lol, ok I'm just being mean. But seriously the McCain supporters are done, these are a waste of time trying to convert. Mostly very old people, and conversely, very young people, too young to form reasonable sensible opinions about policy. I felt sorry for them mostly.
One funny exchange I noted that you all might enjoy.
A young undecided voter and a Ron Paul supporters got into a huge argument that almost went to fisticuffs. The undecided pimply faced kid (sorry had to) was saying he could never support Ron Paul because they all say that 9/11 was an inside job (hint hint) so it was an uphill battle for the RP supporter to say why would he listen to some wackjob instead of Dr. Pauls message. The kid wouldn't drop the subject though and it started getting heated when the kid said he was too busy drinking all the beer at the event to listen to Dr. Paul, to which the RP supporter said, ok so you're obviously a parasite like the socialists. A bunch of people laughed around them and the kid was embarassed so he got into the RP guys face and said, don't you ever call me a parasite. Then the RP supporter was all like, get your finger outta my face. At that point I exited the situation instead of attempting to defuse. Very interesting and extremely comical.
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austinpetersen.com
Dr. Paul's biggest weakness...
... is his paid campaign staff. I had a similar story with a required meeting of the republican party.
How can you fail to harness the power of the Internet/ Email to tell someone to setup a booth?
Recon
Within the next 30 days we will commit ourselves to putting an advance team on the ground in anticipation of every Ron Paul appearance. He should always walk into every event with a strong presence established before he gets there.
Like he 'owns' the joint.
He's the man of the hour wherever he goes.
I will add this to the National Grassroots Strategy.
"PunJab! Bring me my checkbook! We have a war to win!"
"GINO" = Government In Name Only
Agreed
If we could work out some type of arrangement with the campaign that they give us some advance notice about appearances, we can show up with materials. Right now CPAC is still going on and I have a hunch there is still no booth with materials and it's probably a McCain love fest. I won't be able to coordinate these efforts for reasons I can't go into right now, but will reveal soon, so I hope someone else will step up and work this out with National.
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austinpetersen.com
Piss off!
Go away. This HQ is not doing their job crap is so 2007. The Libertarian Party has it's own problems. We can't solve those and get the message out. Ron Paul is a Republican. He has made that really clear. Go recruit somewhere else.
I posted almost the same story...
HQ must shape up and act as if they want to win and they intend to win. Right now they are not playing to win. We need to keep contacting them.
Folks lets organize things ourselves. I could have brought more literature to this event all I had is about 3 RP signs and they were gone in minutes at this event. It was a gold mine of an opportunity to recruit new support for RP.
Onward folks lets keep sharing ideas on how to win this Presidency for Dr. Ron Paul.
Deep down everyone is Libertarian.
Live and Let Live, form of government.
Benefits of 3rd Party Run
I posted this as its own topic, but I'll post it here because it relates.
I have read much about the brokered convention thinking and have a number of reasons I believe it is a bad approach.
The number one reason is that it is bad is because a 3rd party run offers one huge advantage for real change. If RP runs as a third party, say the Constitution Party, then we can start working to get candidates that share his values on the ballot for federal, state, and local elections. Maybe RP does not win the Presidency, however, he will have started a clearly defined alternative to the old way. Maybe we some candidates in office in 2008 at various levels, maybe we do not.
However, we will have clearly defined who we are and what we stand for. Events; economic, domestic, and foreign will only drive more people to the "new" party. The "new" party will also provide real answers to the "solutions" that will be offered by the Dems and Republicans as events unfold. Silencing Ron Paul for the last year will be nothing compared to silencing a party as events continue their decline.
This type of broad change is not possible from within the GOP since the GOP will actively seek to eliminate any candidates that offer real solutions. If they can do it to Ron Paul in a Presidential election, it will be easy to do it to an unknown candidate in a local election.
We have got all the press and attention we can bring to our cause while working within the GOP. We have outgrown the GOP and will not continue to grow without going outside the GOP.
There is no better time than now to jump start a third party. We have Ron Paul on the national level that will help bring attention to candidates on the local level and vice versa. Ride the coattails as they say in political circles.
Disadvantadges of a 3rd party run
He'd be never heard from again
im telling you infomercial are the ticket.
eom
Is he being "heard from" now?
To think that Ron would have LESS chance of media coverage if he were to go 3rd party is laughable!
I'm not saying he should defect to any other party. I believe that only we (his supporters) can win this thing for him whether as a Republican or anything else.
Use the 1 winning tool the campaign has provided and nobody seems to want to use, the "precinct leader" approach. If we got 1 committed precinct leader in all 180,000 precincts we would win this thing no matter where Ron ends up. But only 10% of the precincts are covered so far. Why? The campaign made it very clear this is the way we can win, and I believe they are 100% correct.
We need to stop whining about Ron getting media attention. F**K that! It's NOT going to happen. The sooner we all realize that the ground troops (us) converting our neighbors is the only way we're going to win this thing the better we'll be.
So just get the hell out in your neighborhood and make a damned difference.
Sorry for the attitude, but I'm getting tired of all the pointless argument about where we should go from here. The campaign has shown us the way. How about we listen to them for a change? Maybe they're on to something...
Strategy
Dr. Paul should run as a Republican still and make everything of the wave and perfect opening with Romney's departure. Going third party now would be plain foolish. There are important primaries ahead and must make sure we get not only all the votes Romney would have received, but also many of those of Huck. Campaign should be VERY ORGANISED at important meetings like CPAC. (You can only consider third part/Indy IF McCain has received the magic number of delegates and it is sure there will not be a brokered convention. In that case, if you want to go with a party, perhaps the Reform Party or if you could make the Conservative Party in all states. Their founder in NY is the father of current candidate for the LP nomination, Wayne Root, same age as Obama, who describes himself as the young Ron Paul. Libertarian or Constitution Parties too small, best to integrate them into a new party. Aim of 3rd party should be to WIN, not only educate or spoiler, but for a new beginning. The Repunlican Party could still be reformed. The economy and the (expected) worsening situation in Iraq will play well into the hands of Dr. Paul and help persuading the current media conditioned pro-Iraq war conservatives in the GOP) .
Become a delegate. Donate.
Become a delegate. Donate. Signup. Canvass.
Hey devils - We are at the half time of 15th game of the season
chance of get into the play- off or wild card game loosing 21 - 3. here you are already talking about loosing this game.
If you are not with us, then shut up! because we are not going to give up as long as Ron Paul call it quits. Maybe you didn't hear his radio interview today. He cannot tell you whats going to happen in 3rd quarter, but we have to play hard and adjust our game plan one play at a time. whether win or loose this game, we still have a chance to get into the wild card game.
And will you A$$HOLES stop calling everyone TROLL who wants...
Paul to run a third party bid.... He has essentially BEEN a third party all long... Anyone who expresses their opinion that Paul should run third party gets called TROLL and other names and I think WTF we are all Paulites here...
We are not TROLLS if we want a third party bid, we want to WIN, WE WANT CHANGE, WE WANT PAUL FOR PRESIDENT
and who the HELL ARE YOU TO SAY WE ARE NOT RIGHT???
ASSHOLES ARE PEOPLE WHO CALL OTHER PEOPLE ASSHOLES.
Opinions are like assholes
Everyone's got them, and they all STINK!
Umm
I think...you...just called...them.._ _ _ _ _ _ _
"GINO" = Government In Name Only
uMM
yeah, I did, didnt I.... oh well, I think everyone knows what I mean...
You do realize that....
McCain was booed at CPAC, Huck will soon be out of money and also dropping out, and that Ron Paul will then have 6-7 months to prove to America why he is the only true conservative alternative left in the Republican race.
Also, if Ron goes 3rd Party, he will receive even less air time than he gets now. The MSM will have even more reason to ignore him (no more Cavuto, Cafferty, Wolf, LA Times, etc.), and moreover, Ron will no longer be listed as Republican in his own Congressional race at the same time (leaving him open for defeat there).
Ron has plenty of time to go 3rd Party, but if the campaign doesn't do basic campaigning, like materials and a booth at CPAC, it doesn't matter what party he's in - it's over.
They ask us to canvas our neighborhoods as precinct leaders (which I did), and they can't even do lit-drops at CPAC??? If they would've asked us to bring materials, we would've showed up with our own!!
I think this is what's upsetting all supporters, even those Libertarians on our side.
Austin Peterson is the new Aaron Russo
With a little more polish -- we'll have to see about the 'heart'... he's young.
But seriously...
Man I feel for you Austin... We made campaign contribution history TWICE for those dead heads in Arlington while they just watched in amazement.
They couldn't generate a presence with signs, banners and take away info?
No pass for these clowns.
They are lucky to be campaigning for Ron Paul and getting paid every week.... don't get me started about Hillary and Giuliani - cheapskate multimillionaires... making staff work for no pay.
You need to connect with the Grassroots Meetup http://ronpaul.meetup.com/560/
and the folks in Boston http://ronpaul.meetup.com/68/
-- there's a bunch of us who are plotting a national, comprehensive ad, mail and calling program.
We are very clear that the so called committed delegates are up for grabs right up to convention. We will 'drip' campaign them into freedom
"PunJab! Bring me my checkbook! We have a war to win!"
"GINO" = Government In Name Only
How come I post 3rd party and everyone gives me sh$t...
I have been screaming on this website for a 3rd party run and been called all sorts of things I will not repeat...
What irritates me are those people who say "If Ron runs for third party president then he cant keep his congressional seat" and I think WTF!!
What do they want anyway... CHANGE?? OR THE SAME OLE SAME OLE.... Ron Paul has NEVER been able to do much in his congressional seat for the people of the USA... maybe for his local consituents, but he has never been a MAJOR player in the overall congressional field... he has a small district in a not-to-rich area... no major populous areas including Galvestion which is small...
So if he REALLY WANTS TO MAKE A CHANGE then he has to fore-go his congressional seat and run THIRD PARTY... its for the greater good and besides, he's not getting any younger... maybe another spot or two as a congressman and thats it... If he is EVER going to be able to do ANY GOOD AT ALL it is now.....
Because DR PAUL HIMSELF said
that he DID NOT want to do that.
Previously known as DCALIFANO
Previously known as DCALIFANO
What actually has HQ done right?
Those that post comments like "have you ever run a campaign?" sound exactly like the neocon big government types immediately after 9/11 when any voice of dissent was stained as "unpatriotic." Oh heaven forbid we question anything that the great brain trust running this single digit primary success season is doing. So we're just here to blindly donate our hard-earned money to pay campaign staff that go to Alaska and have Meetup group volunteers arrested? Whatever Dr. Paul decides to do from this point forward I will support him by spreading his message and voting for him, but don't deny the fact that the majority of his success to this point is not because of his campaign staff but in spite of it.
Those that think the rest of us should just "have faith" in the official campaign and continue to line their pockets as they pad their resumes sound like the people who believed we needed to turn more of our freedoms over to the government after it failed miserably in its duty to "provide for the common defense." Sure, you did such a great job getting 8% in the "Live Free or Die" state that I should dig my debt hole deeper to give the staffers the incentive to see how badly they can lose to a withdrawn candidate in the next primary.
Now with Meetup groups around the nation having weekly booths at sidewalk festivals, the main campaign can't even have one at a national convention? Should anybody give me an example of something the official campaign has actually done right, then I'll donate another $100.
JJ
You are a TROLL
YOU are a mad Troll -- and your mother should be ashamed of you -- for speaking the truth.
How dare you question -- how dare you make suggestions -- how dare you email NHQ and expect a response -- how dare you call NHQ and expect a response. Try calling a "for profit" business and not get a phone call returned -- that office manager would be gone.
On a more serious note -- you have to understand that these are good people who have -- in many cases -- spent years with Ron Paul and his congressional campaigns -- and cousin events -- some of these actually talked Paul into running for president from what I have been told.
As Ron has said -- they did not expect this to be as big as it is.
We all understand there needs to be personnel changes if we want to win a 3rd party run -- the question is how do we get Ron Paul to do it?
I do not have access to him -- do you -- perhaps an online petition could make some waves.
Ron should not wait -- he cannot wait until March to begin his 3rd party run -- he has too much work to do -- we have too much work to do.
If we have 1 million supporters -- then we each need to convert (for lack of a better word) 40 people. This means 40 new people -- not ones we know. We have to make a list of supporters and make sure they get out to vote.
If we only have 500,000 supporters then we have to do more --- actually my math is flawed becasue I do not know how many people voted in the last presidential race. Anyways we have a lot to do; we need to start now..
YES! YES! YES! I have posted
YES! YES! YES!
I have posted this same question elsewhere here: what HAVE they done well? And once again, I will say it unabashedly, if they are not in fact plants and saboteurs, then they have done a damned fine job of impersonating the same. That may be harsh, but somebody, ANYONE refute that statement with some facts! I have yet to hear any.
YAAWWWWNNNN....
Dr. Paul is currently running for Republican Congressman; (as well as for President).
See: http://www.ronpaulforcongress.com/
He is running AS a REPUBLICAN on the REPUBLICAN ticket.
He WANTS to keep his seat in Congress which is why he is running for re-election. If he changes parties, he will lose his seat as Representative Ron Paul - (R-TX) in the 14th District.
There - plain & simple.
see: http://www.house.gov/paul/
Obama = O.ne B.ig A.ss M.istake A.merica