Wanted: Boots on Ground for NH on Dec 1st

...is that he thinks (and apparently actually believes) that GW Bush actually won the 2000 and 2004 elections by focusing a Get-Out-The-Vote effort centered MAINLY and ONLY upon "core" Republicans.

Hey, maybe that's the "official" story, and drinking the kool-aid demonstrates wonderful party loyalty and a very selective memory and all (chads? what chads?), but IMHO, it's also a recipe for disaster, because it starts from a very faulty premise. (And as Ayn Rand was famous for saying, "check your premises" ).

Start with a faulty premise as your foundation and you will build problematic plans and end up with an unexpected outcome. In short, your dream house will come crashing down.

As many people are starting to see (even in the media) this campaign is (or has the chance to be) one of the rare "break the mold" political realignment elections where the standard "campaign rules" do not apply.

I was witness to and a small part of a "break the mold" campaign with the gubernatorial election of Lee Dreyfuss (R) in 1979, and another with the first 1992 Senatorial race by Russ Feingold (D). BOTH men were outspent in not only their primary races (by a factor of 10 to 1) but also in the main campaign (by a factor of more than 4 to 1). BOTH "broke the rules" in substantial ways, were denigrated by the media, and were polling low -- before winning with commanding margins. Both men were also able to be re-elected despite heavy money efforts being expended against them in subsequent campaigns.

Yes, Ron has excellent "instincts" and he (with his staff) has accomplished the remarkable feat of winning (at least) 10 elections in his congressional district, even with substantial opposition from his own party!

But a presidential election is a different beast. (And the Republican nomination is substantially different than the Libertarian campaign).

My point is this: Giuliani, Romney, McCain, even Huckabee -- all of them know and are following (in their own way) the "standard" campaign techniques of GOTV -- there is no "secret" there (and I think the secrecy surrounding the training videos is both hilarious and inane). So following the SAME techniques is going to mean "fighting" the other campaigns over essentially the same territory ...using the same techniques ...and a very similar "strategy."

To my mind, that seems to be complete foolishness. Why play THEIR game? By THEIR rules? One of the main rules of a successful businessman is to go where your competition is NOT.

The Ron Paul "official" national campaign has been pretty much a "standard" traditional campaign, and to be honest, it's implementation and end results have been rather dismal and sad. (Can someone demonstrate to me a single real "success" of the national campaign -- one that is due to following "traditional" techniques?)

Conversely, the grassroots driven "Ron Paul R3VOLUTION" campaign, along with the "break the rules" financing visibility (thermometers, API and thus www.ronpaulgraphs.com, thisNovember5th.com, etc.) -- all have been very successful; and they have been successful precisely BECAUSE they have broken all the "rules." They are leaving everyone -- campaigns and media alike -- completed puzzled and unable to understand OR emulate.

So what, other than ego (or a very faulty premise) would lead you to NOT go with what has been "working" in THIS campaign and instead revert to what was supposedly "successful" (provided you accept the "official" story) in the last two. To me only ego and cognitive dissonance can explain it.

That stubbornness, "puzzlement" and cognitive dissonance, reminds me much of the MSMedia calling Ron Paul the "new Howard Dean" -- they are constantly trying to frame THIS presidential election cycle into their own revised mythological version of what happened in the LAST cycle. (BTW, though the media entirely forgets this, to remind you, at this point in 2004 they had all but anointed Howard Dean as not only the "front-runner", but the "inevitable" Democratic nominee... so how is he like RP again? Oh, he accepts donations online on that "internets" thingee... And in the revised mythology of the media [which because of EGO has forgotten their own false prophecy of Dean's rise, much less his demise] the main, indeed ONLY thing they remember about Howard Dean was that he had an "internet" following and fund-raising campaign.)

Efforts to "centralize" and "control & guide" the grassroots campaign into the mold of a Bush-Rove style GOTV in order to satisfy the [already bruised] egos of the "professionals" -- well, even if they are "successful" at turning everyone into a crew of indistinguishable robotic data-collecting monkeys -- will be a disaster (we may win NH and even IA, and GOTV may "take" the credit, but it will NOT be because of a GOTV of standard Repubs; if a win happens, it will likely be in spite of such efforts, and will actually be a result more of a "change in the political winds" and the turnout of independents, democrats, and "closet" apathetic Republicans.)

Whether we will ever REALLY know HOW a win (or God forbid, a loss) HAPPENED -- can only occur with a truly objective, hyper-critical review of solid exit polling data -- as only THAT will reveal the full truth of the matter. Doubtful that THAT will happen, much less happen in time and be accepted, because whenever people's egos [and careers] are on the line, well, in the real world, objectivity tends to go out the window pretty fast.

Finally, as an appropriate RECENT example of such a "centralized" control fiasco, witness JB's recent fund-raiser email and the objectively "less than spectacular" results. (It remains to be seen, but if this actually derailed the Dec 16th TeaParty, then it will need to be reclassified as a catastrophe. So far, objective evidence is that major damage DID occur, and yet overall fund-raising has flattened out again.)