After Ames

[CJP]

Looks like the site just got back up, so....

What do you think of the results, and what's next?

I thought we did very well, considering that the Revolution only started to be known in Iowa very recently. Also, Iowa is not at all a good state for Libertarian-leaning Republicans. Christian Conservatives (who, unfortunately still tend to rally behind the neocons) are very influential in the Party there.

Don't be discouraged! Getting the message out and educating the public will take time, but it will happen if we all do our part.

[JoshLowry]

It beats the hell out of any poll that says Dr. Paul has 1, 2, or 0 percent.

He is on the upslope!

[beermotor]

I think we did fantastic. It was a great day for the campaign, and an even better day for spreading the message. A lot of people voted with whoever brought them to the show, or fed them bbq, but you can rest assured they ALL know who Ron Paul is now, and they all are curious about his positions, because of the enthusiasm of the supporters. I watched justin.tv/ronpaul pretty much the whole day, and listened to ronpaulradio, and it was a lot of fun to behold.

[constituent]

excellent showing...

1300 people was it? and you can't beat the free press.

[im_a_pepper]

I thought a table posted on Daily Paul summed it up best.
More was done in 2 weeks of campaigning than anyone else. On top of him dealing with our future 1st lady's health. I watched the entire Justin.tv stream and enjoyed every single bit. Was exciting.

http://www.dailypaul.com/files/images/votes.gif

[tmg19103]

Here is how I put it to all the people on my email distribution list:

Title: Presidential Primaries - Ron Paul Scores Big in Iowa

With the actual primaries 5 months off, the first real test of the GOP candidates took place Saturday in Iowa with the statewide straw poll.

Ron Paul had hardly spent any time in Iowa while other candidates had spent over a year criss-crossing the state.

The most recent "scientific" Gallop poll in Iowa right before the straw poll had Ron Paul at 1% of the vote. Well, with the poll over, Ron Paul SHOCKED Iowa and nation by garnering almost 10% of the vote in an 11 candidate field, while doing so by spending far less money and far less time in Iowa than virtually every other candidate who campaigned in the straw poll.

Dr. Paul is now third of all GOP candidates with cash on hand (behind Romney and Giuliani and more than McCain), and would only be $400,000 behind front runner Mitt Romney if Willard had not loaned himself $9 million. Romney bought the straw poll and won handily, but there is a log jam around the second place finish that Ron Paul was not supposed to be a part off, according to the mainstream media.

For the Iowa straw poll:

Mitt Romney refused to say how much he spent, but estimates put the price around $4 million, totaling $885.73 per vote. Sam Brownback spent roughly $325,000, totaling $148.27 per vote. Mike Huckabee spent close to $150,000, totaling $57.98 per vote. Ron Paul spent about $110,000, totaling $48.43 per vote.

Realize that Brownback and Huckabee are virtually broke right now. Giuliani and McCain did not actively campaign as they knew they would lose bigtime so Rudy got less than 2% of the vote and McCain less than1%. Expect the same result for these two come the actual Iowa Caucus in January as Iowans really penalize those who don't show them respect.

Brownback campaigned in Iowa for 115 days. Romney campaigned in Iowa for 89 days. Huckabee campaigned in Iowa for 70 days. Ron Paul campaigned in Iowa for 17 days.

That Ron Paul only spent a week or two in the state and spent far less money than the other candidates indicates he may be the only Republican candidate that can truthfully claim grassroots support (the Paul campaign only opened its official Iowa headquarters one week before the straw poll while others had been set up for a year).

Again - "scientific" Iowa Gallup poll, Ron Paul 1%. Actually statewide Iowa straw poll result of real voters who had to pay $35 to vote, Ron Paul 9.1% out of 11 candidates on the ballot.

Ron Paul's game plan was not to overdue the Iowa straw poll so he could save resources for the actual primaries and he still has a sizable campaign war chest and he is still is the only GOP candidate, outside of Huckabee, who continues to gain support. The others are stagnate or losing support. So, without even really trying, Ron Paul goes from 1% to 10%. While some may be surprised, I'm not as Americans truly want freedom, peace, liberty and prosperity.

The march goes on (great new vid summarizing the Ron Paul story)........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFfdB5OzlyQ

If you know of anyone who might support Ron Paul's values as President, feel free to pass this email and the good word on!

***

[belian78]

I know from working the tent, and canvasing the grounds Ron will definatley be getting alot more supporters from Iowa after Saturday. There were many poll goers with other candidates' stickers and shirts stopping by all day, and saying that they were impressed with Dr Paul's message. One lady I spoke with even went as far as to say she wished she had came by the tent before voting she was so taken in by his second speech from the tent.

I got to meet some great people from all over the country, and even met Josh and a few others from the forums here. It was a great day all around.

[thomj76]

I thought a table posted on Daily Paul summed it up best.
More was done in 2 weeks of campaigning than anyone else. On top of him dealing with our future 1st lady's health. I watched the entire Justin.tv stream and enjoyed every single bit. Was exciting.

http://www.dailypaul.com/files/images/votes.gif


New Hampshire and Iowa Caucus coming up; South Carolina, Florida Nevada, Wyoming, I think we have some regional opportunities that we can cooridinate.

[Bob Cochran]

It beats the hell out of any poll that says Dr. Paul has 1, 2, or 0 percent.

He is on the upslope!
ABSOLUTELY.

The 9% is a very solid number. What is the current thinking on him running as an Independent in the (unfortunately) likely case he doesn't get the GOP nomination?

[R_Harris]

It is true that Huckabee and Brownback are low on cash.

The CONCERN is that Huckabee does start to gain the attention of disenfranchised evangelicals and that they start sending money his way. The MSM could start portraying him as the "evangelical alternative" to Romney, Ghooliani, et al.

This is why is the Straw Poll was IMPORTANT. Right now, PERCEPTION does mean a lot.

Ron definitely needed another week there, but I plan to start another thread later detailing, IMHO, what are some of the problems with the campaign now.

[DeadheadForPaul]

We did very well in IOWA!

We must realize that Dr. Paul spent very little time and very little money and to get 9+ % is extraordinary

[njandrewg]

For me it was a combination of things:

a) Amount of votes- the republican party is in the crapper...14 thousand votes for a MAJOR poll. I believe the 2000 poll had 40,000 people, so there is a 65% drop in viable candidates

b) I believe the entry polls had more than half the people say that they weren't 100% sure about their vote.

c) Candidates bought thousands of tickets, and noone wanted to vote for them even for free.

d) we've been there only a few days and we managed to snag 5th

Conclusion from these? We have plenty of potential people who we can convert.

Other campaigns analysis:

Romney came in first: no suprise...but apparently he spent $2,200 per vote while we spent only $200 per vote.

Huckabee: not a suprise either...that region is very religious and like sheep they'll vote for a pastor just on that criteria alone...and even with that he only had a 2500 votes in a very religious state. I believe he had a very frugal Iowa campaign...but my guess thats becuase he could get the religious vote.

Brownback: yes he got 3rd...but I think he'll drop out soon. He has raised 3 times the money as Huckabee, and they have an essentially the same message, and even after that he came in 2nd. I think he went all out in Iowa and losing to Huckabee will hurt him. So by now he is probably broke. He'll probably stay there for a while thought...but he is essentially done.

Tancredo: him coming in 4th is a big suprise...but he was there for a while and I guess he got the bomb mecca vote.

Tommy Thompson: DROPPED OUT...no suprise...he spent his whole year in Iowa and a nobody like Ron Paul still beat him after being there for less than a week

Fred Thompson/Rudy/McCain: I really don't think this can be excused by lack of their participation. Only 100-200 votes for someone who is a front runner is unexcusable.

Hunter: 174 votes, I also think he'll drop out soon, he might say he didn't focus on Iowa..but I think thats because he has no cash for it...(only 200K on hand at the end of Q2)

So my prediction? In the coming month Hunter is definetly gone. And then maybe Brownback and Tancredo.

[Ron Paul Fan]

http://www.usaelectionpolls.com/2008/articles/ames-straw-poll-results.html

This was a good writeup of the straw poll results. I don't know if I'd call Dr. Paul one of the big winners at the strawpoll, but he certainly didn't lose anything. A big win would have been a top 3 finish as it might have meant more mainstream tv coverage, and I say maybe because the media might have ignored it anyway. Dr. Paul did well for what he put into it and 9% is way better than 1-2%. I think it was a decent showing and did a good job spreading the message to more people.

[liberatenyc]

I say we systematically go state by state and attack them the same way we did with Iowa. Republican voters' information are stored in a database in every state and are available to the public (yeah, great privacy). We should start sending letters/emails/dvds/ and making calls. One way to do this is to go in order of primary date, which would make the next state Nevada. This would also be convenient considering there is a forthcoming debate there. Anyone in Nevada want to call the election board and get some contact information for the rest of us?

[brumans]

Yes, it definitely did not hurt us one bit.
We got the word out in Iowa, lots of effort there -- the campaign is just starting to blossom.

[njandrewg]

ABSOLUTELY.

The 9% is a very solid number. What is the current thinking on him running as an Independent in the (unfortunately) likely case he doesn't get the GOP nomination?
focus all of our efforts on him getting the nomination. But in the worst case scenario that he doesn't get the nomination? I think he should definetly run as an independant. For a few reasons

1) If he loses, chances are it'll be Pro-War republican vs Clinton...in other words he'll be the alternative to the lesser of 2 evils.
2) At that time he'll have a pretty decent support base: in volunteers(probably something like 150K at this rate) and fund donors(40-80 million)...with that money he can easily get his name on the ballots
3) He will also get endorsements by Liberterians and Constintuionlists
4) He'll be able to tap the disenfrachised non voters, independants, some republicans, some democrats(a lot of the obama supporters)
5) At that time the Iraq war will be in the crapper, so chances are he can paint Clinton as another war monger at that time, and can look as the only anti-war candidate

My opinion? DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to get the GOP nomination, because the effort will pay off 20 times over in the worst case scenario he runs as an independant.

[Perry]

Romney purchased 10,000 tickets and received less than half that in votes.
Paul purchased 800 tickets and received over 1300 votes. Paul was also only 9% off from second place. I'd say we did pretty darn good.

[inibo]

What do you think of the results, and what's next?

My answer is here: http://isilion.blogsome.com/2007/08/12/what-we-have-to-keep-doing/

And here: http://community.livejournal.com/ronpaul2008/77795.html?thread=270307#t270307

[Natalie]

ABSOLUTELY.

The 9% is a very solid number. What is the current thinking on him running as an Independent in the (unfortunately) likely case he doesn't get the GOP nomination?

Dr. Paul has said he will not run as an Independant if he doesnt win the nomination.

[stevedasbach]

I saw an article attributing Huckabee's win to his outspoken support for the FairTax. I would be interested in the opinions of those in Iowa, but that makes sense to me. The FairTax folks had something like 35 buses -- if they went strongly for the guy most visibly supporting their issue, that would account for a big chunk of his vote.

[Gigaplex]

There was nobody on the FairTax buses. There were only like 7 of them and I went to the biggest one, which was in Des Moines and there were 2 people that got on it. They had two buses sitting there and one was sent back. A lot of people got hit up by the FairTax people at the event though. It was the most successful issue tent. It might have had some impact but not enough to catapult Huckabee into 2nd. Huckabee won because of something else.

[propanes]

One of the favorable comments in the write up...

"Huckabee and Ron Paul soared above all expectations and are on the way up."


http://www.usaelectionpolls.com/2008...l-results.html

This was a good writeup of the straw poll results. I don't know if I'd call Dr. Paul one of the big winners at the strawpoll, but he certainly didn't lose anything. A big win would have been a top 3 finish as it might have meant more mainstream tv coverage, and I say maybe because the media might have ignored it anyway. Dr. Paul did well for what he put into it and 9% is way better than 1-2%. I think it was a decent showing and did a good job spreading the message to more people.

[Nathan Hale]

Huckabee won, hands down. Romney got the most votes, but at tremendous cost. His cost per vote is probably twice any other candidate's. Because of this, Huckabee might now be regarded by the media as a "top tier" candidate, probably to replace McCain. Paul didn't get the media attention that he requires, but there's plenty of time.

Unfortunately for the Paulites (myself included), Huckabee vowed to drop out after Ames if he didn't make the top three, so if he had only done poorly the GOP field would be short another horse. Brownback would likely have also dropped if he performed poorly. So instead of the field winnowing to 6, we have the field at 8 (9 -Thompson), the same size as the Democratic field (though it looks like Gravel is getting pushed out which leaves them with 7). In other words, too many people on the debate stage for Paul to get any real time.

Paul's key in the next debate is for him to talk about things other than the war. He has the peace vote, it's time for him to lock up votes on domestic spending (or lack thereof). He's a doctor, so surely he is the leading authority in the field on healthcare policy. And he's been on finance committees for his entire congressional career, so he's the leading authority in the field on banking and economics on the stage.

Onward Ron!