I'm Getting Frustrated

[Eli]

Theres a small group of us who have been trying our hearts out since about May to get Ron Paul an interview on a major network tv show. We've been focusing very hard on Jay Leno, and moving down to Good Morning America, Regis and Kelly and various others. Our goal is to get him in front of millions of potential pollable and older supporters. Its rolling up to September and at this point it all seems in veign.

I'm very frustrated at this point. Nothing is working and we're feeling deeply alone on this project. We can't even get the Ron Paul campaign staff to make a single phone call to these shows for us or even return our emails. This is a very big deal for us, if we got him on any of these shows with millions of viewers right in the demographic we need for higher poll showings it would create HUGE momentum for his campaign and really rally a lot more supporters and name recognition instantly over night. If it was done back in May like it should of been we might not be asking "who is ron paul" right now.

At this point though I'm about to say fuck it. Guest slots are filling up and the staff is standing by doing nothing. I understand their want to play the political game and focus on stuff that matters in the political realm such as debates and GOP luncheons. But damn it! Rally the people! Let the average american know who you are. Not all americans spend their days closely watching cspan and following political events such as straw polls and fox news hit pieces.

I'm about to say fuck it all. If his campaign staff wants to do nothing more than play chess with a bunch of pundits who hate him and will do anything to destroy him for the rest of the primary season. Fuck them to. If anyone from Ron Pauls staff is reading this...Time is running out to let Americans outside of the political sphere know who you are! Help Us! Help Us! Help us!! We've done all the leg work all you have to do is pick up the phone. HELP US!

We can't help anyone who doesn't want help. If you don't want it please let us know so we can quit wasting our time.

EDIT:

Here's a link to contact the show
http://www.nbc.com/Footer/Contact_Us/
select Tonight Show With Jay Leno in the drop down box.

[0zzy]

You have a point, why aren't they willing to call these shows?

[happyphilter]

I somewhat agree with you, we need to be out of the "Who is Ron Paul" stage FAST, and by fast I mean NOW. I dont know the first thing about getting him on a major program, but at least you are trying. It would be nice to see someone with some influence get him on there.

[billm317]

I agree, this seems like something that's very important. Name recognition is a big part of it and these shows are a way to hit a demographic that we haven't really reached yet. I understand your frustration. Hopefully someone from the staff will catch wind of this and get back to you one way or another.

At the very minimum, if this is something they KNOW they're not interested in doing, they should at least tell you, so you guys can focus energy in other areas, if you want.

I don't follow those shows, so tell me something... Have any other candidates appeared on any entertainment shows like these recently? Perhaps the higher-ups think it's too soon to bring on presidential candidates.

But once again, I agree with you 100%. Something MUST be done to get RP's name out to other groups or he's simply not going to win.

[Craig_R]

damn, chill, they're fuckin busy.

[njandrewg]

my guess they want to win the iowa or texas straw poll, so that when they introduce him its not something like: "long shot canddiate who polls at 0%" but instead "the winner of Texas straw poll" etc

[Jon S]

maybe you could find and send us a few of the e-mail addresses for these shows. we seem to be fairly good at barraging people with e-mails. if we all send nice e-mails asking them to contact the ron paul staff then they would most likely respond. if they call the ron paul staff and the staff says no then they should inform us of why they will not participate in these shows.

[American]

Dont give up, keep doing what your doing they do get lots of requests dont be discouraged. I will join you in this effort.

Craig_r nice soft touch you have there..... dipshit

[Eli]

I don't follow those shows, so tell me something... Have any other candidates appeared on any entertainment shows like these recently? Perhaps the higher-ups think it's too soon to bring on presidential candidates.

The first month he declared his candidacy RG went on the tonight show with Jay Leno. He drew 2.5 million viewers. Romney was also on the show right before he got declared as a major candidate.

Here's a link to contact the show
http://www.nbc.com/Footer/Contact_Us/
select Tonight Show With Jay Leno in the drop down box.

[aravoth]

Don't stop, don't ever stop.

[DjLoTi]

I've got to agree on both sides. On one side, he does need to go on these shows, but on the other side, it's still early and the RP campaign hasn't done anything crazy spectacular yet. I think as more of the lesser-knowns (Brownback, Hunter, Tancredo, ect.) start to drop off, it'll provide a better position for Dr. Paul to get on these shows. Until then, what really makes him special ( in their eyes )? They probably don't want to be hassled with all the other candidates complaining and whining, but, he should look at those things as a great opportunity. If he can do those things come November/December time, that'll really be a sign that he's a competitive front-runner.

In the mean time, try not to get too discouraged. Maybe now's not the best time, and maybe later is. You never know. Thanks for all your hard work.

[DeadheadForPaul]

1.) The campaign is swamped with emails so dont send even more
2.) You're doing a great job. How about all us at the forum organize an "Email Leno" day then an "Email Letterman" day, etc.
3.) Dont give up! We dont know what's going on behind the scenes

[Jon S]

i still think if someone supplied us with some e-mails we could probably barrage them with e-mails kindly asking them to give us a chance.

[Slugg]

Theres a small group of us who have been trying our hearts out since about May to get Ron Paul an interview on a major network tv show. We've been focusing very hard on Jay Leno, and moving down to Good Morning America, Regis and Kelly and various others. Our goal is to get him in front of millions of potential pollable and older supporters. Its rolling up to September and at this point it all seems in veign.

I'm very frustrated at this point. Nothing is working and we're feeling deeply alone on this project. We can't even get the Ron Paul campaign staff to make a single phone call to these shows for us or even return our emails. This is a very big deal for us, if we got him on any of these shows with millions of viewers right in the demographic we need for higher poll showings it would create HUGE momentum for his campaign and really rally a lot more supporters and name recognition instantly over night. If it was done back in May like it should of been we might not be asking "who is ron paul" right now.

At this point though I'm about to say fuck it. Guest slots are filling up and the staff is standing by doing nothing. I understand their want to play the political game and focus on stuff that matters in the political realm such as debates and GOP luncheons. But damn it! Rally the people! Let the average american know who you are. Not all americans spend their days closely watching cspan and following political events such as straw polls and fox news hit pieces.

I'm about to say fuck it all. If his campaign staff wants to do nothing more than play chess with a bunch of pundits who hate him and will do anything to destroy him for the rest of the primary season. Fuck them to. If anyone from Ron Pauls staff is reading this...Time is running out to let Americans outside of the political sphere know who you are! Help Us! Help Us! Help us!!

We can't help anyone who doesn't want help. If you don't want it please let us know so we can quit wasting our time.


You're tired. And rightfully so. His campaign staff is small right now. Typically campaigns don't kick in until mid Sept. We have a nice strong and loyal base of support that isn't going anywhere. Your work will pay off. The general public isn't ready to hear much about the race yet.

The New York Times called Ron Paul a 'political prodigy'.....that's a pretty big statement. Do not under estimate the campaign yet. I think they have some surprises in store.

[Craig_R]

Craig_r nice soft touch you have there..... dipshit

thats totally uncalled for.

dont ever accuse me of having a soft touch

[0zzy]

emailed

[American]

This Lam guy who is the eCampaign manager needs help. There needs to be a more concerted effort with the online part of RP campaign

[American]

thats totally uncalled for.

dont ever accuse me of having a soft touch

HA!

I feel ya brother, I wont make that mistake again.

:D

[Jon S]

You're tired. And rightfully so. His campaign staff is small right now. Typically campaigns don't kick in until mid Sept. We have a nice strong and loyal base of support that isn't going anywhere. Your work will pay off. The general public isn't ready to hear much about the race yet.

The New York Times called Ron Paul a 'political prodigy'.....that's a pretty big statement. Do not under estimate the campaign yet. I think they have some surprises in store.

the only thing is most of these shows will have you on about a month or two after they contact you. due to the fact that their schedules fill up quickly. if we only contact them in another month or two then it will be another 3-4 months before he could even get on. which is why we should act now

[DeadheadForPaul]

This Lam guy who is the eCampaign manager needs help. There needs to be a more concerted effort with the online part of RP campaign

First of all, it's that lam GIRL. Her name is Justine

Second, what exactly do you want her to do?

Third, we own the internet and have basically maxed out our exposure on here...hence why we have such a large youth base. Our problem is mainstream recognition and boots on the ground which we are doing with sign-waving, etc. Let the campaign handle what they need to handle, and we'll also do what we can. Let's start up an email campaign. Josh, if youre reading this, can you make a thread with a sticky for "EMAIL LENO DAY" tomorrow? Maybe someone can post the info

[Eli]

you guys are seriously lifting my spirits right now.

[American]

the only thing is most of these shows will have you on about a month or two after they contact you. due to the fact that their schedules fill up quickly. if we only contact them in another month or two then it will be another 3-4 months before he could even get on. which is why we should act now

So what are you saying maybe after the primaries would be best?

Keep sending the emails, its about name recognition right now. we need more support.

[Jon S]

So what are you saying maybe after the primaries would be best?

Keep sending the emails, its about name recognition right now. we need more support.

no im saying right now would be best. but i don't have any of these e-mail addresses and i don't think a majority of the other members of the forum do either. im just asking for someone to post them. but i might have to check the first post cuz i haven't checked since i asked.

[American]

First of all, it's that lam GIRL. Her name is Justine

Second, what exactly do you want her to do?

Third, we own the internet and have basically maxed out our exposure on here...hence why we have such a large youth base. Our problem is mainstream recognition and boots on the ground which we are doing with sign-waving, etc. Let the campaign handle what they need to handle, and we'll also do what we can. Let's start up an email campaign. Josh, if youre reading this, can you make a thread with a sticky for "EMAIL LENO DAY" tomorrow? Maybe someone can post the info

Well we have allot of ideas that could be benefitial to the RP campaign, at least SHE should check out the forums and see what the supporters are saying.

Good example was the thing from Jeff Frazee "do not call the Iowa GOP" no one could confirm this, Jeff never even responded to some confirmation about this.

So this Lam character needs to be more involved with ANY forum the is supporting Ron Paul from a purely organizational stand point.

[American]

no im saying right now would be best. but i don't have any of these e-mail addresses and i don't think a majority of the other members of the forum do either. im just asking for someone to post them. but i might have to check the first post cuz i haven't checked since i asked.

+1

I would also like the emails I would certainly send off a few. I think Olberman would also be a good choice since his theme has also aligned with Dr. Pauls. Lets see what the Clinton News Network has to say.

[Eli]

If we got the tonight show to agree to have him on the program right now he could probably appear sometime mid to late october-november. There also appears to be a slot right after the night michael moore is on.

Honestly though, I really appreciate the rally of support on this issue. It's going to help big time. Trust me the tonight show is getting the necessary amount of emails (although more is great). I think we need some form of contact between his staff and the show in order for it to be finalized. Thats the part I'm worried about. The christmas lineup is always big for the show and if we wait until september/october to get him on he probably won't get on in time to make a big difference in the primaries. It's all about momentum building in the right demographic. We need a strong push.

How did ron paul become popular with young people?
1. He did an interview in a college kids dorm room.
2. A few strong supporters made his presence known to the wikipedia volunteers.
3. Bloggers caught wind. So did Digg.
4. A slew of supporters emerged and got him on the daily show and colbert report.
His campaign needs to quit scratching their heads over it. THATS WHAT HAPPENED!

Why is ron paul going to be so popular with the older crowd.
1. Appearences on the late night lineup such as jay leno, letterman, conan.
2. Apearances on the morning lineup such as good morning american, regis and kelly, and maybe oprah.
3. News channels catch wind.

[DeadheadForPaul]

Well we have allot of ideas that could be benefitial to the RP campaign, at least SHE should check out the forums and see what the supporters are saying.

Good example was the thing from Jeff Frazee "do not call the Iowa GOP" no one could confirm this, Jeff never even responded to some confirmation about this.

So this Lam character needs to be more involved with ANY forum the is supporting Ron Paul from a purely organizational stand point.

The campaign is still very small and only recently expanded and moved into a new office. They are backed up with thousands of emails per day which waste their time. Many of them are working 16 hour days. I know it is easy to assume they're not being active but they are overworked and handling many things behind the scenes which we do not see

I know you are new to this forum, and I dont know about what you've been involved in so far with regards to the campaign, but this is a grassroots campaign. While the official campaign is still growing, we have found that they cannot keep up with all our ideas and stuff hence why Mo, Xar, and many others have launched their own ideas and turned them into real life actions

We've had radio ads, youtube videos, Ron Paul overnight, sign parties, bill boards, dvd distributions, launched a radio network, a live video feed, etc. all without the official campaign. That's how we work. WE ARE THE CAMPAIGN

Welcome to the Forums. We make the change we wish to see :)

[Jon S]

i still want some e-mails so i can send a few to people. and btw does the rp donation site accept debit card as long as its mastercard?

[Richandler]

I say we try and get Paul onto Craig Ferguson. He always has "second rate" guests. I mean if it's all we can get for now it's better than nothing. Maybe shoot a little lower first then trying to shoot a little higher. Don't forget Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O'Brien. I know they are both bizzare and it could be dangerous getting him on but the exposure always helps.

[American]

The campaign is still very small and only recently expanded and moved into a new office. They are backed up with thousands of emails per day which waste their time. Many of them are working 16 hour days. I know it is easy to assume they're not being active but they are overworked and handling many things behind the scenes which we do not see

I know you are new to this forum, and I dont know about what you've been involved in so far with regards to the campaign, but this is a grassroots campaign. While the official campaign is still growing, we have found that they cannot keep up with all our ideas and stuff hence why Mo, Xar, and many others have launched their own ideas and turned them into real life actions

We've had radio ads, youtube videos, Ron Paul overnight, sign parties, bill boards, dvd distributions, launched a radio network, a live video feed, etc. all without the official campaign. That's how we work. WE ARE THE CAMPAIGN

Welcome to the Forums. We make the change we wish to see :)

Thanks for the reply, I have heard we have 30k supports can they fill the role of answering emails?

I am new to this forum and I want to be used for this cause. I am a network engineer so I'm in front of the computer daily but if answering emails is whats needed then I will certainly volunteer for this effort. Along with my sign/recruiting efforts I already do.

[billm317]

Bill Maher loves Dr. Paul. He needs to get back on that show.

[Jon S]

bump. still waitin for that e-mail list. we would have no problem bombarding these programs with e-mails if we just knew what they were.

[Eli]

here it is


Here's a link to contact the show
http://www.nbc.com/Footer/Contact_Us/
select Tonight Show With Jay Leno in the drop down box.

Also it doesn't hurt to post something up on the message board just like we did with the daily show.
http://boards.nbc.com/nbc/index.php?showforum=8/

Theres already a bunch of posts going up on the guest request thread
http://boards.nbc.com/nbc/index.php?showtopic=28344&st=640&start=640

[Jennifer Reynolds]

///

[conner_condor]

Relax. for the next stage is close to hand.

[Slugg]

email sent...bump

[LibertyEagle]

Well we have allot of ideas that could be benefitial to the RP campaign, at least SHE should check out the forums and see what the supporters are saying.

Good example was the thing from Jeff Frazee "do not call the Iowa GOP" no one could confirm this, Jeff never even responded to some confirmation about this.

So this Lam character needs to be more involved with ANY forum the is supporting Ron Paul from a purely organizational stand point.

It was very easy to do this. All anyone had to do was to contact their Meetup organizer. It was to them that he sent his message.

I used to wonder the same about Justine's involvement here, but then I found out more about the FEC rules and how they had to keep very separate from the grassroots.
http://theronpauladventure.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/national-vs-grassroots-the-good-the-bad-and/

[LibertyEagle]

Well, I have to agree with the frustration. What are we going to do if we DO get a date, work with someone, spend hundreds of hours on the project, tell the campaign we have a date for them and then get the usual cold shoulder.



If we do get something lined up, that's when we contact Jesse Benton.

[Kuldebar]

Well, I have to agree with the frustration. What are we going to do if we DO get a date, work with someone, spend hundreds of hours on the project, tell the campaign we have a date for them and then get the usual cold shoulder.

They are busy. blah blah blah. So hire some more freakin' volunteers. They only have about 30,000 to choose from. I am so tired of working my tail off for them only to be ignored completely over and over and over.

Jeff Frazee, the student contact guy, has ignored my pleas for help for weeks now. I have been told the campaign doesn't want to send the students to Meetup groups because they can get bad influences there. Agreed. Some groups are messed up. BUT WHAT ELSE SHOULD I DO? I call the campaign, tell them I am going to be hitting the largest campus in the US in a week and need some guidance as to what to say to students and I get nothing. Promises to get back to me.

Well, guess what. I don't know what else to tell them. So what do I do?

I spent 40 hours putting together a legal brief for them regarding an issue. At my rates that is 40k worth of work. Did I get an acknowledgment that they got it? No.

I worked my tail off calling Iowans only to find out 5 days before the event that he was going to be IN Iowa! I told all 1000 of them that they would not be able to see him because he had NO appearances there according to his website. They didn't like that at all. Iowans expect more respect.

Also, pretty hard to cold call about a guy no one has ever heard of. So glad they put out some ads 3 days before the poll. That helped us volunteers a lot.

So, yeah, I am getting frustrated too!

And the lack of responses is just plain ole rude!

Shut down your email if you can't respond. Shut off your phones. Hell, shut down your campaign if the people are bugging you too much.

This is intolerable.

Sounds to me, if you want that level of coordination and cooperation you may need to work directly and officially for the campaign. Sometimes there's a such thing as doing too much, especially if you make your self suffer for it.

[LibertyEagle]

Maybe expecting the campaign to play a role IS asking too much. Hard for me to understand, but ok. However, if "we are the campaign", we'd better organize a little better and fast. This loosey-goosey approach is great for a lot of things, such as sign-making, bombarding people with email, short, intense supportive efforts like in Iowa or creating the ads, but at a strategic level it is really lacking. Way too much running around like chickens with our heads cutoff, way too much redundancy, hard to pull in others from across the country, when we really need to do so (remember how we've had to engage multiple people to even be able to contact the Meetup organizers across the country (25 email limit per MONTH). I'm not suggesting any of the individual grassroots efforts stop, but I think we need to decide several things on a larger plan. For example, would it be advantageous to create a decent quality DVD that we can distribute? If so, we need decent footage to work with. Who is willing to take that on and make it happen? Maybe then, a few folks could work together and layout their plan for a DVD. A storyboard of types and another team could review it. Once all that was meshed out. The development would start.

How about the questions on the FEC regs with regard to fundraising? Any lawyers or others here, willing to take this on and get to the bottom of it, so we'll know if we can proceed with various fundraising operations? As a united group, where should we focus our efforts? New Hampshire, Texas, California? Which states? When are each states major events... ie. straw polls, primaries, etc.? How should we best attack them? Newspaper ads? If so, in which ones? Radio ads? Ok, which stations? What are the big issues for each of these states, so we'll know how to focus the campaigining? How about door-to-door campaigns? Which campaign literature is best for the demographic. Parades, fundraisers. Can we create our own buzz some other way, like walking.

Somewhere, we've got to have a RP supporter who is a marketing genius. Sometime back, I saw a post on a Meetup board where someone mentioned that there was a woman in Texas, a pretty high level Marketing person, who had offered to give the next several months to Ron Paul's campaign. But, no one had contacted her.

Seems to me, we have to get our act together and pretty darn fast. The campaign keeps telling us...WE ARE THE CAMPAIGN. Ok, someone has to be. If it's going to be US, we'd better get things organized a little better so we can make this whole thing happen.

Thoughts?

Note: We can call it whatever we want to call it, but the reality is that we all hoped we would do better in Iowa. I think the campaign really hoped and actually thought they might also. I've been thinking about this a lot today. Why would they think that? Did they honestly believe that Ron going around speaking for a few days would be enough? Or, by running a few days of very rough TV commercials? Or did they believe the short spiffets of media attention that Ron has been getting, would do it? Maybe they think there are more people who actually spend their lives on the internet, viewing every darn YouTube video availalble, or people who are willing to spend hours reading to finally understand his positions on the issues. Or, is it because he hoped we had done a better job on the ground getting his message out? That said, I can't imagine how more effort could have been put into this thing, but imagine what might have happened if we had started a couple of months ago, had leveraged the Meetup groups in the surrounding states, actually had high-res video from which to make the DVDs, been calling and writing Iowans for months? And then maybe even had Ron Paul spend more than just a few days there speaking. My point is, we can be much more effective if we approach at least some of our campaigning at a more strategic level, instead of waiting until the last minute and declaring an emergency.

[Kuldebar]

Maybe expecting the campaign to play a role IS asking too much. Hard for me to understand, but ok. However, if "we are the campaign", we'd better organize a little better and fast. This loosey-goosey approach is great for a lot of things, such as sign-making, bombarding people with email, short, intense supportive efforts like in Iowa or creating the ads, but at a strategic level it is really lacking. Way too much running around like chickens with our heads cutoff, way too much redundancy, hard to pull in others from across the country, when we really need to do so (remember how we've had to engage multiple people to even be able to contact the Meetup organizers across the country (25 email limit per MONTH). I'm not suggesting any of the individual grassroots efforts stop, but I think we need to decide several things on a larger plan. For example, would it be advantageous to create a decent quality DVD that we can distribute? If so, we need decent footage to work with. Who is willing to take that on and make it happen? Maybe then, a few folks could work together and layout their plan for a DVD. A storyboard of types and another team could review it. Once all that was meshed out. The development would start.

How about the questions on the FEC regs with regard to fundraising? Any lawyers or others here, willing to take this on and get to the bottom of it, so we'll know if we can proceed with various fundraising operations? As a united group, where should we focus our efforts? New Hampshire, Texas, California? Which states? When are each states major events... ie. straw polls, primaries, etc.? How should we best attack them? Newspaper ads? If so, in which ones? Radio ads? Ok, which stations? What are the big issues for each of these states, so we'll know how to focus the campaigining? How about door-to-door campaigns? Which campaign literature is best for the demographic. Parades, fundraisers. Can we create our own buzz some other way, like walking.

Somewhere, we've got to have a RP supporter who is a marketing genius. Sometime back, I saw a post on a Meetup board where someone mentioned that there was a woman in Texas, a pretty high level Marketing person, who had offered to give the next several months to Ron Paul's campaign. But, no one had contacted her.

Seems to me, we have to get our act together and pretty darn fast. The campaign keeps telling us...WE ARE THE CAMPAIGN. Ok, someone has to be. If it's going to be US, we'd better get things organized a little better so we can make this whole thing happen.

Thoughts?

You said it. Peeps do need to realize that they WILL NOT get directives from the campaign unless they are employed by the campaign. It may be frustrating but coordinations and communications are a very touchy issue. We all live under the shadow of stupid laws governing our speech and association.

[Man from La Mancha]

Would help to expand this forums membership. When I run across an interesting company or person on the net, I email them and invite them to check out Ron and this site.

[LibertyEagle]

Yeah, well, IMO, there are good points and bad points about doing that. I love this forum, but I think it is a TERRIBLE place to send people new to Ron, or others who are just trying to find out more about him. I will tell you one thing. By in large, a variety of things said on this forum would send a lot of Republicans running for the hills and as far away from Ron as they could possibly get. We don't need to amass a bunch more people here. What we need is a strategy. From there, we can lay out tactics. As we implement the tactics, we can pull people in as necessary. For that, we need a good mechanism to communicate with the various Meetup groups.

[Kuldebar]

Yeah, well, IMO, there are good points and bad points about doing that. I love this forum, but I think it is a TERRIBLE place to send people new to Ron, or others who are just trying to find out more about him. I will tell you one thing. By in large, a variety of things said on this forum would send a lot of Republicans running for the hills and as far away from Ron as they could possibly get. We don't need to amass a bunch more people here. What we need is a strategy. From there, we can lay out tactics. As we implement the tactics, we can pull people in as necessary. For that, we need a good mechanism to communicate with the various Meetup groups.

I think these sites would be best for beginners:

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/
http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/
http://ronpaulaudio.com/
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul-arch.html
http://www.house.gov/paul/legis.shtml

As far as this forum goes, it's really for activists, not neophytes.

[Man from La Mancha]

Yeah, well, IMO, there are good points and bad points about doing that. I love this forum, but I think it is a TERRIBLE place to send people new to Ron, or others who are just trying to find out more about him. I will tell you one thing. By in large, a variety of things said on this forum would send a lot of Republicans running for the hills and as far away from Ron as they could possibly get. We don't need to amass a bunch more people here. What we need is a strategy. From there, we can lay out tactics. As we implement the tactics, we can pull people in as necessary. For that, we need a good mechanism to communicate with the various Meetup groups.

This is a good site as long as Hot Topics don't come up when one clicks new posts. That site should only be entered by a direct click on it. We need more talent if some leave some stay.

.

[LibertyEagle]

Yup... those are good ones alright. :) Hey, that last one is great. I didn't know how you could pull up all 3 (Texas Straight Talk, Speeches and Press Releases) on the same page. Thanks.

This is the group I currently use:

Ron Paul for President '08 -- "HOPE FOR AMERICA"
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/
http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/index.php
http://www.ronpaulaudio.com/
http://www.ronpaulnation.com/tv.html
http://gunowners.org/pres08/paul.htm

[LibertyEagle]

This is a good site as long as Hot Topics don't come up when one clicks new posts. That site should only be entered by a direct click on it. We need more talent if some leave some stay.

.

It's an excellent site, for some people. For others, it is WAY too much and way too intense. Just think about some of the talk about Christianity just today. I'll tell you what, it would have driven off a bunch of Christians. And sometimes just some of the language used, it may go over well with a bunch of young people, but Republican middle America, it will not. We don't need more people on here to succeed. We just need to create a strategy and then some of us, focus. If we think we need to include someone who is not here in creating our strategy, then let's pull those few in to a pointed discussion. For implementation, we reach out to everyone in the Meetup groups. That can be done here, or possibly even elsewhere. Keep in mind that this site has reporters and a lot of other gazers.

I wholeheartedly agree with you about Hot Topics, by the way.

[Man from La Mancha]

I think these sites would be best for beginners:

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/
http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/
http://ronpaulaudio.com/
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul-arch.html
http://www.house.gov/paul/legis.shtml

As far as this forum goes, it's really for activists, not neophytes.

Agreed the best sites. Exactly we need more activists. I would not under estimate neophytes. Advertising experts and logistics. IMO

[LibertyEagle]

Agreed the best sites. Exactly we need more activists. I would not under estimate neophytes. Advertising experts and logistics. IMO

Agreed, but we don't want to scare them away from Ron Paul in the meantime. There is no reason that most of the strategy discussions need to, or even should, happen on a public message board. I do agree that we need to tap 1-2 high-level marketing people to be involved in the strategy team. We also need a lawyer, not to mention a person or two with a lot of previous grassroots campaign experience. Maybe someone who worked fairly high up on Buchanan's campaign and maybe also someone who did the same for Dean's campaign? You know folks, if we did this right, we could be QUITE effective. We really could.

Campaign HQ talked about 2 different campaigns. The one being run by headquarters and the one being run by us, the grassroots. Maybe it's time we do this, eh?

[Jared Callanan]

So what we do is this:

We get the e-mail addresses from Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, David Letterman (who had Joe Biden on the other night), Craig Ferguson, and Jimmy Kimmel. We make sure all of our Ron Paul blog friends have this information and we select a day where we all e-mail these bastards and get our man on their show! I am about to leave for work or I would definitely construct the list. I look forward to getting back on here later and seeing our progress.

Also, have we tried bombarding Tim Russert and Meet the Press? I mean, after his exchange with Giuliani I was praying for the two of them would sit down with Russert and explain both of their views on the issue. It would seem to me that as of right now Meet the Press would be best as Congressman Paul would get a full 30 minutes to explain himself and it is the most watched sunday news program.

- Jared

[rockfree33]

You need to harness the power of Digg to get these tasks accomplished. Someone make a blog about getting Ron Paul on a show and submit it to Digg then give us the link in the forum so we can Digg it up.

[Zydeco]

Eli,

Don't make any demands on the campaign staff. I volunteer at the Ron Paul HQ in Arlington, VA and believe me, these people are working extremely long hours and are extremely smart.

Keep doing what you're doing, or, if you feel it's not working, try something else. There are a million ways to get the message out. But above all, a) stay positive and b) don't harsh on the campaign staff for not answering your e-mails. They're getting thousands per day.

[Patriot]

I somewhat agree with you, we need to be out of the "Who is Ron Paul" stage FAST, and by fast I mean NOW. I dont know the first thing about getting him on a major program, but at least you are trying. It would be nice to see someone with some influence get him on there.

I totally agree with that. The "Who is Ron Paul?" makes he look and sound like a fringe candidate. We need to promote him like he is already a household word. If we act fringe we will be fringe, if we act main stream we will be main stream.

[rkbabang]

Yeah, well, IMO, there are good points and bad points about doing that. I love this forum, but I think it is a TERRIBLE place to send people new to Ron, or others who are just trying to find out more about him. I will tell you one thing. By in large, a variety of things said on this forum would send a lot of Republicans running for the hills and as far away from Ron as they could possibly get. We don't need to amass a bunch more people here. What we need is a strategy. From there, we can lay out tactics. As we implement the tactics, we can pull people in as necessary.

Maybe you are correct, but I've been a libertarian (anarcho-capitalist) and have been aware of Ron Paul for a long time, yet, I've just found this forum. If I had know about this earlier I would have joined earlier. While you are correct in that it isn't necessarily a good place for people who don't know who Ron Paul is or what he stands for, it also isn't good idea to keep it a secret. I would think attracting the die hard Paul supporters here and motivating them to help out in various ways could only be a good thing. No?

(I've sent a few emails to various TV shows suggesting Paul after starting to read this thread, BTW).

[Cowlesy]

Yeah, well, IMO, there are good points and bad points about doing that. I love this forum, but I think it is a TERRIBLE place to send people new to Ron, or others who are just trying to find out more about him. I will tell you one thing. By in large, a variety of things said on this forum would send a lot of Republicans running for the hills and as far away from Ron as they could possibly get. We don't need to amass a bunch more people here. What we need is a strategy. From there, we can lay out tactics. As we implement the tactics, we can pull people in as necessary. For that, we need a good mechanism to communicate with the various Meetup groups.

AGREED.

[american.swan]

Dont give up, keep doing what your doing they do get lots of requests dont be discouraged. I will join you in this effort.

Craig_r nice soft touch you have there..... dipshit

Ok. I have an idea. First off American you have the best avatar. ;)

From reading greg palast book, I have learned some of his secrets.

When he makes first contact with a possible hostile source he drops some names and dates or data that makes the source think Greg is an insider. Also, he records everything with a hidden mic which is legal he says.

How about contacting some intern or some body at NBC and find out some info. Then call the higher ups with some name dropping and date info and see if you can get inroads. Then get Ron on the Show.

The committee that selects the guest is hostile to getting Ron on the show. So...get a friend on the committee by the above method or some thing. Be creative.

[AMack]

Just sent some emails out to the shows. I'll try to make it a daily thing to email the late shows and request that Ron be invited.

[themanhere]

I emailed some talk shows. Fingers crossed. If anyone lives in Newyork they should get some banners and stand outside good morning America or better yet Fox and friends.


The internets will win this election not MSM!

[JaylieWoW]

Getting frustrated??!!

It's a feeling I have on a daily basis.

However, I would like to submit that this same frustration is felt by ALL Americans. They just don’t know why they are really frustrated. They know they’re overtaxed and over-regulated but are unwilling to rise up against such tyranny. The undercurrent of frustration is there and it’s felt by all, not just us.

The key here is to turn that frustration into something positive. You’ve got to channel that energy towards the ultimate goal. Though we define that goal as putting Ron Paul in the White House, it is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more to what we are trying to accomplish than Ron Paul. We are the voices of a reminder of what made this nation the “shining beacon of liberty”. We (all Americans) have lost that vision. It isn’t recognized simply because the withering away of liberty has happened over a handful of generations. But, it is now, in our time where the battle is to be resumed.

But, hope is far from lost. As Ron Paul himself insists, “freedom is popular”. Our “revolutionary children (http://www.mises.org/books/outofstep.pdf)” are the heads upon which our ultimate goal rests. Indeed, they are the very heads upon which tyranny has exerted its influence, unchallenged in our halls of learning. It's target, the minds and wills of our children. It is the timeless chipping away of personal responsibility and the instilling of unnecessary dependency. But, the call to liberty is far louder than that of her brother tyranny. For even though we've grown in this age, still our ears can hear her whispers in our minds. So, hope, it is not lost. Those of us here sharing in this time will bring new voices and courage to this cause. WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED!


“Be the change you want to see in the world” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

It will not be easy. There will be many who will not listen. There will be many whose ears are deaf to the call of liberty, prosperity and freedom. An entire generation is now dependent upon the largess and false security they receive from our government. A libertarian triage is what is needed. Decide quickly those that can be saved and let wither those who cannot.

Frustration? Get used to it. Even those who have been close to me all my life seem to have closed their eyes and their minds either refusing to change or accepting what they deem to be inevitable. They have lost hope to frustration. "There's no chance he (liberty) can win", sound familiar?

Above all, never let frustration defeat the fire in your heart and your mind. Do not go “quiet into that dark night”. Save those who will listen and leave the rest to suffer their own consequences. Nature is a fierce disciplinarian and she will extract her toll upon us whether we will it or not.

Keep hope, my friend, for the sake of liberty for all.

[american.swan]

Frustrated.

Greg Palast in his book Armed Madhouse talks about how there probably will be another Terrorist attack on US soil. But Greg's educated guess is that it won't be done by any foreign agents. It will be done by fed up, pissed off Americans who have had enough. an example: OKC bombing(my example, not Greg's).

[constituent]

LibertyEagle-

"There is no reason that most of the strategy discussions need to, or even should, happen on a public message board. I do agree that we need to tap 1-2 high-level marketing people to be involved in the strategy team.

We also need a lawyer, not to mention a person or two with a lot of previous grassroots campaign experience. Maybe someone who worked fairly high up on Buchanan's campaign and maybe also someone who did the same for Dean's campaign? You know folks, if we did this right, we could be QUITE effective. We really could."

While I applaud your efforts and zeal... what has worked for the campaign has been the lack of "experience," etc. why sacrifice the advantages of spontaneous actions for higher ups in Buchanan's and Dean's campaigns? We see how well those worked out.

I would say that together, we have been quite effective and will continue to be as long as we don't make the mistake of organizing ourselves into seniority/experienced based organizational hierarchies...

How to Kill a Grass-Roots Movement 101, Hijacking the Movement.

[Santana28]

Why not Letterman? He has a younger demographic than Leno, and he has politicians on ALL the time. He just had Hillary, didnt he?

Ideally, Paul would appear on both. But if i had to choose one - it would be Letterman ALL the way.

[Eli]

Here's the very serious problem we're facing...

Romney and guiliani both got on the show before they were considered top teir. They got on simply by calling and asking to come on. They had no huge grass roots effort to encourage the show to get them on. At this point all these shows (letterman included) KNOW that there is a huge demand for ron paul. He could get on in a heart beat. However we cannot represent him or set the good doctors schedule. His campaign MUST call the shows. If they don't, he won't ever get on. Back when we got him on colbert and daily show, they called him because we were too powerful of an organized group. Its as if his campaign staff were merely along for the ride, with little or no organization. He doesn't have that luxury this time. It's over, its finished. They need to get off their asses and quit micromanaging.

The grassroots volunteers did an INCREDIBLE job in iowa. The fact is we could of gotten second with the extra 2k votes if ron paul would of been there even two weeks prior and/or gotten more communication from the staff to the volunteers. This is the classic case of the trend I've been seeing. His staff failed. Not the volunteers. The problem is, they are micromanaging to hell. I saw 6 staff members figuring out sound issues on the stage while 600! volunteers were standing there like umm what should we do? Ron Paul didn't hire a bunch of damn walmart employees. He hired a campaign staff. They need to quit trying to micromanage everything and leave the details to the volunteers. Rachel became media director? That doesn't make any fuckin sense. Her and half the staff needs to ditch their titles and become "grassroots organizers."

Imagine this. They just put up a single post on the blog saying On this date xx/xx everyone tell 10 of your friends about ron paul. National tell 10 friends about ron paul day whatever... Imagine how powerful that would be. Yet simple little shit like that they can't handle, instead of reading these forums and realizing theres a member trying to give them free private jet rides all over the country and actually returning his calls they are spending all their time calling United Air trying to book plane tickets to his next event. It's pathetic. If my management operated my companies like that I'd be living under a bridge right now.

It's like we're nothing but crowd fillers for them. We're very useful when they need donations or when they want to have a big showing at a speach, but USE US! We want to help, his staff doesn't even realize that. For that reason I say fuck 'em. They're worthless to us at this point. We need a new strategy and at least one small group of people who are solely dedicated to the grass roots movement and have the ability to speak for ron paul.

Any ideas?

[Roxi]

1.) The campaign is swamped with emails so dont send even more
2.) You're doing a great job. How about all us at the forum organize an "Email Leno" day then an "Email Letterman" day, etc.
3.) Dont give up! We dont know what's going on behind the scenes

ESRPP- ExtraSensory RonPaulperception


definition:

Two ron paul supporters thinking the exact same thing at the exact same time :eek:

[LibertyEagle]

LibertyEagle-

"There is no reason that most of the strategy discussions need to, or even should, happen on a public message board. I do agree that we need to tap 1-2 high-level marketing people to be involved in the strategy team.

We also need a lawyer, not to mention a person or two with a lot of previous grassroots campaign experience. Maybe someone who worked fairly high up on Buchanan's campaign and maybe also someone who did the same for Dean's campaign? You know folks, if we did this right, we could be QUITE effective. We really could."

While I applaud your efforts and zeal... what has worked for the campaign has been the lack of "experience," etc. why sacrifice the advantages of spontaneous actions for higher ups in Buchanan's and Dean's campaigns? We see how well those worked out.

I would say that together, we have been quite effective and will continue to be as long as we don't make the mistake of organizing ourselves into seniority/experienced based organizational hierarchies...

How to Kill a Grass-Roots Movement 101, Hijacking the Movement.

There are certainly people who would not want to participate in this. That is understood and in fact, it's probably a very good thing. But, I still think we need that we need to form some kind of organization at the grassroots level. If for no other reason to allow us to create more focus, reduce redundancy and to be able to share information much better.

I'm not talking about creating some overarching power structure here. There is no reason why there can't be brainstorming sessions to create part of the strategy and for sure, a lot of the tactical plans. The strategic team would not be "in power", they would just be tasked with the responsibility for strategic direction. The plans and tactics for implementing the strategy, would in large part, be decided by other groups. Hey, I'm not a libertarian, but I don't like being "controlled" either. It is not the way I work best. However, we do need to make sure at least a good portion of us are all rowing in the same direction. Don't you think? There is plenty of responsibility for everyone, here. But, we simply have to get better organized, if we want to pull this whole thing off.

Remember a lot of the tactics and the implmentation itself, would all be in our hands.

[constituent]

again... that's already happening here... i agree, let's avoid redundancy. short of the little site crash this weekend, no grassroots effort has ever been this organized.

up until the crash we had realtime info on everything, it can't get any better... perhaps during events, a designated 'live' thread would help... but the iowa grassroots thing in (gen pol i believe) is an excellent example of what you seem to be proposing. again, i'm not opposed to your idea, i just think that what you are suggesting already exists.. could use some improvement, but already exists.

[LibertyEagle]

again... that's already happening here... i agree, let's avoid redundancy. short of the little site crash this weekend, no grassroots effort has ever been this organized.

up until the crash we had realtime info on everything, it can't get any better... perhaps during events, a designated 'live' thread would help... but the iowa grassroots thing in (gen pol i believe) is an excellent example of what you seem to be proposing. again, i'm not opposed to your idea, i just think that what you are suggesting already exists.. could use some improvement, but already exists.

We need tools and a strategy.

1. How can we reach all Meetup members quickly and easily? I'm not aware of any such mechanism. Are you?

2. Is there a central repository of high-resolution video? You know, so people could access this to create both YouTube videos and a great DVD or two that we can mass produce on a HUGE scale and distribute. We have the technical expertise to put together a kick butt DVD. Perhaps if we had the video we needed, they could create a rough storyboard and run it by us, before they developed it. If we did this right, we could all pitch in and get one heck of a huge run of this created, at very good prices, so we would have something very effective to use in getting people on board with this campaign.

3. Fundraising? What are the dos and don'ts about this with regard to FEC rules? Anyone know? We're going to run up against this, over and over until we find this out. How about the Ronstock on a larger scale, that we used to hear so much about? Is this still going to happen? If so, how do we deal with the FEC regs, or is it just not possible?

4. Political campaign expertise. Seems to me we would benefit greatly from some input from a couple of people with a lot of experience with grassroots political campaigns. Maybe someone from Buchanan's and Dean's organizations.

5. Where should we focus? Important straw polls? Dates of primaries? Do we want to take them all on, or is it best that we focus our efforts?

6. Where do we get the best bang for the buck, advertising wise. A marketing expert would be beneficial here.

We know about New Hampshire. How could we best deal with this state. Door-to-door? If so, what should be handed out? Advertising? Newspapers? If so, which ones? Should we have a letter writing campaign to residents? How about a phone calling program? Are there any big door events that we could participate in with the Meetup groups? If so, when are they? What do we need? Do we need to develop our own target TV commercials and ads? If so, what are the important issues in the area? If we want ours to turn out better than the campaign's, we'd better be thinking about this NOW.

If we created a structure for this, we could use it over and over again, with minor tweaks, for each and every state we went after.

Again, in my opinion, we need to develop a strategy and we need some basic tools.

Constituent, the way we've been going about things up to now, is great for short, intensive effort, bursts of activity. Beyond that, it is pretty much each man to his own. There is something to be said for the latter, but not unless a strategy is in place and the necessary tools are available. There is also something else to consider. There are a lot of people who are not self-starters; that work better with some minimal type of high-level direction. For example, even on the short, intensive effort, burst of activity advertisement that we last did. First, someone had to step up to the plate and frame the effort. That person ended up being Dean (Lord Xar). There was a lot of brainstorming and suggestions, but in the end, the final decisions were made without the masses. Someone had to take responsibility for the end result and get it done. If Dean wouldn't have stepped up, a lot of us would probably be sitting here and griping about how the campaign needed to have an ad. In the case of the ads thus far, one person was able to step up and coordinate them getting done. However, even this is still more on a tactical level. We need a strategy, folks. Right now, we're playing around in the sandbox, but the real game is in the big leagues.

[BillyDkid]

There is an important thing to remember - we have all seen really smart people run really stupid campaigns. It is because they lose perspective and get caught up in campaign BS. We have seen campaigns where a candidate had all the advantages and then blew it for not seeing the forest for the trees - it happens all the time, really smart and dedicated people making stupid and fatal choices. That is one thing that we grassroots people need to be appreciated for - we can give the campaign perspective that they will inevitably loose in midst of the campaign. We can see things from the outside that they can't. If we get restless, it should be a really strong warning sign to the campaign and they should be willing to listen. The whole idea that they are the experts and we should leave it all to their judgement, well, we have all seen how remarkably stupid and shortsighted experts can be. We are a huge resource to the campaign that no other candidate enjoys to the same extent. If it wasn't for volunteers I'm sure we wouldn't have gotten half the votes we did in Iowa. I sincerely believe we could have won that straw poll had the campaign been active for a couple of months before down there. Now, I'm not sure how important it would be to win that or if it really makes much difference. Certainly the pundits would have dismissed it as meaningless if we had, but the point is, we need to know where it is important to direct our resources and but working in the same direction as the campaign. My impression was that volunteers were busting the their humps to win Iowa while the campaign only treated it as marginally important - that will exhaust all of us in no time. If it wasn't important all those people who put so much into it should have been putting their energy elsewhere. The campaign needs to give us clues where to best put our energy so it is a joint effort.

[Eli]

i don't advocate bumping, but I'd love it if a member of the campaign responded with some sort of insight on this matter. Just say anything!

[LibertyEagle]

Eli. I don't think they can. Take a look at this.
http://theronpauladventure.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/national-vs-grassroots-the-good-the-bad-and/

[Eli]

I finally managed to talk to someone. The staff is going to try to give the producer a call and see if they can work anything out. He says keep the emails rolling in.

ooooooooooooooooof
I'm feeling so much better now :)
seriously inches away from quitting the campaign and moving out of country till the tyranny ends.

Lets take his advice and keep flooding them with emails

Here's a link to contact the show
http://www.nbc.com/Footer/Contact_Us/
select Tonight Show With Jay Leno in the drop down box.

Maybe a ron paul blogger can mention this and we can get it dugg up as well.