Interesting "post mortem" on the 2008 Ron Paul campaign

[Original_Intent]

I thought this was a pretty accurate historical perspective on what went right and wrong in the campaign.

http://reason.com/news/show/130838.html

[OferNave]

I think this is an excellent critique of our efforts:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9B883EE065DC5B8C

It's tough love, but I think the points are valid.

[ShannonOBrien]

Next time we know that we need to only have one libertarian across all parties. Whether that is constitution, libertarian or republican. We just need to take the best libertarian out of the bunch and the others should drop out. It's the only way we'll win.

[slacker921]

Fair assessments of what the campaign and Ron Paul did (and didn't do).. but it (the reason article) leaves out the effect of the media, the negative effect of some Paul supporters, the actions/lies/cheating of the RNC, and other things that did play a major role.

[Original_Intent]

Fair assessments of what the campaign and Ron Paul did (and didn't do).. but it (the reason article) leaves out the effect of the media, the negative effect of some Paul supporters, the actions/lies/cheating of the RNC, and other things that did play a major role.

Well, I agree with you, but it isn't like they are going to point THAT out.

Like the douce moderator that asked "Regarding your electability sir...(quick prayer to Satan)...do you have any?" What the HELL kind of moderator question is that?"
:mad::mad::mad:

[Badger Paul]

Here was my rely to the Weigel article:

I have criticized David Weigel in the past for his Ron Paul coverage. Now I shall praise him, because this was a very well written article.

Paul ultimately proved that you can unite a sizeable group disperate libertarian, leftist and true conservative voters around an anti-interventionist platform both at home and abroard and make an impact in the major party system through the primary process.

But what's also clear is that coalition cannot sustain itself through non-major party politics on a national level. It's simply too diverse and their are simply too many parties are around to pick off voters from that coalition and lead them into political ghettos nationally.

If yout think about it, Paul had as many votes on the GOP convention floor as Barry Goldwater did in 1960. There's no reason why, through hard work and hard activism, that Paul's movement can't play a major role in national GOP politics in 2012.

If non-major parties wish to survive and have an impact they need to focus their attention locally and if they want to play ball in the big leagues they have to back like minded candidates like Ron Paul. Or become so effective on the local level that the major party politicians seek them out. That's the way it should work. LP and CP activists worked together to help Dr. Paul during the primaries. That is a remarkable achievement and it got the Paul campaign off the ground.

The Paul movement faces an obvious crossroads as to where it goes in the future. No doubt the movement will stay united if Paul runs again. But any future bid for the White House must be better organized, planned, and Dr. Paul must make the early effort in Iowa and in New Hampshire and South Carolina that's essential to winning the nomination. No more staying in Washington D.C. to vote on resolutions about National Artichoke Day while his opponents are out campaigning. The grassroots will settle for nothing less.

If he is not willing to make that committment, then he needs to pass the torch, visibly to potential candidates like a Gary Johnson or a Mark Sanford so the Paulians can rally around them instead of leaving fate to the wind and have our natural differences divde us between different candidates.

As with most things life, whether Ron Paul's movement was a success or not, well, it's too early to tell.

[Peace&Freedom]

Paul's 2007-08 entry in the primary and his emergent grassroots may have been the single biggest domestic factor in causing the White House to back off from attacking Iran, and in forcing changes that contributed to cutting down the violence in Iraq. If either Iran had been bombed or the troop deaths kept steeply climbing, which REPUBLICAN candidate would have benefited? Pretty obvious. The surge was irrelevant, what slowed the death toll was the US decision to stop the troops from doing house to house searches for guns, and to avoid traveling on roads rigged with IEDs. We simply stopped going to places where we were being shot up, and stopped going down the roads where we were being blown up. Bush Co. stopped knowingly sending our men to their likely deaths, thus making the war look like it was at last being won, to take the electricity out of support for anti-war Paul.

One other factor to keep in mind in the next election cycle is that the controlled media will most likely be trying even earlier to exclude or marginalize the liberty candidate. The 2007 novelty of Paul running a hardline libertarian candidacy in a major party primary race caught them off guard, and once he made his mark in the debates it was impossible for them to exclude him entirely. So in 2011-12 the MSM may try to head off Paul (or his successor) by barring him from the debates at the outset. Be ready to melt the phones and otherwise blitz the netwroks if they try this kind of ban.

[nodope0695]

After RP's silence today at the electoral college verification, I'd say the Campaign for Liberty is dead - bunk. Time came to back up his words with action, and he clammed up. No mention was made of Scumbag Obama's citizenship issue, or the fact that he as never properly vetted as per the Constitution.

RP failed miserably today, and took town the whole movement with him.