A Winning Strategy

[ShannonOBrien]

I have been mulling over the best strategy for getting our country back. Here is the strategy I think will be most effective:

1. Focus on building from the ground up. We should focus on winning the smallest seats first and work our way up. This movement will grow but has limited resources right now. If we go after the big offices right now, especially considering most of our candidates don't have much needed experience, we are spreading ourselves too thin.

2. Every year a list should be compiled of all the offices that are open in our respective states, counties and districts. We should then actively seek one liberty candidate to run in each of these offices. As soon as we have a candidate running for each position, the list should be posted on every state coordinators' blog.

3. We should all set aside 1% of our income to save in a war chest for liberty candidates. The average American makes $50,000 a year. 1% of that is $500. Then after the list of liberty candidates is posted, we should divvy up our individual savings among the candidates, however we choose. This way, we are prepared to finance our candidates when they run and don't have to worry about whether or not we can afford to donate.

4. Focus advertising efforts on billboards, signs and radio. These forms of advertising reach the most people. Advertising on a billboard for an entire month might run you around $700. Radio can be anywhere from $250-$2,000. Spending money on TV ads has shown not to be as effective. Also, ads should evoke an emotional response from the audience. Studies have shown that these kinds of ads get the greatest return.

5. Get a precinct leader in every precinct to doorbell for their candidate. The precinct leader should get help from others within Campaign for Liberty to doorbell as well. Personal contact from a neighbor is very effective.



This is the strategy I have come up with that I think will be most effective. What are some suggestions or comments that you might add to improve upon it?

[DirtMcGirt]

for national candidates- we need a better hub (site) where we can easily see how our liberty candidates stand on certain issues, also for the candidates to be able to easily interact with the grassroots.
I envision something like the sports site yardbarker. Where you can submit stories and comment but have candidates bloging and easily accessible.
http://www.yardbarker.com/

[slothman]

Also, ads should evoke an emotional response from the audience. Studies have shown that these kinds of ads get the greatest return.

Yes, "Think of the children" will get a better response.
As will "terrorists will get you."

I personally vote against anyone who has to use an appeal to emotion, instead of actual issues, to win.

[Stary Hickory]

For true Libertarian candidates I will do just about anything. It's time for aggressive and heartfelt actions.

I think we need to use the same foot in the door approach that socialists have been trying to use for years. Freedom side by side with socialism, always proves socialism to be an antiquated, immoral and ultimately failed idea.

So we push for the creation of freedom choices, like optional Social Security, and optional medicare. Unregulated health care that is in a different "zone" than regulated.

Vouchers for schools(it's a step) and so on. All I am saying is that when we get the chance we need to try and create pro freedom and liberty alternatives to everything. In this way we can erode social programs as they will be proven to be ineffective and wasteful.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

nt

[ShannonOBrien]

Yes, "Think of the children" will get a better response.
As will "terrorists will get you."

I personally vote against anyone who has to use an appeal to emotion, instead of actual issues, to win.

That's not what I meant. I meant that, for example, the ad could explain what is really going on and get people outraged about it. That's why all of us are here.

[ShannonOBrien]

for national candidates- we need a better hub (site) where we can easily see how our liberty candidates stand on certain issues, also for the candidates to be able to easily interact with the grassroots.
I envision something like the sports site yardbarker. Where you can submit stories and comment but have candidates bloging and easily accessible.
http://www.yardbarker.com/

Yeah I think we should use Ronpaulforums for this. In our states page we could make sure to compile states lists of liberty candidates. Tell people what offices are open for election. Then it would be easier to just send people over to their state folder at ronpaulforums. Thanks for that. I think I will research what offices are open and a list of who our guys are that are in the running.

[nate895]

We need a national candidate because it rallies excitement. Without it, we are just a bunch of fringe kooks to the average voter. We need a Presidential candidate to rally the troops, but we must not focus solely on that office; however, we should obviously try to win.

As for TV ads, they are a necessary part of campaigns for the US House and above, and in some State legislative races it is necessary as well. They evoke emotion, as you pointed out should be an objective. It is very hard to evoke emotion from a radio ad or billboard. The problem our candidates had with TV ads is they either several bad ones, or they had one or two good ones. Bad TV ads can lose you votes; A good TV ad, on the very outside, can get 1-2% of the voters on your side. You need several good ads in order to convince the population, and they must focus on a wide variety of issues. Seventy ads on the Federal Reserve running might as well be two or three ads on different subjects.

I am actually constructing a plan that is not vague, and can actually be measured. It will include several steps to help making the revolution mainstream. Once we make it into the mainstream, we are home free.

[trey4sports]

meh...
go big or go home
POTUS 2012

[mczerone]

Yes, "Think of the children" will get a better response.
As will "terrorists will get you."

I personally vote against anyone who has to use an appeal to emotion, instead of actual issues, to win.

So we have to say: "We can't put more debt on the backs of our already burdened progeny, we must stand up and refuse to delay the consequences of our spending bender any longer." That's "think of the kids" + reason.

"We can't keep running our young men and women in the military around the world to install regimes that the local people cannot support and consequently create the hatred of the West that breeds terrorism." That's "the terrorists will get you" + reason.

Every persuasive argument is really propaganda, but without rationality it becomes a tool for the selfish to take advantage of the non-critical masses.

We can win this war, but we must keep both a sense of love for and assistance to our fellow man and a firm grasp on the intellectual rationale that only Liberty can claim to have as support. Anything less will trap us into being painted by the collectivist statists as "selfish individualists". We must use positive emotion in our statements, not fear, and back it with impeccable logic that anyone will believe and find impossible to refute.

Am I fighting for Liberty for myself? Of course I am. But also for my present and future family, my neighbors, my friends, and all of those people that I may one day have the chance to meet. I want to be able to honestly say to each of them: you are as free as me, and I am interested in your personal, subjective success, which I will not hinder by imposing my values system on you by means of a controlling state.

Remember that there are only two types of people in the world: Patriots and Tories. Who do you want to be?

[mczerone]

We need a national candidate because it rallies excitement. Without it, we are just a bunch of fringe kooks to the average voter. We need a Presidential candidate to rally the troops, but we must not focus solely on that office; however, we should obviously try to win.

As for TV ads, they are a necessary part of campaigns for the US House and above, and in some State legislative races it is necessary as well. They evoke emotion, as you pointed out should be an objective. It is very hard to evoke emotion from a radio ad or billboard. The problem our candidates had with TV ads is they either several bad ones, or they had one or two good ones. Bad TV ads can lose you votes; A good TV ad, on the very outside, can get 1-2% of the voters on your side. You need several good ads in order to convince the population, and they must focus on a wide variety of issues. Seventy ads on the Federal Reserve running might as well be two or three ads on different subjects.

I am actually constructing a plan that is not vague, and can actually be measured. It will include several steps to help making the revolution mainstream. Once we make it into the mainstream, we are home free.


meh...
go big or go home
POTUS 2012

Ahh... the Catch 22 of politics: you can't get credibility until you win on a national scale, and you can't win on a national scale without credibility.

We need a united front: a banner under which all candidates can run, whether they are members of the GOP, LP, DP, GP or independent. That way the national office contenders (congress, senate, POTUS) can be at the forefront of name and face recognition, but the local candidates can also gain the benefit of being included in the legitimatizing effects of national recognition of a movement.

I have no idea how to pull this off, but its the only solution to bring a new movement to the forefront in the entrenched 'bi-partisan' system that the Rs and Ds have created.