I'm Sunburnt Because of Ron Paul...

[derdy]

and I'm loving it! I would enumerate my encounters throughout the day, but after being on my feet and passing out Ron Paul literature; after engaging in much discussion of the many issues facing our country at the Great Balloon Race (http://www.greatforestparkballoonrace.com/) for seven hours, I'm going to take this time to enjoy a nice glass of gin and juice. :D

Details to come after I'm rested.

What did you do today (09/15) to promote Ron Paul?! :confused:

In Ron We Trust,
Last Chance Before the FEMA Camps,
Denny

[Corydoras]

You rock!
Tell us more when you can.

[markpa]

Good job! fill us in when you can.


I spent 7 hours working our booth at the local fair yesterday and I go in tomorrow for another 4 hours. It's great to meet so many people that support our message!!

[derdy]

Alrighty, here are the details....

Myself and another member from the St. Charles Ron Paul Meetup arrived at Forest Park @ 11:00am and met up with some of the members from the St. Louis Meetup group. Just a little background about Forest Park. Forest Park is a very popular park in St. Louis and it's HUGE. There are people walking, rollerblading, driving, and what not all the time and it was a perfect day, so there were a lot of people out and about.

There were six of us total. For the combined membership total of the St. Louis Metropolitian Meetups, that was a pretty weak showing. :(

However, I wasn't even thinking about our numbers at that point; it was something we were discussing after the event was over.

What we lacked in man power, we more than made up for with material: Two members, Laura and Steve, brought cardboard and red paint so we could make big Ron Paul signs and they had a trunk load of Slim Jims; The member I went with, Brandon, had a huge roll of paper material (not sure exactly what it was) that he got for free from his work so we were able to make multiple signs with that and still have a lot of material left over; Tim, the leader of the St. Louis Meetup, brought TONS of DVDs; I brought a bunch of DVDs I had burned.

As Tim started putting up signs that he had brought with him, basically hammering them into the ground; Laura and Steve kept making signs; I was writing on all my DVDs with a sharpie (a major pain in the arse) and another member, Eric, helped sleeve and desleeve the DVDs so as to expedite the process; Brandon was helping with painting and getting signs into the ground.

As all this was going on we noticed some people walking up the street towards a REALLY busy intersection with signs that said, "Stop the War" and "Support Our Troops, Bring Them Home" etc. We asked what they were doing and they said, "Going to the Anti-War Protest," which was up about 100 yards away from us at the intersection.

We took the opportunity to go up there and mingle with the anti-war protestors, hand out Slim Jims, and promote Ron Paul. We even offered to custom make them a sign which they took us up on. We also made our own sign that said, "'Just Come Home' Ron Paul 08"

According to Tim, some of the things they were yelling to people in their cars was pretty abrasive. I never witnessed that, but I did notice A LOT of people honking in approval. I did take the opportunity to talk up Ron Paul as we stood their with our sign amongst the other anti-war people. One girl I was chatting with said that she would have to vote for a woman if she had the chance. :confused: She better pull up a lawn chair if she's planning on voting for Hillary! She said that there were some things that she didn't like about Ron Paul although she didn't elaborate any further. I started talking about how he only votes for legislation that is authorized via the Constitution and talked about the 10th Amendment, but she didn't seem too interested.

I also spoke to some other punk-rock looking protestors about, well, everything lol. The Constitution, the subprime mortage fiasco and CDOs, inflation, the plummeting value of the dollar, the Federal Reserve, the war, and I really don't remember EVERYTHING. See I have this problem, I have all of this information in my head and I just unload it on people. Not that they minded, they were mostly nodding in approval. When it came to Ron Paul, one guy wanted to know about his family, like his mom and dad, what state he's a Congressman for. When I told him TX, he said, "Why the hell is he in TX? He needs to get the hell outta there!" :confused: Um okay. lol They wanted to know about his religion and if he had a strong Chrisitian backing (and I don't think they were asking because they were super-religious, I think they were trying to see if he had Bush's base-type supporters). Nevermind how he votes in public office which SHOULD be the measure by which you gauge your potential candidate.

There was also an increasingly large police presence. I'd estimate there were about 20-30 protestors. One lady asked me if they cops were here because of the Ron Paul group. LOL. Nevermind the cops were directly on the other side of the intersection where anti-war protest was taking place and our small group of six had met 100 yards southeast of there.

We didn't stay up there long, but we did leave our sign against a wall. Then it was off to the Balloon Race! The race didn't actually start until about 6pm I think and it was only about 12:30pm when we started walking towards the entrance to the event handing out Slim Jims all along the way. The estimated attendance to the Balloon Race was 100,000 :eek:

We were armed to the teeth with DVDs and Slim Jims; I had so many that even my double-bagged plastic bag started to rip.

At the entrance there were a lot of law enforcement officers and firefighters. We hit them up first.

Here's the fun part. About 2 minutes after that we were handing a Slim Jim to someone and this Park Ranger tells us that we're not allowed to hand out flyers because it's "solicitation"!! :rolleyes: Wrong people to say that to! Brandon asked him what law says that we can't hand out information on public property. It was absurd, we had to explain to him that it's our right to free speech on public property. He said that it was a private event on public property and unless you are a vendor then you can't hand anything out because it's solicitation. I told him solicitation is asking for something like money or donations and we were doing neither, we're handing out information and talking to people; that is not solicitiation! He wasn't having it, so he said something about talking to his boss and we just walked onward further into the event. Brandon gave two Slim Jims to two cops that were standing about 20 feet from where we were talking to the Park Ranger and then proceeded to give Slim Jims to every cop we saw throughout and there were a lot of cops!

The best part was there were people handing out all kinds of stuff for the kids there and little plastic American flags with, "Made in China" printed on the side! ROFL

For the next seven hours we CANVASSED the place. Brandon went up to almost every single group of people and persons that was laying out on their blankets, lawn chairs, and whatnot while I shadowed him working the foot traffic area behind, giving him DVDs when needed and more SlimJims as I had a TON!

I would detail every conversation I had, but that would require typing waaaaaaaay too much. I'll summarize by saying that there are a lot of conservatives in St. Louis and it wasn't a hard sell. It was great meeting people that actually know about the Constitution and educating the ones that don't. It was also great talking in depth about monetary policy, the Federal Reserve, the North American Union, some of the most important matters at hand, and yet the media fails miserably to inform most of these otherwise intelligent people as to what's going on. It felt awesome to be able to discuss these matters articulatly, intelligently, and meticulously; all the reading, research, and study paid off handsomely! :D

One thing that I did find the media does a great job of doing is brainwashing people. As one lady was a Ron Paul supporter, but thought we needed to invade Iran :confused: NEO-CONNED!! *shakes fist at sky* I had a great conversation with this woman up until that point and we just utterly parted ways. I'm not saying that we had a heated debate, it was a cordial conversation, but man we have our work cut out for us on this! One other guy, was the same way, very reasonable, except he thought we should go to war with them because they're kiling our troops in Iraq. I said, "Did you notice for the evidence that Iranians were supplying the IEDS, they showed bombs with English written on them? Why would Iranians manufacture bombs with English? I haven't seen any substantive evidence that these claims are true." He didn't really have a reply for that.

I also hit up every vendor I got a beer from.

Towards the end of the day, I witnessed the fruits of our labors, "I already got one from your friend!!" Woot! 100,000 people and they said they already got one! ahahahah :D

Okay, this is the best one right here. When we were exiting the event as it was over (we were basically the last to leave aside from the vendors, cops, and firefighters), I was walking on the sidewalk handing out SlimJims and I was coming up on this lady I guesstimate was in her sixties. I handed her a Slim Jim and told her he was for the Constitution and individual liberty. Then she and her grandaugther(I think, she looked to be in her early teens) started reciting the Declaration of Indepedence WORD FOR WORD! :D

Man, that's a hell of a way to wrap up the day!

But it didn't end there, Brandon and I went out for pizza and beer and gave out Slim Jims and talked to people at the pizza parlor too! Picked up two more supporters! :D

Thanks to Laura, Tim, Steve, Eric, John (we spotted him around 5pm), and Brandon.

Most of all THANK YOU RON PAUL!

IN RON WE TRUST!

[Jared Callanan]

Derdy,

That's awesome, great work. Sounds like a lot of people did a lot of good things today. Lets keep it going.. Right through the week!

[derdy]

That was actually yesterday, but the St. Louis group hit up a parade in Belleville, IL and they said that it went REALLY well. I couldn't go because I'm stuck here at work

[Stealth4]

What do you say to people when walking around handing out slim jims? Or do you even say anything?

Also, what is your response to "Who is Ron Paul?" I havent gotten a good one liner for that yet.

[derdy]

What do you say to people when walking around handing out slim jims? Or do you even say anything?

Also, what is your response to "Who is Ron Paul?" I havent gotten a good one liner for that yet.

Yea, I usually ask people if they are interested in information about Ron Paul. He's a Constitutionalist running for President. Sometimes you get someone that wants to engage in lengthy discussion. others want to know a little, and the rest take the information and they'll read it.

For, "Who is Ron Paul?" I just say he's a Constitutionalist running for President on the Republican ticket. Pretty much sums it up.

I forgot to mention. One of the guys I was talking to saw Ron on the latest Fox News debates and he said that he looked a lot better during the O'Reilly interview!! lol

[Hurricane Bruiser]

Good work and very encouraging to hear.

[Liberty Rebellion]

One of my OPs :D