rp08orbust
04-06-2010, 07:27 AM
The race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination began at CPAC in February. We know this because of the torrent of vitriol against Ron Paul that gushed forth over the internet after his straw poll victory. Nearly everything that was thrown at him during the 2008 campaign returned with a vengeance, only compressed into about one week's worth of blogging, editorializing and talk show ranting. But after that first week, all mention of CPAC suddenly vanished. Everyone seemed satisfied with the conclusion that CPAC was a fluke--that Ron Paul had "packed the convention" with libertarians, teenagers and gays, and that there was no way he could do it again at the SRLC, which, as everyone agreed, would be the real test of who is a serious contender for 2012. Furthermore, it was just too early to matter--the presidential race hadn't really begun, which of course was a lie.
Nearly every candidate tried to pack CPAC. Mitt Romney certainly tried, as he had done the previous three years with much greater success. The only difference is that this year, thanks to a conservative base increasingly radicalized for freedom by an overreaching Obama administration, Ron Paul was able to do the best job of packing CPAC by exploiting a new favorable political environment. No Paulite claims that 31% of the Republican electorate is now in Ron Paul's camp. But neither does anyone believe that Mitt Romney's support is three times that of Sarah Palin, who received a measly 7% to Romney's 22%. Obviously, Mitt did his own convention packing--it just wasn't as good as Ron's.
But the consensus among the pundit class is that Ron Paul's CPAC victory was a fluke, and therefore that the straw poll was a false start for the 2012 presidential race. The new starting line is now the Southern Republican Leadership Conference this weekend. And that is why Ron Paul must win the straw poll.
If Ron Paul does win the SRLC straw poll, the response from the pundit class will be exactly the same. Ron Paul will have been the only candidate to "pack the convention" again, the straw poll will have been rendered meaningless, it will be declared another false start to the presidential race, and a new starting line will be announced (perhaps the Values Voter Summit in September?). The difference is that the conventional wisdom on Ron's upset victory will be half as convincing to the public as it was last time, because they will have been twice assured that Ron Paul was just a sideshow, and yet twice he stole the show. Another bump in the polls will follow, just like after CPAC, as Republican voters become a little less ashamed to tell pollsters that they just might prefer Ron Paul over any of the other impostors for small-government. Rinse and repeat at the next straw poll. Before long, Ron Paul will be the only candidate running, and therefore the front-runner by default, in a presidential race that everyone insists has not yet begun. By the time they finally admit that the race is on, Ron Paul will already have a nice lead.
What happens if Ron Paul does not win the SRLC straw poll? First of all, anything other than a first place finish will be utterly dismissed. I'm confident that Ron Paul will have a very respectable showing in the straw poll by any objective standards, but that won't be good enough. Even when Ron Paul won first place at CPAC, the brazen Fox News analysts trumpeted Romney's huge lead over Sarah Palin as the "real story here" (which he somehow accomplished, of course, without even the teensy-weensiest bit of convention-packing that the Ronulans engaged in), leaving his crushing defeat by Ron Paul as a footnote.
So "winning" at SRLC means coming out on top in the straw poll. Actually, it means winning by more than a full percentage point, because any less of a lead will be declared a "tie", and the "real story" will be about whoever "tied" with him.
If Ron Paul's supporters fail to accomplish this for him, the conventional wisdom will have been proven correct to the public. The fact that other presidential candidates planned their convention-packing for months, while Ron Paul was only recently invited to the SRLC will not matter at all. April 10 will be declared the beginning of the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, whoever won the straw poll will be declared the front-runner, Ron Paul will be back to quixotic dark horse status, PPP will drop him from their top tier of presidential polling (a position I believe he attained only because of his CPAC victory), and the Ron Paul blackout will have begun afresh.
Furthermore, as much as I hate to admit it, I'll have to seriously question whether Ron Paul has any better of a chance at winning the Republican nomination in 2012 than he did in 2008. More importantly, Ron Paul himself will have to be asking the same question. This stage of the race is Ron Paul's sweet spot: It is dominated by straw polls that are small enough to be won by ardent factions of the Republican Party, but large enough to attract major headlines. The SRLC straw poll is as good as it's going to get for us. If we can't win this for Ron Paul, then how can we possibly win the Ames, Iowa straw poll in 2011, which has 10 times the turnout? And if we can't win the Ames straw poll, how can we win the Iowa caucus, which is several times larger still? And if we can't win the Iowa caucus, how can we win any primary? Each of these polls is practice for the next, and if we fail at any one of them, then Ron Paul immediately falls back to where he started. Such is not the grim reality for all candidates, but it is for Ron Paul, who as we know, is in a special class of his own, where Fox News' arbitrary definitions of electability ("Do you have any?") shape reality.
While the straw poll faze of the presidential race is the most favorable for Ron Paul, it is also the most favorable for all of the other underdog candidates as well. Losing the SRLC straw poll, or any of the upcoming straw polls, means an opportunity for one of the middle or lower-tier candidates like Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty or Haley Barbour to grab headlines and demonstrate their electability, just as Mike Huckabee did by coming in second at the Ames, Iowa straw poll in 2007. We cannot allow that to happen. Ron Paul must monopolize the position in the race as the novel alternative candidate with the potential to threaten the front-runners in Iowa and New Hampshire. As soon as Gingrich, Pawlenty or Barbour wins a straw poll, that's all the pundits will talk about--Ron Paul will be instantly displaced. To maximize Ron's chances of winning the race, we must keep the race between him and the same old worn-out empty suits he ran against last time.
If we fail to make the SRLC a success for Ron Paul, Campaign for Liberty will be far less inclined to invest so much in the next straw poll. Ron Paul might be less inclined to venture in front of more hostile audiences than the university campuses he has grown comfortable with, meaning the kind of aggressive outreach by the official campaign that is necessary to win a caucus or primary will not happen any more than it did in 2008. Ron Paul supporters will be less persuaded that he can win the next straw poll and that sacrificing a weekend is worth their time. In short, the early momentum established by CPAC will be lost.
We therefore cannot let Ron Paul lose this straw poll. We need to treat it with the same zeal that drove the Christmas break canvassing in Iowa or Operation Live Free or Die in New Hampshire for the 2008 race. If you are attending the SRLC, then take the next couple days to become the biggest pain in the ass to your friends and relatives you can be until one more of them agrees to come with you and vote for Ron. And once you get to New Orleans, vote, and then don't return to the convention until you've found at least one stranger in Harrah's casino who is willing to be dragged to the convention for half an hour to vote for Ron Paul. In fact, don't stop canvassing at the casino until Campaign for Liberty runs out of free tickets to give away. Tell those gamblers that unless Ron Paul wins the presidency in 2012, their favorite pastime may not be legal the next time they visit the Big Easy.
If you are not attending the convention, then why not? Are you saving your radical sacrifice for the Iowa caucus or the New Hampshire primary, by which time if Ron Paul has not been the straw poll champion all along, the blackout will have already firmly settled over his campaign as it did in 2008? Don't wait for it to be too late. We never enjoyed this stage of the race that favors ardent factions like ours last time around, and it would be an utter shame to let it pass us by again.
If everyone does go all out, there's no way Ron Paul can lose the straw poll, and Ron Paul 2012 will be a little bit closer to a reality.
Nearly every candidate tried to pack CPAC. Mitt Romney certainly tried, as he had done the previous three years with much greater success. The only difference is that this year, thanks to a conservative base increasingly radicalized for freedom by an overreaching Obama administration, Ron Paul was able to do the best job of packing CPAC by exploiting a new favorable political environment. No Paulite claims that 31% of the Republican electorate is now in Ron Paul's camp. But neither does anyone believe that Mitt Romney's support is three times that of Sarah Palin, who received a measly 7% to Romney's 22%. Obviously, Mitt did his own convention packing--it just wasn't as good as Ron's.
But the consensus among the pundit class is that Ron Paul's CPAC victory was a fluke, and therefore that the straw poll was a false start for the 2012 presidential race. The new starting line is now the Southern Republican Leadership Conference this weekend. And that is why Ron Paul must win the straw poll.
If Ron Paul does win the SRLC straw poll, the response from the pundit class will be exactly the same. Ron Paul will have been the only candidate to "pack the convention" again, the straw poll will have been rendered meaningless, it will be declared another false start to the presidential race, and a new starting line will be announced (perhaps the Values Voter Summit in September?). The difference is that the conventional wisdom on Ron's upset victory will be half as convincing to the public as it was last time, because they will have been twice assured that Ron Paul was just a sideshow, and yet twice he stole the show. Another bump in the polls will follow, just like after CPAC, as Republican voters become a little less ashamed to tell pollsters that they just might prefer Ron Paul over any of the other impostors for small-government. Rinse and repeat at the next straw poll. Before long, Ron Paul will be the only candidate running, and therefore the front-runner by default, in a presidential race that everyone insists has not yet begun. By the time they finally admit that the race is on, Ron Paul will already have a nice lead.
What happens if Ron Paul does not win the SRLC straw poll? First of all, anything other than a first place finish will be utterly dismissed. I'm confident that Ron Paul will have a very respectable showing in the straw poll by any objective standards, but that won't be good enough. Even when Ron Paul won first place at CPAC, the brazen Fox News analysts trumpeted Romney's huge lead over Sarah Palin as the "real story here" (which he somehow accomplished, of course, without even the teensy-weensiest bit of convention-packing that the Ronulans engaged in), leaving his crushing defeat by Ron Paul as a footnote.
So "winning" at SRLC means coming out on top in the straw poll. Actually, it means winning by more than a full percentage point, because any less of a lead will be declared a "tie", and the "real story" will be about whoever "tied" with him.
If Ron Paul's supporters fail to accomplish this for him, the conventional wisdom will have been proven correct to the public. The fact that other presidential candidates planned their convention-packing for months, while Ron Paul was only recently invited to the SRLC will not matter at all. April 10 will be declared the beginning of the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, whoever won the straw poll will be declared the front-runner, Ron Paul will be back to quixotic dark horse status, PPP will drop him from their top tier of presidential polling (a position I believe he attained only because of his CPAC victory), and the Ron Paul blackout will have begun afresh.
Furthermore, as much as I hate to admit it, I'll have to seriously question whether Ron Paul has any better of a chance at winning the Republican nomination in 2012 than he did in 2008. More importantly, Ron Paul himself will have to be asking the same question. This stage of the race is Ron Paul's sweet spot: It is dominated by straw polls that are small enough to be won by ardent factions of the Republican Party, but large enough to attract major headlines. The SRLC straw poll is as good as it's going to get for us. If we can't win this for Ron Paul, then how can we possibly win the Ames, Iowa straw poll in 2011, which has 10 times the turnout? And if we can't win the Ames straw poll, how can we win the Iowa caucus, which is several times larger still? And if we can't win the Iowa caucus, how can we win any primary? Each of these polls is practice for the next, and if we fail at any one of them, then Ron Paul immediately falls back to where he started. Such is not the grim reality for all candidates, but it is for Ron Paul, who as we know, is in a special class of his own, where Fox News' arbitrary definitions of electability ("Do you have any?") shape reality.
While the straw poll faze of the presidential race is the most favorable for Ron Paul, it is also the most favorable for all of the other underdog candidates as well. Losing the SRLC straw poll, or any of the upcoming straw polls, means an opportunity for one of the middle or lower-tier candidates like Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty or Haley Barbour to grab headlines and demonstrate their electability, just as Mike Huckabee did by coming in second at the Ames, Iowa straw poll in 2007. We cannot allow that to happen. Ron Paul must monopolize the position in the race as the novel alternative candidate with the potential to threaten the front-runners in Iowa and New Hampshire. As soon as Gingrich, Pawlenty or Barbour wins a straw poll, that's all the pundits will talk about--Ron Paul will be instantly displaced. To maximize Ron's chances of winning the race, we must keep the race between him and the same old worn-out empty suits he ran against last time.
If we fail to make the SRLC a success for Ron Paul, Campaign for Liberty will be far less inclined to invest so much in the next straw poll. Ron Paul might be less inclined to venture in front of more hostile audiences than the university campuses he has grown comfortable with, meaning the kind of aggressive outreach by the official campaign that is necessary to win a caucus or primary will not happen any more than it did in 2008. Ron Paul supporters will be less persuaded that he can win the next straw poll and that sacrificing a weekend is worth their time. In short, the early momentum established by CPAC will be lost.
We therefore cannot let Ron Paul lose this straw poll. We need to treat it with the same zeal that drove the Christmas break canvassing in Iowa or Operation Live Free or Die in New Hampshire for the 2008 race. If you are attending the SRLC, then take the next couple days to become the biggest pain in the ass to your friends and relatives you can be until one more of them agrees to come with you and vote for Ron. And once you get to New Orleans, vote, and then don't return to the convention until you've found at least one stranger in Harrah's casino who is willing to be dragged to the convention for half an hour to vote for Ron Paul. In fact, don't stop canvassing at the casino until Campaign for Liberty runs out of free tickets to give away. Tell those gamblers that unless Ron Paul wins the presidency in 2012, their favorite pastime may not be legal the next time they visit the Big Easy.
If you are not attending the convention, then why not? Are you saving your radical sacrifice for the Iowa caucus or the New Hampshire primary, by which time if Ron Paul has not been the straw poll champion all along, the blackout will have already firmly settled over his campaign as it did in 2008? Don't wait for it to be too late. We never enjoyed this stage of the race that favors ardent factions like ours last time around, and it would be an utter shame to let it pass us by again.
If everyone does go all out, there's no way Ron Paul can lose the straw poll, and Ron Paul 2012 will be a little bit closer to a reality.