Ames Straw Poll!!!

[Elwar]

The Ames Straw Poll is just over a year away. This will be the first battle of the 2012 presidential election. Ron Paul needs to win this big. If he wins it by a big enough margin he could be seen as the frontrunner for the rest of the election. And Republicans love front runners. All they want is someone they can follow to go against the Democrats, all you have to do is provide them with whom they need to follow.

TV and radio advertising spots are a whole heck of a lot cheaper the longer out you purchase them. It would be great if we could buy up every last spot in all of the areas surrounding Ames, IA in order to coordinate people to get to the poll and vote for Ron Paul. Fill the newspapers with ads, everything.

We can buy the spots now but create the ads later. We need chip ins, left and right from people who have different TV stations and radio stations covered. Chip ins for newspaper ads, billboards, everything.

The 2011 Ames Straw poll needs to be the 2011 Ron Paul Straw Poll.

[Bruno]

I'm down for the chip-ins! Even running some general radio spots with a liberty, constitution, economic, or anti-war theme would be a good idea.

[jake]

Here's a (not so profound) prediction: If Ron Paul does not win the Ames Straw Poll, he will not win the nomination

[Elwar]

I predict that Ron Paul will have so much support going into the Ames Straw Poll from the grassroots that the establishment candidates will skip it.

[Elwar]

2007 Ames Straw Poll results:
1 Mitt Romney 4,516 31.6%
2 Mike Huckabee 2,587 18.1%
3 Sam Brownback 2,192 15.3%
4 Tom Tancredo 1,961 13.7%
5 Ron Paul 1,305 9.1%
6 Tommy Thompson 1,039 7.3%
7 Fred Thompson 203 1.4%
8 Rudy Giuliani 183 1.3%
9 Duncan Hunter 174 1.2%
10 John McCain 101 0.7%
11 John H. Cox 41 0.3%

(McCain and Giuliani announced that they were skipping the straw poll)

[pcosmar]

Get this Song on the radios all across the area.
It will set the proper mood.

YouTube - My Country My Ass (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7JY-pn-OkM)

Heck,,get it on radios everywhere.

[fisharmor]

The 2000 Ames straw poll is the only one where the winner went on to win the nomination.
Not that I wouldn't like to see RP win... it'd be great to get the publicity started early, but it's obviously not the end-all-be-all of the cycle.

[MRK]

The Ames Straw Poll is just over a year away. This will be the first battle of the 2012 presidential election. Ron Paul needs to win this big. If he wins it by a big enough margin he could be seen as the frontrunner for the rest of the election. And Republicans love front runners. All they want is someone they can follow to go against the Democrats, all you have to do is provide them with whom they need to follow.

TV and radio advertising spots are a whole heck of a lot cheaper the longer out you purchase them. It would be great if we could buy up every last spot in all of the areas surrounding Ames, IA in order to coordinate people to get to the poll and vote for Ron Paul. Fill the newspapers with ads, everything.

We can buy the spots now but create the ads later. We need chip ins, left and right from people who have different TV stations and radio stations covered. Chip ins for newspaper ads, billboards, everything.

The 2011 Ames Straw poll needs to be the 2011 Ron Paul Straw Poll.

Great idea! You know the rule for having great ideas: you have to be the one to get the ball rolling! Build it and they will come.

[Elwar]

The 2000 Ames straw poll is the only one where the winner went on to win the nomination.
Not that I wouldn't like to see RP win... it'd be great to get the publicity started early, but it's obviously not the end-all-be-all of the cycle.

If he wins that straw poll by a huge amount, the media won't be able to marginalize him throughout the whole campaign like last time.

He'll be the one in the middle during the debates getting 10+ minutes per debate instead of 1+ minutes. The media will go to him when something political comes up to get the Republican perspective. He won't be excluded from debates or phone polls like last time.

[bucfish]

How bout a BLIMP for Ames!!!

[John Taylor]

How bout a BLIMP for Ames!!!

What a horrible idea.

[Kregisen]

What a horrible idea.

I know.........we need 2 blimps.

[John Taylor]

I know.........we need 2 blimps.

Haha.

People need to realize what happens at the straw poll... I've worked at the poll every election since 1995, and it doesn't really matter how much advertising you do AT the poll... (it helps slightly to have a litany of Texan bands and great food like Bush in 1999, but you can only "buy" so many people there), what matters is to have your people from all over Iowa SHOW up. Blimps in Ames won't reach voters in Waterloo.

[KCIndy]

what matters is to have your people from all over Iowa SHOW up. Blimps in Ames won't reach voters in Waterloo.


Name recognition counts for a lot. We need to get some sort of statewide Ron Paul PR campaign running in Iowa... not just for the straw poll, but because it never hurts to get Ron's name out there in front of the Iowa voters for '12.

[Elwar]

Great idea! You know the rule for having great ideas: you have to be the one to get the ball rolling! Build it and they will come.

It'd be better if our Iowa folks could get something going but I'll see what I can do.

[itshappening]

we need a properly professionally run grassroots LibertyPAC, with fundraising goals and the ability to work independently of the campaign so we can take things in our own direction i.e buy up ads and get down and dirty hitting Romney for his support of Romneycare and Huckabee for his release of a felon who then committed murder and Newt for supporting Cap and Trade, present Dr. Paul as the only consistent conservative and take on our perceived opponents like Rand did in Kentucky.

We need to frame the message and the debate whilst pushing Ron Paul as the only rational choice

I believe if we work hard enough and bombard Iowa with ads, grassroots and official campaign ones, we can achieve our victory in the caucus but we must "look" and act like a player and attack our opponents so we look to be part of the debate rather than an irrelevance. We do this by attacking our opponents and then presenting Dr. Paul, telling his story and showing he is the consistent conservative