2012 Primaries -- "Naive" question, help appreciated!

[KurtBoyer25L]

I believe our best chance to make the Ron Paul Revolution a reality is to hijack the primaries in 2012 with a combination of registered Republicans, independents and classical liberals. I'm dismayed by the polls that give us single digits or teens in the GOP everywhere, but I think that can be overcome once a candidacy is officially announced, especially in open primary states.

But there's one thing I don't understand. The common wisdom seems to be that "If RP wins the Iowa caucus, and the New Hampshire primary, he's a lock!" But I don't quite follow this. Let's say in the five following primary states, Paul is trailing in the GOP polls by 5, 10, 20 pts. to Palin or Romney. Would voters in those five states really go, "Hm, I guess I am going to go vote for Ron Paul instead of the neoconservative candidate I've been brainwashed into, because Ron Paul won in New Hampshire."

It would be nice if it happens but I have to think it would still be a dogfight. Powerful career politicians with mega-rich buddies don't go gently into that good night, just see Hillary chaining herself to the door of the convention hall in '08. I would think in general the first few primaries tell the tale for either party, but just "naturally" -- like if a candidate is winning, he/she keeps winning. Would that many people really change their votes cogent on early state results?

But maybe there is a big sea-change in voting habits that occurs when someone wins an early primary. I'm new to politics, and maybe somebody here could educate me on the phenomenon. It'd be awesome to feel like we can focus on Iowa and a few other key states and thereby win the whole thing for Ron, but I'd like the process better explained to me before I count those chickens hatched.

[speciallyblend]

Ron Paul cannot win the nomination until we get rid of the corrupt gop establishment. the hurdle is not the dems or liberals!! it is the gop republican establishment who will do everything in their power to make sure ron paul is not the nominee in the gop in 2012!!!!!!.

Ron Paul or Gary Johnson 2012 or i know i will not be voting gop in 2012!! i will look elsewhere if the gop fails again!!

[tangent4ronpaul]

http://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_a/A060_Lemmings.jpg

Yeah - that's why I was trying to push for getting organized BEFORE RP declares his exploratory committee - so we could come out the door with a massive groundswell of support and pick up supporters via the lemming effect.

Failing that, accept that it's just going to be an educational campaign and we are going to loose again.

-t

[GunnyFreedom]

The first 2 are important because there are a LOT of psheople who, and I kid you not, will vote for the person who they think will win, regardless of anything else. They want to "pick the winner" so to speak, so they can brag about having voted for he guy who won. I call it "horserace voting" and I think it's a phenomenon of instant media.

The problem we end up with is that the media is no friend of Ron's, and so the horserace has to be overwhelming.

A hard early strategy could work very well indeed if you could turn overwhelming victories. Stock the horserace so to speak. If one horse comesout the gate and laps everyone, it's hard for even this media to hide that.

McCain won the primaries in 2008 specifically because he took the "horseracers" vote, IMHO. So yeah, it's an important part of the picture.

[klamath]

Winning Iowa and NH is not a lock but not not winning them is an absolute loss. RP would have to win at least one of the first primaries then go on to win the majority of the delegates on supper tuesday. That would go on to give him a near lock like it did McCain.
It is going to take a lot more wrong with the economy and the wars before RP will be viable though.

[South Park Fan]

Yes, believe it or not, Republican primary voters base their choices off of who won the previous primary. That's why McCain got momentum going into South Carolina from his New Hampshire win, which further allowed him to win Florida and the rest of the primary states.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Yes, a strong opening is needed.

At the same time, it is possible to bypass the media or do something they can't ignore.

Without getting into new tactics, some examples:

The blimp was out of the box and got lots of media attention.
The custom painted cars and vans often got media coverage.
County and State fairs are good places for a presence, as are banner or scrolling light overflights. However, to get table space for the summer ones, you need to reserve the space around when things kick off or earlier.

Ron's 2 home runs on books, really got his name out there. Heard he was working on another one. Similar mileage can be had with trying to push through legislation. The books are still paying off:

Amazon rankings

End the Fed:
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #3,760 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#36 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Leaders & Notable People > Political
#88 in Books > Professional & Technical > Accounting & Finance
#10 in Books > Business & Investing > Economics > Economic Policy & Development

The Revolution: A Manifesto:
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #5,993 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#54 in Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Political Science > Political Doctrines
#21 in Books > Nonfiction > Philosophy > Political
#49 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Leaders & Notable People > Political

Plus, he's getting plenty of face time on the news networks now, so that's good name and face recognition. We will see how well that keeps up.

-t

[cindy25]

money dries up quickly for losers; if RP wins Iowa, NH is a lock-and so is the nomination.

if he bypasses Iowa, and wins NH then SC he wins the nomination.

but Iowa is very hard; Christian pro-war pro-Israel types dominate the caucus as do senior citizens

[tangent4ronpaul]

Well, lets look at the Iowa Caucus and what happened.

First off YAL sent a contingent up, something like 150-200 people. There was no announcement about this to the Meetups and if there had been, considerably more boots on the ground could have been turned out. YAL also robbed to meetups of the potential members with the most energy and free time, so that hurt us for the whole campaign.

These folks were put up in an unheated summer camp(s?). One person had flu, and it spread like wildfire, effectively wiping out canvassing efforts. Then the canvassing DB got scrambled and there was no backup. There is still speculation as to if we were sabotaged.

Other campaigns bussed people in, bought them their ticket provided a days worth of entertainment and a BBQ or whatever. IIRC, we bought some people tickets and didn't have much of a show on the ground, but I'm going by second hand reports.

The Goul and McCain both decided to skip Iowa, but the RNC put them on the ballot anyway. This actually helped us a little. Combined they got about 300 votes, almost none of which would have probably gone to us.

the results:
Romney - 4,516
Huck - 2,587
Brownback - 2,192
Tancredo - 1,961
Paul - 1,305
rapidly declining numbers of votes after this.

Huck or Tancredo not running / being there probably would have helped us a lot.

Obviously, there is not a single major thing we did that came off well.

While expensive, and a hassle, it might be worth while to sponsor people willing to move there (new license, registration, room/board, etc) and the costs of moving back home - but the qualifications to vote are being a state resident, registered to vote and 18 or over. You don';t have to be registered republican. This might be useful as perhaps some Kucinich supporters might be persuaded to vote for Paul in exchange for voting for Kucinich if he runs again. Maybe not - they seem to use a delegate process.

There was also a CD project but it's unclear how successful that was.

total votes cast were 14,302

We can certainly do better next time!

-t

[Galileo Galilei]

I believe our best chance to make the Ron Paul Revolution a reality is to hijack the primaries in 2012 with a combination of registered Republicans, independents and classical liberals. I'm dismayed by the polls that give us single digits or teens in the GOP everywhere, but I think that can be overcome once a candidacy is officially announced, especially in open primary states.

But there's one thing I don't understand. The common wisdom seems to be that "If RP wins the Iowa caucus, and the New Hampshire primary, he's a lock!" But I don't quite follow this. Let's say in the five following primary states, Paul is trailing in the GOP polls by 5, 10, 20 pts. to Palin or Romney. Would voters in those five states really go, "Hm, I guess I am going to go vote for Ron Paul instead of the neoconservative candidate I've been brainwashed into, because Ron Paul won in New Hampshire."

It would be nice if it happens but I have to think it would still be a dogfight. Powerful career politicians with mega-rich buddies don't go gently into that good night, just see Hillary chaining herself to the door of the convention hall in '08. I would think in general the first few primaries tell the tale for either party, but just "naturally" -- like if a candidate is winning, he/she keeps winning. Would that many people really change their votes cogent on early state results?

But maybe there is a big sea-change in voting habits that occurs when someone wins an early primary. I'm new to politics, and maybe somebody here could educate me on the phenomenon. It'd be awesome to feel like we can focus on Iowa and a few other key states and thereby win the whole thing for Ron, but I'd like the process better explained to me before I count those chickens hatched.

Basically, Ron Paul needs to win the Iowa straw poll in August 2011. If he does that, all hell will break loose.

Reminder - by that time, Rand may very well be entrenched in the Senate, a new audit the Fed bill in the news, and the results of the partial audit of the $2.2 trillion in offbook transactions rolling in.

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

The only way Ron is going to win is if he campaigns like Barry did in the 64 Primaries. We have to outnumber their volunteers and manhours by such a huge margin. We are going to need at least 5x the number of volunteers and early supporters from out-of-state than the other top two candidates combined (at least). If we do that, we have a shot. If we don't....we'll, he will still do better than the 2nd go around, but he won't win. My optimism gives Ron 50/50 to win if he throws in.

[cindy25]

different party.

Barry did not have to deal with a religously dominated party

[Imperial]

You do have one point in that we need a coalition. I have started to notice that Ron Paul's supporters in one part of the country or even a given region are not the same as RP supporters in another area or region. For example, I think many Ron Paul supporters in Iowa are culturally conservative than those in New Hampshire. (some RP supporters in Iowa on the ExCom of the GOP there are actually old hats in their party who would be similar to the almost fundamentalist Constitution Party, while in NH we have the more cosmopolitan East Coasters and the more libertarian FSP). So it is important to enlist a wide coalition while keeping everybody onboard by not letting them get too divisive amongst each other.

[libertybrewcity]

I think we can outnumber every candidates volunteers combined. We can win Iowa or come in 2nd. The battle begins now.

If seniors and Christian conservatives prove too hard to win over than the our victory can win with college students. There are colleges all across Iowa that could collectively bring in thousands of Caucus voters granted they are residents of Iowa.

[cindy25]

residents of Iowa and registered Republicans. and they have to caucus near their home.

[tangent4ronpaul]

residents of Iowa and registered Republicans. and they have to caucus near their home.

Ummm... I thought we were talking about Aimes Iowa????

The Dems is diff.

-t

[ProBlue33]

Rudy was the leader of the pack & skipped Iowa, and got wiped out.
You cannot take super Tuesday to the bank anymore, doesn't matter what your numbers are before the primaries start. Look at Hilliary in 2008.

I agree people generally don't feel like "wasting" there vote and will vote for the guy they think they like the best that has a chance to win. That's why the top three that come out these early primaries have the best chance to win.
The MSM will be fixated on the GOP race too, because the Democrat one will be boring as it's incumbent is a lock.

Ron Paul needs a top three finish, in the early primary states or it's over.

The true political revolutionaries should be moving to Iowa and NH as soon as Ron announces a run , if they can afford to do it. Then they can effect the revolution from the front lines, where it is most critical.

[Galileo Galilei]

Ron Paul needs to win the Iowa starw poll. Based on the numbers, he can do it. He got 1300 votes last time before all the moneybombs and publicity. Now, 5000 to 8000 would be a win. His competition is Romney, Huckabee, and Pawlenty.

[klamath]

Rudy was the leader of the pack & skipped Iowa, and got wiped out.
You cannot take super Tuesday to the bank anymore, doesn't matter what your numbers are before the primaries start. Look at Hilliary in 2008.

I agree people generally don't feel like "wasting" there vote and will vote for the guy they think they like the best that has a chance to win. That's why the top three that come out these early primaries have the best chance to win.
The MSM will be fixated on the GOP race too, because the Democrat one will be boring as it's incumbent is a lock.

Ron Paul needs a top three finish, in the early primary states or it's over.

The true political revolutionaries should be moving to Iowa and NH as soon as Ron announces a run , if they can afford to do it. Then they can effect the revolution from the front lines, where it is most critical.

RP needs a win in at least one early primary! He WILL lose if he doesn't.

[klamath]

Ron Paul needs to win the Iowa starw poll. Based on the numbers, he can do it. He got 1300 votes last time before all the moneybombs and publicity. Now, 5000 to 8000 would be a win. His competition is Romney, Huckabee, and Pawlenty.
Their will be a lot higher turnout this time. The republicans were totally demoralized in 08. This time they will be motivated to turn out.

[Galileo Galilei]

Their will be a lot higher turnout this time. The republicans were totally demoralized in 08. This time they will be motivated to turn out.

Bush got about 8000 votes in 1999.

[KurtBoyer25L]

Thanks gang.

Seems like with proper organization in every county we could win Iowa. The key seems like those young voters.

[libertybrewcity]

Would people really move to Iowa just to vote in the straw poll and election? Seems kinda ridiculous but all the more power to them.

[Volitzer]

Have Ron Paul run on the Libertarian Party and Constitution Party tickets. I mean hell Obama ran on the Republican and Democrat tickets.