In 2012, who will learn the lessons of Rep. Paul’s last presidential campaign?

[low preference guy]

Article from the American Conservative

Running Like Ron by Paul Mulshine

Link (http://www.amconmag.com/blog/running-like-ron/)


On a November Saturday, Paul had scheduled a rally not far from my office at the Star-Ledger of New Jersey. My libertarian friends had told me about it, so I drove over, expecting to see the usual hundred or so hard-core anti-statists huddled around their hero.

When I got there, I was shocked. There had to be 5,000 people crowding the mall. Guys in business suits. Hipsters with nose rings. Vietnam vets wearing hats identifying their units. It was a political Woodstock. I half-expected Arlo Guthrie to get up there and proclaim, “The New York Thruway’s closed, man!”—except that the rally was being held in Philadelphia. Sandwiched between the Liberty Bell and the Federal Reserve building, Paul gave a speech that reflected on each symbol.

Something big was happening here, but it didn’t make the news. I discovered why at a press conference scheduled to take place in a nearby Holiday Inn. When I showed up at the appointed time, I saw a podium and microphone on one end and coffee and donuts on the other. But there was no press, just me and a couple guys from weekly newspapers out in the sticks. There was a TV station just down the street. A few blocks away was the building that houses the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. But no reporters had shown up, and no one on the staff seemed to have heard about the press conference they’d scheduled.

I figured I’d just get a few quotes from the candidate on my own. But when I started to interview Paul, I was rudely interrupted by a campaign staffer who told me the media would have to clear out because campaign contributors were coming in.

I’ve been covering politics since 1975, and this was the single most amateurish stunt I’d seen. It’s standard practice for any campaign to list events in the Associated Press Daybook, a compendium of events that editors rely on when assigning reporters. Most campaigns also send out emails to the usual suspects in the media. The Paul staffers did neither.

When I wrote about it afterward, I got emails from Paul supporters in places like New Hampshire who had similar stories of staff incompetence. The problem wasn’t lack of funds. The candidate’s young supporters had begun those “money bombs” by then. They raised $4 million in just one day in early November. But in an interview with Roll Call that week, Paul said he had no plans to hire professional consultants.

Read the rest. (http://www.amconmag.com/blog/running-like-ron/)

[tangent4ronpaul]

http://www.ccmc.org/node/15920

Daybooks

Daybooks are event calendars posted by wire services and larger news organizations in Washington, D.C. and other good-sized cities that list each day's area news events. Basic details are given for each event, including: location, time, speaker and contact person. Editors use daybooks to assign reporters and photographers to events they've chosen to cover.

Daybooks Quick Tips

Fax or e-mail your media advisory to the daybook editor no later than noon the day before the event . Follow up with a phone call to make sure your advisory has been received. Listings for the following day start to appear about 2:00 p.m. Check the listings to make sure yours is posted and is accurate.

If the event is occurring outside Washington , call The Associated Press (AP) wire service bureau in that location and send a media advisory to its daybook. Phone numbers for AP bureaus are listed in the News Media Yellow Book or can be found on the AP Web site.

Weekly Daybook Quick Tips

If you have enough lead time before an event (five days is ideal), fax or e-mail your advisory no later than noon on Thursday of the week before the event. Weekly listings start to appear about 1:30 p.m. on Fridays. Check the listings to make sure yours is posted and is accurate.
If an event is listed on the weekly daybook , it will automatically be listed on the daily daybook, too.

D.C. Daybooks

After faxing/e-mailing, call and ask to speak to the daybook editor to make sure the information was received and will be placed in the daybook.

Associated Press (highest priority): Fax to 202/736-9699 or e-mail daybook@ap.org; Phone 202/736-9696.

Congressional Monitor (This daily morning newsletter accepts event listings up to 48 hours before they occur): Fax to 202/419-8753; Phone 202/887-8515.

Federal News Service (Also goes to Washington Times, National Journal; Roll Call and others): Fax to 301/429-2752 or e-mail agenda@find-inc.com; Phone 202/544-4812.

Reuters : Fax to 202/898-8401; Phone 202/898-8345.

United Press International (UPI): Prefers e-mail focusgroup@upi.com (doesn't accept faxes); Phone 202/898-8291.

Washington Times : Fax to 202/544-4825. E-mail and phone numbers same as Federal News Service.

[acptulsa]

Thank you, tangent. I doubt Rep. Paul will stop by Oklahoma, but if he does I shall see to the notifications personally. If I can get close enough, I will advocate for the represenatives of the more important and potentially fair outlets personally. Mods/admins, I nominate this thread for sticky status.

I don't care if the campaign learns these lessons or not, so long as we do. We are the campaign.

[LibertyEagle]

I remember when this happened. The author is absolutely right.

[ItsTime]

The lack of press was not because these stations did not know Ron would be there. We (grassroots) almost ALWAYS had email bombs and phone calls to local new stations to let them know he was coming.

Take for instance one of the rallies Ron Paul had here in New Hampshire. Me and several other people called every local paper and news station to let them know he would be there, time ect. 200+ supporters went to the rally 2 reporters. Where the hell were all the other reporters? Covering McCain and the 12 supporters that went to his rally. Yes, there was more press than actual supporters at the McCain rally. And this was when McCain was only getting 10%ish in the polls.

Should Ron Pauls staff be more professional, send out media packets, announce dates, and just be profession? yes, but that is not the reason media was not covering him.

[LibertyEagle]

It was on that one, ItsTime. A certain person from Paul's campaign actually turned the media away from a scheduled appointment that he had setup. It was flat out disgusting.

There also were a multitude of incidences of the campaign not returning phone calls from the media.

[low preference guy]

Should Ron Pauls staff be more professional, send out media packets, announce dates, and just be profession? yes, but that is not the reason media was not covering him.

So you are saying that Paul Mulshine is lying and he was not turned down?

[acptulsa]

All of these questions are nothing more or less than reason enough to take it into our own hands. It's all confirmation. Maybe Benton et al are covering their butts, maybe the media shills are trying to retroactively restore their shattered credibility, maybe a little of both. But I say we duplicate whatever efforts the campaign may or may not be making, so we can confirm or contradict the campaign staff's and/or the media's assertions.

Seems like a lesson 2008 is trying to teach us to me. Besides, an expression of local interest should do nothing to harm our chances of getting local media's attention to the cause.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Yeah - it's starting to feel like Deja-vu again with the campaign. Called his "testing the water" campaign committee last week a couple of times and am stil waiting for a call back. 1-800-RON-PAUL (766-7285) As far as I can tell, the campaign committee consists of an answering service and some guy with a pager who doesn't know how to dial a telephone. :(

[lynnf]

It was on that one, ItsTime. A certain person from Paul's campaign actually turned the media away from a scheduled appointment that he had setup. It was flat out disgusting.

There also were a multitude of incidences of the campaign not returning phone calls from the media.

from what I've heard, it wasn't just the media's calls that weren't being returned by some staff.

lynn

[sailingaway]

Benton worked on the 2008 campaign, and he admits its shortcomings. “Ron kind of had to go to battle with the army he had,” said Benton. “The team was all people who were very hard-working, but it was a team you could get when expected to be a 2-3 percenter.”
Those “money bombs” were great, he recalled, but much of the money came in on Dec. 16, 2007—“Tea Party Day” in Massachusetts. The $6 million raised that day set records. But the money arrived less than three weeks before the New Hampshire primary, Benton recalls. Too late for television advertising. “If Ron were to run again he would put a big focus on raising the money up front,” said Benton.

note^^

[tangent4ronpaul]

As to recognition, just did a few google searches.

The good news:
Ron Paul ~10 Million matches
Mitt Romney ~5.5 Million matches

The bad news:
Donald Trump ~18.4 Million matches

OK - so we have to get Paul booked on dancing with the stars and American Idol ASAP :D

OK, to be serious this time... we need to do two things that are all about momentum.

First, we need to reconstitute the Meetups and make the swelling of our ranks EXPLODE as soon as he announces. Right now we are down ~1,400 Meetups and there are 40,000 people looking for a Meetup. That means their Meetup went away. It's actually more than that, because a lot of people joined other, not local meetups in their state when theirs went away. If we can get back to 2,000+ Meetups and 120,000 supporters, things will snowball.

For comparison, Obama has 56 Meetups with 8,907 members and 9,180 interested
Looks like Trump has one meetup with a single member
Romney has one meetup with 7 members and 125 interested
Huck has 20 Meetups with 1,641 members and 11,598 interested
Palin has 5 meetups with 1,042 members and 90 interested

Second - we need to have a really HUGE moneybomb.

[sailingaway]

Yes, Ron needs the money up front to hire the right team right away.

I think it is fitting Trump has only one meetup with a single member.

Just the one guy, and his mirror.

[Matt Collins]

from what I've heard, it wasn't just the media's calls that weren't being returned by some staff.HA HA HA! Back in 2008 at a Nashville event Rand spoke at he told me that even he couldn't get his calls returned, much less answered by the campaign a lot of the time :(

It was pretty bad.

[Matt Collins]

It was on that one, ItsTime. A certain person from Paul's campaign actually turned the media away from a scheduled appointment that he had setup. It was flat out disgusting.

There also were a multitude of incidences of the campaign not returning phone calls from the media.
Yep, very true. I can confirm this first hand.


The lack of press was not because these stations did not know Ron would be there. We (grassroots) almost ALWAYS had email bombs and phone calls to local new stations to let them know he was coming.Not always. Yes the media was blacklisting him. Some of that (not all though) was in response to the way the '08 Campaign behaved and treated the media. They didn't act very serious, so the media didn't treat or take them seriously.




Should Ron Pauls staff be more professional, send out media packets, announce dates, and just be profession? yes, but that is not the reason media was not covering him.It's some of it, as was their bias. Again, if they don't take it seriously, they won't cover it.



But EVERYTHING for the most part has changed since 2008. There will be a day and night difference in how things work. It will not be perfect as no campaign ever is. If you look for perfection you're going to be disappointed. However it will be infinitely better this time around. Ron has a lot of experienced professionals surrounding him this time unlike 2008.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Yes, Ron needs the money up front to hire the right team right away.



Paul already has millions and paid his staff well, last time. Obscene salaries don't = competence. Besides, all the staff salaries combined are a drop in the bucket when you look at ad buys.

[tangent4ronpaul]

it will be infinitely better this time around. Ron has a lot of experienced professionals surrounding him this time unlike 2008.

He does?

Do you have any names?

-t