Zack
05-10-2011, 11:48 PM
**First note: if you actually want to raise your personal influence or name by being seen as "organizing" any moneybombs, past or present, then I think you're missing out on the whole revolution, itself. Having said that, my best hope is that we can get a sense of what most people prefer for July 4th in this thread or another thread very soon, and that my points are considered.**
So I've been considering this business of a July 4th moneybomb since CPAC, I've searched through recent posts and I've talked to a few of you about it because I consider it the best chance to actually raise money outside of Paul's base support for the next few months, at least.
Paul's base of support (if you include new supporters throughout the year) is probably going to give him around $35 million this year. The number might be wrong, but whatever the number, it will be roughly the same whether there is an online fundraiser every month, or only 3 for the rest of the year. Yes, we all know the benefits of a steady stream of money, but for the most part, it is what is known as a zero-sum game, whether the campaign grasps this or not. I know for a fact that the Nov 5th/Dec 16 moneybombs raised money for the campaign from people that would otherwise not be involved, because the events were (both, paradoxically) seen as historic and singular. Many who didn't even think of themselves as Paul supporters donated. For history.
I don't expect the Ready, Ames, Fire online fundraiser to match the July 4th one, even if it IS pushed heavily by the official campaign, so I'm setting that (and June 5th and other dates) aside for the purposes of this post.
Some people have been wanting the moneybomb date to be July 2nd, in honor of the day the Decleration was voted on, and perhaps because people might be less occupied than on the 4th, that being a major holiday. Here is a website created in support of this day:
http://www.thisjuly2nd.com/
I see that Trevor L. has posted a big list of days he wants there to be moneybombs. From my perspective, it almost seems designed to keep us at that base 35 million, and not to get money from people interested in being part of something singular and historic, but I suppose others disagree. His list is here:
RPF thread link (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?292163-An-email-from-Trevor-Lyman-Presidential-Moneybomb-schedule)
In fact, he says in the message:
As a solution to the lessons learned from the past we are rolling out a monthly moneybomb calendar for the Ron Paul campaign during the 2011-12 presidential race. Yes, we should strive to raise as much money as we can during each event and I do believe we can reach the ten million per month mark before too long (perhaps even more), but more importantly we need to give the campaign a constant flow of money to work with.
As you can tell from what I've written, I think the ten million per month thing is baseless, but what I want to focus on is the July date. He gives July 4th-5th. I presume the reasoning behind this is that July 5th is a weekday and we want people to have a date other than a major holiday, but it doesn't seem to make much sense to me. How would you even describe the donation period? You can't say "July 4th weekend!", which is easy to grasp and spread. It would be: "Come donate on July 4th!... oh, and some Tuesday..." I must admit that after thinking about this for a while, I do agree with multiple days being the answer to the "major holiday" problem. Here is his site for July 4th-5th:
http://www.independencedaybomb.com/
Some have also suggested having it be only July 4th, and that even though some will miss out while they celebrate, it's still best to keep it on one day, and use the most obvious day.
Some have also suggested that the entire July 4th weekend be used. I presume this would be July 2nd-July 4th. This is the conclusion I've come to as well. It includes July 2nd, July 4th, and allows enough time for almost everyone to donate, even without falling on any weekdays.
So, I'm going to include a poll (if I can do it without screwing it up) and include the main options I've heard of, to get a sense of where people are in their thinking around here.
As a side note, and as you can see from my thread title, I think it might be a good fit for the moneybomb to focus on number of doners, instead of as much on amount raised. It would fit in with the Decleration theme. The Tea Party was: They dumped tea, we'll dump cash; This would be: They declared Independence, we'll declare Independence from government largesse/big government/whatever. The theme naturally suggests a list of people, rather than a dollar amount, though I know there probably wouldn't be a live counter expressing the number. Also, the wording is a tiny bit dangerous, since the political class can try to scare people by changing "Independence from Big government" to "Independence from the US government", so I'm not sure what the best wording might be. Maybe "Big spending"? "Deficit spending"? "the political class"? ideas?
Anyway, that was long I know, but I tried to be somewhat comprehensive with the ideas that have been thrown around.
And don't be the first guy to say "You guys can't talk about July 4th until after June 5th!!! RAAWR!!"
So I've been considering this business of a July 4th moneybomb since CPAC, I've searched through recent posts and I've talked to a few of you about it because I consider it the best chance to actually raise money outside of Paul's base support for the next few months, at least.
Paul's base of support (if you include new supporters throughout the year) is probably going to give him around $35 million this year. The number might be wrong, but whatever the number, it will be roughly the same whether there is an online fundraiser every month, or only 3 for the rest of the year. Yes, we all know the benefits of a steady stream of money, but for the most part, it is what is known as a zero-sum game, whether the campaign grasps this or not. I know for a fact that the Nov 5th/Dec 16 moneybombs raised money for the campaign from people that would otherwise not be involved, because the events were (both, paradoxically) seen as historic and singular. Many who didn't even think of themselves as Paul supporters donated. For history.
I don't expect the Ready, Ames, Fire online fundraiser to match the July 4th one, even if it IS pushed heavily by the official campaign, so I'm setting that (and June 5th and other dates) aside for the purposes of this post.
Some people have been wanting the moneybomb date to be July 2nd, in honor of the day the Decleration was voted on, and perhaps because people might be less occupied than on the 4th, that being a major holiday. Here is a website created in support of this day:
http://www.thisjuly2nd.com/
I see that Trevor L. has posted a big list of days he wants there to be moneybombs. From my perspective, it almost seems designed to keep us at that base 35 million, and not to get money from people interested in being part of something singular and historic, but I suppose others disagree. His list is here:
RPF thread link (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?292163-An-email-from-Trevor-Lyman-Presidential-Moneybomb-schedule)
In fact, he says in the message:
As a solution to the lessons learned from the past we are rolling out a monthly moneybomb calendar for the Ron Paul campaign during the 2011-12 presidential race. Yes, we should strive to raise as much money as we can during each event and I do believe we can reach the ten million per month mark before too long (perhaps even more), but more importantly we need to give the campaign a constant flow of money to work with.
As you can tell from what I've written, I think the ten million per month thing is baseless, but what I want to focus on is the July date. He gives July 4th-5th. I presume the reasoning behind this is that July 5th is a weekday and we want people to have a date other than a major holiday, but it doesn't seem to make much sense to me. How would you even describe the donation period? You can't say "July 4th weekend!", which is easy to grasp and spread. It would be: "Come donate on July 4th!... oh, and some Tuesday..." I must admit that after thinking about this for a while, I do agree with multiple days being the answer to the "major holiday" problem. Here is his site for July 4th-5th:
http://www.independencedaybomb.com/
Some have also suggested having it be only July 4th, and that even though some will miss out while they celebrate, it's still best to keep it on one day, and use the most obvious day.
Some have also suggested that the entire July 4th weekend be used. I presume this would be July 2nd-July 4th. This is the conclusion I've come to as well. It includes July 2nd, July 4th, and allows enough time for almost everyone to donate, even without falling on any weekdays.
So, I'm going to include a poll (if I can do it without screwing it up) and include the main options I've heard of, to get a sense of where people are in their thinking around here.
As a side note, and as you can see from my thread title, I think it might be a good fit for the moneybomb to focus on number of doners, instead of as much on amount raised. It would fit in with the Decleration theme. The Tea Party was: They dumped tea, we'll dump cash; This would be: They declared Independence, we'll declare Independence from government largesse/big government/whatever. The theme naturally suggests a list of people, rather than a dollar amount, though I know there probably wouldn't be a live counter expressing the number. Also, the wording is a tiny bit dangerous, since the political class can try to scare people by changing "Independence from Big government" to "Independence from the US government", so I'm not sure what the best wording might be. Maybe "Big spending"? "Deficit spending"? "the political class"? ideas?
Anyway, that was long I know, but I tried to be somewhat comprehensive with the ideas that have been thrown around.
And don't be the first guy to say "You guys can't talk about July 4th until after June 5th!!! RAAWR!!"