11/5 Blowback vs Official Campaign Goal

[Nathan Hale]

I've always said that the 11/5 money bomb has undermined the campaign's official and more important goal of $4 million in October. This observation from Donklephant sums up the point nicely.

http://donklephant.com/2007/11/01/ron-paul-falls-137-million-short-of-october-fundraising-goal/

The article:

Yep. His goal was $4 million and he only has $2.63 million as of right now.

And while I’ve heard that there’s this “money bomb” coming on November 5th, even that seems as if it’s in doubt. In fact, the site doesn’t list the number of people who are going to pledge on that day, and as Free Market Newspoints out…


With close to 10,000 signs ups, an informal sampling of Ron Paul supporters suggested that perhaps the money bomb effort was bigger than the sign-ups suggested, as not everyone who intended to give funds on November 5th was signing up.

Ron Paul supporters interviewed also suggested that the money bomb site offer a sign up sheet for those who wanted to give $50 or even $25. One Ron Paul supporter suggested for every sign up on the site, there were perhaps two or three supporters who intended to give on November 5th but who hadn’t signed up.

Hmm, yeah. Seems like wishful thinking to me.

So here’s a question: why did the Paul supporters make the money bomb for November 5th? Yeah, yeah, I get the “V for Vendetta” marketing tie, but not hitting that October goal has the potential to be fairly demoralizing for a lot of supporters.

And that begs another question: how deep is Ron Paul’s support? Having been part of the Dean campaign I can tell you that ultimately his support turned out to be very intense, but not very deep. Much like the Roniacs of today, Deaniacs were EXTREMELY vocal and appeared to be much bigger than they actually were. This draws media attention, but not the type of support you need to win a general election.

I guess we’ll see on November 5th.

[James R]

4 million by Oct 31 would look just as good as a million in a single day IMO. Does five days make that much of a difference to the campaign?

PS - What are the conference call details for tomorrow?

[Exponent]

No offense to Donklephant, but they don't exactly have a huge voice in the media. Given the nature of the internet, you're going to be able to find just about any story if you look for it, but it doesn't mean that it is reaching that many eyes.

Given that people have worried so much about the various issues on this forum itself, it surprises not at all that someone decided to write about it and publish it online. (They might have even become aware of the situation due to the amount of discussion about it here!) The fact that this is bound to happen somewhere online doesn't worry me at all, though.

[Nathan Hale]

No offense to Donklephant, but they don't exactly have a huge voice in the media. Given the nature of the internet, you're going to be able to find just about any story if you look for it, but it doesn't mean that it is reaching that many eyes.

Given that people have worried so much about the various issues on this forum itself, it surprises not at all that someone decided to write about it and publish it online. (They might have even become aware of the situation due to the amount of discussion about it here!) The fact that this is bound to happen somewhere online doesn't worry me at all, though.

My problem isn't with Donklephant's reach. My problem is that the opinion of the gentleman who writes for Donklephant is a logical one, one shared by the plebs who vote in this country. Paul's campaign sets goals and fails to meet them - it's a sign of a weak campaign.

[Nathan Hale]

4 million by Oct 31 would look just as good as a million in a single day IMO. Does five days make that much of a difference to the campaign?

Yes. The Paul campaign said they'd make $4M in October. That was the goal, the bar to which they were being held in the court of public opinion. Their failure to hurdle the bar shows that the campaign isn't meeting their goals. Sure, a million on 11/5 would lead to some nice press (though I still lack confidence that it will happen), but I'd rather the campaign met their stated goal than see that goal fail to prop up a later money bomb.


PS - What are the conference call details for tomorrow?

Dunno.