American Spectator: Pawlenty, Paul, and the Press

[Harald]

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/08/15/pawlenty-paul-and-the-press

CONTRAST THIS WITH the media's treatment of Ron Paul, who received twice as many votes in the straw poll as Pawlenty and lost to Bachmann by less than one percentage point. Paul has been running ahead of Pawlenty in scientific polls for months. USA Today/Gallup found Paul at 14 percent nationally compared to Pawlenty's 3 percent; CNN had him at 12 percent to Pawlenty's 2 percent. In the RealClearPolitics polling average, Paul is closer to Bachmann and Sarah Palin while Pawlenty is closer to the rear.

Yet Paul is treated as an afterthought. The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza wrote before Ames that it wouldn't mean much if Paul finished first. Another reporter blogged "a Paul win would help to diminish the overall process in Iowa to outsiders." Pawlenty himself was prepared to use the rationale that Bachmann and Paul were less credible than he, until the two Tea Party favorites bounced him out of the race entirely.

[sailingaway]

Yeah, welcome to our world...

I don't like the 'he'll do ok early and in western interior states but hard to come up w/ path to nomination that doesn't include imagination'. the only imagination it requires is imagining that media cover him fairly so he has a chance to take off as other candidates are reviewed and vetted. His big issue is that people consider him a known quality, not new and exciting, but really only know the spin.

Whatver, we have to work with what we have.

[New York For Paul]

That is why I say there was not substitute for victory. It allows the press to continue to treat us this way. If Paul had won the straw poll, the next three months would be very different. The official campaign dropped the ball. The campaign immediately needs to quadruple in size and scope if it will have any chance at all of winning.

Hopefully people will take this as constructive advice.

[LibertyEagle]

That is why I say there was not substitute for victory. It allows the press to continue to treat us this way. If Paul had won the straw poll, the next three months would be very different. The official campaign dropped the ball. The campaign immediately needs to quadruple in size and scope if it will have any chance at all of winning.

Hopefully people will take this as constructive advice.

All it takes is money. Which right now, they do not have.

[Bruno]

153 Ron Paul supporters that did not show up in Ames to vote dropped the ball.

[sailingaway]

That is why I say there was not substitute for victory. It allows the press to continue to treat us this way. If Paul had won the straw poll, the next three months would be very different. The official campaign dropped the ball. The campaign immediately needs to quadruple in size and scope if it will have any chance at all of winning.

Hopefully people will take this as constructive advice.

They'd have done it anyhow.

How do you figure that was constructive advice? That's like those media after the Dem primaries where Obama won saying Hilary lost the nomination 'because she didn't want it enough.'

We all WANTED to win, pretending it is someone's 'fault' we didn't doesn't help anything.

[New York For Paul]

All it takes is money. Which right now, they do not have.

We just had some money bombs. Where did all the money go? Then the campaign needs to get a fundraising operation set up ASAP. The campaign had four years to prepare and now the "campaign" is out of money?

[klamath]

Remember RP CAN win NH without media attention. It is a state small enough that he can bypass the media and talk to the voters directly. An under the radar win in NH is very possible however the media WILL cover RP very much in a very bad way afterwards. Anybody old enough will remember what happened to Bucanan vs Dole in 96 when bucanan won a surprise victory in NH.

[sailingaway]

153 Ron Paul supporters that did not show up in Ames to vote dropped the ball.

I do think that going forward this joins the SRLC meme where Ron lost by 1 vote when half the tickets given out didn't translate to votes.

However, supporters come in different levels of enthusiasm. We are fortunate in the enthusiasm of ours.

It is true that the campaign apparently said they had 92% turn out from people who signed up for tickets. That other 8% would have been nice.....but wouldn't have made the entire difference.

It is a snapshot in time and shows we have work to do. We don't have the media on our side, so have to work harder. But once people go Ron Paul they don't turn back. And Randy Travis will not be at the actual caucus.

[sailingaway]

We just had some money bombs. Where did all the money go? Then the campaign needs to get a fundraising operation set up ASAP. The campaign had four years to prepare and now the "campaign" is out of money?

Why don't you give all of yours to RevPac and solve it?

Times have been tough for a lot of people and Ron depends on grass roots. I'm sure they aren't 'out of money' but I also know the real need for advertising is in the winter and spring, and a lot of Ron's initial base have maxed out. They should get a boost from Ames though, he virtually tied, and they can always wave Nate Silver's caucus projection in people's faces http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/youve-just-won-the-ames-straw-poll-what-are-you-going-to-do-next/

... along with the reminder that Randy Travis won't be at the caucus. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61282.html

http://images.politico.com/global/blogs/110813_bachmann_rule_465.jpg

[wgadget]

That is why I say there was not substitute for victory. It allows the press to continue to treat us this way. If Paul had won the straw poll, the next three months would be very different. The official campaign dropped the ball. The campaign immediately needs to quadruple in size and scope if it will have any chance at all of winning.

Hopefully people will take this as constructive advice.

Come on...The press has been setting up for "THE IOWA STRAW POLL IS MEANINGLESS IF RON PAUL WINS" for at least a week. If he would have won, it would have been exactly that.

[New York For Paul]

They'd have done it anyhow.

How do you figure that was constructive advice? That's like those media after the Dem primaries where Obama won saying Hilary lost the nomination 'because she didn't want it enough.'

We all WANTED to win, pretending it is someone's 'fault' we didn't doesn't help anything.

I believe the campaign erred in the following way. They have been phone banking and doing voter ID work in the last several weeks. The campaign should have been doing Get Out the Vote for the Straw poll for the last several weeks. In 2008, there were over eleven thousand supporters who showed up in Winter time to support Ron Paul. Most of them didn't show up. Why was that?

Having been involved with many campaigns, the RP looks to be understaffed for the purposes of winning a successful presidential campaign. I could be wrong, but we already have one piece of evidence that I am right. Bachmann won the straw poll with a belated effort where Ron Paul's peoples, many of whom were involved in 2007/08 and are not first timers lost.

This was taylor made for the Ron Paul campaign to win. It only gets harder from here.

[Jace]

..

[sailingaway]

I believe the campaign erred in the following way. They have been phone banking and doing voter ID work in the last several weeks. The campaign should have been doing Get Out the Vote for the Straw poll for the last several weeks. In 2008, there were over eleven thousand supporters who showed up in Winter time to support Ron Paul. Most of them didn't show up. Why was that?

Having been involved with many campaigns, the RP looks to be understaffed for the purposes of winning a successful presidential campaign. I could be wrong, but we already have one piece of evidence that I am right. Bachmann won the straw poll with a belated effort where Ron Paul's peoples, many of whom were involved in 2007/08 and are not first timers lost.



Actually, I agree with you about GOTV rather than surveys until Ames. I think they were thinking the numbers at the event would be smaller. Organizers were worried it would be poorly attended, and I think they thought they could win with 3000-4000 people. Then they just kinda stopped. They only bought 4000 shirts, and only had bbq for 2000 (with hot dogs, but who picks hot dogs if you have bbq? Still, that was kinda clever since people were not necessarily voting where they ate.) Bachmann won because media gave her a huge boost and her polls were soaring. she was supposed to have a blow out. And she was working with the tea parties at least as long ago as January, there have been pictures floating around the forum. What she had was Randy Travis for the many many people who don't usually vote at Ames and who by registering with her and voting, earned a ticket to see Randy Travis.

But blaming people rather than just making that comment is not constructive.

[New York For Paul]

Many supporters have had problems over the years with the campaign staff. If they are not winning, we might want to understand why so we can correct the problem before it is to late. It might be very constructive to get the grassroots more involved and take matters into their own hands, given the recent track record of the official campaign losing Ames after winning straw polls for years. One would think they would have won this most important straw poll of the campaign.

Just several hundred Ron Paul Forum members each escorting one extra person to the straw poll would have produced a historic win.

So lets get constructive and support grassroots efforts who will get the job done.

[The Free Hornet]

Just several hundred Ron Paul Forum members each escorting one extra person to the straw poll would have produced a historic win.How "historic"? It would have been ignored. The result let the media pretend it is now a three way race (sans Paul). Otherwise, their crystal ball would show an outlook that is still murky, unclear. Instead of ignoring Paul, there would be even more stories about Santorum, Pawlenty, Cain, and others. It would have been "wide open" (sans Pawlenty).

The media would have been more truthful with a Paul win and rightly downplayed the result. Instead they have exposed themselves as the vile, useless creatures they are. Their bias, incompetence, and corruption is becoming a mainstream story. Cancel your cable, ditch your dish. Stop paying for mainstream media BS.