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tangent4ronpaul
11-10-2007, 10:05 AM
Memetic Epidemiology – How this Thanksgiving is our best chance for winning the primaries.

Meme: a contagious idea, in this case that freedom is popular and the Ron Paul rEVOLution.
Epidemiology: the study of disease transmission. Factiod – grocery cart handles are one of #1 vectors for disease transmission.

In our activities, we stage events for two target audiences – the general populous and those that are already our supporters. In the first case, we are trying to win new supporters and votes. In the second we are trying to raise money so the campaign can win votes from new supporters through TV, radio and newspaper advertising. This Thanksgiving is our best opportunity to reach 90% of the American population before the primaries. Here's why:

The majority of Americans will get together with their families this holiday for Thanksgiving dinner.
Lets say we have on average 1 shopper per 6 people eating – so 50,000,000 shoppers.
There are 34,000 Super Markets in the country (2006 number) – roughly the number of people that donated to the Nov 5th money bomb w/ an average donation of $103 each.
34,000 goes into 50,000,000 roughly 1,500 times. (think fliers).
1,500 – 2 sided, half page fliers would cost roughly 6 cents each in a print run of 1,000 via xerox at your local Kinko's. That's about $90. Done via offset press, in a larger print run, that cost would be between half a cent and 1 cent each, or $7.50 - $15 per supporter/1,500 fliers. This is very do-able!
Grocery stores see 60% more business in the week leading up to Thanksgiving than any other week of the year. The day before Thanksgiving is the “Superbowl” for supermarkets, with higher traffic than any other day.
83 nestled, average sized grocery carts take up 80 linear feet. They are found in this concentrated state in these locations: In cart corals spread out through the parking lot, in staging / overflow areas to either or both sides of the main entrance and the in the cart coral just inside the entrance. Your average supermarket will have between 200 – 400 grocery carts, some of which will be “in play” at any given time. You can flier a row of nestled carts about as fast as you can deal cards – 1-2 minutes for a good sized row. The carts will turn over at least once an hour and a single supporter should be able to flier 3-4 stores in an hour. Stores do not clean out the carts between use, so if the flier is not picked up it will be available for the next shopper. There will also be 15-20 display areas in the store that are specific to Thanksgiving type food items and high traffic. A small stack of fliers left on such a display will get picked up.

Now we come to the big issues – how to make such a flier relative to the holiday, how not to tick off the supermarket management and how to get it picked up and taken home by the shopper and then shared by the shopper with the rest of their family. The answer is to make the flier a Thanksgiving recipe booklet.

The management is very unlikely to object, as such recipes will result in additional sales for their store. It's likely to be picked up and retained because it is immediately useful to the shopper. Getting that shopper to be a vector for the message is a bit harder. The two strategies for overcoming this are to use really good recipes, so that they are shared, and to “wrap” our message in something that is unusual and “cute” enough that it's brought up later in conversation. In this case, making our message a recipe.

Putting together such a recipe booklet is a project at:

http://ronpaulrecipes.com

I'm envisioning a tri-fold flier (6 pages) made out of a half sheet of paper (though full sheet might be better), and printed on orange paper. One of those pages would be our message. Here's a humble first attempt at such a message and I'm looking for input to make it better!

Happy Thanksgiving Americans!

As we celebrate and give thanks this holiday, we, the grassroots supporters of the Ron Paul rEVOLution wanted to share some of our favorite Thanksgiving recipes with you and ask you to reflect on the freedoms we enjoy and the direction our country is going. To this end, we would like to offer you the most important recipe in this booklet:

Recipe to save the country

1 tbsp freedom of speech
a pinch of habeas corpus
2 tsp of freedom from gvmt spying
1 cup of federal fiscal responsibility
a dash of secure borders
4 tbsp of an end to the income tax
2 tbsp of returning our kids from Iraq now
1 tsp of an unregulated Internet
2 cups of Bill of Rights
1 cup of Constitution
etc.

Preheat country by voting for Ron Paul in the Republican primaries. Combine ingredients in a large bowl and mix throughly. Add a dash of hope and prayer, to taste. Finally, bake by voting for and electing Dr. Paul in the General election in November 2008.

Serves 300 Million.

Your feedback, suggestions and contributed recipes for this project are requested!

Thanks,

Nathan

RTsquared
11-10-2007, 10:11 AM
Now THIS is an awesome idea...just the type of outside-the-box thinking that has made the campaign successful thus far.

cascade77
11-10-2007, 10:17 AM
A very good idea!

Naraku
11-10-2007, 10:57 AM
Oh man, be sure to drop in a line about December 16th and the Weekend of Liberty.

zebov
11-10-2007, 11:59 AM
I like it. I'd put the "Ron Paul recipe" last and the others first. We want people to know they are actually getting recipes; not just propaganda. Also, I prefer the phrase "phasing out" the income tax as opposed to "end" or "abolish." People support phasing things out whereas they are hesitant on immediately ending something that has (sadly) been such a cornerstone of our society.

Naraku
11-10-2007, 12:04 PM
Give them all, the real recipes, American Revolution or liberty-themed names though. Like Constitution pie or Bunker Hill Bundt Cakes. :p

tangent4ronpaul
11-10-2007, 01:34 PM
Great feedback? - any other suggestions?

thanks,

Nathan

OferNave
11-10-2007, 02:02 PM
Awesome. I've thought of dropping slim jims in shopping carts before, but was afraid I might piss off the store or get in trouble. That would still be easier than actually putting flyers <i>inside</i> the store. That might be over the line.

Regardless, well thought out idea! I think we should develop this.

So, bump.

tangent4ronpaul
11-10-2007, 05:59 PM
evening bump...

-n

Indy Vidual
11-10-2007, 06:04 PM
Great feedback? - any other suggestions?

thanks,

Nathan

...the study of disease transmission. Factiod – grocery cart handles are one of #1 vectors for disease transmission.

Perhaps discussing the viral nature of ideas on the Internet would be much better.
disease transmission + Thanksgiving dinner = :eek:

fcofer
11-10-2007, 07:02 PM
This idea is great. It's crazy and off-the-wall and no official campaign could ever have come up with it.

I will happily distribute recipes if this gets done.

tangent4ronpaul
11-11-2007, 04:34 PM
Update:

The response has been GREAT! - It's looking like groups in all 50 states are going to be doing this and 3 individual efforts are working on developing their own fliers: KS, LA and MT.

Holding off a bit, till we get a few more recipes before unleashing the graphics group on the project, so there should be several variations to choose from.

So far, we have 9 submitted recipes and they all look delicious! They are mostly a bit different than the standard Thanksgiving fare, so likely to be shared:

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Winter Vegetable Hash
Perfect Turkey
Corn Bread Dressing
English Corn Pudding
Cranberry Orange Sauce
Apple Delight
Pumpkin Bread
and
Mom's Awesome Pumpkin Pie

(and the recipe to Save The Country)

We could really use a few more, so common people! - RAID THAT RECIPE FILE!

Http://ronpaulrecipes.com

One person came up with the excellent idea of submitting all the recipes or just the “Save the Country” one as a letter to the editor. Along those lines, most major papers have a food section and might welcome a booklet of recipes – great way to get wider exposure. We can expect the Thanksgiving food section to come out on Sunday the 18th, in most papers, so US snail letters would have to go out to the food editors by this Wednesday or Thursday.

To the folks doing independent efforts don't forget to add:

please visit: http://ronpaul2008.com/
and
paid for by independent grassroots supporters, not affiliated with the official campaign.

Thanks to all for helping to make this happen!

Nathan

tangent4ronpaul
11-16-2007, 01:33 PM
we have 3 fliers ready for download at ronpaulrecipes.com

one of them is color only. a B&W version is being worked on.

Sophia's one, I've only seen the back of but has the most recipes, and should be in tonight. I think we (MD Meetups) are going to use hers.

another couple of people have indicated they wanted to make a flier, but have not heard or seen anything since.

the best price on reproduction is via a "web" press, like newspapers use. for comparison, some quotes I got:

10,000 at quick print shop: $697
10,000 via web press: $227
10,000 via high speed copier: $307 (this is xerox, but not Kinko's - we could also have them today, if we had camera ready copy - we will probably print Monday and start distributing Mon night)

web prices, higher quantities:
100,000 web shop A: $1,398.60
100,000 web shop B: $ 967.00 (unfortunately they want 5-7 day lead time - might be able to fit us in to schedule Monday - depending...)

above prices do not include folding, but anywhere between $25 and $125 to fold 10,000 has been quoted to me from different places.

That's the problem with trying to pull things together fast...

So far I have 3 Meetups on board, and will have to wait till tonight / tomorrow to contact the rest of the ones in the state.

-n

Edward
11-16-2007, 01:39 PM
You should contact the people at www.ronpaulthanksgiving.com. They would tie in together nicely with this!

tangent4ronpaul
11-16-2007, 06:19 PM
I did and we were going to merge the two projects, but I have heard nothing back from him since yesterday afternoon - so don't know what's going on....

-n

tangent4ronpaul
11-16-2007, 07:15 PM
bump

tangent4ronpaul
11-17-2007, 01:37 PM
2 new fliers uploaded to ronpaulrecipes.com

-n

McDermit
11-17-2007, 02:02 PM
AWESOME idea.

tangent4ronpaul
11-17-2007, 09:47 PM
wOOt! - report from Gigi on the Meetup message forum:

[...](notice who the doers are and aren't around here!)....everyone should be printing up this little brochure and putting them in their neighborhood stores, shopping carts, supermarket carts, malls etc.

I printed up 300, folded them until my finger tips were numb and I'm going out there to get this done.


Whoever doesn't take 1 friggen hour to do this is wasting everyone's time.
[...]
Done!

My husband and I went to the Supermarket...put 300 in shopping carts, on cars and inside store.

We THEN went food shopping....

WHEN we came out...not one was on the ground :)

That says something! People actually TOOK THEM!!!!!


Yesssssssssssss Nathan you are to be commended for working on this project!

Everyone out there has from now till Thanksgiving to get going with this project!

NAME RECOGNITION
NAME RECOGNITION

If 100 people in Iowa did this in 100 supermarkets....I'm pretty damned sure people would remember Ron Paul!

Get out there folks!


I'm sure this will be done for Christmas as well.....

tangent4ronpaul
11-17-2007, 10:19 PM
discovered a glitch - you have to be registered on the site: ronpaulrecipes.com and be logged in or it won't show you / let you download the attachment (flier).

-n

Paul4Prez
11-17-2007, 10:50 PM
And when you're flying home for Thanksgiving, don't forget to wear your Ron Paul t-shirt -- lots of people at the airport with nothing to read.

tangent4ronpaul
11-18-2007, 04:35 PM
bump!

If your Meetup can do a print run or you do it on a desktop printer, please PARTICIPATE! - we can reach a lot pf people this holiday!

-n

tangent4ronpaul
11-19-2007, 11:30 PM
We got 50,000 printed, and partially distributed across the state. Tomorrow is going to be a long day... Just got back from 2 hours of cart fliering - did 5 supermarkets, well, 4 and a Sams club. Distributed 1,200 fliers. One advantage to fliering carts at night is that most are not in use and they are generally all nestled together. The disadvantage is that if there are several rows right next to each other, it's hard to get at the back ones.

I am noticing that some makes of carts are easier to flier than others. On technique, depending on cart make, you can sometimes slip them between the wires and into the body of the cart. slower, is putting it in the top basket by sliding it in from the side (the basket is forded up). Some types of carts have a good gap under the handle when nestled, so you can "deal" fliers and flip them under each really fast.

What's working for other people?

no hassles w/ the stores or the cops. had a cop walk right by and at another place a security guard drove by on patrol. Didn't get so much as a second glance. One store employee I talked to loved the fliers and took one home with him.

-n

Eric21ND
11-20-2007, 01:01 AM
Where's the flyer link??

BeFranklin
11-20-2007, 08:42 AM
Where's the flyer link??

Same question. I want to leave some of these with the USA Today paper.

tangent4ronpaul
11-20-2007, 09:12 AM
all fliers can be downloaded from http://ronpaulrecipes.com

they are in the pamphlets folder. you have to register and be logged in or they wont show up.

thanks!

Nathan

BeFranklin
11-21-2007, 01:12 PM
Ok, I'm printing out a bunch to leave this Holiday, anyone else want to join this off this thread?

Derek Johnson
11-21-2007, 02:26 PM
I'm in