Elected or not we should all run for congress

[robertwerden]

We have huge numbers in each state and if every single Ron Paul supporter ran for congress, we could get a good percentage of us elected. This could bring about the change that Ron Paul as President would need congress to pass. This should be something we are looking at to help Ron Paul fix America.

[Falseflagop]

I agree especially in more rural areas we have a better shot !

[Thom1776]

That's the most important thing to do.

It's like the lottery: you can't win if you don't play.

They can't vote for you if your name isn't on the ballot!

[troyd1]

If Ron wins the nomination, we will be able to run candidates no problem.

[Zarxrax]

What are the requirements to run for congress?

[Elwar]

I considered it...just having my name on there...I doubt I could do much more than that as far as campaigning...

[uncloned21]

Someone should run in Ron Paul's district and seek his endorsement - hah.

[Van Damme]

What are the requirements to run for congress?

I believe you have to be 25 years old to run for the House and 30 years old to run for the Senate. There are also some residency restrictions, where I think you have to have lived in the state/district for which you are running for a period of 7 years.

[davidkachel]

This is certainly a worthwhile idea, but remember that the same ruling class will be the opposition... a tough battle.

A parallel idea; let your representatives know (after the primaries) that the same machine that has produced such incredible results for RP will be turned against them each and every time they cast a vote that is not Constitutional.

[rollingpig]

Amen!

[JosephTheLibertarian]

I have a School Board run in the works, you think I should go for US Congress, instead?

[JMann]

You should only consider running for Congress or dog catcher if you are prepared to give the campaign 100%. The last thing this country needs is more lazy congresspeople.

Running for public office is (or at least should be) a little more than, let me throw my hat in the ring. First and foremost you must be willing to dedicate nearly every moment of your life to the campaign and live you life with the highest of ethical standards. If you can't meet these two basic requirements don't event think about it.

[mconder]

I am already checking into running for Congress on the Constitution Party ticket in my area.

[jumpyg1258]

Even though I have served in the military and currently working for a US Government agency, I believe I am disqualified in this day in age in running for a public office since I do not have a college degree. People tend to equate a degree with a persons intelligence and since I do not have a degree, people would believe that I do not have the brains to run an office. Another point is that I do not have the money to run, something that is required as well in today's society.

[Zarxrax]

You should only consider running for Congress or dog catcher if you are prepared to give the campaign 100%. The last thing this country needs is more lazy congresspeople.

Running for public office is (or at least should be) a little more than, let me throw my hat in the ring. First and foremost you must be willing to dedicate nearly every moment of your life to the campaign and live you life with the highest of ethical standards. If you can't meet these two basic requirements don't event think about it.

Well, I think a lot of us would put 100% into serving our country if actually elected into congress. It's a lot harder to go all in when you are just running, and there's no guarantee you will make it. It's a gamble that not many can risk.

[davidkachel]

I am already checking into running for Congress on the Constitution Party ticket in my area.

Sadly, third party runs are a waste of time and money; not to mention perpetually damaging to your credibility in the public's eye. (How many Constitution and Libertarian party members are there in Congress? Precisely!)

The ruling elite have put a lot of effort into, and been nearly 100% successful at, convincing the public that all third parties are made up of kooks and pot smokers. Don't believe me? Then why is it every newscaster makes it a point to use the word "libertarian" as loudly as they can, then mumble the word "republican"? Sometimes they don't say "republican" AT ALL!!!

Run as a Republican or Democrat. This is your only prayer.

[robertwerden]

The way I look at it is, if we can raise all this money for Ron Paul, then we can all work together to fund congressional runs for each state.

We can take a survey right here and find out who will run. We can try and get 440 people to run on the Republican ticket covering all districts. Then we organize identical campaigns and fund them.
This should allow us to be organized in our efforts and make sure all of our candidates are on the same track as Ron Paul and are well funded.

[robertwerden]

We can use the existing members from the Ron Paul meetup groups to establish for each districts candidates.

[john_anderson_ii]

All of us?!? Run in the same year. Every single one of us. Give every district 15 choices, 14 of which are on the Ron Paul platform! That would be something.

[robertwerden]

That would be "Amazing, Amazing"

[Zeeder]

Every meetup group should back a congressional candidate on the Republican ticket.
Remember people vote for the "R" in front of the name alot of the time.

Scratch that. The meetup groups in a single state should combine behind one candidate. That's 50 congressmen/senators. That is ALOT of power.

[Thom1776]

Even though I have served in the military and currently working for a US Government agency, I believe I am disqualified in this day in age in running for a public office since I do not have a college degree. People tend to equate a degree with a persons intelligence and since I do not have a degree, people would believe that I do not have the brains to run an office. Another point is that I do not have the money to run, something that is required as well in today's society.

College education is not an issue. Don't worry about money, either.

JUST GET YOUR NAME ON THE BALLOT!!

[Elwar]

All of us?!? Run in the same year. Every single one of us. Give every district 15 choices, 14 of which are on the Ron Paul platform! That would be something.

1 neo-con vs 14 Ron Pauls would be horrible. They'd split the vote and the neo-con would only need like 8% to win.

I think every meetup group should send out a call to all of their members to "nominate" one of them for the House contest.

I just looked up the procedure here in Texas. Basically it's just a form and a filing fee of $3,125. And the filing deadline is January 2nd.

If we're all working toward getting Ron Paul elected, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to get Ron Paul clones in your district those same votes.

Though they won't be as fortunate as Ron Paul who is running against 8 non-incumbants who will be splitting the vote pretty well. 20% for him is great...20% for a House candidate against an Incumbant isn't good. Those districts with Democrat Congressman would be the prime districts to run a "Ron Paul Republican", they'd win in the general election.

[JenHarris]

I'm gonna keep saying this until I'm blue in the face :)

We need to run for every single available position in the next election and make sure that we're organized enough that everyone has a list of who to vote for locally when they go in and vote. If Ron Paul has got enough votes to win, we have enough to also take a bunch of these positions. That way we can back him up on all levels big to small and change this country for the better.

[JosephTheLibertarian]

So I shouldn't run for School Board, huh?

[usmc4paul]

I'll agree that we only need one candidate per seat. We'll split the vote otherwise.


Of course if ALL the candidates are Dr. Paul supporters that'd be an exception.


paulcongress.com

Is a great place to start

libertycongress.org

Is another.

[RockHoward]

Run for an office where you would be pleased to win and serve.

People can tell if you are at all unsure about what you are doing.

[RockHoward]

In Texas you can run as a Libertarian for free. The downside is that you can't vote in the Republican primary since that disqualifies you for running for office for a different party in the same year. The Constitution Party is not an option since they do not have ballot access at this time.

Note that if you are not libertarian enough in your outlook, the party convention can keep you off the ballot by voting for "None of the Above" instead. This actually happens sometimes, but pretty rarely. Also check the lptexas.org website as a lot of offices have already attracted candidates. You may end up in a race to win a convention vote to get on the ballot.

If you decide to run as a Libertarian, you are primarily doing so to spread the word about libertarian ideas. If you don't have the time or talent to do that, then perhaps working for someone elses campaign is a better idea.

If a good "Ron Paul Republican" wins a primary race, there is a decent chance that you can convince a Libertarian candidate in the same race (if there is one), to drop out and endorse your candidacy.

I happen to know a lot about the Texas Election Code having lobbied for changes for many years. (I even helped draft a bill to end "Primary Screenout" that has been filed for the last two state legislative sessions.) I have also run 3 times as a Libertarian. In 2006 I got 20% of the vote in my race for Texas State Senate here in Austin.

Anyway, feel free to PM me if you have questions.

[AisA1787]

The last thing this country needs is more lazy congresspeople.


I wouldn't mind if our Congress were lazier -- the less they touch, the less they screw up ;)

[JonH]

We should tank a page from the neo-con playbook and take over the republican party, instead of leaving after Ron Paul wins.

[RockHoward]

If you are thinking that taking over the Republican Party is thinking like a new-con, then you are woefully underestimating the forces aligned against us.

We need to recapture the Republican Party AND either recapture the Democratic Party or else build up the Libertarian Party to the point where it becomes the 2nd strongest party over the Democrats.

[JonH]

Taking over the Democratic Party would be harder. Taking both at the same time would be harder still. As long as we are acting on principle, it is purely a numbers game. The GOP has been shrinking over the war issue. All we need is enough to nominate our candidates.

War issues aside, our ideology is much more compatible with the conservatives the GOP claims to represent. We'd probably do much better focusing our efforts on the party those conservatives think represents them.

As far as I know, our revolution is made up mostly of people who don't have a shred of respect for party politics. Because of that, we do not need a lot of support from party leadership. The idea is to become an opposition faction working from within the republican party.

If I am wrong and the republican party completely implodes on itself, then we can simply pick up the libertarian party and run with it.

[RockHoward]

JonH, of course you are correct in the near term. I just wanted to point out that recapturing the Republican Party (or putting it out of its' misery and replacing it with the Libertarian Party which is less likely, but also possible) is not the end game.

Interestingly enough, shrinking the federal government drastically is not the real end game either as state governments may become quite oppressive on their own. (But at least in this scenario we can expect liberty forces to take charge in a few states and out compete the other states economically.)

We really won't achieve victory until we have:

1) drastically reduced federal and state governments;

2) invented and implemented new safeguards to prevent concentration of power (both political and other forms of concentrated power) probably by strengthening the constitution;

3) improved education enough so that the ideas of freedom are reliably passed down from generation to generation; and

4) dealt with all of the other myriad problems that the world throws at us.

We all have a lot of fun ahead of us for many years, but for the first time after becoming active in politics in 1980, I can imagine that we might have a reasonable facsimile of liberty reemerge in the USA in my lifetime.

[jason43]

The last thing this country needs is more lazy congresspeople.



Not true, if congress did nothing, we'd be in better shape than we are now.

Just show up and vote no for everything proposed with the exception of tax cuts and to reverse unconstitutional bills.

[jason43]

I think we need to start thinking about the house races after we see how the primaries turn out.

I am full of optimism, but should things not turn out as planned, we should immediately start funding drives to get both Dr Paul back and more people like him into congress. We should be doing money bombs and volunteering in our local areas to get these people in there. If everyone gave $10 to a candidate running for the house, we could out fundraise most competitors. Especially if Ron starts handing out endorcements.

The most important thing I guess, is not to think of anything short of winning as a failure. Having found each other and accomplishing what we have is nothing short of a miracle. Getting people into the House and Senate shouldn't be a problem at all with all the networking/fundraising we have. The PTB should have as much to fear from us electing other congresspeople than electing Ron for president.

[RockHoward]

Interestingly enough picking up some house seats this time around is not really about money at first. It is about the fact that Republican primaries have such low turn out that we might be able to use our network to get out the vote and win a few primary election upsets in the same manner that Paul Broun won his special election for a congressional seat in Georgia last July.

Then we turn our attention to the general elections and there will be perhaps 2 dozen or less worthwhile liberty minded candidates still standing. Now we need to energize the network to raise money and generate volunteer campaign support to win as many as possible.

The difference of ten or twenty people in Congress working and voting like Ron Paul will be noticeable. Hopefully that will help set things up for better results in future election cycles.

[JonH]

I wasn't talking endgame, just what seems to me the most practical way to support the implementation of our agenda. I know state governments can be quite oppressive, but I would prefer to focus on the federal government whenever we can, since thats where the abuse is the greatest (lots of money, aggressive wars). That said, we'll probably have to start on state governments, so we can get experience and set a good example.

Aside from actually running, I think it would be a great idea to set up (or find) a voting bloc, so we can stay organized and use our numbers to influence both the outcomes and the agendas of existing politicians.

I'm definitely expecting to have a lot of fun over the next few years. I'm starting college and chasing a political science degree, to gain a bit of insight as well as to meet people and try to spread my ideas to other prospective politicians. I have not yet decided where to go with the degree, but I'll definitely put it to good use.

[Second_Tier_My_Ass]

I'm jealous of those who are old enough to run. I'm 23. I can't wait until I get the chance!

[PeaceCandidates.com]

Qualifications for US Congress: 25 yrs old and US resident for seven years.

My thinking is that indivdually each candidate up against the big money = lots of long shots, but if we all band together then we can win. It's not about dem vs rep, it's about ending the war and restoring the constitution.

I've set up this site hoping to attract a movement of like-minded patriots....
http://peacecandidates.com/


everyone needs to start thinking about the house races now- the deadlines are coming and going- 4 passed already, but 46 still open. (Of the four that passed, some could still be open to independents- not sure)

find your state deadline here
http://peacecandidates.com/states

then click the state and check to see if you have any good candidates running already? Most I find are all platitudes, same ol' same ol, vision, leadership, blah blah blah.. ie not truth speakers, but just more mi-complex yes men.

[Diana]

Qualifications for US Congress: 25 yrs old and US resident for seven years.

My thinking is that indivdually each candidate up against the big money = lots of long shots, but if we all band together then we can win. It's not about dem vs rep, it's about ending the war and restoring the constitution.

I've set up this site hoping to attract a movement of like-minded patriots....
http://peacecandidates.com/


everyone needs to start thinking about the house races now- the deadlines are coming and going- 4 passed already, but 46 still open. (Of the four that passed, some could still be open to independents- not sure)

find your state deadline here
http://peacecandidates.com/states

then click the state and check to see if you have any good candidates running already? Most I find are all platitudes, same ol' same ol, vision, leadership, blah blah blah.. ie not truth speakers, but just more mi-complex yes men.

Clicking on the link gives me this error:


Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@pc.alaskafreepress.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/1.3.39 Server at peacecandidates.com Port 80

[CRAT0S]

.................................................. .............

[CRAT0S]

.................................................. .........................

[newyearsrevolution08]

bump for liberty

[Nathan Hale]

Running for Congress requires a lot of effort, a lot of experience, and a lot of popularity. If you're not up for truly contesting a seat in a meaningful way, then it's a waste of time to run for office, because you're spending the resources of this revolution in an inefficient and wasteful manner.

[newyearsrevolution08]

Running for Congress requires a lot of effort, a lot of experience, and a lot of popularity. If you're not up for truly contesting a seat in a meaningful way, then it's a waste of time to run for office, because you're spending the resources of this revolution in an inefficient and wasteful manner.

Besides telling people NOT to run what have you actually done to help further the revolution there bud? Not a damn thing as far as I can tell on these forums. Every post that I have located is you telling others to NOT run.

[Primbs]

I would run for all the other seats. Try to get elected to positions in the Republican Party. Or go for local or state elections. It is better to start off small and actually learn the ropes and have a local elected position.

Unless you are prepared to raise a minimum of 600 thousand dollars just to get your message out there. Most likely you would need to raise a million dollars for a competitive congressional race.

Once you get one of the small seats and have made all the rookie political mistakes at the local level, then you can start to plan for the congressional level.

[newyearsrevolution08]

I would run for all the other seats. Try to get elected to positions in the Republican Party. Or go for local or state elections. It is better to start off small and actually learn the ropes and have a local elected position.

Unless you are prepared to raise a minimum of 600 thousand dollars just to get your message out there. Most likely you would need to raise a million dollars for a competitive congressional race.

Once you get one of the small seats and have made all the rookie political mistakes at the local level, then you can start to plan for the congressional level.

Plus a mayor or council member can wake LOCALS up for when you do run for congress as well.

[Nathan Hale]

Besides telling people NOT to run what have you actually done to help further the revolution there bud? Not a damn thing as far as I can tell on these forums. Every post that I have located is you telling others to NOT run.

You can't tell from these forums because I don't work for any of the campaigns on these forums. I'm just here to give advice which is in contrast to you, who seem to be here just to prop up underperforming campaigns and lob insults at me.