- We can do this: A Grassroots Explosion -

[JiMMy_247]

We really need to think a little harder about what we’re doing with our money. So far we have given nearly 20 million in this quarter to the official campaign. That’s all fine and it’s helped, but I’m a bit frustrated by the fact that the primaries are only about 2 weeks away here in SC and they haven’t run a single ad here! So what did we do? We dropped $300,000+ on a blimp. That too is a fine effort but what is the purpose of the blimp? Aren’t people defending it by saying it has gotten a few mentions in the news? You do realize for a fraction of the cost we could have commercials that are 100% positive about Dr. Paul, actually telling people who he is instead of asking folks, running in all of the early primary states?

I know I’ll catch some grief for being negative, but we really need to think about what is going to get us the most votes in the most cost effective manner. Plus we have proven our ability to raise immense sums of money in short spans of time. Yet, Operation NH has gotten very little attention. Now http://www.operationbroadcastfreedom.com/index.html is up and running. We could have the goals reached for each of these projects (and others) in a matter of days. I’m not saying we were wrong with our earlier donations. I’m just saying it’s time we stopped trying so hard to get the media’s attention with these extremely expensive stunts and just BE the media for a change. It really doesn’t cost that much. I have to admit I go nuts every time I see a post saying “Just $50,000 for the blimp by tonight… again” We could have commercials running that promote Ron Paul and state his positions with that amount. I suppose it’s just not as exciting as a blimp.

Isn't it time for a money bomb that causes a grassroots explosion? Imagine if by the end of the week all of the projects: Operation live free or die, DVD bomb, Call4Paul, broadcast freedom, Operation NH, etc were all fully funded! Now that is a money bomb to get behind and one well deserved.

[yongrel]

I agree. I would love to see a grassroots money bomb. The Jeremiah Black ads are fantastic and need to be run. It would be excellent to have someone coordinate this effort.

[JiMMy_247]

Is there currently a website up that just focuses on all of these grassroots efforts?

[jdmyprez_deo_vindice]

That blimp actually stopped traffic here in Maryland and caused quite a commotion on top of getting major news coverage.... I have had a lof of people in my area mention Ron Paul after they saw that blimp. Yes it is expensive but let's be honest... This blimp is reaching thousands of people every day it is in the air and it speaks volumes about what we as a grassroots movement are able to accomplish when we put our minds and check books to it. This is as much for our morale at this point as it is for the campaign. I love knowing that somewhere in America today, that my candidate has his name floating above people's heads in huge letters when other candidates can barely afford to gas up their busses!

If you do not agree with the blimp than that is fine. Keep donating to the campaign and spreading the word any way you know how BUT please do not try to drag others down with negative posts. Right now we need to be more focused than ever because our first real thrust towards victory starts Thursday and we need all hands on deck right now!

[fourameuphoria]

I am most definately down for some sort of grassroots moneybomb/pledge system. It's so uncertain otherwise.

[greendiseaser]

I posted the idea of a grassroots fundraiser in conjunction with a BILLBOARD campaign earlier this week.

BOY, DID I GET A LOT OF FLACK!

I was told that there is a "difference between having big dreams and asking for other peoples money and actualy taking action" ... and was made to feel like some sort of shmuck for suggesting that we not give the money to the Official Campaign.

Apparently many people see that suggestion as an excuse to steal someones cash.

I don't know why the goddamn grassroots can't ORGANIZE ITSELF, LEGALLY with some sort of charter that forces the proceeds to be spent with transparency and some sort of consensus.

Anything is better than giving it to HQ, which seems ill equipped to spend that money either quickly or appropriately.

BTW, i like the blimp, but where 300K is getting us exposure to "thousands", ONE SINGULAR BILLBOARD ON I-95 outside a major city GETS 75 THOUSAND VIEWS PER DAY.

And it costs $1200 FOR THE MONTH!

So, $300K for thousands a month
or $1200 for 2.5 MILLION views a month?

Anyhow,
whatever.
I think its a dead issue, in general, since Iowa is right around the corner, and most people here who are vocal would rather shoot down the idea.
:(

[Dan Klaus]

jimmy is bringing up a good point about getting going in SC...what is happening with the RP offices there - anybody 'in the know' about there efforts at all?? the RP tent is quite large and there is room for the blimp and tv ads in SC...

Jimmy - are you from SC? Can you check on things there? Perhaps this is in another thread, but haven't seen anything substantial...

[Cleaner44]

There are tons of great ideas for spending money on. My suggestion would be to exicute the lowest cost chip-ins and such first. Prioritize the purchases by smallest to largest.

[coboman]

Great idea. We need a website, a catchy name and date, and the pledges.

[stevedasbach]

Anything is better than giving it to HQ, which seems ill equipped to spend that money either quickly or appropriately.(

I am a maxed out donor who has contributed to Operation NH and the blimp.

I immediately remove from consideration any grassroots project whose proponents feel the need to trash the campaign and/or who say we should send them money instead of sending it to the campaign.

Please -pitch your projects based on their merits, not on the perceived shortcomings of the campaign or HQ staff.

[JiMMy_247]

I just quickly want to say that I wasn’t setting out to drag people down. Rationality is not negativity. I’m sorry I didn’t post it with a more positive tone. I didn’t tell anybody to stop donating to the campaign or the blimp. I was only showing the cost-effect of each effort and how we need to turn more attention to guaranteed efforts AS WELL that happen to have a guaranteed impact, whereas previous efforts have been a “give and hope” scenario. Again it wasn’t to trash the blimp or the campaign, I just used them as a point of reference to make the point about the cost effective nature of our less publicized efforts. It’s just a shame that efforts that will tell people directly about Ron Paul in a positive and effective manner have not garnered the popularity of the blimp. Here is an example:

“Our goal is to ship 25,000 DVDs to each state” (Michigan Nevada South Carolina)
http://www.ronpauldvdbomb.com/
Money needed: $25,000
Money raised: $1,000

Why have they been neglected? You can have a problem with my delivery of the message. For that I’m sorry if I offended you, but you can’t deny the basis of my larger point. We need to help ‘the little guys’ too, because they will get the message out-guaranteed.

[greendiseaser]

I immediately remove from consideration any grassroots project whose proponents feel the need to trash the campaign and/or who say we should send them money instead of sending it to the campaign.


Good thing i gave up on the idea of pitching grassroots projects.
:rolleyes:

I did give a merit based consideration: the cheapness, effectiveness and ready availabilty of billboards.

thppptttt!

[kill the banks]

i've been saying this for some time ... grassroots works , we know the message and we can score goals with better control of the funds ... we need a grassroots fund that can spend to win this thing !!!!

kill the banks

[JiMMy_247]

jimmy is bringing up a good point about getting going in SC...what is happening with the RP offices there - anybody 'in the know' about there efforts at all?? the RP tent is quite large and there is room for the blimp and tv ads in SC...

Jimmy - are you from SC? Can you check on things there? Perhaps this is in another thread, but haven't seen anything substantial...

Yeah, I'm one of the local MeetUp Organizers in Greenville, SC. I was going to be swinging by the campaign office today or early tomorrow to check on things... i would call but i cant afford to pay my phone bill for some reason ;) So its cut off. Anything specific you would like to know?

[Dan Klaus]

yes - curious as to what efforts they are making to get RP's message out...I know folks are rightly focused on Iowa and NH right now - but SC is coming quick and I was surprised to hear no tv ads have run yet...just wanted to get a genera update of sorts - nothing particular...

and point taken on best use of money...I guess different strokes...we'll all shake hands in the winner's circle...

[khorbis]

Why hasn't the campaign funded these grassroots projects, or at least communicated their support for a particular one? Or can't they do so?

[fourameuphoria]

I think its a dead issue, in general, since Iowa is right around the corner, and most people here who are vocal would rather shoot down the idea.
:(

If we take South Carolina and California, we're practically running the table.

[liberty_Forever]

bump

This is an excellent strategy

[disciple]

I am all for grassroot bombs.

[JiMMy_247]

yes - curious as to what efforts they are making to get RP's message out...I know folks are rightly focused on Iowa and NH right now - but SC is coming quick and I was surprised to hear no tv ads have run yet...just wanted to get a genera update of sorts - nothing particular...

and point taken on best use of money...I guess different strokes...we'll all shake hands in the winner's circle...


Well, We have had a few recent successes here in Greenville:

We just got this billboard up on I-85 (before the holiday travel season)
http://razmear.us/g_bb1.jpg

Someone just donated billboard space to us and I’m trying to get something up there too.

We had a Rock for Ron Paul that got us a little press and a good many converts:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PS1dB_F2We0

We just had a Ron Paul rally on Main St in Downtown Greenville. Somewhere around 1500 attended. Unfortunately the next day Thompson was on the front page of the local paper for visiting a sandwich shop. Ron Paul didn’t even get a picture in the paper, just a small story on the second page… below Huckabee (he got a picture too and only had 200 show up to his event). What makes it more of an insult is that we had this rally (the largest political rally to date in our city) ACROSS the STREET from the newspapers office. It’s an uphill battle.

National is focusing on canvassing and door to door operations. It’s tough to get volunteers but we’re working on that. They are also bringing in a bunch of college students to help with the canvassing efforts. I think this ‘one on one’ campaigning is what is going to win it for us, so we are going to focus on that entirely for the next few weeks here.

It really is too bad we don’t have any commercials here yet and the other candidates are running them non-stop. It’s tough to gauge how we are doing. The local political radio call in shows are getting more and more positive calls about him which is really reassuring. All in all… I can just keep saying- we aren’t doing as well as we think but we are doing a LOT better than they say.

[JiMMy_247]

Back to the grassroots though… should we start a new thread with a title promoting the idea of a grassroots money bomb? With a poll on it? I can appreciate that others have tried this and gotten a lot of flak, maybe people are ready to get behind it now… let’s hope they are.

[Myerz]

Sounds like to me you need some organization............OH NO! I SAID IT.....NOW SOMEONE ATTACK ME FOR ACTING LIKE A SOCIALIST SCUMBAG!!

LEAVE ME ALONE!!

[JiMMy_247]

Alright how about this:

- No attempts to detract from other fundraising efforts

- We call it a grassroots fund drive instead of a money bomb. Money bombs have small windows for giving. That works when there is a lot of promotion. We dont have that luxury with this, since time is short. With a drive we set a goal to have these efforts funded and allow people to give immediately.

- We start from the cheapest effort to help get the motivation going-its less daunting that way. Once it is funded we go to the next and so on. Or we can do all at once and let people choose what effort to give to-whichever you think.

- We start now.

Anybody got a server to host the effort?

[Gtex]

Well.. I have noticed a few things..

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=70017&highlight=South+Carolina

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=67851&highlight=South+Carolina

Hope that helps?

[UtahApocalypse]

If you do not agree with the blimp than that is fine. Keep donating to the campaign and spreading the word any way you know how BUT please do not try to drag others down with negative posts. Right now we need to be more focused than ever because our first real thrust towards victory starts Thursday and we need all hands on deck right now!


In the same light the blimp supporters need to respect those who disagree with that project. They have constantly posted over and over begging for more money and saying that its the only thing that matters.

[JiMMy_247]

Anybody got a server to donate? I'll help with graphics. Maybe I can help with some coding too if needed (though I'm not as efficient as others here) I'll make a video to promote the idea if we can pull this together, if anybody thinks it would help. I've managed to get some positive response with the few i made so far http://youtube.com/profile?user=BoilingFrogs but I'm not sure exactly what kind of video to make... its just that people seem to like the video promotion.

Thoughts?

[fourameuphoria]

bump?

[gpickett00]

I posted the idea of a grassroots fundraiser in conjunction with a BILLBOARD campaign earlier this week.

BOY, DID I GET A LOT OF FLACK!

I was told that there is a "difference between having big dreams and asking for other peoples money and actualy taking action" ... and was made to feel like some sort of shmuck for suggesting that we not give the money to the Official Campaign.

Apparently many people see that suggestion as an excuse to steal someones cash.

I don't know why the goddamn grassroots can't ORGANIZE ITSELF, LEGALLY with some sort of charter that forces the proceeds to be spent with transparency and some sort of consensus.

Anything is better than giving it to HQ, which seems ill equipped to spend that money either quickly or appropriately.

BTW, i like the blimp, but where 300K is getting us exposure to "thousands", ONE SINGULAR BILLBOARD ON I-95 outside a major city GETS 75 THOUSAND VIEWS PER DAY.

And it costs $1200 FOR THE MONTH!

So, $300K for thousands a month
or $1200 for 2.5 MILLION views a month?

Anyhow,
whatever.
I think its a dead issue, in general, since Iowa is right around the corner, and most people here who are vocal would rather shoot down the idea.
:(

How does nobody respond to this guy? If we can raise 300k on billboard advertising just imagine how many people we could get seeing his name. I propose a billboard money bomb, it is just so much more cost effective than some other uses of money. If for some reason a billboard money bomb is a bad idea, let me know, please.

[fourameuphoria]

How does nobody respond to this guy? If we can raise 300k on billboard advertising just imagine how many people we could get seeing his name. I propose a billboard money bomb, it is just so much more cost effective than some other uses of money. If for some reason a billboard money bomb is a bad idea, let me know, please.

It doesn't even need to be a bomb... just an allocation of people who can help support some of the grassroots projects.

[gpickett00]

Whatever it takes to get people to donate to the most cost efficient place...

[jblackpost]

I agree. I would love to see a grassroots money bomb. The Jeremiah Black ads are fantastic and need to be run. It would be excellent to have someone coordinate this effort.

Thanks everyone for promoting the ads I made. Hopefully, we'll raise some good money and be running these ads in the upcoming states and also making a few new ads.

If you don't want to donate to my ads- that's fine! Just donate somewhere! Whatever puts Dr. Paul in office makes me a happy man.

Thanks again, everyone,

- jeremiah black

www.operationbroadcastfreedom.com