PDA

View Full Version : Keep on keeping on




Badger Paul
01-04-2008, 08:11 AM
Losing in politics is like being slugged in the gut. There's no worse feeling. Our Iowa grassroots volunteers did the best they could and they should be honored for taking an unknown Congressman for zero to 10% of the vote in not even a full year's time, but fifth place is disappointing. There no spinning that.

We all have our gripes about how the campaign was conducted in Iowa but if you think firing people is the answer, why don't we start with the man at the top, Dr. Paul, who thought spending New Year's by the fireside in Lake Jackson reading a policy manual was more important than campaigning in Iowa. You don't think Fred Thompson's last ditch effort helped him get votes? The bottom line is most Iowans, especially those who are usual caucus goers, are not going to vote for a phantom and spending only 19 days in the state isn't going to cut it.

There are other things as well. We never pushed issues that could have helped us like hemp farming, or trying to mine the online gaming community in Iowa, who's large numbers of votes could have made a difference. We spent much of our advertising in central Iowa rather than eastern Iowa where there was more potential for votes, we never tried to connect with antiwar Republicans, majorites of whom want the U.S. to pull out of Iraq. They probably stayed home. We didn't do a good job getting all of our people to the caucuses, assuming if they were Ron Paul supporters they would be hardcore enough to find there ways there. It doesn't always work that way, especially if they are new to the caucus process. A lot of our effort was spirited but of the too little too late quality, just like the straw poll.

We can go on an on but it's all useless. No one's going to be fired and no amount of griping is going to make change the official camapaign and no hot shot poltico is going to come to the rescue on white horse (certainly not now). The official camapaign is what it is, inexperienced at the ways of a national campaign and probably pretty overworked. But this was campaign started on a lark, not on a well organized plan or startegy to win the GOP nomination. Its grown like and organism because of all the money we've raised and the support we've given to it and it has growing pains like it or not. Thanks God we have a lot of dedicateed volunteers to offset that othwerwise we'd really be in a pickle.

Those pissed off with the campaign are free to stop giving money to it, free to set up their own organzations to help elect Ron Paul. Free to do whatever the hell they want. Just do it someplace else instead of wasting time bitching here on RPF. Contribute to the chip-ins with that money, run your own camapaigns, design your own commercials. You want freedom? Then take it instead of complaining what the national campaign is doing. Do we have people around here who don't understand the very premise of the camapaign? Do we have people who want freedom and have no clue with what to do with it? And those who want to quit after one out 50 states and several territories have even voted, well sayonora sweetheart. You will not be missed and will be forgetten.

But we have people who are running for delegates slots in various states, are becoming precint captains and becoming ensconsed inside local GOP organizations. Do we just quit on them? Do we throw away a year's effort? Say it was all for nothing? Go away when we're starting to make an impact? Regardless of what happens in Wyoming or New Hampshire, Ron Paul should actively camapaign in all 50 states and whever he has supporters who stood on street corners waving signs, put banners on bridges on stood and worked in the 96 deegre heat or bitter cold of Iowa. He owes it to them to give them an opportunity to vote for him regardless of whether he wins the nomination or not.

It's obvious from the Iowa results that this revolution has to be a gradual one. It's not going to happen overnight. But it can happen if we stick to it. If we do the hard work of organizing and caucusing at the precint and county and congressional district level. I think more than 60% of caucus goers in Iowa were over the age of 50. It confirms to me that that the GOP is a dying party. We have the opportunity if we stay organized and committed to rise up when the rest die away.

And last night wasn't a complete diaster. Our efforts to reach out to independents paid off with all the letters we wrote, we won amongst independents who caucused with the GOP. We won amongst those disastified with Bush. We even won a county which is something McCain or Thompson didn't do. Plus, the MSM actually thinks we didn't do all that bad. They really thought we were this joke campaign, the Republican equivalent of the LaRouchies and yet we were able to pull 10% of the vote and over 11,000 voters.

So we continue on for the rest of the spring and then see what happens. We could run a non-major party camapaign but I don't think it would accomplish anything of major importance. What's important is that we can, if not take over, at least steer the GOP in the right direction, help it reinvent itself. But we can only do that if we stay committed. This about the message more so than the man but it's up to YOU to make that the message gets heard. Barry Goldwater said at the 1960 Republican National Convention, "Let's grow up conservatives. If we want to take back our party, and I think we can, then let's get to work."

I agree let's stop talking and get to work!