DjLoTi
01-04-2008, 05:27 PM
OK guys, last night I just kind of let it all out with this post:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=74135
That was yesterday, and today there's 49 states left to hold elections. IMO, we're going to need to push for every last one of them all the way until May.
Let me summarize a bit my post from yesterday...
Many of the main guys of the campaign are former members of the libertarian party or from RP's presidential run of 1988. However if I'm going to ask exactly what happened in Iowa, here's who I'm going to ask:
Joe Seehusen, former Iowa state coordinator (from August) and now national campaign coordinator, also the former head of the libertarian party. He ran for the libertarian party in 1996 in Iowa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections%2 C_1998#Iowa).
Drew Ivers, "Ivers also has sustained battle wounds from working in the political trenches while campaigning for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and serving as Iowa state campaign chairman for Pat Robertson in 1988 and Pat Buchanan in 1996 and 2000"
Source: http://www.iowaindependent.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1203
And here's what I'm going to ask:
1 - What was the expected turnout for RP, and how did the numbers compare to the estimates
2 - What was done in Iowa that could be considered a 'major milestone' to help propel RP's standing at the polls
3 - If you could do it all over again, starting since Drew Iver's took over the role of Iowa state coordinator from Joe Seehusen, what would you do? How could it be applied to other states?
4 - Why was there only 1 person representing the Iowa campaign? How many people are hired in Iowa, who are they, and what do they do? Are they effective? What did they do that worked, and didn't work? How is this going to be applied to other states?
5 - How did the status of the Iowa campaign look like before and after Drew's take-over?
6 - What was the 'plan to win Iowa' when the 12M fundraising goal was acheived, how was it implemented, and what was the feedback/results?
I'm not expecting answers, and I don't really want them. These are the questions the campaign should be asking themselves.
Immediate problems? I can name a couple
1 - Miscommunication between the staff and the grassroots on the dozen or so grassroots phone banking projects, which from what I understand, was turning off voters 'in the hundreds per hour'
2 - Ineptness from the campaign for not holding a back-up drive of information of all the precinct captains, because, from my understanding, the HD (or w/e was holding the information) was all lost except for only about 300 people ( vs. #s of people in the 1,000s )
And that's without really looking and not including strategic mistakes.
Only 16% of republicans in Iowa voted, which boils down to about 5% of the population of Iowa. Ron Paul cures apathy, but apparently not enough. Huckabee has been running ads for at least a month with much less fundraising. Ron Paul spent very little time campaigning in Iowa.
The question is, now what do we do? And what do we look forward to?
1 - The campaign had a really good 'Troops support Ron Paul' commercial. They need 3-4 more and they need to pump these out nationwide.
2 - The grassroots needs to get realistic as well as more organized. We have already started moving forward with the 'grassroots advisory board' or w/e you want to call it, and it has *already* proved effective ( stopped the destructive Call4Paul calls, clarified communication )
3 - The campaign needs to either hire new staff OR ... Actually there is no or. I'm not saying they should fire anybody, but should Joe Seehusen be the campaign coordinator? He doesn't look qualified to me, but ....
4 - The main staff should show us why they are employed. We should have our heads spinning with all the things they pump out. This is a non-profit corp, so they should be dumping projects so much we should not be able to keep up with them. We should see direct results from the main players on the staff.
5 - A serious evaluation needs to be done of the staff, all staff, everywhere.
6 - The campaign needs to start selling their candidate and their philosophies. Since they haven't been doing that yet (new ad excluded) (I also include having more GOP big players and insiders being sold on the RPrevolution), they need to hire someone who can.
7 - The grassroots needs to find the enemy and kill it. Right now, Obama is literally our enemy, but the registration process is coming up late, we don't have much time. Why is Obama the threat? Because he's the 'change' candidate that people are falling in love with, and since the word republican is repugnant, the average disenfranchised American is very actively being competed with by Obama.
8 - The grassroots needs to sell better. We need to learn how to talk to our neighbhors. We need to act like voting Ron Paul is like winning the lottery. We need to figure out the solid points of Ron Paul, which is nothing like www.RonPaulfacts.com. You could start by saying the war on drugs and the war in Iraq has cost the country around 1.2 trillion dollars combined, which equal out to about $4,000 for every man, woman, child, and illegal immigrant in the country.
9 - We need to consolidate. The grassroots is everywhere, like an uncontrollable mob. The GAB is running smooth now and hopefully it'll pick up steam, so that is looking to be more effective.
10 - There needs to be crystal-clear communication from the official staff. We need to work together. We need to know exactly what they legally can and can't do. I hear so much, 'the legal ramifications'. Does anyone even know exactly what that means? They should figure it out. Joseph Becker, the chief legal counsel and policy director needs to write up SOMETHING to give out to his staff so they simply and clearly understand EXACTLY what they can and can-not do.
There is still hope. The problem is, with each win that is not RP, some other candidate gains momemtum. It just makes it that much harder for the underdog to come out on top. I think if things are done correctly, we can have a solid finish. Does that mean victory? How hard can the campaign hustle?
At this point, people are already suggesting a 'grassroots money bomb'. If this did happen, most likely it would be extremely clear what the money would be spent on. If it was demanded by the campaign to have the same amount of transparency as the blimp, there would be much less confusion and much less angst.
We do have to keep working harder, but holding signs isn't going to do it. You've got to go door-to-door, or person-to-person ( like at a concert ), and convince the other (in the case of Iowa) 95% of the population that does not vote that they must vote Ron Paul or they're not going to win the lottery ( you get what I'm saying )
We need to be pro-active and effective, and we definitely shouldn't be fighting with each other.
I'm a grassroots leader. I've been in since the beginning. I have over 3,000 posts (lol)(don't post as much lately). People who come in with 400 posts and say they don't trust me and think I'm 'up to something' or something, need to get over it.
Now is the time for the leaders to lead. It is also time for the followers to follow. If we are all leaders, then we have no followers. Without followers, there are effectively no leaders.
This is my call to everyone out there to step their game up massively. Demand more from the campaign. Demand more from yourself. Do what you're good at and get it done. If we can do that, we can win the election. If we can't, we will earn what we deserve.
Chaos.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=74135
That was yesterday, and today there's 49 states left to hold elections. IMO, we're going to need to push for every last one of them all the way until May.
Let me summarize a bit my post from yesterday...
Many of the main guys of the campaign are former members of the libertarian party or from RP's presidential run of 1988. However if I'm going to ask exactly what happened in Iowa, here's who I'm going to ask:
Joe Seehusen, former Iowa state coordinator (from August) and now national campaign coordinator, also the former head of the libertarian party. He ran for the libertarian party in 1996 in Iowa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections%2 C_1998#Iowa).
Drew Ivers, "Ivers also has sustained battle wounds from working in the political trenches while campaigning for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and serving as Iowa state campaign chairman for Pat Robertson in 1988 and Pat Buchanan in 1996 and 2000"
Source: http://www.iowaindependent.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1203
And here's what I'm going to ask:
1 - What was the expected turnout for RP, and how did the numbers compare to the estimates
2 - What was done in Iowa that could be considered a 'major milestone' to help propel RP's standing at the polls
3 - If you could do it all over again, starting since Drew Iver's took over the role of Iowa state coordinator from Joe Seehusen, what would you do? How could it be applied to other states?
4 - Why was there only 1 person representing the Iowa campaign? How many people are hired in Iowa, who are they, and what do they do? Are they effective? What did they do that worked, and didn't work? How is this going to be applied to other states?
5 - How did the status of the Iowa campaign look like before and after Drew's take-over?
6 - What was the 'plan to win Iowa' when the 12M fundraising goal was acheived, how was it implemented, and what was the feedback/results?
I'm not expecting answers, and I don't really want them. These are the questions the campaign should be asking themselves.
Immediate problems? I can name a couple
1 - Miscommunication between the staff and the grassroots on the dozen or so grassroots phone banking projects, which from what I understand, was turning off voters 'in the hundreds per hour'
2 - Ineptness from the campaign for not holding a back-up drive of information of all the precinct captains, because, from my understanding, the HD (or w/e was holding the information) was all lost except for only about 300 people ( vs. #s of people in the 1,000s )
And that's without really looking and not including strategic mistakes.
Only 16% of republicans in Iowa voted, which boils down to about 5% of the population of Iowa. Ron Paul cures apathy, but apparently not enough. Huckabee has been running ads for at least a month with much less fundraising. Ron Paul spent very little time campaigning in Iowa.
The question is, now what do we do? And what do we look forward to?
1 - The campaign had a really good 'Troops support Ron Paul' commercial. They need 3-4 more and they need to pump these out nationwide.
2 - The grassroots needs to get realistic as well as more organized. We have already started moving forward with the 'grassroots advisory board' or w/e you want to call it, and it has *already* proved effective ( stopped the destructive Call4Paul calls, clarified communication )
3 - The campaign needs to either hire new staff OR ... Actually there is no or. I'm not saying they should fire anybody, but should Joe Seehusen be the campaign coordinator? He doesn't look qualified to me, but ....
4 - The main staff should show us why they are employed. We should have our heads spinning with all the things they pump out. This is a non-profit corp, so they should be dumping projects so much we should not be able to keep up with them. We should see direct results from the main players on the staff.
5 - A serious evaluation needs to be done of the staff, all staff, everywhere.
6 - The campaign needs to start selling their candidate and their philosophies. Since they haven't been doing that yet (new ad excluded) (I also include having more GOP big players and insiders being sold on the RPrevolution), they need to hire someone who can.
7 - The grassroots needs to find the enemy and kill it. Right now, Obama is literally our enemy, but the registration process is coming up late, we don't have much time. Why is Obama the threat? Because he's the 'change' candidate that people are falling in love with, and since the word republican is repugnant, the average disenfranchised American is very actively being competed with by Obama.
8 - The grassroots needs to sell better. We need to learn how to talk to our neighbhors. We need to act like voting Ron Paul is like winning the lottery. We need to figure out the solid points of Ron Paul, which is nothing like www.RonPaulfacts.com. You could start by saying the war on drugs and the war in Iraq has cost the country around 1.2 trillion dollars combined, which equal out to about $4,000 for every man, woman, child, and illegal immigrant in the country.
9 - We need to consolidate. The grassroots is everywhere, like an uncontrollable mob. The GAB is running smooth now and hopefully it'll pick up steam, so that is looking to be more effective.
10 - There needs to be crystal-clear communication from the official staff. We need to work together. We need to know exactly what they legally can and can't do. I hear so much, 'the legal ramifications'. Does anyone even know exactly what that means? They should figure it out. Joseph Becker, the chief legal counsel and policy director needs to write up SOMETHING to give out to his staff so they simply and clearly understand EXACTLY what they can and can-not do.
There is still hope. The problem is, with each win that is not RP, some other candidate gains momemtum. It just makes it that much harder for the underdog to come out on top. I think if things are done correctly, we can have a solid finish. Does that mean victory? How hard can the campaign hustle?
At this point, people are already suggesting a 'grassroots money bomb'. If this did happen, most likely it would be extremely clear what the money would be spent on. If it was demanded by the campaign to have the same amount of transparency as the blimp, there would be much less confusion and much less angst.
We do have to keep working harder, but holding signs isn't going to do it. You've got to go door-to-door, or person-to-person ( like at a concert ), and convince the other (in the case of Iowa) 95% of the population that does not vote that they must vote Ron Paul or they're not going to win the lottery ( you get what I'm saying )
We need to be pro-active and effective, and we definitely shouldn't be fighting with each other.
I'm a grassroots leader. I've been in since the beginning. I have over 3,000 posts (lol)(don't post as much lately). People who come in with 400 posts and say they don't trust me and think I'm 'up to something' or something, need to get over it.
Now is the time for the leaders to lead. It is also time for the followers to follow. If we are all leaders, then we have no followers. Without followers, there are effectively no leaders.
This is my call to everyone out there to step their game up massively. Demand more from the campaign. Demand more from yourself. Do what you're good at and get it done. If we can do that, we can win the election. If we can't, we will earn what we deserve.
Chaos.