Ron Paul 2012

[alaric]

could have been RP 2008! Lets go back to 2000. Al Gore wins (he actually did) and in 2002, the republicans elect a backlash congressional/senate majority. Then in 2004, with no sitting rep president, Ron runs and the same thing that happened this time had happened in 04. 2008 he would have run again with greater name recognition and a much greater chance! If only.......

[Pennsylvania]

//

[rockandrollsouls]

I'd do this all over again....he's the only man we really truly unite behind....

I hope that he considers giving it a shot.

Should we start drafting a battle plan? Get signatures to have him registered as an independent in all 50 states or something?

Nothing wrong with a good head start.

[Jake_]

He'll be up there in age but if he remains healthy he may be able to pull it off. With someone like Ventura in the VP slot the media won't be able to ignore him.


We should be more concerned about 2010 at this point though

[dr. hfn]

as long as he is healthy which he definitely is, he's a doctor! And also a lively Ventura or Lawson or Gary Johnson at his side! I think RP will live well into his 90s. He will probably be smart and witty until he croaks.
By 2012, we will have built up the infastructure of the Liberty Movement alot more!

[qh4dotcom]

I don't think he would be interested even if he were younger than 77...he was skeptical about running for president...yes he was pleasantly surprised he got so much support and so many people agreed with his ideas but it's still not enough support or converted folks to change the country for the better.

For the same reason he refused to run 3rd party, I predict he'll decline a 2012 run...time for another liberty candidate to get people excited in 2012....no need to compete with Ron Paul Republicans who want to run for President.

[tonesforjonesbones]

Ron Paul won't run..just forget that. tones

[TruthAtLast]

I'm not sure if Ron Paul would run again, even if he is healthy enough, but if he did I'd hope that the campaign would have learned from the mistakes made. There are a whole list of obstacles that were against Ron Paul but several of them were caused by the campaign itself. Granted, it is a learning process, so hopefully they have learned.

I'm assuming that our candidate will run under the Republican ticket if we are talking about a realistic chance of winning. If that is the case, then the strategy implemented at the beginning of the campaign will mean everything.

If you don't fair well in the first 5-6 states, it's over. Ron Paul (or whoever our candidate is) would need lots of money BEFORE the first primary to make them "viable". Because we are up against a system that is biased against us, we may need to outspend our opponents 2 or 3 to 1.

We need huge grassroots movements in those first few states and we have several years to make that happen. We can't have a campaign that hordes cash either. If we give them money they need to spend it efficiently and early. If they win, more donations and support will follow.

Finally, as much as I don't want to knock Ron Paul for anything, he would need to play the political "game" more effectively. In the first debate, the media was giving him the benefit of the doubt as he spoke mostly on personal liberty and returning to our constitution. But when they started hammering him on his foreign policy and Giuliani had some verbal battles with him on the subject, the media jumped on him and began pegging him as a radical and fringe long shot. You really can't recover from that. You either have to win over the media, or PROVE them wrong at the polls. How many times did we here them say that Ron Paul's support wasn't equating to votes?

I'm not saying the needs to abandon his principles... he just needs to avoid the political landmines.

Strategy

Grassroots organizations in the Iowa, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida is EVERYTHING because once our candidate proves they can win, and the Media join in (or in our case we don't even need the media's endorsement, we just need them NOT to sabotage us), then people in the following states follow suit. If you are a front runner going into Super Tuesday, they can close the door. People like to vote for the "winner".

The primaries are about Momentum and many think Giuliani killed his chances because he put all of his focus on Florida but by the time you get to Florida you're already out of it.

Romney suspended his campaign after Super Tuesday even after winning several states. Mostly I believe it was because McCain won California and he didn't want to spend even more of his own money when he'd have to pretty much run the table or win enough to go to the RNC for a decision.

So let's take a look at the first few states.

Iowa:
The final results were:
Huckabee - 34%
Romney - 25%
Thompson and McCain - 13%
Paul - 10%
Giuliani - 4%

We tend to do well in caucus states and give us a few years to prepare and I think we can do well here.

Wyoming:
We will need to beef up our support in Wyoming. Romney took it and even if we don't win it, we need to take a close second to maintain momentum running into New Hampshire.


New Hampshire:
McCain was dead until New Hampshire. Romney and McCain staked a LOT on this state and it paid off for McCain. It has a huge independent voter base which could help us.

Michigan:
Michigan was everything for Romney. He already lost Iowa and New Hampshire. His father was governor in Michigan so he really needed something in the win column regardless of how many delegates there were. You can't be perceived as "electable" if you can't win states.

Here were the results:

Mitt Romney - 338,316 (38.92%)
John McCain - 257,985 (29.68%)
Mike Huckabee - 139,764 (16.08%)
Ron Paul - 54,475 (6.27%)
Fred Thompson - 32,159 (3.7%)
Rudy Giuliani - 24,725 (2.84%)

Nevada:
This is a closed caucus. Romney won Nevada but Ron Paul took second. We have a good base in Nevada and I know we can grow it in the next few years. Nevada has a fairly large Mormon population which helped Romney but I doubt that will help Palin much (if she is running in 2012). Half of Romney's votes came from Mormons, while two-thirds of the independent voters favored Paul.

South Carolina:
While Romney was going after Nevada, McCain and Huckabee were battling over South Carolina. I'm not sure what we can do to win South Carolina but it is a pretty important state because since 1980 no candidate has won the nomination that hasn't won South Carolina.

Here were the numbers:

John McCain - 147,686 (33.15%)
Mike Huckabee - 132,943 (29.84%)
Fred Thompson - 69,651 (15.63%)
Mitt Romney - 68,142 (15.3%)
Ron Paul - 16,154 (3.63%)
Rudy Giuliani - 9,557 (2.15%)

Louisiana:
We all know the issues we had in Louisiana. Ron Paul officially took second in the Louisiana caucuses but technically Paul won the state until the Louisiana GOP extended the deadline to allow other candidates to file more delegates. I can only hope we can overcome these obstacles next time around. It isn't easy when you are fighting a system that doesn't play by the rules.

Florida:
This is where you can really start to see where momentum is important. Giuliani campaigned solely in Florida and had really thought that a win there would propel him into front-runner status. But the media was already talking about Romney and McCain as the candidates to beat.

McCain came off of a narrow win in South Carolina while Romney just won Nevada and also had wins in Wyoming and Michigan. Mike Huckabee won Iowa and nearly won South Carolina. He was nearly the third candidate to defeat Giuliani in Florida.

Here were the results:

John McCain - 701,761 (36%)
Mitt Romney - 604,932 (31.03%)
Rudy Giuliani - 286,089 (14.68%)
Mike Huckabee - 262,681 (13.47%)
Ron Paul - 62,887 (3.23%)

Conclusion:
I believe a win in Iowa & New Hampshire will translate to a win in at least two of the next 3 (Michigan, South Carolina, Nevada). Hopefully a win in South Carolina will convince the superstitious media that our candidate is electable. From there, Florida and Louisiana are good possibilities which gives us huge momentum going into Super Tuesday. If we somehow took California and/or New York the game may be over.

We need a campaign that is serious about winning. This isn't about hiring "friends". This is about hiring the people with the experience and expertise to WIN. If it is just a matter of money, we'll take care of that, but sometimes I got the feeling that the RP campaign didn't really believe they could win and it was more about spreading the message. Granted, that serves its purpose but in 2012 we are in it to win it.

[alaric]

Truth, thanks for your reasoned reply! I would add that we must follow Jim Condit's advice to prepare for massive votefraud.

[heavenlyboy34]

If RP is up for it, I'll support him! (assuming the country is still around in 2012)