Ron Paul Roundup (11-09-07)
by RS Davis
Hello Freedomphiles! Today's a huge Roundup, almost like the weekend edition. There's some good stuff in here, so strap on your seatbelts and return your tray tables to their full and upright positions.
Off we go...
Let's start with a big name. USAToday has a piece on our man today, where he is reinforcing what I have been saying about the campaign for a long time now - Ron Paul has tapped into a Hayekian free-market structure for his campaign, and it is showing the power of the market:
- In a telephone interview from New Hampshire, Paul said his campaign has become the political model of his libertarianism.
"We offered the message and the message spread and the organization was spontaneous," he said. "It is interesting. We sort of see the campaign operating the way the free market works. Not by central economic planning" but by "individuals doing things in their own best interest."
His supporters include everyone from day traders and college students to unemployed caregivers and veterans fed up with the Iraq war.
Paul believes he is "tapping into a huge sense of frustration" that is even bigger than he ever imagined.
"They are tired of the war, and they are tired of spending and tired big government and finally they have heard a message" that makes sense, he said.
Paul is already advertising on the radio in South Carolina. And with millions in the bank and a fraction of the overhead his competitors have, he'll have a voice when it counts in early primary and caucus states.
That alone propels him beyond gadfly status.
The Los Angeles Times is getting in on the act, as well, and published a story today on the ascendency of Ron Paul:
- The Texas congressman with the sharp libertarian bent thanked his supporters Wednesday for what is one of the best single-day fundraising totals in presidential campaign history. He insisted the event is not an anomaly but a sign of real progress, a claim supported by several Web commentators.
"Amazing! I have to admit being floored by the $4.2 million you raised yesterday for this campaign," Paul wrote to his supporters, adding: "What momentum we have! Please help me keep it up. As you and I know, and our opponents are only suspecting, we have success on our minds and in our hearts."
(...)
But several commentators said the ability to raise so much money so quickly had enhanced his credibility and would force other candidates and the media to take Paul seriously.
"This is the single biggest example of people-power this [election] cycle," wrote Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of the liberal-leaning website the Daily Kos. "And as annoying as it is that we're seeing it from a Republican -- and a crazy one at that -- it's nevertheless a beautiful thing to behold."
Salon.com commentator Glenn Greenwald wrote that the Paul campaign had become "a bona fide phenomenon of real significance."
Greenwald argued that Paul was catching on with people "hungry for a political movement which operates outside of our rotted political establishment and which fearlessly rejects its pieties, even if they disagree with some or even many of its particulars."
Man, the press he's been getting lately has been huge. In the time I have been writing this Roundup, he has moved from primarily appearing in small web-oriented blogs and of course the uber-supportive LewRockwell.com to USAToday, Time, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. This is really starting to snowball, and I could not be more excited.
Another article in the Los Angeles Times puts you and me in the spotlight, because, face it, we are the strength of this campaign. This is not a campaign about a personality - like America's Mayor or the wife of The First Black President - this is a campaign about an idea. An idea that set the world on fire over 200 years ago - the notion of independence, self-reliance, and freedom. Ron Paul is the bearer of that message, but it emenates from each and every one of us.
- On their own websites, they chatter and exchange gossip about writers who have mentioned Ron Paul's name, always referred to reverently as Dr. Paul. And, because earlier this year many were overbearing and aggressive, they offer each other tips on how to make the best impression with their online comments, using jokes and self-deprecating humor.
It's an admirable brand of do-it-yourself campaigning using few funds and lots of duct tape and heart. "Google Ron Paul" is their motto, trying to draw more people to become admirers of the strict constitutionalist and ultraconservative isolationist who never saw a government dollar he did not want to not spend. A recent Associated Press feature on Paulites noted the Google phrase painted atop a Manhattan apartment building in huge letters in case any air passengers overhead looked out their window.
The Boston Globe is talking about us, too, and our plans for future money bombs. Let me tell you guys, that was a brilliant idea, and we need to do more of them. The uniqueness of the fundraising strategy is almost as important as the results. The fervor that we show for Dr Paul gets him noticed, gets the message out. We need to make the Boston Tea Party money bomb as big or bigger of a success than the one we did for Guy Fawkes Day.
- The fund-raising "bomb," detonated by Ron Paul's supporters this week, was such a huge success that his backers are already planning others, including one with a Boston connection.
The one on Tuesday raised $4.2 million in online contributions from nearly 37,000 people -- an one-day record for a Republican presidential candidate -- and resulted in the biggest explosion of publicity yet for Paul, a Texas congressman. It was timed with Guy Fawkes Day, marked in England with fireworks and bonfires to the anniversary of a failed plot to blow up Parliament in 1605.
A donation day in the works will apparently be tied to another historical event -- the Boston Tea Party on Dec. 16, 1773, when patriots dumped tea into Boston Harbor to protest taxation without representation. Paul campaign spokeswoman Kerri Price said she had no official confirmation of the event because it is being organized entirely by volunteers.
So was the one on Tuesday. "This historic event was created, organized, and run by volunteers," Paul said in a message posted on his website. "This is the spirt that has protected American freedom in our past; this is the spirit that is doing so again."
And finally, the folks over at Slate.com talked to my friends over at RonPaulForums.com about the campaign and how it worked:
- But according to supporters I talked to, it's not just the fund-raising effort that was "created, organized, and run by volunteers." It's his entire campaign. To hear them tell it, Ron Paul is not actually in control of his presidential run. Neither is Jesse Benton, Paul's national spokesman, nor his campaign manager, Lew Moore. They're just the "official campaign," according to one supporter. The grass roots, he said, are the "real campaign."
Headquarters and the "real campaign" don't communicate all that much. Ron Paul supporters make their own signs, fliers, and banners, instead of using official campaign literature. They sponsor fund-raising drives within their own networks to take out their own ads in newspapers. In other words, money is being raised for Paul behind Paul's back. The ideas are concocted, nurtured, and executed within the grass-roots community.
Take the "moneybomb," for example. To garner press coverage, a supporter named Trevor Lyman had the idea to synchronize fundraising on Nov. 5 and proposed it on a Ron Paul forum. The community helped make it happen, which led to 4.2 million dollars and dozens of headlines.
Yesterday, I had a link in here to an analysis on Haaretz.com where they determined that while Paul's positions might not neccessarily be in the best interest of Isreal, he is certainly not an anti-semite. Well, the Jewish publication JTA is also getting in on the act, reporting on their contact with Dr Paul:
- "I do believe that our current policies toward Israel are doing more harm than good to those we profess to support. Our foreign military aid to Israel is actually more like corporate welfare to the U.S. military industrial complex, as Israel is forced to purchase only U.S. products with the assistance."
Paul said, "We have adopted a foreign policy that has left Israel surrounded by militaristic nations while undermining Israel's sovereignty by demanding that its foreign and defense policies be essentially pre-approved in Washington."
He adds later, "The United States should take care of its own sovereignty while at the same time respecting the sovereignty of nations like Israel. That is the best way to preserve security and prosperity for all."
CBSNews is reporting about some stolen credit cards, and their use to make donations to the Ron Paul campaign:
- The presidential campaign of Texas Rep. Ron Paul received donations from overseas thieves using stolen credit cards, reports CBS station KTVT in Dallas/Fort Worth.
Investigators at Frost Bank discovered that the stolen cards were being used to make $5 contributions to the Paul campaign, in an apparent attempt to test the cards.
Frost Bank refunded money from nearly 100 customers and canceled all 500 of the credit cards that had been stolen from the bank. The Paul campaign tells CBSNews.com it has refunded to the bank the donations from the stolen cards, which amout to about $3,000...
...Kerri Price, assistant director of communications for the Paul campaign, noted that the donations from the stolen cards represent "a very small percentage of money that was brought in."
"We don't know anything about the criminals that did this," she said, adding that the tactic was "fairly common with identity thieves."
I just want to say, if you are the one who did this, and you truly support Dr Paul, cut the $#@!, already!! We are not going to win over the hearts and minds of Americans by robbing them or by spamming their email accounts. We need to remain above the fray.
We are fighting an establishment full of dirty tricksters and sleazy Statists that will do anything to preserve their power and corporate connections. If we are trying to change that status quo, we can't stoop to their level. As Ghandi said, we must be the change we want to see in the world.
Now that the lecture is over, let's get back to bid'nass. HumanEvents.com writer Ross Kaminsky is looking at the "futures market" in candidates - namely the betting market:
- "Ron Paul is 8.5 at 9 (9.3 last!) to be the Repub nom," said an e-mail from a friend. In trader talk, as we're both options traders by vocation, that means that on some political betting site, in this case intrade.com, gamblers were betting that Ron Paul has between an 8.5% and 9% chance of being the GOP nominee for the presidency in 2008, and that the last trade was actually at 9.3%.
As a professional trader and someone who thinks about electoral politics a lot, I thought my friend must be wrong, but upon further inspection he wasn't. Not only is Ron Paul trading today just under 9%, but he's trading above Fred Thompson (7.6%), John McCain (7.1%), and Mike Huckabee (6.4%).
David Weigel over at the peerless reason.com reports on the new Ron Paul ad in New Hampshire:
- Ron Paul's third New Hampshire TV ad is up at Reason.tv. This one addresses an issue I don't think any candidate has in his/her commercials yet: Privacy and the war on terror.
I'm Ron Paul and I'm the only presidential candidate who'll bring our troops home from Iraq immediately and stop wasteful government spending. But here's something else I care about, and I hope you do too. The war on terror and the growth of big government have had a dangerous side effect: The loss of privacy rights for the American people. Both parties have put their pet schemes ahead of our rights. Not me. As president, I won't stand for it. No national ID card, no invasion of privacy. I'm Ron Paul and I approve this message.
If Paul's going to make a surprise showing in New Hampshire, this is the talk (if not the production quality--this is direct but dark) that'll do it. Let the rest of the field thrash about debating Iraq and making fun of Hillary's ankles while he talks to Free Staters about REAL ID.
Here's the ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0_ZCEc9bi8
Okay, last bit now. Kathryn Muratore at LewRockwell.com thinks that Paul's chances in the primary are better than anyone is expecting:
- Ron Paul's record fund-raising on Monday got me thinking about what the media polls say about his chances of getting the GOP nomination. Clearly, Ron Paul supporters are more motivated than any of the other candidates' – this is a direct consequence of a successful grassroots campaign since it relies on volunteers who choose to actively participate. Historically, primaries are a non-starter for political action: voter turnout rates are typically around 10% of registered voters for the relevant party. So can the combination of a successful grassroots campaign and general ambivalence at the polls make for a successful nomination run? I crunched the numbers and I was surprised to learn that the answer is: Yes.
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