Just Got Back From The Rally In Philly

[Phenom24]

Megalopolis had a poor showing.

3,000 people? HAHAHA thats a joke.


Nashville, an area of 1.5 million, had 1600 and was turning people away. Philly who had an area of many many many millions (40 million from NYC to DC) could only get twice as much as Nashville? I'm sorry but that is a poor poor showing. It would have had to been 15,000 to be a success.

If not for the earned media this would have been the biggest waste of money yet.

Hey big guy.. This was outside and it was 40 degrees and rained all morning.

If it was inside and not nearly freezing outside it would have probably been quite a bit bigger..

Ease up with the cranky pants junk.

[austin356]

Sounds like SOMEBODY'S got a case of the MONDAYS!!!

No just talkin' smack 2 those socialist yankees

[austin356]

Hey big guy.. This was outside and it was 40 degrees and rained all morning.

If it was inside and not nearly freezing outside it would have probably been quite a bit bigger..

Ease up with the cranky pants junk.

Well there is nobody here to blame since I think the people organizing this, especially the grassroots, seem like they were doing a good job. Thats all we can do though.

[tmg19103]

Megalopolis had a poor showing.

3,000 people? HAHAHA thats a joke.


Nashville, an area of 1.5 million, had 1600 and was turning people away. Philly who had an area of many many many millions (40 million from NYC to DC) could only get twice as much as Nashville? I'm sorry but that is a poor poor showing. It would have had to been 15,000 to be a success.

If not for the earned media this would have been the biggest waste of money yet.

I think if it had been sunny and upper 50's you would have seen 7,000+.

I think the rain in the morning and temp in the 40's kept people away, but 3-4,000 is still the largest RP rally to date.

I also think the big cities in the northeast are pretty apathetic towards politics. Would have loved to have had more, but I do think the weather was a facter.

Still, I see this rally as an amazing success. There will be great video and the crowd was big enough to look huge with the sign waving and the noise volume was great.

I have heard one way or another most of RP's speeches, and I would say this was his best. No real stops or stutters in a 45 minute speech that hit EVERY issue. His voice was firm and assertive, but not angry. I think this comes from the Nov. 5th money bomb. I sensed a new, or renewed confidence in RP, and I think that was the success of Nov. 5th and all the ensuing media attention, and I think that will carry over to debates.

[Proemio]

... I gave a street singer playing a guitar $100 to sing about Ron Paul while he was standing on the corner of 4th and Broad and not only did he, he asked for one of my signs to put behind him. Later I saw the dude later at the rally...

How can we not win with stuff like that? And I'm dead serious.

The combined trust of countless individual initiatives can't be defeated - it's impossible.
Beware of peddlers of formulas...

[bobmurph]

Sounds like SOMEBODY'S got a case of the MONDAYS!!!

No. No, man. $#@!, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked sayin' something like that, man.

[margomaps]

No. No, man. $#@!, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked sayin' something like that, man.

Ahahahah...touché!

[JosephTheLibertarian]

nice rally

[frasu]

I think if it had been sunny and upper 50's you would have seen 7,000+.

I think the rain in the morning and temp in the 40's kept people away, but 3-4,000 is still the largest RP rally to date.

I also think the big cities in the northeast are pretty apathetic towards politics. Would have loved to have had more, but I do think the weather was a facter.

Still, I see this rally as an amazing success. There will be great video and the crowd was big enough to look huge with the sign waving and the noise volume was great.

I have heard one way or another most of RP's speeches, and I would say this was his best. No real stops or stutters in a 45 minute speech that hit EVERY issue. His voice was firm and assertive, but not angry. I think this comes from the Nov. 5th money bomb. I sensed a new, or renewed confidence in RP, and I think that was the success of Nov. 5th and all the ensuing media attention, and I think that will carry over to debates.

I agree... I just back from the rally and yeah, I expected a lot more people, but in the end, despite the cold or apathy, it was a great rally and and strong show of support... The best part was hearing Dr Ron Paul talking with such great confidence and strength... wow

thanks to the meetup group in Philly for putting together and holding on to this rally...

history in the making!

[GoPaul]

I think tmg hit it on the head. The day was overcast and a little cold. I know of at least two or three, myself, that would have made it out in clear weather.

And not sure about rest of NE. In general people I know are apathetic towards politics. Which doesn't mean they won't vote. They just won't turn out at a politic rally.

I think if it had been sunny and upper 50's you would have seen 7,000+.

I think the rain in the morning and temp in the 40's kept people away, but 3-4,000 is still the largest RP rally to date.

I also think the big cities in the northeast are pretty apathetic towards politics. Would have loved to have had more, but I do think the weather was a facter.

Still, I see this rally as an amazing success. There will be great video and the crowd was big enough to look huge with the sign waving and the noise volume was great.

I have heard one way or another most of RP's speeches, and I would say this was his best. No real stops or stutters in a 45 minute speech that hit EVERY issue. His voice was firm and assertive, but not angry. I think this comes from the Nov. 5th money bomb. I sensed a new, or renewed confidence in RP, and I think that was the success of Nov. 5th and all the ensuing media attention, and I think that will carry over to debates.

[Matt Collins]

Megalopolis had a poor showing.

3,000 people? HAHAHA thats a joke.


Nashville, an area of 1.5 million, had 1600 and was turning people away. Philly who had an area of many many many millions (40 million from NYC to DC) could only get twice as much as Nashville? I'm sorry but that is a poor poor showing. It would have had to been 15,000 to be a success.

If not for the earned media this would have been the biggest waste of money yet.

Yes and no. Proportionally speaking you are correct. But that's why outside rallies are a gamble and a roll of the dice (especially this time of year and that far north).

I was one of the key players in getting the Nashville rally organized so I feel qualified to comment.

I am glad the turnout was as good as it was (largest to date?) but it could've been better. Not only was the weather a factor the momentum got axed 1 week out because of someone's lack of planning.

[Syren123]

Yes they did film it. I don't recall the gentleman's name but he came out on stage and said he needed a good shot for his next youtube video. The crowd paused for a couple of seconds and then went wild. I seem to recall he said that that was the most Ron Paul signs he had seen.

If he was wearing a straw cowboy hat, a vest, and squarish glasses, it's Bill.

Who was the woman who spoke again? Did we get a name?

[constituent]

It should have gone down as originally planned by the grassroots with more entertainment and better speakers - speakers that are about to break down in tears are good for revivals not Rah, Rah rallies.

We need more support along with all the money that is be thrown at the campaign kitty.

I didn't see this speech, but I was watching the CNN live coverage and the show was entirely devoid of the Rah-Rah's (pre-RP speech), one repeat one major problem. I shouldn't have to qualify this, but lest i be called a troll know i'm about as hardcore a supporter (socially/philosophically) as it gets (so f* off if you have a problem with what i'm about to say).

The campaign dropped the ball big time on this one, on so many levels it is beyond aggravation, but i'll spare everyone the painful play-by-play....

i just hope they are prepared to look inside and brace for some major re-evaluations at this point 'cuz it is do or die.

seriously, many successes at philly, but they phugged this one so thoroughly it is mind-boggling.

just my rapidly depreciating .02 fiat.

[constituent]

Megalopolis had a poor showing.

3,000 people? HAHAHA thats a joke.


Nashville, an area of 1.5 million, had 1600 and was turning people away. Philly who had an area of many many many millions (40 million from NYC to DC) could only get twice as much as Nashville? I'm sorry but that is a poor poor showing. It would have had to been 15,000 to be a success.

If not for the earned media this would have been the biggest waste of money yet.

yes, this individual is right... deal with it.

Even if it was five, even had it been seven the verdict would not change, attendance was relatively piss poor (looked even worse on CNN b/c the crowd failed to fill in around the stage... instead it looked mostly like a field of 'saved' seats.)

Overall, I would say this has almost zero to do w/ the GRooters who have been out there busting their ass the last couple months to fire this off with a bang... Almost zero, b/c if five thousand people showed up it proves (particularly when weather is taken into consideration) just how hard the promoters of this event were working with what they had.

The other thing, and i'm about to check incase it has been updated, but no one should have rested at HQ until there was a high quality vid. w/ soundboard audio version of the RP speech online for all the people in the rest of the world. That is also rather unfortunate, and representative of a spot where the campaign seems to consistently drop the ball (the worst example being almost two weeks before the birthday BBQ video surfaced).

Seriously, I've been sparing HQ my judgment ('cuz it doesn't really matter anyway) , but at this point it is out of hand and i feel the need to vent.... thank anyone who read all of ^^^^^^^^^^that.

Anyway, two more cents... keep 'em together and you've almost gotten a nickle's worth of unsolicited opinion.

[MozoVote]

I have to agree the CNN feed made the rally seem less impressive than the justin.tv feed did. The camera panned back a few times from CNN and you could see empty space around the podium... the mic was set so that you did not hear the audience at much.

I'm still glad CNN broadcast (most of)the speech live, though.

[Primbs]

The square was almost filled.

I saw a few Ron Paul signs on the overpasses going north on 95.

[rockwell]

I wanted to think about what happened before commenting again, and yes, in retrospect this could have been a defining moment in the campaign and because of failures on the part of the official organization- not the huge volunteer showing, that couldn't have been better- but the actual machine that runs this candidacy, it wasn't.

Why weren't they advertising the hell out of this in the week before? I know the market and the cost for 15/30 second ads on half a dozen "second tier" stations would have been negligible and would have brought out a whole lot of folks who don't know much about Ron Paul instead of just the choir. You had a Country star- I don't know who he is, but I bet people who listen to country do- total miss not to capitalize on that.

It was free. You tell people in Philly that there's a free get together, with music, right downtown? You'd have brought in thousands of onlookers, plenty of whom would have been open to the message, advertisements should have been in the weekly free paper, the Metro, Philly News, there should have been ads in the editorial section of the Enquirer for two or three weeks leading up to the event, nothing. A gigantic waste of opportunity especially on the heels of the money bomb. Shameful performance by whoever is on payroll as the media consultant.

I ran into a reporter on my way back to the garage, a guy who writers for the Newark NJ newspaper and he made a comment to me. I said something back about "my guy" being shut out of the press, or disdainfully covered using trigger words like "insurgent" or "wacky" or "marginal" and he stopped and told me that the campaign had a scheduled interview for media that Ron Paul simply didn't show up for. Now I know he was late coming in- another mistake, for something that size he definitely should have been in town the night before and on morning radio at the least, but that's another issue. I don't know why Ron Paul didn't make the media appearance, but when they are already hostile towards you, standing them up and not having a really good reason- and this reporter seemed to think that there wasn't one- is a very bad move.

I don't know if people from the campaign read these forums, but they ought to and they better not be making the same mistakes over and over again or it's going to look like they want to scuttle this campaign. There were people at the pre-rally Q &A who asked about the phone lists for NH and we were told that the campaign was handling that and it wasn't time to start calling NH voters yet because of how complicated the phone system was- it was an awful answer to a simple question, WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR? We haven't got forever, we only have so many weeks left and someone ought to be capitalizing on the grassroots energy if the professional folks can't get their $#@! together.

Make sure he's where he should be in plenty of time. Promote every appearance like crazy. Use the energized volunteers more and depend on the so-called pros less, or at least force them to handle the bigger issues- like getting local press and advertisments up and running BEFORE the event, not AFTER.

And finally- if CNN showed all those seats in the center being empty, it wasn't a live shot because by the time Ron Paul hit the stage the Veterans seating was filled up. There were a lot of folks there, if they made it look sparsely attended it was intentional, but there could have been at least twice that number.

I really hope that this helps because no one was more excited to see this go well than I was. I just think it's time to get serious and stop fooling around and that's how this came off from the outside

[CurtisLow]

Very cool Rock!


My short story on the rally..

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=35709


.

[rockwell]

Very cool Rock!


My short story on the rally..

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=35709


.

Great to see a different perspective. It was something to be around that many people who have an inkling of what's going on politically in the US.

[Proemio]

...
Make sure he's where he should be in plenty of time. Promote every appearance like crazy. Use the energized volunteers more and depend on the so-called pros less, or at least force them to handle the bigger issues- like getting local press and advertisments up and running BEFORE the event, not AFTER.
...

Some thoughts.

In simplified terms, there are three distinct forces in play - the Grassroots, the Campaign, Ron Paul - not two, as is often understood (Grassroots and Campaign). Ron Paul and the Campaign are not a monolith and don't necessarily have the same priorities at any given time. That is beside the possibility that not everyone in the Campaign is sufficiently capable or even has the best interest of the purpose in mind (happens all the time in politics, but also in commerce or any other scenario where talent has to be drawn from the outside).

When an individual or a group from the Grassroots comes up with an idea, they must consider themselves on their own. No matter how brilliant the idea, it should work to a worthwhile extent without the Campaign or Ron Paul himself, or even the endorsement from the all-important approval committees here. There will be support or there won't. And never give up control to anyone from the outside. Outside includes the Campaign for the purpose of discussion. They and Ron Paul should be welcome guests - headliners, if you will - if they chose to attend. November 5th is of course an easy example of how that principle works.

Self-reliance is paramount and also perfectly in tune with the message. If you start something, you are the boss until the end - warts or glory. Don't fret about approval of the Campaign, and certainly don't rely on them. That way, if Ron Paul decides to appear the Campaign can concentrate on getting him there in good shape and on time.

Always remember (paraphrase): "They started it and I joined" - Ron Paul