Doom and Gloom

[therealjjj77]

I'm getting sick of all the doom and gloom posts. We have made it a long way. The message is still the same. Yet people are overly magnifying the negative and completely ignoring the positives. Let's keep in mind where we need to go and quit getting hung up with every little detail along the way. You can't run if you keep stopping to pick up every piece of garbage you find.

Let me remind us:

-The campaign has flaws, the candidate has flaws, the message DOES NOT have flaws

-We have raised more money then any campaign against all odds.

-We have set the record for fundraising in one consecutive day, voicing to the world what the message of freedom is all about.

-We have taken 1st place in over half of all the straw polls nation wide.

Last night I was at church and 2 very prominent people in my church including the pastor do not support Ron Paul and are very vocal about it. However, most of my church supports him because they see through the lines. They will be going to caucus on Thursday and we will have a majority vote for Ron Paul. I was talking to different ones last night and different ones came up to me for the first time to talk about why they are going to vote for Ron Paul.

My uncle came up to me and told me how they were at Theisens and saw the Mitt Romney bus and around it were a ton of people waving signs for RON PAUL. I saw on a major intersection in my town of about 60,000 people 10-15 people standing with Ron Paul signs who I've never seen in our local meetup group.

Let's talk about all the positive things that are taking place for a change. That's what I come on this board to read about. Not about every little piece of garbage someone finds along the way.

[amistybleu]

Ignore them.

[snaFU]

lol, churches discussing politics.

[travr6]

Who is getting negative?

the latest poll has Ron Paul in 4th place of likely REpublican caucus goers. That does not count the college aged kids who did not vote in the last election, The independents, the switched over Democrats and disenfranchised republicans from the last elections.

Ron Paul will place top three in both IOWA and NH. I have no doubts.

[WilliamC]

I'm getting sick of all the doom and gloom posts. We have made it a long way. The message is still the same. Yet people are overly magnifying the negative and completely ignoring the positives.

Beware of Trolls. Some good-intentioned folks might be posting the occasional negative comment but I suspect much of this divisiveness is from non-Ron supporters. Not surprising really.

We have taken 1st place in over half of all the straw polls nation wide.

This more than anything else is a hopeful sign to me, it indicates that other candidates have supporters who will answer a telephone. Our candidate has supporters who will actually go vote

If any of the other candidates had this domination of the straw polls it would be getting major media coverage.

[amistybleu]

Beware of Trolls. Some good-intentioned folks might be posting the occasional negative comment but I suspect much of this divisiveness is from non-Ron supporters. Not surprising really.



This more than anything else is a hopeful sign to me, it indicates that other candidates have supporters who will answer a telephone. Our candidate has supporters who will actually go vote

If any of the other candidates had this domination of the straw polls it would be getting major media coverage.

+1 be on Ron's a Neo Con troll alert and Ignore them.

[therealjjj77]

lol, churches discussing politics.

Ummmm.... No one talks politics from the pulpit; in regards of what candidate should be voted for. The greatest extent that our pastor has said from the pulpit is that if we can vote, we should get out and vote for whomever we believe would be the best candidate. In fact, I only know that he is leaning for Fred Thompson because of a conversation I overheard of him with someone else.

Other than that, if we as a congregation wish to talk to each other about the candidates and the issues, we most certainly will do that.

That statement is no different then saying:

"lol, families discussing politics."

It's amazing, though, to see that as a whole almost our whole church is in unity about which candidate to vote for and that is Ron Paul. That makes me excited as we are on the eve of one of the greatest and most important caucuses in history. If that is the independently derived conclusion of the majority of the individuals in my church, it makes me wonder if maybe many other church's membership is coming to the same conclusions.

[jimreport]

All this talk of placing in the top three kind of disturbs me. I am hoping for him to win Iowa, with the 2nd place person getting half the number of votes as Paul. Same with NH.

[braumstr]

This campaign has done great things.

Churches do talk politics all the time.

I am encouraged to hear that the majority of your congregation supports Dr. Paul, and it is very unusual for them to go against the pastor like this, at least from what I know about it (grandpa was a Baptist minister of a medium sized church, so I kinda grew up there)

[therealjjj77]

This campaign has done great things.

Churches do talk politics all the time.

I am encouraged to hear that the majority of your congregation supports Dr. Paul, and it is very unusual for them to go against the pastor like this, at least from what I know about it (grandpa was a Baptist minister of a medium sized church, so I kinda grew up there)

Well, it's an interesting irony. Our leadership is Christ and our pastor is simply a servant that brings us spiritual food so to speak.

However, our pastor talks a lot about history and sounds a lot like Ron Paul on a lot of things. But he only pays attention to the mass media and I'm sure he got misinformation from the about Ron Paul like a lot of other people.

What's really interesting is that a lot of the people in my church are not active on the internet and only get their information from newpapers and TV, yet they read between the lines and see a candidate that has been ostracized by the media, but that they see what he's saying regardless of the slant the media puts on it.

[ErikBlack]

I think one thing we should try to avoid is negativity following a potential low placement in Iowa. Personally, I think Paul will take 3rd in Iowa but go on to win NH by a landslide (if the media doesn't crucify him in the interim). But Iowa isn't really Paul's key demographic. Of course I hope I am dead wrong, and if your church is any indication, maybe I am.

But if Paul places 4th or 5th in Iowa I can see all of the arm-chair political geniuses here bickering over how it is a failure of the national campaign, how the grassroots could have done a better job, how we need more blimps, more political correctness, more pandering, more cheating, more infiltrating of other camps, etc.

One thing that most businessmen or managers learn early on is that micromanagement doesn't work. You have to focus on the big picture and aim for a clear goal without getting mucked up in the details. I think you put it perfectly: "You can't run if you stop to pick up every piece of garbage along the way". If we can all resist the urge to micromanage the campaign, trust that Ron Paul has surrounded himself with the most competent advisers he knows, accept that they have a national strategy that may not be clear to us yet, stop bickering amongst ourselves over evolution, abortion, immigration and the CIVIL WAR, then there is a lot of hope.

If Paul doesn't win NH I they should have to change the slogan on their license plates to "Live Free, or not" :P

[therealjjj77]

Speaking as an Iowan and as someone who has called every Republican in my precinct(in Dubuque where Ron Paul is the only candidate that has NOT visited): you may have more people for all the other candidates combined. I mean you may have 60% of the votes divided between Romney, Giuliani, McCain, Thompson, and Huckabee.

So maybe:
Ron Paul < All the other candidates combined at this time in Dubuque(the most liberal town in Iowa)

But,

Ron Paul > Any other candidate alone when vote is dilluted

Equals=

Ron Paul will win but media will play it down and give excuses for why

[katao]

Thanks guys for the positive anecdotal reports from Iowa. There is a tendency to either be "doom and gloom" (leading to apathy) or completely unrealistic (leading to severe disappointment). We need less drama and far more resolved determination.

"You can't run if you keep stopping to pick up every piece of garbage you find." - classic!