A blimp is a BAD IDEA - here is why

[angelatc]

For the sake of argument, if the blimp was so successful, why stop there? Why not, say, a Ron Paul rocket? Surely something even more grand would have garnered that much more media attention and generated more name recognition.


Obviously, I'm not being serious -- the cost per vote gained there is impossibly high. But the argument of many of the blimp critics, myself included, is that the same can be said of the blimp when compared to other forms of voter contact. Now, I understand why so many people liked it. It was fun, and it made you feel a part of something special, something that had never done before in politics … and maybe we actually were really changing things. I like the sound of that. But it doesn't mean critics can't have a reasonable point when they call it a poor investment ... and since neither side can provide anything but anecdotes to bolster their point (and anecdotes -- fun though they may be to reminisce about -- don't prove anything), we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

Absolutely. But Paul went from having practically no national name recognition to having very high name recognition. Our mission there is accomplished.

The other side did not have any plans at all.

Maybe we could have all followed Matt's advice and funneled our money into local PACs in lieu of the campaign and done political mailings. But the problem with those is the messaging. It is really hard to get the grassroots to limit themselves to the message of the candidate especially when the candidate is specifically forbidden from coordinating their messages. Compared to some of the messages i heard coming from the grassroots, a blimp was not only effective, it was safe.

 

[angelatc]

In person, during a campaign, is a lot different than an Internet forum.

So what do you hope to accomplish by continuing this anti-grassoots campaign on the internet?

 

[jjdoyle]

It's past time. Even though sock puppets got the thread locked Operation Rep Burn lives on.

You can also report posts, but as has been proven and yourself a witness, and a brief search of history on the forums, Matt Collins' and members like him that repeatedly break the guidelines, and even outright repeatedly LIE, are protected.

I wonder, if you start lying, maybe you will have the honor of being asked to be a moderator and then able to solve the problem around here?

Is that a requirement for being asked to be a moderator, being a liar and one that doesn't follow the guidelines?

It's much of what I have seen from Bryan and the team, and I find it a real shame.

Bryan will publicly come into a thread and refer to the guidelines, like in this one, but he won't response to actual PMs and emails with questions? Is that like a Congressman claiming we should balance the budget, not spend more than we have, but voting for more foreign aid to a country that doesn't need it?

The only consistency it seems, is inconsistency...

But, Matt Collins doesn't need to worry, because with the way Rand's team is sucking the excitement out of the air, Rand won't have to worry with a blimp in 2016.

 

[angelatc]

Ummm, yeah, pretty much all of this.

The highlighted is EXACTLY what happened in NH as well, and I was not the only one who noticed it.

ETA - After reading that again, I realize that you were referring to the 2007 campaign, which is even worse, because what I saw was in 2011-2012.

Four years and the geniuses sitting around with more degrees than a thermometer still couldn't figure it out. And now, after picking up the fumble and running the ball down the field, we're being told by self-important talking heads like Collins here, that "you're doing it all wrong".

Fuck that.

The 2012 campaign was far more troubling for me. The campaign was forbidden by law from coordinating messages with the grassroots. If someone on the campaign payroll was....say, creating alternate identities in an effort to steer the funds and the messages that the internet forum grassroots were funding at the time, it would have been a pretty clear violation of campaign finance law.

 

[Anti Federalist]

The 2012 campaign was far more troubling for me. The campaign was forbidden by law from coordinating messages with the grassroots. If someone on the campaign payroll was....say, creating alternate identities in an effort to steer the funds and the messages that the internet forum grassroots were funding at the time, it would have been a pretty clear violation of campaign finance law.

True enough...not like shady dealings are out of the question with Benton at the helm.

 

[Anti Federalist]

So what do you hope to accomplish by continuing this anti-grassoots campaign on the internet?

Prove he's right so that people will flock to invest in the next MLM scheme he comes up with?

 

[AuH2O]

Absolutely. But Paul went from having practically no national name recognition to having very high name recognition. Our mission there is accomplished.

I think it's hard to give the blimp all the credit for that. Not to sound like Matt, but correlation is not necessarily causation. Again, I don't think it's possible to prove or disprove the effectiveness at this point.

 

[AuH2O]

It was, if nothing else a "foot in the door." That is salesmanship 101. That's what it did. What was done with that opportunity is something else entirely. It got newsplay on local and national stations. That's NOT anecdotal.

That's pretty pricey earned media.

Exactly what was the ROI of the blimp in terms of votes? That is, exactly how many votes were gained per dollar spent on it - and how does that compare to the votes-per-dollar of other endeavors? Without this information, it is impossible to say objectively that the blimp was not "worth it" (at least, in terms of getting votes) - and as far as I know, no one has presented those critical pieces of data.

I should have said it was likely impossibly high. But the fact that we can't actually track it as opposed to the opportunity cost of the investment is precisely my point.

But even if it could be irrefutably shown that the "cost per vote" of the blimp was "too high" relative to other efforts - so what? When it suits his shifting purposes to do so, even Matt acknowledges that "winning" by getting the most votes in an election is NOT the only valid or important sense or means of "winning." It is a perfectly defensible and not at all unreasonable position to argue that the blimp was "worth it" in terms other than whatever votes it did or did not garner.

Even if the blimp in and of itself did not gain so much as a single voter, it could still be argued that the blimp was "worth it," if only as a means of "merely" "spreading the message of liberty" (which, in turn, could have contributed to greater success in other more traditional vote-getting endeavors).

Finally - and rather obviously - the blimp was "worth it" to those who supported it. Who the hell is anyone to say otherwise?
(Apart, of course, from those who presumptuously and hubristically claim that they are the arbiters of what is or is not "worth it" and why.)

I'm not here to defend any of Matt's points, I'm here to make my own. And my point is that it's at least conceivable the either side of this debate could be correct from a "return on investment" standpoint, but it's entirely unprovable. So arguing it now, almost eight years later, seems a bit pointless.

 

[Natural Citizen]

I'm not here to defend any of Matt's points, I'm here to make my own. And my point is that it's at least conceivable the either side of this debate could be correct from a "return on investment" standpoint, but it's entirely unprovable. So arguing it now, almost eight years later, seems a bit pointless.

Well. I don't know. As the debate has evolved, we have been exposed to a kind of contrarianist phenomenon that exists from within the movement. One that could be considered destructive in scope. So, I wouldn't say "pointless" because you're correct to say that either side of the argument could be correct but what we often see are instances where we like to create and refute strawmen in a way that stimulates our individual intellect. It's really neat to observe because it's a real thing. You know?

 

[Occam's Banana]

I should have said it was likely impossibly high. But the fact that we can't actually track it as opposed to the opportunity cost of the investment is precisely my point.

I'm not here to defend any of Matt's points, I'm here to make my own. And my point is that it's at least conceivable the either side of this debate could be correct from a "return on investment" standpoint, but it's entirely unprovable. So arguing it now, almost eight years later, seems a bit pointless.

I can't argue with any of that. But I think the resurrection of this particular issue has less to do with the blimp per se than it does with Matt's routinely supercilious and shallow dismissals of any efforts that don't comport with his own narrow (and self-serving) prejudices about what people should do and how they should do it.

 

[devil21]

Raise your hand if you vote and Matt Collin's "liberty community liaison" work is swaying your opinion to say "Fug it, I'm out."


He sure is working hard to disenfranchise that 6% that sways elections. Which leads me to determine that he is nothing more than a plant for the opposition.

You are a smart person. Alienating the "brain-trust" of RPF allows the growing shill army here to take control of content and direction leading up to 2016. There's a very deliberate subversion going on here. They tested it in the Liberty Candidates forum for the past year before going larger scale on the entire forum.

There are times where I think a new forum or discussion and coordination method is needed but then I realize I don't want to give the subversives the satisfaction of giving them what they want by going elsewhere. RPF is STILL the go-to place on the net for all things Paul and libertarian conservative political discussion, with minimal forum bs you see elsewhere. Lots of the old members will be back once Rand announces.

 

[acptulsa]

I think it's hard to give the blimp all the credit for that. Not to sound like Matt, but correlation is not necessarily causation. Again, I don't think it's possible to prove or disprove the effectiveness at this point.

No, it isn't. But that was just part of it. It raised an important question: Why had you not heard of this candidate's name before this flipping bag of gas flew by?

They don't dare act like Rand doesn't exist. Not now. We've made it clear. Rand Must Be Named.

 

[invisible]

Lots of the old members will be back once Rand announces.

I really hope so, there are a lot of 2007-8 members that I miss. Yes, a few of them returned in 2012, but more of them never did come back.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

I remember canvassing neighborhoods in SC going door to door with this blimp flying overhead. I would talk about Ron Paul they'd be all "who?" and I just pointed to the sky and here was this blimp "Who Is Ron Paul?" LOL they looked like they were stepping into Alice In Wonderland. We actually did pretty good in that precinct. I remember, I was tracking it because that was the precinct I had canvassed with the blimp, and I was curious.

 

[acptulsa]

All I know is Ron Paul went from, 'Who?' to, 'Oh, the guy on the blimp!' Anyone with any sense of humor at all could successfully plant a seed of libertarianism about then.

 

[newbitech]

something like 4 million dollars left over from the 08 campaign.

That could have kept the blimp up all year long

 

[newbitech]

And guess what, I didn't even know that happened, and I am neck deep in TN politics.... blimps and mass marketing such as this doesn't matter.

And Ron is largely ineffective because of this... Audit the Fed would have never passed the House if Campaign for Libety hadn't pushed it as hard.

There were some pretty important people on that blimp, Matt. It wasn't grassroots funded ya know. Anyways, any luck getting no income tax in the TN constitution?

Ron is largely ineffective. Sheesh, and you and Benton are effective? Rand is effective? I'd really like to know how you weigh effectiveness. It sounds like you think that if Ron Paul had his way, Audit the Fed wouldn't have passed the house.

Just not really sure what you mean. Ron Paul is the person who wrote the audit the fed bill and explained it to me. I didn't need campaign for liberty to tell me to get behind Ron Paul's common sense bill. I am sure campaign for liberty reached out to a lot of people and had millions of startup money to do so from Ron's educational campaign.

I am not seeing that stark difference that you and Jesse are making between your plan and Ron's. I think the reality is, you and Benton are still riding that wave that Ron made by firing up the grassroots. That was a pretty big impact Ron made in 07/08 and that was done pretty much without the help of any central planning like a campaign for liberty.

 

[Anti Federalist]

I really hope so, there are a lot of 2007-8 members that I miss. Yes, a few of them returned in 2012, but more of them never did come back.

Yes, this...many many fallen.

 

[amy31416]

Jesus, you bunch of freaks--just defer to Matt already, he's gone to SEMINARS.

 

[Occam's Banana]

Jesus, you bunch of freaks--just defer to Matt already, he's gone to SEMINARS.