Right - membership bomb....
This November 5th
Posted by Adam de Angeli on 10/24/08
November 5th is the anniversary of the "Money Bomb" — the historic day when all of the grassroots came together and, through their contributions, catapulted Dr. Ron Paul into status as a major contender in the Presidential race. It was historic both in its magnitude and its spontaneity.
This year, November 5th is also the first day of the new election cycle. And in January we will see a new President and new Congress sworn in to office.
A money bomb would be great. It would be awesome. I relish the thought of the look on the face of a baffled anchor asking Dr. Paul how Campaign for Liberty managed to raise so much money in a single day after the election is over.
But as much as I and others might like to see another mony bomb we need something even more than a money bomb:
We need a Membership Bomb.
The Ron Paul 2008 Presidential campaign had over 400,000 active contacts—quite enough to become a dominating force in American politics. Today, most of those people, though still with us in spirit, have not joined the Campaign For Liberty on our new website. Many have signed up for our email list over the summer, but not set up user accounts on our new site.
It is our fault for not being clear: because our new website is a fully functioning social mobilization system, your sign-up on our previous website has only put you on this e-mail list. You have not yet been assigned a username or password unless you have signed up on our new website.
Our new website aims to be a complete web portal for all members in the movement for Liberty in America. Your account here will enable you to easily meet other activists in your area, to RSVP for events in your area, to keep in touch with your local and state coordinators and HQ, and to publish your ideas on your own blog. We have a news wire with 10-20 important and interesting stories from publications all over the world published each day, where all of our users can share comments, and a blog for HQ, each state, each Congressional District, each county, and each user. All of our blogs have RSS feeds and feature an easy-to-use editor that requires no knowledge of HTML.
The new Campaign For Liberty website serves a central purpose in our ambitions: it allows us to organize at the state, district, and local level, while still being organized from a central site. As wonderful as the existence of thousands of Liberty-oriented websites is, it is critical that we have a communication hub, and we're pleased to roll it out. Despite a few technical difficulties in the beginning as one would expect when launching a sophisticated web system, most everything is running quite smoothly, and new features are being added every day.
But right now, for every one registered member, we have ten people, maybe more, who have helped fight for liberty but are not registered.
We need:
* Anyone who has ever worked for Liberty to sign up on our website
* Our members to invite all people that may join us
* Our members to re-connect with every Paul supporter and persuade them to continue the fight with us
* Members registered with free accounts to become dues-paying members
* Dues-paying members who are not Precinct Leaders to click the link to sign the non-disclosure agreement and become Precinct Leaders
* Urge members on our new site to post blog entries, make contact, submit coordinator nominations, and begin connecting on our site
We realize this is short notice. We are not expecting you all to break records (though we wouldn't mind...) The beauty of the Membership Bomb is that even without some record number of sign-ups, the effect of the event, of any size, will have a lasting effect as new members, discovering the utility of the site, stay with us not for one day, but for the long haul. The more members we have, the more we recruit.
There have been various issues with our website, much like what would happen if one were to open a restaurant the day after the gas was turned on. We're happy (and relieved) to report that nearly all of these issues have been resolved. Once the looming election is behind us, we can use a normal software development cycle. For now, we encourage all of our "early bird" members to visit campaignforliberty.com and find their problems already solved.
Despite the bleak future portended by the market crash, we are now in a stronger position than ever. The public has not in recent memory been so aware of the money scam, the attacks on civil liberties, and the complicity of the Congress. Our challenge is to turn sentiment into action, and for once, it seems like the sentiment is finally here.
Our obstacle is that sentiment being diffused into complacency, factionalism, and exhaustion. This is a real obstacle, but one that can be overcome with initiative and perseverance.
There is no better way to begin the next election cycle than with a charge right out of the gate, at the moment when the rest of the political world is clearing desks and licking wounds.
Let's start 2009/2010 with a roar.