Help with a long term revolution project

[nate895]

After this Presidential Election, we should immediately begin to focus on the next one. In order to do so we need to select a candidate immediately after this year's General Election. I say that we should hold a convention on the Monday after the General to select this candidate (November 10th, probably longer). In order to hold this convention, I think each meetup should be allowed to select delegates equal to 5%, using the standard rules of rounding, to this convention (Although, instead of 10, you should only need five members to qualify). Using this rule, I have come up with the following delegates for Alabama:

Birm. 1: 12
Birm. 2: 5
Huntsville: 10
Mobile: 8
WE RP08: 5
Mont.: 4
Dothan: 3
Tusc.: 3
Athens: 2
Jack.: 2
Tri-County: 2
Flor/Shoals: 2
Decatur: 1
Gadsen: 1
Cull/Jasp: 1
Hamp: 1
RLC of AL: 1
Truss.: 1
Syl: 1
Selma: 1
Anda.: 1
RP ADL: 1

Total: 68

I'll take the first ten states of the alphabet to allocate, but I'll need help.
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia

We'd also need someone to setup websites, funding for this whole project. We'd probably also need an organizer for each state.

I think this election is important, and this shouldn't be the primary focus until after the final state convention. If we win the national convention, and then the GE, this could be a big victory party and a chance to see who will go up in 2010 on behalf of the revolution, if not, we can choose our next candidate and lick our wounds.

 

[soapmistress]

What about this: I know it's out of the box but *what if* we started immediately to build up the war chest for 2 or 3 candidates? Do we want our next guy to be singled out as the next Ron Paul on stage alone in his ideas? Or would it be better to have 3 Ron Pauls on stage in the early debates - to convey the image that a good portion of the Republican party is running on this platform?

We already know that people are sheep. We learned this the hard way. Why not lead the herd? Why not make a BOOM in the early debates...

You KNOW that as things progress and the field becomes narrower they will endorse each other if one has to drop out.

Let's make 2012 "US" against them, not "HIM" against the rest.

We have 4 years. We can DO this!! Put it in your budget out of each paycheck for the next 4 years and we're a FORCE to be reckoned with.

 

[flames2dust77]

What about this: I know it's out of the box but *what if* we started immediately to build up the war chest for 2 or 3 candidates? Do we want our next guy to be singled out as the next Ron Paul on stage alone in his ideas? Or would it be better to have 3 Ron Pauls on stage in the early debates - to convey the image that a good portion of the Republican party is running on this platform?

We already know that people are sheep. We learned this the hard way. Why not lead the herd? Why not make a BOOM in the early debates...

You KNOW that as things progress and the field becomes narrower they will endorse each other if one has to drop out.

Let's make 2012 "US" against them, not "HIM" against the rest.

We have 4 years. We can DO this!! Put it in your budget out of each paycheck for the next 4 years and we're a FORCE to be reckoned with.

ooooh...I like this.

 

[soapmistress]

Another thought: it would not only change the image of "Republican" in the early debates for the Republican voters choosing their candidate - but it would likely draw more people to the Republican party as well for the general election.

 

[nate895]

What about this: I know it's out of the box but *what if* we started immediately to build up the war chest for 2 or 3 candidates? Do we want our next guy to be singled out as the next Ron Paul on stage alone in his ideas? Or would it be better to have 3 Ron Pauls on stage in the early debates - to convey the image that a good portion of the Republican party is running on this platform?

We already know that people are sheep. We learned this the hard way. Why not lead the herd? Why not make a BOOM in the early debates...

You KNOW that as things progress and the field becomes narrower they will endorse each other if one has to drop out.

Let's make 2012 "US" against them, not "HIM" against the rest.

We have 4 years. We can DO this!! Put it in your budget out of each paycheck for the next 4 years and we're a FORCE to be reckoned with.

In order to avoid a situation like this is why I propose this idea of a convention. In this situation, we will have to spend money to get each of these candidates some early support of at least 1% to get on the stage, and then the grassroots might get attached to one of the other two candidates, and our efforts become diluted.

 

[TruthAtLast]

What about this: I know it's out of the box but *what if* we started immediately to build up the war chest for 2 or 3 candidates? Do we want our next guy to be singled out as the next Ron Paul on stage alone in his ideas? Or would it be better to have 3 Ron Pauls on stage in the early debates - to convey the image that a good portion of the Republican party is running on this platform?

This is like having a pace setter in a track race that lets the other runners draft to get in a position for a good time, then drops out at some point

Set up a couple candidates to push the ideas and the one that gains the most popularity and recognition takes over as the other drop out?

I have long recommended us setting up an IMMEDIATE war chest for the next election with monthly donations. Compounded interest does wonders.

 

[soapmistress]

and the one that gains the most popularity and recognition takes over as the other drop out?

Yes. That's my thought exactly. Is it silly?

To me it seems like most of the money is all going into the same pot anyways because the leader would surface fairly quickly but the impact at the beginning would be... well... revolutionary!

Such a strange twist would get press for sure.

I don't think most voters have a problem with their candidate dropping out and endorsing someone else as LONG AS it isn't settling for someone they don't agree with. I know our group of voters are smart, strategic, and discriminating voters.

Think marketing. Think brand. Think image. Think BIG

 

[soapmistress]

Make the warmongers look like the quack nut-job minority! Ha ha ha

 

[flames2dust77]

Yes. That's my thought exactly. Is it silly?

To me it seems like most of the money is all going into the same pot anyways because the leader would surface fairly quickly but the impact at the beginning would be... well... revolutionary!

Such a strange twist would get press for sure.

I don't think most voters have a problem with their candidate dropping out and endorsing someone else as LONG AS it isn't settling for someone they don't agree with. I know our group of voters are smart, strategic, and discriminating voters.

Think marketing. Think brand. Think image. Think BIG

not silly at all!

 

[TruthAtLast]

so we would have people set up to tear apart and attack the competition while keeping our "main" guy clean? LOL

Sounds like political bodyguards. haha

 

[A Ron Paul Rebel]

Very good future strategy!
This is EXACTELY what they've been doing for decades.

 

[soapmistress]

No we support a few good candidates and give them a strong presence. Let the voters decide who our main guy will be (free market theme here, not playing good cop bad cop) and then we'll have the true test of which of our guys the public will go for.

The proof is in the pudding as far as the popularity part goes.

See, a LOT of people vote based on personality - no matter how vacuous we might think that is, it's the truth. So the trick is to get the platform to be the no-brainer and the candidate with that platform selected by whatever means the public tends to flock to people with.

Like try-outs

 

[No1ButPaul08]

I think delegates should be chosen by number of votes cast for Ron Paul by county. Meetups are a good start, but I think we need something like a Ron Paul county chairman for every county in the US

 

[TruthAtLast]

No we support a few good candidates and give them a strong presence. Let the voters decide who our main guy will be (free market theme here, not playing good cop bad cop) and then we'll have the true test of which of our guys the public will go for.

The proof is in the pudding as far as the popularity part goes.

See, a LOT of people vote based on personality - no matter how vacuous we might think that is, it's the truth. So the trick is to get the platform to be the no-brainer and the candidate with that platform selected by whatever means the public tends to flock to people with.

Like try-outs

haha, political training camp. They have to make the team.

 

[nate895]

I think delegates should be chosen by number of votes cast for Ron Paul by county. Meetups are a good start, but I think we need something like a Ron Paul county chairman for every county in the US

I was thinking about that, but then decided that that idea would lead to such a huge amount of delegates if I went anywhere above .5%, and then we'd have a problem because many counties wouldn't get the proper amount of delegates because they held caucuses. Such as my, Clark County (WA, not NV), we won here, but we only got 225 "votes," while we got 2,974 votes in Davidson County, TN (Nashville), but we lost there.

 

[nate895]

No we support a few good candidates and give them a strong presence. Let the voters decide who our main guy will be (free market theme here, not playing good cop bad cop) and then we'll have the true test of which of our guys the public will go for.

The proof is in the pudding as far as the popularity part goes.

See, a LOT of people vote based on personality - no matter how vacuous we might think that is, it's the truth. So the trick is to get the platform to be the no-brainer and the candidate with that platform selected by whatever means the public tends to flock to people with.

Like try-outs

Except, this will lead to the problem conservatives had this year (for this purpose, I will exclude Paul). They had three contenders when it came to Iowa (Huck, Thompson, and Romney), while the "moderates," only had two, one of which didn't even campaign in the early states. This lead to a division of votes that ultimately lead to a defeat in South Carolina, that should have been a victory to any one of the conservative candidates if they would have been united (or, simply, one candidate drop out). While we could hope that the other two would drop out pretty soon, we cannot guarantee it. We need to throw our support by one guy, and fight for him and then we can win with landslides in the beginning if we fought hard and smart about it.

 

[soapmistress]

I think we could guarantee the narrowing of the field at an appropriate time but only if we took an absolutely unorthodox approach. Again - a twist will bring press coverage.

Not one but two. Two guys with tons of grassroots support, an enormous campaign fund, and from the gate have them announce that they are doing a "hillary-Obama dream ticket contest" where they have agreed in advance that the one most favored will run as Pres and the other vill be his VP. Turn the media onto this strange dream-team. Interviewers will be all over both of them asking "Are you really gonna be OK with taking VP?"

Learn from what is going on right now. What is making headlines?

Let's build the Ron Paul 2 for 1 Special!

I think we could definitelt recruit 2 men/women of outstanding character who would accept our fundraising for a selfless, non-egocentric fight for liberty. I think a man and a woman might be cool But it doesn't matter.

 

[nate895]

I think we could guarantee the narrowing of the field at an appropriate time but only if we took an absolutely unorthodox approach. Again - a twist will bring press coverage.

Not one but two. Two guys with tons of grassroots support, an enormous campaign fund, and from the gate have them announce that they are doing a "hillary-Obama dream ticket contest" where they have agreed in advance that the one most favored will run as Pres and the other vill be his VP. Turn the media onto this strange dream-team. Interviewers will be all over both of them asking "Are you really gonna be OK with taking VP?"

Learn from what is going on right now. What is making headlines?

Let's build the Ron Paul 2 for 1 Special!

I think we could definitelt recruit 2 men/women of outstanding character who would accept our fundraising for a selfless, non-egocentric fight for liberty. I think a man and a woman might be cool But it doesn't matter.

Well, whatever we do, we need to get going right after this election so we can be fund raising and building organization that will be the greatest in campaign history. I'll look up the old plan I posted a while back and post it here.

 

[nate895]

1: March to 2011: Donate or save $20 a month to (for) the campaign. Hopefully 100,000 can do this.

Starting Month/Year End Total

10,000/50,000/100,000
March: $1,800,000/$9,000,000/$18,000,000
April: 1,600,000/8,000,000/16,000,000
May: 1,400,000/7,000,000/14,000,000
June: 1,200,000/6,000,000/12,000,000
July: 1,000,000/5,000,000/10,000,000
August: 800,000/4,000,000/8,000,000
September: 600,000/3,000,000/6,000,000
October: 400,000/2,000,000/4,000,000
December: 200,000/1,000,000/2,000,000

Step 2: 2009: Spend the year building a national campaign organization. This year a lot of time will be spent in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina to see if these are good places to spend cash going into 2011. 2,400,000-24,000,000 raised this year+last year's totals.

Step 3: 2010: Spend the year campaigning for various liberty candidates, see where we should be spending time and money post early states. 4,800,000-48,000,000 raised plus first year's totals.

Step 4: 2011: Crunch time has arrived, the other candidates are showing up on the stage, and we need to establish ourselves as the honest, conservative candidate. Spend a lot of time in the best looking early states, plus have our "crusaders" out on the campaign trail in both early and later states. Money raised goal: $150,000,000. It's high, but we can achieve it.

Step 5:
Primaries/Caucus season: Win, and keep winning. If we can win all the early states, we have a lock on the nomination.

General: Hopefully the other candidates will drop if they lose their early state of choice, and the party will coalesce around us and we can begin to take on the big government President that's currently in office, and hopefully the War in Iraq is still going on, and everybody's angry as hell, or the economy is really bad. If those aren't the case, then we have tough work, but it's possible if the current government is too liberal.

Bottom Line: "If you build it, they will come."

Also, I say we save up $20 a month until we pick in November.

 

[TruthAtLast]

I think we could guarantee the narrowing of the field at an appropriate time but only if we took an absolutely unorthodox approach. Again - a twist will bring press coverage.

Not one but two. Two guys with tons of grassroots support, an enormous campaign fund, and from the gate have them announce that they are doing a "hillary-Obama dream ticket contest" where they have agreed in advance that the one most favored will run as Pres and the other vill be his VP. Turn the media onto this strange dream-team. Interviewers will be all over both of them asking "Are you really gonna be OK with taking VP?"

Learn from what is going on right now. What is making headlines?

Let's build the Ron Paul 2 for 1 Special!

I think we could definitelt recruit 2 men/women of outstanding character who would accept our fundraising for a selfless, non-egocentric fight for liberty. I think a man and a woman might be cool But it doesn't matter.

A lot of interesting ideas. I could envision something like this taking off and making headlines as long as they were still viable and electable candidates and it didn't look like some publicity stunt or gimmick (which the competitors would paint it as).

If framed properly, it could actually give supporters something to galvanize over and whoever wins... really they all win because it is the liberty ticket and both candidates will be elected (one as VP).

It reminds me of the "Dan vs Dave" decathletes that were pitted against each other for the Barcelona Olympic Games. Everyone took sides of who they wanted to win but ultimately they were both world class and both American. It had a TON of publicity until Dan O'Brien no-heighted in the pole vault during the Olympic trials and didn't make the team (even though he owned the world record at the time).