Great show today! The Meetup organizers did a magnificent job with the early morning parade and *taking over* this event in a very visual way. I got the distinct impression that the campaign was taking cues from the ideas of the Meetups, not the other way around.
From the first moment of arriving at the event, the opposition to Paul was palpable. After the parade, as we gathered around the Credentials-Only entrance, a gentleman told me "He's an asshole, that's who." After a moment, I realized he was responding to my "Who Is Ron Paul" t-shirt. As I walked into the ballroom where the main event was held, I was immediately told by a kindly-looking gentleman in suspenders, "You're wasting your energy."
Caveat - it's generalization time - This was a very "mature" audience. They are 100% behind the word Republican™. They like the letter W™. They Support Our Troops™. They're concerned about Terrorism™. Their interpretations of these concepts have been delivered intraveneously. The Trans-Texas Corridor sounds like a great idea to them, as long as Perry and Cornyn say so. I sat between some very kind, somewhat elderly ladies, 2 to my left and 2 to my right. Seeing the Paul supporters, one lady on the right exclaimed with awe "They're so young!"
It has been literally decades since any of them considered anything fractionally like what the Congressman Ron Paul said in his speech. 16.7% of them accepted and endorsed that message with their votes.
The thick and overwhelming blanket of Ron Paul signs that spanned the audience and shot up repeatedly was an inescapable message. It must have seemed puzzling or even threatening to the likes of John Cornyn and Michael Williams (who actually had the gall to boast that he'd spent $1.8 billion of my children's money on a clean energy project). They can breathe a sigh of relief that Paul didn't run off with a victory. But any sense of security they might have is completely false. The Freedom Movement (no need for a ™) is here for the long haul.
I'm acquainted with Jeremy Blosser and Scott Barber, who deserve huge credit for their hard work in making this a great success. I'm sure there are others who deserve a bow as well. If you can't tell, I'm jazzed by such a result in the face of adversity that I think many people underestimated.
Kurt
