This place was a breeding ground for unrealistic expectations. People were led to believe that Ron Paul could win this election, but anyone with an ounce of common sense should have known better. Then reality set in after Iowa, NH, and then with Super Tuesday. Even then, there were still people running around here spouting some goofy Ron-Paul-will-win-with-stealth-delegates nonsense. When those who were foolish enough to believe all the hype finally got slapped upside the head with reality, they gave up and left.
This was a fear of mine from the very first time I visited this forum. I was afraid the movement would lose steam when all these people had to come to grips with the reality that we are in for a long, hard fight. I tried several times to post on the subject and point out the reality that what is happening right now is only the infant stages of our fight. I wanted people to know that RP's run for the nomination was only an initial stepping stone to get us started down the path to making real change, but I was attacked and criticized from all sides by people saying I shouldn't be negative about RP winning this election.
If people had known up front that we didn't really expect to win the nomination and that the real goal was just to begin getting the message out and building a coalition, perhaps they wouldn't have felt so let down when the primary results started coming in. When you think of this campaign in terms of getting out our message and gathering an army, it has been a massive success. However, when it's thought of in terms of winning the nomination, it has been a massive failure. It's unfortunate that so many people defined success and framed victory as RP winning the presidency. If success had been accurately and realistically defined, we would all be celebrating our achievements right now, and this forum would still be buzzing with excitement.
Moving forward, imho, we should be trying to bring people back around and preparing them for the long fight. We need to have a snowball effect for many years in order to build a large enough coalition to really be able to bring about the change we desire.
This was a fear of mine from the very first time I visited this forum. I was afraid the movement would lose steam when all these people had to come to grips with the reality that we are in for a long, hard fight. I tried several times to post on the subject and point out the reality that what is happening right now is only the infant stages of our fight. I wanted people to know that RP's run for the nomination was only an initial stepping stone to get us started down the path to making real change, but I was attacked and criticized from all sides by people saying I shouldn't be negative about RP winning this election.
If people had known up front that we didn't really expect to win the nomination and that the real goal was just to begin getting the message out and building a coalition, perhaps they wouldn't have felt so let down when the primary results started coming in. When you think of this campaign in terms of getting out our message and gathering an army, it has been a massive success. However, when it's thought of in terms of winning the nomination, it has been a massive failure. It's unfortunate that so many people defined success and framed victory as RP winning the presidency. If success had been accurately and realistically defined, we would all be celebrating our achievements right now, and this forum would still be buzzing with excitement.
Moving forward, imho, we should be trying to bring people back around and preparing them for the long fight. We need to have a snowball effect for many years in order to build a large enough coalition to really be able to bring about the change we desire.
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