Kurt Bills has asked for our help

TCE said:
I have read through this entire thread and I am deeply troubled by the liberty movement repeating the same mistakes over and over and over and over again. We have a candidate, he gets the nomination, it becomes obvious he has no shot, and we continue to throw good money after bad. Bills has no shot at winning. He can't win. We do this every cycle, multiple times a cycle. Instead of throwing money where it might have some use, we use it on ideologically pure candidates. How do I know Bills has no shot? Let's evaluate:

Public Policy Polling says he is down 19 points.
Survey USA says he is down 21 points.

How about the newest poll that just came out that Bills is touting? Bad news, he was down by the exact same percentage the last time Yougov polled it: http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/hqsq5tocn6/Tabs_MN.pdf
Five Thirty Eight gives Bills a 0% chance of winning.

Combine all of this with the fact that Romney is going to lose badly in Minnesota along with her nearly $10 million money advantage and Bills will be lucky to keep it within 15 points.


Donate to who you want to donate to, but Bills will lose in November. There are better candidates to donate to.
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Bills can win and will win, if we help. I received the following e-mail from him, today:

Kurt Bills said:
Some said it couldn’t be done.

Others, like you, know what I know: Klobuchar is bad for Minnesotans and the nation. And Minnesotans are remembering that.

And today, a new poll done by an independent source has Klobuchar at 49%. You can read the full results here: http://today.yougov.com/news/2012/09/21/minnesota/

This validates what our internal polling shows. Klobuchar is vulnerable, and her support continues to erode. She has lost 11 points in the polls since June.

But I can’t beat this big spending extremist without your help.

Your contribution of $100, $50, $25, or even $10 will help me get my message out on the airwaves – and close the remaining gap.

It is ironic that today is September 25th. On that day in 1990 the polls showed the exact same thing in the Wellstone/Boschwitz race – Wellstone down by 15 points. I’m down by 14, but with Klobuchar under 50 – well, we know how this story will end.

It’s time for us to rise up and say: we have had enough of your crony capitalism. We have had enough of your policies hurting our children and grand-children. But most importantly, we will say:

We can turn this country around and take back our liberty from those who have stolen it from us.

This is our country, we are taking it back.

Please contribute today. We have a critical September 30th deadline for fundraising. And we have to get ourselves on the air to close this gap. I thank you for your continued commitment to the cause.

Read my full press release here.
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- ML
 
Election results for US Senate in Minnesota:

2000
Mark Dayton (D) - 1,181,553 ; 48.83%
Rod Grams (R) - 1,047,474 ; 43.29%
James Gibson (I) - 140,583 ; 5.81%
Constitution and Libertarian Party total - 15,503 ; 0.64%

2002
Norm Coleman (R) - 1,116,697 ; 49.53%
Walter Mondale (D) - 1,067,246 ; 47.34%
Jim Moore (I) - 45,139 ; 2%
Constitution Party - 2,254 ; 0.10%

2006
Amy Klobuchar (D) - 1,278,849 ; 58.06%
Mark Kennedy (R) - 835,653 ; 37.94%
Robert Fitzgerald (I) - 71,194 ; 3.23%
Constitution Party - 5,408 ; 0.25%

2008
Al Franken (D) - 1,212,629 ; 41.994%
Norm Coleman (R) - 1,212,317 ; 41.983%
Dean Barkley (I) - 437,505 ; 15.151%
Libertarian and Constitution Party Totals - 22,830 ; 0.79%

Please note that most of the Ron Paul supporters in Minnesota either voted for Barkley or the Libertarian or Constitution Party candidates. The race will be closer than most people think, we need to quit listening to the media about how much Klobuchar is going to win by or how she can't lose.

- ML
 
You know, I like Kurt Bills.


I'm certainly going to vote for him. That's for sure.

And I don't think he is an outright traitor for endorsing Romney. Hardly.

Rather I think he's lacking the sort of political manuverability required to work in such an awkward position.


Look at it from his point of view...

He thinks he needs to win the approval of the Republicans. Since so far he's experienced nothing but resistance.

After winning the nomination he faced another republican challenger in the primary.

A challenger who used shockingly crude and disrespectful slander videos as a tactic.

Any acknowledgement from other elected officials has been lukewarm at best.

He won the primary with 51% of the vote. Carlson was not far behind with 35%.


Forget appealing to the self-labeled republicans. If they come out to vote,(and they likely will) they are still going to punch the hole next to the R. It's not like they're going to vote for a democrat. Either that or they don't come. Doesn't hurt.


So now he's down 19 points against Klobuchar. But take a look at those crosstabs http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/m...minnesota.html

59% of people were unsure whether they had a favorable impression of him. Thats huge.


Does anybody want to seriously consider directly appealing to democrats to win this thing?

Because I think that's the only way it's going to work.



In order to take down Klobuchar a notch or two, some scathing critques of her voting record would be helpful.

Bills has been wise to point out her voting record but do it in a way to make democrats uncomfortable.

Question people who are already supporting her and see if they really want to do that.



I heard that the two candidates had a debate where Klobuchar stood behind Obama's foreign policy essentially.
Whereas Bills said the troops should come home now.
59% of people probably don't know that about him. Does Bills support Ron Paul's foreign policy or not?
It sounds like he does, and that would be very popular.
I'll admit I haven't opened by pocketbook for Kurt Bills yet like I did with Ron Paul but there's a reason why.
Almost every time I donated money to Paul it was while watching him give a speech about foreign policy.
Hearing Ron Paul condemn the military industrial complex and interventionist behaviors was so awesome it compelled me to give money.

If Kurt Bills was outspoken about ending the wars I would be shelling out the bucks to see him win.
But no, I watch him endorse Romney.
Kurt Bills wants to end the fed. People should know about that too.
 
dbill27 said:
said the guy with a rand paul picture as his avatar.
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Right, and I haven't and won't give Rand anymore $ either. I'm on a holding pattern with my support for Rand until it's clearer to me what he's up to.
 
Wesley said:
You know, I like Kurt Bills.

I'm certainly going to vote for him. That's for sure.

And I don't think he is an outright traitor for endorsing Romney. Hardly.

Rather I think he's lacking the sort of political manuverability required to work in such an awkward position.

Look at it from his point of view...

He thinks he needs to win the approval of the Republicans. Since so far he's experienced nothing but resistance.
...
Forget appealing to the self-labeled republicans. If they come out to vote,(and they likely will) they are still going to punch the hole next to the R. It's not like they're going to vote for a democrat. Either that or they don't come. Doesn't hurt.

So now he's down 19 points against Klobuchar. But take a look at those crosstabs http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/m...minnesota.html

59% of people were unsure whether they had a favorable impression of him. Thats huge.

Does anybody want to seriously consider directly appealing to democrats to win this thing?

Because I think that's the only way it's going to work.

In order to take down Klobuchar a notch or two, some scathing critques of her voting record would be helpful.

Bills has been wise to point out her voting record but do it in a way to make democrats uncomfortable.

Question people who are already supporting her and see if they really want to do that.

I heard that the two candidates had a debate where Klobuchar stood behind Obama's foreign policy essentially.
Whereas Bills said the troops should come home now.
59% of people probably don't know that about him. Does Bills support Ron Paul's foreign policy or not?
It sounds like he does, and that would be very popular.
...
If Kurt Bills was outspoken about ending the wars I would be shelling out the bucks to see him win.
Click to expand...

He needs to do something to appeal to independents and independent minded voters.

I would suggest that the issue of medical marijuana also be considered. If Bills agrees that medical marijuana should be legal, and that sick people with marijuana ought not be harassed by Obama's and Klobuchar's DEA, he should make that point. He should also argue for defunding the war on drugs as an economic issue. He can make it clear that this is not an advocacy for using drugs, but that the war on drugs is expensive and counter-productive. Common sense, independent people understand this.

It would be a way for Kurt to distinguish himself from Obama and Romney.

Here's some ideas from another thread:

Brian4Liberty said:
It's not an "issue of significance", Mitt? And you would rather talk about the economy?

How about this effecting the economy:

-the massive amounts of money spent on the drug war?
-the massive amounts of money spent incarcerating drug violators?
-the lost productivity by having these people in jail?

You probably don't care about civil liberties and the Constitution, but how about these other side effects of the WOD:

-Nazi style checkpoints, pull-overs and pat downs everywhere, all in search of drugs, destroying Constitutional protections.
-Militarized Police kicking in doors of family homes, throwing in grenades and shooting family members and pets.

Or how about violence in general caused by the creation of a forced illegal economy:

-drive-by shootings of family homes.
-shootings in the streets.
-drug wars killing people in other countries and on our border.
-chaos and disorder created in other countries.

All of that is the result of your precious war on drugs, Mitt. And you call that insignificant?

You would probably love to answer a question about gay marriage. Now that is significant. :rolleyes:
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FSP-Rebel said:
I agree that Bills made some tactical mistakes in relative recent times but I just think this new venture of running for the US Senate was more difficult than he imagined. Jockeying for establishment support whilst also trying to maintain his posture with the grassroots that gave him the nomination is a fine line.

Rand pulled this off with the help of intelligent staffers but I'm not sure Bills ever received any sage advice from any of Ron's or Rand's aces. Bentivolio is in a slightly different situation in that he's in a winnable race but his staff has kept his ideological chatter to the standard talking points where someone isn't led to believe he's RP on steroids. We had our own insider problems in our race but they were never given anything they could bury Kerry on. This worked and has kept the republicans intact for the most part tho I'm sure Kerry isn't getting any of McCortter's buddies' money.

Bills was in a worse situation in that it was widely perceived that the RP folks jettisoned the MN Prez caucuses which also resulted in capturing the party apparatus as well. Then started all the rigamarole driving a wedge between the party grassroots and the former bigwigs that cut off the financial spigot and left Bills to fend for himself. Going forward, if we have our guys running for Senate seats we need to prepare to each spend the kind of dough that we threw down for Rand which I admit Bills only got a fraction of.

If nothing else but a goodwill gesture in getting Bills' name out there for next go 'round or the unlikely last minute mea culpa, it might be worth tossing some into the pot on this moneybomb. Basically, I want the new guys over at the MNGOP to not be massively embarrassed by the lack of national RP help and then relegate the party back to the old guard. So, count me in for a modest donation.
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Also, they have to understand they nominated a State Rep. for US Senate. State Reps are almost never major nominees for state-wide offices. The MNGOP has to elect some State Reps., then run the State Reps. for US House, then run congressmen for Senate/Governor. I guarantee if Bills were a congressman right now, he'd be doing much much better.
 
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Brian4Liberty said:
How was Bills critical of you?
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See specs' post.

Anyway, there are people who are going to still support him. People like you. And that's nice. Those are the people he is targeting on and depending on. He doesn't care about people who feel strongly about not endorsing Romney. He decided he could do without our support. Fair enough. We wish him the best.
 
Okaloosa said:
True, but we can also skip going out to eat and drink to save some money to donate. No one ever said this was going to be easy, the future of the Liberty movement is on the line. Ron Paul was only the beginning.
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The problem is, the 'play the game' politicians don't excite us either.

I'll take a couple of people's statements on here as true and support Bills on his money bomb. Because I've been torn about him, and he did endorse Ron and stick with him until the campaign was telling the press there was no chance to be put into nomination at RNC (not true, but how could he know?) and he spoke to Ron. I still think he shouldn't have. But I don't really doubt that he would be one of the best Senators in the Senate if we could get him there, does anyone?

And he is Ron's top priority for the Senate for 2012.
 
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sailingaway said:
The problem is, the 'play the game' politicians don't excite us either.

I'll take a couple of people's statements on here as true and support Bills on his money bomb. Because I've been torn about him, and he did endorse Ron and stick with him until the campaign was telling the press there was no chance to be put into nomination at RNC (not true, but how could he know?) and he spoke to Ron. I still think he shouldn't have. But I don't really doubt that he would be one of the best Senators in the Senate if we could get him there, does anyone?

And he is Ron's top priority for the Senate for 2012.
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It looks like even Mack is going to lose in FL but there is still a chance Mack will win. Heck, I've even seen polls showing that Flake may lose in AZ. Even the guy in IN may lose. I sure hope Cruz in TX isn't the only decent Republican US Senator elected. It looks like the GOP may not win the US Senate. I've already given up on it but if things don't get better, if the next few weeks, most pro-liberty folks might also give up on it.

Really, I don't care if it is Ron Paul's top US Senate propriety, there aren't any amazing US Senate prospects as Bills is going to lose. The best to hope for are the 2 great US Reps running that are doing well (Kerry and Massie) to win. Outside of that, there are some great ballot questions (CO, MA) and some excellent state Senate folks like Wallace in ME and Reagan and Sanborn in NH.

I don't have a good feeling about this election. Look at ME for example, there are 5 ballot questions and 4 of them are about increasing spending... CA has a ballot question calling for increasing personal income taxes from 10%+ to 13%+ and another calling for increasing corporate income taxes.

Romney is dragging everyone down and it is really annoying.
 
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Keith and stuff said:
It looks like even Mack is going to lose in FL but there is still a chance Mack will lose. Heck, I've even seen polls showing that Flake may lose in AZ. Even the guy in IN may lose. I sure hope Cruz in TX isn't the only decent Republican US Senator elected. It looks like the GOP may not win the US Senate. I've already given up on it but if things don't get better, if the next few weeks, most pro-liberty folks might also give up on it.

Really, I don't care if it is Ron Paul's top US Senate propriety, there aren't any amazing US Senate prospects as Bills is going to lose. The best to hope for are the 2 great US Reps running that are doing well (Kerry and Massie) to win. Outside of that, there are some great ballot questions (CO, MA) and some excellent state Senate folks like Wallace in ME and Reagan and Sanborn in NH.

I don't have a good feeling about this election. Look at ME for example, there are 5 ballot questions and 4 of them are about increasing spending... CA has a ballot question calling for increasing personal income taxes from 10%+ to 13%+ and another calling for increasing corporate income taxes.

Romney is dragging everyone down and it is really annoying.
Click to expand...

But it is US being dragged down, and I completely get our not amping for Romney, but we need to rally for our guys and turn the tide. Think how it will look if GOP 'normal' loses but liberty candidates win?

In any event, I'd like Kurt to win, and I fought for Ron and didn't think it 'likely', there.
 
I still can't figure out the logic of this argument about endorsements. It seems like nothing more than being self-righteous than anything to do with being genuinely concerned about progressing this movement forward.

If I were running, I'd endorse Romney without a hitch, because I know it has zero influence on the course of actions I, myself, would take when in office. It says very little of my principles and who I am as a human being. How some of you can think that even matters, upon reflecting on some of our candidates and their genuine intentions.. really just boils down to naivety and unrealistic expectations in the face of some very dire consequences ahead that you aren't really taking into consideration. If it opens the door for a much larger constituency to take me seriously, that otherwise might not (or tactfully use that against me), it sure seems like an obvious tactical decision.

But, I have to accept the fact that some of you lack tact.

Some of you would prefer the idea of brave men standing in the forest being "intellectually pure" to that other group of brave men who understand the obvious importance of maintaining a positive perception among the blind, apathetic people who they need to even begin making a difference.

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Your refusal to help those good men might just put you in the same damn conundrum. You, most assuredly disagree now, but when this CAN can't be kicked down the road any longer and the consequences are at your front door.. I wonder what you might say then about where it got us.

Honestly, I think the idea of not supporting a candidate because of a meaningless endorsement is the opposite of intellectually pure. Our objective is to spread an idea and the barriers to that idea are about as thick as your false-sense of pureness.

Ugh, with all we have to deal with - all this fraud and corruption, it is these people that anger me the most. I would trade you any day for a Neoconservative or Liberal that has even a twinkle of hope waking from their slumber. At least through them and their liberty awakening, we actually have a chance at a free world.

But I forget.. you were always intellectually pure.
 
dusman, there are endorsements and then there are endorsements while the guy you previously endorsed, OUR guy, was still in the race pushing for wins of various sorts. For me, I don't support the others as I do Ron Paul, and I don't expect the same standards, but Ron IS the gold standard, to me. I wouldn't have bothered getting involved for go along to get along politicians, to begin with.
 
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Let's pump up the 'going' numbers on that FB page please, even if the $5 min donation is all you can muster. The overwhelming majority of the MN Paul contingent is still solidly behind Bills, just a few vocal naysayers who are having a tough time grappling with the fact that he did what every realist knew he was going to have to do, months before it happened. None of that changes who Kurt Bills is and what he stands for... he's still Kurt Bills.
 
FSP-Rebel said:
I agree that Bills made some tactical mistakes in relative recent times but I just think this new venture of running for the US Senate was more difficult than he imagined. Jockeying for establishment support whilst also trying to maintain his posture with the grassroots that gave him the nomination is a fine line.

Rand pulled this off with the help of intelligent staffers but I'm not sure Bills ever received any sage advice from any of Ron's or Rand's aces. Bentivolio is in a slightly different situation in that he's in a winnable race but his staff has kept his ideological chatter to the standard talking points where someone isn't led to believe he's RP on steroids. We had our own insider problems in our race but they were never given anything they could bury Kerry on. This worked and has kept the republicans intact for the most part tho I'm sure Kerry isn't getting any of McCortter's buddies' money.

Bills was in a worse situation in that it was widely perceived that the RP folks jettisoned the MN Prez caucuses which also resulted in capturing the party apparatus as well. Then started all the rigamarole driving a wedge between the party grassroots and the former bigwigs that cut off the financial spigot and left Bills to fend for himself. Going forward, if we have our guys running for Senate seats we need to prepare to each spend the kind of dough that we threw down for Rand which I admit Bills only got a fraction of.

If nothing else but a goodwill gesture in getting Bills' name out there for next go 'round or the unlikely last minute mea culpa, it might be worth tossing some into the pot on this moneybomb. Basically, I want the new guys over at the MNGOP to not be massively embarrassed by the lack of national RP help and then relegate the party back to the old guard. So, count me in for a modest donation.
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A fraction of Rand's haul makes it sound bigger than what Bills actually got. Last I checked his campaign had under 10k in the bank FOR A UNITED STATES SENATE SEAT!
 
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