Msg from Jonathan Bydlak -- willing to answer questions

[kevman657]

Jonathan,

First off, thank you for your service to the Ron Paul campaign and thank you for taking time out to answer our questions. I'm amazed at how sincere and honest your answers have been on this thread, you are doing a good thing by calming some uneasy supporters. With that being said, I have two questions regarding the campaign:

1. You mentioned earlier we should have had more precinct leaders, since we had so many donors. I feel, more money from the donors should have been spent to promote the precinct leader program. Maybe if y'all had brought the program in when we were holding massive fundraisers and were all hyped up, we would have been more willing to go. But we felt since the graph said "x amount needed to win", if we raised that money the campaign would use it to rise in the polls. All of the sudden, after a lot of disappointing losses, the greatest key to winning is by becoming a precinct leader. So finally, my question is, why didn't the campaign introduce the precinct leadership program earlier? If it was released earlier, why didn't the campaign do more to promote it?

2. Why didn't the campaign use more of it's funding towards educating the supporters about becoming a delegate? Every time I asked a question on the process of my state, someone on the forums would give me a link to pages and pages of various election rules. They kept telling us how easy it was, yet they couldn't give an easy way to find out. Besides, the only info I got about it was from the forums...not from the official campaign.


Again, thank you for taking your own time out to do this and for your help with the campaign.

 

[devil21]

Thanks for taking the time to interact with us Jonathan!

My question: Did (does) the campaign think there was any funny business in any states with voting results (like NH)? In other words, was there any evidence to suggest vote fraud anywhere? Ive seen a lot of people suggest (esp. people that were there) that NH was stolen to kill any momentum before it got started. Paul should have come in higher based on ground support, etc. Thoughts?

 

[yongrel]

There is still no excuse for those HORRIBLE ads that ran in New Hampshire. I knew we had SERIOUS problems at HQs when those were rolled out. Honestly I was thinking sabatoge.

Jonathan has already patiently answered the question of sabotage. The answer, as I recall, was "no, there was none."

 

[OptionsTrader]

Man, I wanted to see that Ron so many times, too! I think that one of the things that Ron has trouble with is that he doesn't want to pander at all. While that makes him so appealing to me personally, it also leads him not to tailor his message to his audience, which in my opinion is very different than pandering. I see that as rule number 1 of giving a speech or writing a paper.

But Dr. Paul doesn't see things that way. He believes issues like monetary policy and flawed Iraq policy are so critical that everyone needs to hear about them, regardless of whether he's speaking to a group of students, South Carolina veterans, or Silicon Valley software entrepreneurs. While that's admirable, I've got to say, it just doesn't win elections.

It's not too late. He has 235 more days to relentlessly attack the other 3 frauds. A family in a country floating on oil is going to have their home destroyed next year if he doesn't go on the attack. It is not too late to get fired up Dr. Paul.

I love him either way and deeply respect him. But man, I wish he would do a Ronald Reagan "I PAID FOR THIS MICROPHONE" moment and enter the attack phase.

CAN NO ONE CONVINCE HIM THAT GOING ON THE ATTACK IS NECESSARY?

 

[greenspj]

Jeff,

Is the Anti-Paul bias that flagrant? What is like out west in terms of the RNC politics? What is your guess on the amount of delegates Paul will seat?

Thanks.

To repeat, the RNC is instructing state parties to not let one single RP national delegate through to the convention.

And to repeat, politics is war by other means (refer back to my previous post.)

Jeff

 

[Banana]

To repeat, the RNC is instructing state parties to not let one single RP national delegate through to the convention.

That's a big assertion... and would be illegal AFAICT...

Can you back it up?

 

[greenspj]

... and Hi Jeff, welcome to the forum.

Thank you. I did participate here a little in the past, but it was when the trolls and moles were ruling the board. I was called everything incl. a mossad agent and some other unsavoury things.

It was quite unpleasant. In some cases grassroots ire might have been merited vis-a-vis field staff. In other cases it was not.

What the moles did was leverage the legitimate ire over to where it was not merited thereby sidetracking the campaign in localities where the campaign was extremely effective. I can tell you at some points I had to spend 20%-30% of my time cleaning up after moles wreaked all kinds of havoc with the grassroots volunteers.

Which, of course, was the objective of the moles - to sidetrack effective campaigning and get them to spend cycles on inane things rather than the business of winning.

To me that was the most disappointing and hardest part of my job, because we built something really good out here in the SW US.

That being said, of those grassroots volunteers who never lost focus on grassroots work, I would call them heros. I've never met people so dedicated and hardworking - it brings tears to one's eye.

 

[xerigen]

Jonathan,

What did you think of independent fundraising projects such as the blimp, letter writing projects, third party radio/tv commercials? Did you like them or would you have preferred that the money was all centralized to the official campaign?

 

[yongrel]

Jonathan,

What did you think of independent fundraising projects such as the blimp, letter writing projects, third party radio/tv commercials? Did you like them or would you have preferred that the money was all centralized to the official campaign?

million dollar question

 

[tpreitzel]

I think what needs to come next is learning what works and what doesn't work, and then going out and organizing to accomplish our mutual goals. It'll be a strong test of everyone involved in the revolution whether we can create the organization that we need.

As a former member of Ron's staff, your battle-tested stature should help us to establish the necessary infrastructure for the fight ahead.

 

[brooklyn]

jonathan,

Our local RC in Nevada said at the county convention that they would love to have RP speak at our state convention and would invite RP.
How do we make sure that happens? What avenues do we take to make sure RP "Gets ' the invite and who do we contact to see if he will come?

 

[torchbearer]

As a former member of Ron's staff, your battle-tested stature should help us to establish the necessary infrastructure for the fight ahead.

Our soldiers are ready and willing, Sir!

 

[Matthew P.]

Yes, Dr. Paul could have made his message more understandable to the dunces in the media. Not sure that would have made CNN more amenable to the message though.

Well, it is all water under the bridge now.

What are the chances of Dr. Paul at least speaking at the GOP convention?

I'm not sure how much you could have "dumbed things down" for the media. I mean how much more blunt can you get than "the dollar is crashing and we can't afford to print any more money or borrow from China."? Or how about "the Constitution demands a limited government that is controlled by the people, not the other way around." ? I mean it just doesn't get any simpler. To simplify those, and other statements made by Ron Paul would have been to dilute his point or change it altogether!!

You're right though - water under the bridge.

I hope to see Ron Paul at the Convention but I wonder - even if he did show up, would they let him speak? From the little experience I have in all of this I think he would find a more thoughtful audience at the convention than he would America at large. When we participated at our local precinct, senate district and the upcoming congressional and state caucuses we have found that those in attendance are willing to listen to argumentation.

However - if you don't argue for something that should be argued for, nobody cares and a resolution or bill can be passed that is unconstitutional. The problem is that people aren't willing to think or do work. If you or I do it for them and can present it to them in a clear, perspicuous manner then they are willing to consider - how sad!

 

[Matthew P.]

Jonathan,

What did you think of independent fundraising projects such as the blimp, letter writing projects, third party radio/tv commercials? Did you like them or would you have preferred that the money was all centralized to the official campaign?

I, too, am eagerly awaiting the response to this one. Though some of those efforts had obvious success, some seemed incredibly opulent (i.e. the blimp) and the funds, quite possibly could have been used in a more efficient manner. I wonder what HQ thought of that one.

 

[Banana]

Was hesistant to ask this here, but didn't want to make another thread, and maybe John knows more..

Why didn't Ron Paul take Political Courage Test?

Representative Ronald Ernest 'Ron' Paul repeatedly refused to provide any responses to citizens on the issues through the 2008 Political Courage Test when asked to do so by national leaders of the political parties, prominent members of the media, Project Vote Smart President Richard Kimball, and Project Vote Smart staff.

Link

Note: None of other major presidential candidates did the same, but it made me wonder why.

 

[Matthew P.]

Thank you for answering the questions. I have to respect that.

This is gut wrenching and heart breaking. I saw in in early July when you guys had more money than McCain that you could do well. So did the media. That is how I found out that Ron Paul was doing well. They reported the story.

I volunteered in the HQ in early August and saw the tremendous grassroots taking place. I could tell right then and there that this was a campaign with momentum. I judged the level of activity to be record breaking. Having been on many campaigns I had never seen a grassroots like this. Most campaigns spend their time and money begging people to help their campaign. Ron Paul's campaign was the opposite. People were begging to help him. I have never seen anything like it. Yet the campaign ignored and squandered this opportunity in the most horrible way.

I was expecting a great campaign outcome based on money and volunteer enthusiasm, yet I saw the problems of understaffing in the campaign in all areas and tried to do things about it. Yet most of the time the senior staff was on the road with Ron Paul instead of managing the HQ. I commented and lamented to various people about what was going on. I wrote a paper detailing the problems and some senior staff read it but probably reacted way too late months later if at all.

Having the national press team in place by November is great, but the campaign is practically over at that point if you are really trying to win.

I have to wonder if they really wanted to win race. An expert would have changed things immediately and we probably would have come in third in Iowa instead of fifth. McCain's momentum would have stalled at that point. The outcome would be very different today.

Very insightful - thank you.

I now wonder if the media blackout on Ron Paul was 2 sided.

1 - because of lack of serious organization and seizing opportunities from grassroots and,

2 - because the media hates him and is afraid of him (and is paid off at top echelons by people from places like the Fed Reserve - verifiable by the way, not conspiratory).

Anything is news if you repeat it often enough. Our MSM has a definite agenda with the "news" they broadcast. It is meant to help craft our thinking, subtly, towards our government and world events. Don't kid yourself, thinking that there is no slant - there's always a slant.

 

[brandon]

Jonathon, thanks for doing this. Here is my question.

What was the deal with Don Luskin? Why did he join the campaign as an economic advisor and then leave to join the McCain campaign a week later? Furthermore, why did the campaign decide to hire two economic advisors so late in game?

 

[furnitureguy]

Jonathon,

Is there a chance of a brokered convention?

Has RP given up?

Paul
Clearwater

 

[daviddee]

...

 

[pepperpete1]

I know that for any of us to write-in Ron Paul for our vote, he would have to file a declaration of intent. Has he done that for each state that allows write-ins. And I just saw on the SOS for MO....If a candidate runs in a primary election and loses, can the person run in the general election for the same office?

No. If a candidate files for nomination to an office and is not nominated at a primary election, that candidate cannot file a declaration of intent to be a write-in candidate for the same office at the general election. (Section 115.453(4) RSMo)

Now I have to wonder how many other states besides the six listed on the forum have these convoluted rules, where they do not just ban write-ins all together, just if you filed for nomination for the office. Geez.

Do you know if the campaign has a list of those states where it is possible to write-in Ron Paul? And will he have filed the declaration of intent?

I cannot bring myself to vote for anyone but RP. I voted for him last election and he wasn't even running, let alone file a dec. of intent.