The case for and against Jesse Benton's professional campaign involvement

[ghengis86]

EXACTLY my experience. Only myself and one other RP delegate from '08 filed to run and the other guy didn't win. The rest wanted no part of it. I was challenged, but overcame the challenge to get through and win.

I don't remember picking up a single delegate from that list (that made it through past the election). I do believe the donation list would have been much larger and therefore it's a shame they didn't call those people. It's even more of a shame that a CAMPAIGN MANAGER wouldn't know Indiana's rules on delegates and when the deadline to file was so that we could have been more effective and overwhelmed them. Ticks me off.

Even now, if we had county/district/regional coordinators for Rand I could be building the network he needs in this area. Starting today. One year before the filing deadline. I have the Ron Paul people and constantly search for more on my own. But not every area has that kind of leader. I can promise MY area - but what good is my little fishbowl in the bigger pool if someone isn't leading?

There were three open spots for delegates in my township. Two people filed to be delegates. I was one of them. No challenges, no nothing. You just had to put your name on a candidate form. I saw there were lots of open delegate positions left unfilled when the results were posted. Unbelievable that there wasn't ANY push by the official campaign to get delegates. I only found out about the delegate process from RPFs and researching the county website and local GOP.

That experience was enough for me to figure out that the campaign wasn't even pretending to try to get delegates or win. It was all about paving the way for Romney.

These most basic principles for running a successful campaign to win weren't undertaken by Benton and Ron Paul Inc. that's why -tactically - he should have no part of Rand 2016. Even if you have no integrity and will do any back room deal to win, you STILL need an organization on the ground to pull it off.

 

[mosquitobite]

There were three open spots for delegates in my township. Two people filed to be delegates. I was one of them. No challenges, no nothing. You just had to put your name on a candidate form. I saw there were lots of open delegate positions left unfilled when the results were posted. Unbelievable that there wasn't ANY push by the official campaign to get delegates. I only found out about the delegate process from RPFs and researching the county website and local GOP.

That experience was enough for me to figure out that the campaign wasn't even pretending to try to get delegates or win. It was all about paving the way for Romney.

These most basic principles for running a successful campaign to win weren't undertaken by Benton and Ron Paul Inc. that's why -tactically - he should have no part of Rand 2016. Even if you have no integrity and will do any back room deal to win, you STILL need an organization on the ground to pull it off.

Strategically, what do they have to offer to "deal" with the opponent unless they have the numbers? Wouldn't the case be that they would have had stronger negotiating position with Romney if they knew Ron had a significant # of delegates? So even if their strategy was to make a back room deal with Romney, Benton should still be seen as not a good campaign manager because in order to have a good negotiating position you have to have power. The only way to have gotten power would have been to have the numbers to put us on par with Romney.

 

[phill4paul]

That experience was enough for me to figure out that the campaign wasn't even pretending to try to get delegates or win. It was all about paving the way for Romney.

This seems to be a prevalent experience/belief of many of this forums activists. I'm sure Teh Collinz can come in and clear this up for us. "Get our heads on right" so to speak.

 

[ghengis86]

This seems to be a prevalent experience/belief of many of this forums activists. I'm sure Teh Collinz can come in and clear this up for us. "Get our heads on right" so to speak.

Right. Not in it to win it, but in it to keep accepting donations under false pretenses and do the GOP's bidding to make things as easy as possible for their pre-selected nominee.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Right. Not in it to win it, but in it to keep accepting donations under false pretenses and do the GOP's bidding to make things as easy as possible for their pre-selected nominee.

That was a shitty thing to do.

"Secret Delegate Strategy" my aching ass.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Why in the world is Matt Collins worried with polling data in New Hampshire, where Ron Paul was polling second basically the entire time, but in Michigan where Ron Paul was polling third the entire time, the campaign spent at least $100,000 attacking Rick Santorum....helping Mitt Romney win that state?

You proved that Ron Paul won the county you ran the ad in, which is real world results, not polling data. It's not your fault you had to spend your own dime actually trying to win the state, while the campaign experts ignored the grassroots in the state.

I'm convinced it is because, at the "Benton" level of things, it was all decided months in advance, what the goal of the "official" campaign would be.

And a Ron Paul presidency was not part of that plan.

They hoodwinked good, honest and hardworking liberty folks into giving up their money, time and grassroots enthusiasm for a cynical political ploy.

Then shit on them, called them kooks, and fringe and weirdoes.

And Benton was the ringleader of that effort.

And to make matters worse, we have to listen to one of his crummy little toadies parroting the same bullshit, over and over.

 

[staerker]

I'm convinced it is because, at the "Benton" level of things, it was all decided months in advance, what the goal of the "official" campaign would be.

And a Ron Paul presidency was not part of that plan.

They hoodwinked good, honest and hardworking liberty folks into giving up their money, time and grassroots enthusiasm for a cynical political ploy.

Then shit on them, called them kooks, and fringe and weirdoes.

And Benton was the ringleader of that effort.

And to make matters worse, we have to listen to one of his crummy little toadies parroting the same bullshit, over and over.

That's politics for you. And Rand 2016 will be no better. It's politics we're talking about, people.

 

[ghengis86]

I'm convinced it is because, at the "Benton" level of things, it was all decided months in advance, what the goal of the "official" campaign would be.

And a Ron Paul presidency was not part of that plan.

They hoodwinked good, honest and hardworking liberty folks into giving up their money, time and grassroots enthusiasm for a cynical political ploy.

Then shit on them, called them kooks, and fringe and weirdoes.

And Benton was the ringleader of that effort.

And to make matters worse, we have to listen to one of his crummy little toadies parroting the same bullshit, over and over.

QFT.

 

[acptulsa]

That's politics for you. And Rand 2016 will be no better. It's politics we're talking about, people.

I can think of one difference. Rand Paul can win. And, therefore, RandPaul2016 will likely not settle for less than the win.

 

[ClydeCoulter]

I can think of one difference. Rand Paul can win. And, therefore, RandPaul2016 will likely not settle for less than the win.

That would be nice, the campaign really "in it to win it". In that case, the media hurdle might be easier to overcome.

I'm not sure that I agree that Ron could not have won, if the campaign was really behind him and the grassroots and doing all that they could to overcome the media hurdle.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

I'm not sure that I agree that Ron could not have won, if the campaign was really behind him and the grassroots and doing all that they could to overcome the media hurdle.

There was a path to victory. It was conceivable, though certainly a very long shot. If Ron Paul had won the Iowa caucus straw poll on January 3rd, in my opinion things would have been different and he would have had a conceivable path to victory. And he came close to winning.

 

[Anti Federalist]

There was a path to victory. It was conceivable, though certainly a very long shot. If Ron Paul had won the Iowa caucus straw poll on January 3rd, in my opinion things would have been different and he would have had a conceivable path to victory. And he came close to winning.

Collins' blathering notwithstanding, I am convinced, Ron could have won in NH, had he aggressively campaigned on the Northern Pass issue and Romney's staff connection to it.

Even more so if he had just come off an IA win.

[Mod Edit: Continuing discussion here.]

 

[specsaregood]

So after another long thread I think it is safe to say that no real case can be made for Benton being involved in any of Randal's future campaigns until at the very least this IA scandal is done with.

furthermore, there has not been any indication so far from anything official or even leaked that he will be. so, can we move on now? how about a positive thread discussing people we would be excited to see involved in his future campaigns?

 

[Brian4Liberty]

...

Jessie Benton has played an important lead role in a number of high profile liberty campaigns to which his performance has been the subject of great debate and discussion here. While Jesse's high profile public position does make him a legitimate candidate for open criticism much of the discussions devolves into non-fruitful banter.

The scope of this thread is to evaluate Jesse's professional performance and the value proposition he has for future campaigns.


Discussion ground rules:
* The site guidelines apply, please re-read them: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/content.php?1989
* On-topic discussion is strictly limited to positives and negatives to Jesse Benton's professional services and his performance history. Off-topic comments will be deleted.
* Any attacks against Jesse's character are not allowed, stick to issues of Jesse's professional performance. Anything that can be legally viewed as slander or a false attack on Jesse's reputation will not be tolerated.
* Cite sources for all information. If the information is just that "someone told me", that's fine, but state it as such. Discussion on the validity of sources is on-topic.
* Let people draw their own conclusions, there is no value in trying to force yours on others. You must educate people to that point.


The objective of this discussion is to:
* Bring important issues to light in a responsible manner. We are a discussion board and people will discuss things of importance.
* Prevent having to constantly rehash this issue over and over in different threads, if the topic comes up again people can be redirected here. Bookmark this thread if the topic is important to you.


You will do your own reputation service to present your points in a well crafted, thoughtful manner.

This thread will be heavily moderated and violations will lead to strong moderation action.



.

 

[specsaregood]

Since Chris Hightower removed himself from Rand Paul 2010 over much less serious accusations...why should Benton get a pass?

I guess because Hightower was a true supporter and didn't want to risk hurting the campaign.

 

[jjdoyle]

For those that aren't aware of the ads run by Anti Federalist at the time, here's a post he made on it with picture included:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?346576-Ran-the-Northern-Pass-ad-again-today

 

[specsaregood]

Pity the campaign didn't have a grassroots liaison sharp enough to tell the campaign this was going on so they could conduct a poll at the time. Might have yielded useful data.

Can we start some new threads with the same title except substituting Jesse Benton for other names?

 

[acptulsa]

I happen to believe in microtargeting, myself.

Goes along with my libertarian love of decentralization, I guess.

 

[jjdoyle]

Is Williamson County and Shelby County close at all? Or even Williamson and Davidson?

Did you lie about Tom Woods on the first page of this thread, and your phone call with Jesse Benton regarding that matter, or did you not?
I haven't seen anything from 2011 where Tom Woods publicly attacked the campaign, but he did give some good advice to it a few times in 2011.

Why wouldn't Jesse Benton just call up Tom Woods, instead of wasting his time calling you? Wouldn't a good campaign manager go directly to the source, of some supposed problem that was hurting the campaign?

Also, did you contact Tom Woods yourself about the supposed issue?

 

[CPUd]

Did you lie about Tom Woods on the first page of this thread, and your phone call with Jesse Benton regarding that matter, or did you not?
I haven't seen anything from 2011 where Tom Woods publicly attacked the campaign, but he did give some good advice to it a few times in 2011.

Why wouldn't Jesse Benton just call up Tom Woods, instead of wasting his time calling you? Wouldn't a good campaign manager go directly to the source, of some supposed problem that was hurting the campaign?

Also, did you contact Tom Woods yourself about the supposed issue?

He said he had screenshots, but he won't post them publicly.