Great article on the incompetence of the campaign.
http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2008/01/this_rons_no_reagan.html
This Ron's no Reagan
Posted by Paul Mulshine January 09, 2008 8:50PM
Ron Paul is fond of calling himself the heir to the political tradition of Ronald Reagan.
So let us compare their records. In 1976, Reagan had so much success in primary elections that he nearly unseated a Republican president. In 1980, Reagan easily won the GOP nomination and then had little trouble unseating a Democratic president.
The Ron Paul campaign, meanwhile, just recorded a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire in one of the most lackluster fields in GOP history.
What accounts for the difference?
It certainly isn' money. Paul's leading the field in fund-raising. And he doesn't lack for supporters. He's leading the field there as well.
So just how did the candidate of liberty manage to get a mere 8 percent of the vote in the "Live Free or Die" state?
Ron Paul made the mistake so many politicians make: He didn't take my advice.
Back in November, when I first encountered his campaign staff, I wrote a column warning the candidate that he needed to get rid of the bozos running his campaign and hire some professionals. I came to that conclusion after I showed up for a press conference prior to Paul's appearance in Philadelphia.
I was shocked to find there were only two other journalists in the room. His staff had scheduled a press conference but neglected to tell the press. Worse, when the three of us tried to interview the candidate, Snyder rudely cut us off. He told us it was more important for the candidate to shmooze with donors than to keep his commitment to the press.
I have never seen such an amateurish move in my 30 years in journalism. As I noted in a column at the time, canceling a press conference is the sort of dirty trick that campaign professionals pull on the competing candidates. I've never seen a campaign manager pull such a trick on himself. And I never will again, I imagine.
As I also noted at the time, Paul had a chance to build some momentum in early November. But he needed some professionals running his campaign. Reagan certainly had them. His advisers were the very best money could buy. As for Paul, after his supporters generated $20 million in contributions, he had the money to buy the best as well.
Instead he stuck to a core of true-believer libertarian activists. And the problem with true-believer libertarians is that they turn libertarianism into an ideology. You know that old joke about the professor who asks, "Sure it works in practice. But will it work in theory?" That's the typical libertarian.
A classic example is toll roads. They are fine in theory but awful in practice, as we in New Jersey know all too well. Yet libertarians support them because they like the theory, even though in practice toll roads cost more than 10 times as much as free roads.
The typical American voter, meanwhile, doesn't care about the ideology of libertarianism. He cares about what works. Reagan understood that. Though he had essentially the same philosophy as Ron Paul, he crushed his opponents by portraying them as liberals totally out of contact with reality.
Paul has managed to accomplish the exact opposite. Instead of characterizing his opponents as liberals, he has let them characterize him as a liberal. This has been disastrous. Exit polls in New Hampshire showed that voters who characterized themselves as conservative were the least likely to vote for Paul. He did best among voters who saw themselves as liberals.
If his campaign was being run properly, the exact opposite would be true. Take the Iraq War. In that debate Saturday night, Paul came off like a blame-America-first liberal instead of an America-first conservative. After making the conservative point that we can't afford the war he went on to once again get into a pointless debate about the reasons Al Qaeda attacked us, saying that 9/11 occurred "because we invade their countries and occupy their countries, we have bases in their country -- and we haven't done it just since 9/11, but we have done that a long time. I mean, it was the Air Force base in Saudi Arabia before 9/11 that was given as the excuse."
This is a wonderful statement of libertarian theory. Americans, however, care about reality. Paul would have been better off talking about the many practical errors the neoconservatives made in Iraq, mistakes a hardheaded conservative never would have made, such as inadvertently turning over control of that country to Islamic fundamentalists.
After Paul made his comment, Mitt Romney attacked him, saying, "Well, unfortunately, Ron, you need a thorough understanding of what radical jihad is, what the movement is, what its intent is, where it flows from. And the fact is that it's trying to bring down not just us, but it's trying to bring down all moderate Islamic governments, Western governments around the world, as we just saw in Pakistan.
Paul might have responded, "If you know so much about radical jihad can you explain to me why Iraq is now being run by an Iranian-based extremist party that truck-bombed our Kuwait embassy not so long ago? And can you explain why women in Iraq now have to wear the veil when they weren't required to do so before the invasion?"
Of course, to make that sort of point he'd have to have people working for him who actually understood the issue and could brief him on it before the debate. Instead he has people working for him who just throw him out there to engage in stream-of-consciousness rants about his core beliefs.
This is mere self-indulgence. A candidate may believe in hundreds of things, but he only has time to communicate a handful of things. And it's often the little things, not the big things, that resonate with the public. I've had people tell me they would vote for Paul simply because he would end the federal ban on unpasteurized milk. Nothing illustrates the overreach of the federal government more than the story of that Amish farmer who was arrested for selling fresh milk. I have no idea if that story's true, but it would win votes even if it weren't.
Every candidate has a political philosophy that he loves to discuss in great length. But a candidate only has minutes, if not seconds, the communicate that part of his platform that will connect with the public. Reagan was a master at this. Paul is inept.
Paul has been cast by the media as a fringe candidate, but then so was Reagan when he began. However Reagan quickly overpowered his critics both in the media and in the Republican Party by going over their heads to the voters. Paul's campaign, meanwhile, has failed to get his message out. His staff then whines about bad press coverage. You don't hear Mike Huckabee whining about his press coverage. Maybe that's because his campaign is being run by professionals.
Actually, Snyder et al. are lucky they're not getting press coverage. If any reporter ever bothered to examine the campaign, he would no doubt hear as I did from dozens of disgruntled Paul supporters all over America. For a sample, read this open letter to the campaign staff from a supporter: http://ronpaul.meetup.com/boards/view/viewthread?thread=4013172
As for Paul himself, he should either get serious or get out of the race. The point of mounting a political campaign is to win. No one had to tell Ronald Reagan that. But someone should tell Ron
http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2008/01/this_rons_no_reagan.html
This Ron's no Reagan
Posted by Paul Mulshine January 09, 2008 8:50PM
Ron Paul is fond of calling himself the heir to the political tradition of Ronald Reagan.
So let us compare their records. In 1976, Reagan had so much success in primary elections that he nearly unseated a Republican president. In 1980, Reagan easily won the GOP nomination and then had little trouble unseating a Democratic president.
The Ron Paul campaign, meanwhile, just recorded a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire in one of the most lackluster fields in GOP history.
What accounts for the difference?
It certainly isn' money. Paul's leading the field in fund-raising. And he doesn't lack for supporters. He's leading the field there as well.
So just how did the candidate of liberty manage to get a mere 8 percent of the vote in the "Live Free or Die" state?
Ron Paul made the mistake so many politicians make: He didn't take my advice.
Back in November, when I first encountered his campaign staff, I wrote a column warning the candidate that he needed to get rid of the bozos running his campaign and hire some professionals. I came to that conclusion after I showed up for a press conference prior to Paul's appearance in Philadelphia.
I was shocked to find there were only two other journalists in the room. His staff had scheduled a press conference but neglected to tell the press. Worse, when the three of us tried to interview the candidate, Snyder rudely cut us off. He told us it was more important for the candidate to shmooze with donors than to keep his commitment to the press.
I have never seen such an amateurish move in my 30 years in journalism. As I noted in a column at the time, canceling a press conference is the sort of dirty trick that campaign professionals pull on the competing candidates. I've never seen a campaign manager pull such a trick on himself. And I never will again, I imagine.
As I also noted at the time, Paul had a chance to build some momentum in early November. But he needed some professionals running his campaign. Reagan certainly had them. His advisers were the very best money could buy. As for Paul, after his supporters generated $20 million in contributions, he had the money to buy the best as well.
Instead he stuck to a core of true-believer libertarian activists. And the problem with true-believer libertarians is that they turn libertarianism into an ideology. You know that old joke about the professor who asks, "Sure it works in practice. But will it work in theory?" That's the typical libertarian.
A classic example is toll roads. They are fine in theory but awful in practice, as we in New Jersey know all too well. Yet libertarians support them because they like the theory, even though in practice toll roads cost more than 10 times as much as free roads.
The typical American voter, meanwhile, doesn't care about the ideology of libertarianism. He cares about what works. Reagan understood that. Though he had essentially the same philosophy as Ron Paul, he crushed his opponents by portraying them as liberals totally out of contact with reality.
Paul has managed to accomplish the exact opposite. Instead of characterizing his opponents as liberals, he has let them characterize him as a liberal. This has been disastrous. Exit polls in New Hampshire showed that voters who characterized themselves as conservative were the least likely to vote for Paul. He did best among voters who saw themselves as liberals.
If his campaign was being run properly, the exact opposite would be true. Take the Iraq War. In that debate Saturday night, Paul came off like a blame-America-first liberal instead of an America-first conservative. After making the conservative point that we can't afford the war he went on to once again get into a pointless debate about the reasons Al Qaeda attacked us, saying that 9/11 occurred "because we invade their countries and occupy their countries, we have bases in their country -- and we haven't done it just since 9/11, but we have done that a long time. I mean, it was the Air Force base in Saudi Arabia before 9/11 that was given as the excuse."
This is a wonderful statement of libertarian theory. Americans, however, care about reality. Paul would have been better off talking about the many practical errors the neoconservatives made in Iraq, mistakes a hardheaded conservative never would have made, such as inadvertently turning over control of that country to Islamic fundamentalists.
After Paul made his comment, Mitt Romney attacked him, saying, "Well, unfortunately, Ron, you need a thorough understanding of what radical jihad is, what the movement is, what its intent is, where it flows from. And the fact is that it's trying to bring down not just us, but it's trying to bring down all moderate Islamic governments, Western governments around the world, as we just saw in Pakistan.
Paul might have responded, "If you know so much about radical jihad can you explain to me why Iraq is now being run by an Iranian-based extremist party that truck-bombed our Kuwait embassy not so long ago? And can you explain why women in Iraq now have to wear the veil when they weren't required to do so before the invasion?"
Of course, to make that sort of point he'd have to have people working for him who actually understood the issue and could brief him on it before the debate. Instead he has people working for him who just throw him out there to engage in stream-of-consciousness rants about his core beliefs.
This is mere self-indulgence. A candidate may believe in hundreds of things, but he only has time to communicate a handful of things. And it's often the little things, not the big things, that resonate with the public. I've had people tell me they would vote for Paul simply because he would end the federal ban on unpasteurized milk. Nothing illustrates the overreach of the federal government more than the story of that Amish farmer who was arrested for selling fresh milk. I have no idea if that story's true, but it would win votes even if it weren't.
Every candidate has a political philosophy that he loves to discuss in great length. But a candidate only has minutes, if not seconds, the communicate that part of his platform that will connect with the public. Reagan was a master at this. Paul is inept.
Paul has been cast by the media as a fringe candidate, but then so was Reagan when he began. However Reagan quickly overpowered his critics both in the media and in the Republican Party by going over their heads to the voters. Paul's campaign, meanwhile, has failed to get his message out. His staff then whines about bad press coverage. You don't hear Mike Huckabee whining about his press coverage. Maybe that's because his campaign is being run by professionals.
Actually, Snyder et al. are lucky they're not getting press coverage. If any reporter ever bothered to examine the campaign, he would no doubt hear as I did from dozens of disgruntled Paul supporters all over America. For a sample, read this open letter to the campaign staff from a supporter: http://ronpaul.meetup.com/boards/view/viewthread?thread=4013172
As for Paul himself, he should either get serious or get out of the race. The point of mounting a political campaign is to win. No one had to tell Ronald Reagan that. But someone should tell Ron
I'm really hoping this double secret probation thing i keep hearing about is true, i could use a boost!
