Washington Times: 'Rand's camp ignoring Ron's supporters'

[CPUd]

I'm sure they talked about it ahead of time. It might not have been the idea of either Paul. I don't think that matters. Ron should have made an unequivocal statement before Rand's announcement to the effect of "Just to be clear I'm no longer running for president. Feel free to endorse whoever you like. I will not be making an endorsement."

Ron had people begging him nonstop to stay in the race or run 3rd party, I can see how that would be hard for him to say that. What he did say in those months was that he wanted to give those people an alternative to Mitt. These are people who otherwise would want no part of the GOP, I think he felt obligated to the supporters who were willing to stick with him all the way to the RNC.

 

[wizardwatson]

Message me on Facebook.

Well, Matt, and really to all, as Matt only wanted me to FB on account of hard to talk one on one fast via forum, here's the deal.

The CFL website actually works now. Before I wasn't able to get past the NDA agreement page as it kept erroring. I emailed the coordinator back then but got no response. Which brought me to CFL "coordinator bootcamp", which is basically a really huge form you have to fill out that forces you to familiarize yourself with your precinct and local contacts. Kind of daunting and time consuming but it is informative. I don't see the need to force people to fact find themselves (other than some kind of broad litmus test to weed out half-hearted people), seems like this should be brute force attack and then simply hand the info to volunteers, but don't know enough yet to give a full critique of process.

Since I can confirm it's working (though it isn't saving my progress, so still seems buggy. If you go there copy the form into something else or else you'll lose your work) I think after I've gone through the bootcamp I'll start a thread about the process.) I'll likely start a thread about my experience and ideas.

But I was able to Facebook convo with my contact coordinator, and I am in the process of starting a local group in Topeka. Kind of sad that we supposedly have CFL operating in KS but no group in the Capital city. Only myself to blame for that I suppose.

Anyway, I'm kind of glad there is "something" behind that site.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Note with regard to the CFL controls I said arguably. Since neither of us actually have inside knowledge of the inner workings of the CFL neither of us know how much control Ron actually asserted throughout it's still short life. In the Michael Nystrom letter Ron did not say he made the Ken Buck decision nor did he say he was keeping tight control on the CFL or even better control than what he kept on his newsletter operation. Anyway, hopefully he and the CFL are learning from obvious mistakes.

You may not; I did.

 

[wizardwatson]

Note with regard to the CFL controls I said arguably. Since neither of us actually have inside knowledge of the inner workings of the CFL neither of us know how much control Ron actually asserted throughout it's still short life. In the Michael Nystrom letter Ron did not say he made the Ken Buck decision nor did he say he was keeping tight control on the CFL or even better control than what he kept on his newsletter operation. Anyway, hopefully he and the CFL are learning from obvious mistakes.

FWIW I am actually going through the local coordinator process for CFL. My entire intent is to audit the process in addition to starting a legitimate group.

I can already tell some of my general gripes about how these things work are immediately obvious. For one, I do not for the life of me understand this cloak and dagger NDA stuff. They have some fairly extensive grassroots organizer stuff that I'm not allowed to even post here. Where is the logic in that? Transparency is what this movement needs, it's what they preach and yet for the sake of "we can't let the competition know what we're doing" they want to make all the local coordinator activity behind a wall of privacy.

That's dumb to me. If your organization needs building, you should be more transparent. What about letting our allies know what we're doing? If we can't see the inner workings, if we have to be secret, I think we're hurting ourselves. I can understand keeping a lid on contact lists but grassroots tactics pdfs?

Plus the "coordinator bootcamp" is nothing but a form that will require me a few hours to complete which consists of basically searching online for information CFL should have already compiled. It's very inefficient and I would say a high barrier of entry to an average supporter that this might all look like Greek to. I've just started though, I plan to give a piece of my mind publicly to it, once I've gone through the process and see how they are operating from a grass roots perspective. I'm pretty much aware of what they're actually doing with their money (raising more money), but transparency is my focus, and I want to see how they measure up.

 

[CPUd]

FWIW I am actually going through the local coordinator process for CFL. My entire intent is to audit the process in addition to starting a legitimate group.

I can already tell some of my general gripes about how these things work are immediately obvious. For one, I do not for the life of me understand this cloak and dagger NDA stuff. They have some fairly extensive grassroots organizer stuff that I'm not allowed to even post here. Where is the logic in that? Transparency is what this movement needs, it's what they preach and yet for the sake of "we can't let the competition know what we're doing" they want to make all the local coordinator activity behind a wall of privacy.

That's dumb to me. If your organization needs building, you should be more transparent. What about letting our allies know what we're doing? If we can't see the inner workings, if we have to be secret, I think we're hurting ourselves. I can understand keeping a lid on contact lists but grassroots tactics pdfs?

...

Materials like slates you definitely don't want to put out there until the last possible moment. Door knocking locations shouldn't be published directly, just post a meetup spot, then carpool out to the specific areas. Those who spend a lot of time out there will probably be able to spot opposing campaigns doing the same or similar, and some of them will recognize the Rand groups as well.

Other campaigns are going to find this stuff out eventually, but the objective is to give them as little time as possible to respond.

Remember last cycle Ron pretty much said it in interviews that he is going to have a lot of people at the conventions, this was after they already made it past the county/precinct level and not much the other campaigns could do about it except turn off the lights.

 

[angelatc]

Seriously, to hell with everyone who tries to use Ron Paul as political leverage only when leaving. If you care, why do I not see you say, "I'm still all about Ron Paul, lets do something." Instead all I see, is attempts to rally Ron Paul supporters as they're leaving the party. Charlatans.

Every time someone mentions doing something, it gets shut down. I think that these forums aren't good for organizing grassroots things any more. Maybe they never were, and we were just so busy locally we didn't notice that the real energy was coming from the MeetUp groups and not here?

 

[Rad]

I saw mention of the CFL website. It brings back memories when Ron Paul's former foreign policy adviser attacked it: http://www.unz.com/article/ron-paul-vs-the-campaign-for-liberty/

 

[wizardwatson]

Every time someone mentions doing something, it gets shut down. I think that these forums aren't good for organizing grassroots things any more. Maybe they never were, and we were just so busy locally we didn't notice that the real energy was coming from the MeetUp groups and not here?

That's probably true. A lot of Meetup activity and other events talk was spilling over into the forum.

As the real grassroots activity talk has stopped spilling into the forum that's likely the vacuum that's allowed the overall despair and cynicism to run rampant unabated.

But there are organizational issues with the movement in general in my opinion. I don't think the movement really fits into the classic party mold. Even CFL being party agnostic still bases part of its strategy on essentially conducting surveillance of pretty much all the other parties activity, which I think is an unwise and cumbersome approach, but it is also a lobbying organization which I think we could do something with.

CFL is what Ron built. It was his vision, but in order for it to be what the grassroots of his movement needs, I think it needs to be more innovative than a classic party modeled door-knocking machine. We need that I suppose at a later date, but until we have numbers it's really only functioning as a fundraising lobby org.

 

[dusman]

I'm sorry, but this stuff is basically pie-in-the-sky, and I swallowed most of it back in 2012. When you fight the establishment the way we were doing, you get roughed up and shutdown and nothing changes. Any lasting change will have to occur under more practical and gradual conditions and will involve an entire change in the culture of everyone here.

This whole "tireless minority" thing assumes that the American Revolution was a success for liberty, but a careful analysis of the early history of this country proves this to be a lie. At best, we had a brief period of relative liberty during the Articles of Confederation, but the eventual enshrining of the so-called U.S. Constitution put the so-called revolution on the road to destruction, beginning by the gradual destruction of the state churches and sovereignty of each former colony, until it was all finished when "The Union" fully prevailed in 1865.

A tireless minority in a modern American context will fast become an insane minority, and this lunatic woman who decided to back an unabashed authoritarian in Donald Trump because Rand wasn't whispering sweet nothings in her ear often enough leads me to believe that the so-called "rELOVution" was made up primarily of crazed Jacobins. I wonder who this Diana Orrick lady plans to guillotine first when her "anointed one" takes his throne?

Yeah, pretty much. Perhaps we made a mistake by establishing the movement on Ron Paul and not something more broad and lasting. We will need a true grassroots revival based on principles and not personalities. We've yet to get there, but I'm confident we can. It's going to require some serious effort on our part to look past the presidency and really dig our heels in on congressional candidates and state/local races. I still think that is the correct path... getting 5-10 Senators and 20-30 Congressman over the next decade would have lasting impact and might be a boon for further expansion in the future.

I want that middle ground between Libertarian and Conservative to materialize and the Paul's are just about the best balance we've seen. We need more than just our own media or activism, though. We really need an entire ecosystem developed. Think tanks, political organizations, alternative media, authors, artists, infiltrators, etc. We need our movement to imitate life and dig itself into every nook-and-cranny of society. Would love if we would establish regional leaders, not around a campaign, but a formal movement. Revive the meetups and identify people to run for office, groom them for years if necessary. Pool national fundraising to win local/state seats one by one.

There's a lot we could do, it's just getting ourselves to change our mindset I think. These presidential campaigns have beaten us all up and we can't expect everyone to stay the course. Some need that sense of accomplishment, progress, etc.

 

[wizardwatson]

Materials like slates you definitely don't want to put out there until the last possible moment. Door knocking locations shouldn't be published directly, just post a meetup spot, then carpool out to the specific areas. Those who spend a lot of time out there will probably be able to spot opposing campaigns doing the same or similar, and some of them will recognize the Rand groups as well.

Other campaigns are going to find this stuff out eventually, but the objective is to give them as little time as possible to respond.

Remember last cycle Ron pretty much said it in interviews that he is going to have a lot of people at the conventions, this was after they already made it past the county/precinct level and not much the other campaigns could do about it except turn off the lights.

Well, I'm not even talking about "real" strategies, and again, I'm barely into all of the material they have on there.

I'm just talking about the general "how we do things". It would be nice to see the activity, even if it's non-existent or sparse. This may have been the reason they scrapped the original site, it showed everyone's blog posts and general activity. You could "see" all the empty slots. This site hides the lack of activity, which I think only makes it worse, and certainly makes surges of support harder to come by.

I will definitely be keeping RPF posted. I don't know of anyone on here who is or was part of CFL so I'm wondering just who all is even in it. How many coordinators have actually completed this "bootcamp" etc.

All these things the wiz wants to know. We'll see what happens.

 

[wizardwatson]

I saw mention of the CFL website. It brings back memories when Ron Paul's former foreign policy adviser attacked it: http://www.unz.com/article/ron-paul-vs-the-campaign-for-liberty/

Everyone attacks it. I've attacked it. I mean it was literally broken in 2015. I'm actually surprised it's working. Well sort of, it still isn't saving my forms when I click the save button.

But I'm tired of sitting around.

CFL was bought with our money. CFL lists are our lists. It was built from the original 2008 campaign lists. If anything is rightfully ours to co-opt and repossess its CFL. It seems the best place to start.

 

[wizardwatson]

Yeah, pretty much. Perhaps we made a mistake by establishing the movement on Ron Paul and not something more broad and lasting. We will need a true grassroots revival based on principles and not personalities. We've yet to get there, but I'm confident we can. It's going to require some serious effort on our part to look past the presidency and really dig our heels in on congressional candidates and state/local races. I still think that is the correct path... getting 5-10 Senators and 20-30 Congressman over the next decade would have lasting impact and might be a boon for further expansion in the future.

I want that middle ground between Libertarian and Conservative to materialize and the Paul's are just about the best balance we've seen. We need more than just our own media or activism, though. We really need an entire ecosystem developed. Think tanks, political organizations, alternative media, authors, artists, infiltrators, etc. We need our movement to imitate life and dig itself into every nook-and-cranny of society. Would love if we would establish regional leaders, not around a campaign, but a formal movement. Revive the meetups and identify people to run for office, groom them for years if necessary. Pool national fundraising to win local/state seats one by one.

There's a lot we could do, it's just getting ourselves to change our mindset I think. These presidential campaigns have beaten us all up and we can't expect everyone to stay the course. Some need that sense of accomplishment, progress, etc.

I like the tone of your post, but I think we need to get completely away from identifying with campaigns in general. Do lobbyists care who is elected?

I think we need to be thinking in terms of grassroots supporter count. Say 10,000 activists by such and such a time. Let's build the ORGANIZATION first. We shouldn't have a mindset that we need to have an organization that elects 10 people. We need to have the mindset of creating an organization of 50,000 people that doesn't fall apart when it loses an election it based itself around.

I think we can do it, but like you say, I think we really just don't understand what that involves. And CFL isn't working from that perspective. So my first question is why?

 

[CPUd]

Motion to remove the chair!

 

[GunnyFreedom]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/02/mitch-mcconnell-rand-paul_n_5644166.html

MAYFIELD, Ky. -- Sen. Rand Paul arrived at the Graves County GOP breakfast here Saturday all but incognito, without an entourage, wearing jeans, cowboy boots and his usual bemused look.

He came to praise Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, not to bury him, as he had once tried to do. But Paul wasn't going to make a big deal of it.

McConnell's challenger in this year's election, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, was utterly unacceptable, Paul told the overflow crowd in a high school cafeteria. The reason was simplicity itself: She's a Democrat and would vote to keep Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who has said coal makes people sick, as the Senate majority leader.

"I don't know how any Kentuckian could consider voting for Ms. Grimes," the Republican senator said.

The rest of the sales job was functional.

McConnell, Paul said, was a Senate GOP leader who kept his caucus unified against Obamacare and forced a vote on a constitutional amendment calling for a balanced budget. McConnell, Paul said, would be an even better leader if, as is possible, Republicans win a net of six Senate seats in November.

"I'm a really loud voice, my critics would say a loudmouth," he said. "I try to bring attention to things." McConnell was the perfect ally, he said, "because he knows how to get things done."

McConnell, for his part, expressed support, sort of, for Paul's likely run for the presidency in 2016.

"If he chose to run, he would be the most creditable candidate for president since Henry Clay," McConnell told the crowd.

That sounded nice enough, though McConnell didn't mention that Clay, the legendary Kentucky lawmaker and "Great Compromiser," never made it all the way to the White House.

The sometimes passive-aggressive bromance between Rand and Mitch just keeps getting more interesting and influential. It now operates on two levels and soon may add a third.

The first is in Kentucky. As he faces a tough race for re-election, McConnell needs all the help he can get, and Paul has been helpful. Recent polls show that, after having to defeat a tea party challenger in the GOP primary, McConnell has solidified his Republican base. Paul not only endorsed McConnell over the challenger, but has since worked to heal whatever party wounds there were.

The second level is in the Senate. The two have developed an inside-outside alliance that is mutually beneficial, guarding McConnell's right flank and giving Paul access to the inner workings of leadership that he would not otherwise have.

If McConnell becomes Senate majority leader, the home-state alliance will be even more significant as Paul gears up his presidential campaign.

Still, it's far from clear whether McConnell will go all out for Paul or use his new position -- if he obtains it -- as an excuse to stay out of the 2016 GOP fray.

On the dais here in Mayfield, they shook hands and smiled the correct smiles. But they didn't sit next to each other and didn't seem that eager to talk until the next time they really need to.

In his speech at the annual Fancy Farm political "picnic" later in the day, McConnell argued that his ascension to majority leader would lead to change in Washington, not more of the gridlocked status quo.

"Send this proud Kentuckian to lead the new Senate and we'll take the country back. ... With your help, Kentucky will lead America."

Paul clapped at that.

The first was an internal GOP party event, a COUNTY Party event. Nobody there was voting for a Democrat anyway. The second was he clapped at a public event. CLAPPED.

None of of this is campaigning for the man. All of this is just "doing your Republican Party duty," just as I said.

 

[CPUd]

Yeah, pretty much. Perhaps we made a mistake by establishing the movement on Ron Paul and not something more broad and lasting. We will need a true grassroots revival based on principles and not personalities. We've yet to get there, but I'm confident we can. It's going to require some serious effort on our part to look past the presidency and really dig our heels in on congressional candidates and state/local races. I still think that is the correct path... getting 5-10 Senators and 20-30 Congressman over the next decade would have lasting impact and might be a boon for further expansion in the future.

I want that middle ground between Libertarian and Conservative to materialize and the Paul's are just about the best balance we've seen. We need more than just our own media or activism, though. We really need an entire ecosystem developed. Think tanks, political organizations, alternative media, authors, artists, infiltrators, etc. We need our movement to imitate life and dig itself into every nook-and-cranny of society. Would love if we would establish regional leaders, not around a campaign, but a formal movement. Revive the meetups and identify people to run for office, groom them for years if necessary. Pool national fundraising to win local/state seats one by one.

There's a lot we could do, it's just getting ourselves to change our mindset I think. These presidential campaigns have beaten us all up and we can't expect everyone to stay the course. Some need that sense of accomplishment, progress, etc.

Ron 2012 had grassroots controlling state parties in several key states, and even won seats on the national committees. Almost all of them were forced to resign or were removed because the Ron Paul supporters who put them there didn't show up in the off years like they did in 2012. The original plan was for these GOPs to back the local liberty candidates, and run candidates for U.S. House and Senate with a built-in support base. A few times it worked, where the base was solid. The rest of that base come here and complain that it only worked a few times.

 

[hells_unicorn]

The first was an internal GOP party event, a COUNTY Party event. Nobody there was voting for a Democrat anyway. The second was he clapped at a public event. CLAPPED.

None of of this is campaigning for the man. All of this is just "doing your Republican Party duty," just as I said.

All true, but truth only matters to rational people, and your intended audience (aka the people bitching about Rand having some love-fest with McConnell) don't fall into that category.

Ron 2012 had grassroots controlling state parties in several key states, and even won seats on the national committees. Almost all of them were forced to resign or were removed because the Ron Paul supporters who put them there didn't show up in the off years like they did in 2012. The original plan was for these GOPs to back the local liberty candidates, and run candidates for U.S. House and Senate with a built-in support base. A few times it worked, where the base was solid. The rest of that base come here and complain that it only worked a few times.

I've been the Judge of Elections in my locale ever since 2010 and I may end up moving up to County Party Committeeman as the current occupant (who also supported Ron Paul) is thinking of retiring soon. The Liberty Movement never really managed any kind of presence in Pennsylvania's State Party (a near impossible task when you consider the centralized control in our metropolitan areas), but there are some individual office holders here who have occupied seats at the table at the local level and still occupy them.

Until people get it out of their heads that simply winning a presidential election will fix the world, we're not getting anywhere. But by the same token, people who have a conniption over a few mild compromises with our opponents at higher levels of office are equally as bad, in fact, most of them are comprised of butt-hurt occupants of the former category.

Liberty will prevail when it's supporters decide it's time to grow up.

 

[dusman]

I like the tone of your post, but I think we need to get completely away from identifying with campaigns in general. Do lobbyists care who is elected?

I think we need to be thinking in terms of grassroots supporter count. Say 10,000 activists by such and such a time. Let's build the ORGANIZATION first. We shouldn't have a mindset that we need to have an organization that elects 10 people. We need to have the mindset of creating an organization of 50,000 people that doesn't fall apart when it loses an election it based itself around.

I think we can do it, but like you say, I think we really just don't understand what that involves. And CFL isn't working from that perspective. So my first question is why?

Yes, I agree with you on this. There certainly needs to be an established organization that is autonomous from campaigns entirely. CFL might have been able to do that, but their approach was very poorly done on the online front.

Honestly, I'm not sure why they didn't just develop CFL on NationBuilder.com. I've been tempted to set up an activist hub on it for a long time, but just don't have the time commitment to do so.

 

[jmdrake]

First off, I understand there are people genuinely pissed at Rand for endorsing Mitt, I'm talking about other folks here who use that. The history is right here in the archives.

"Other folks" were pissed off after Santorum dropped out and it looked like Mitt was running away with the nomination. This is because they went all in for Ron 2012, when it looked like he wasn't going to be able to hold off Mitt, they expected the Ron supporters to go help them build a ground game for their LP candidate. They would come on here during the lowest lows of the campaign and use that to recruit. You can tell who they are, because when they come on, if you say you are going to write in Ron Paul, they go batshit. If they would have just given people a couple weeks to get over it, then come in here straight up, they probably could have gotten more than 1% in the general election. These are the same people in here now (with different usernames) digging in against Rand. I'm guessing they want to prop up a 3rd party candidate, but they don't know yet who that will be.

LOL. For the record I didn't not vote for Gary Johnson, but I see the attitude you are displaying as part of the problem. In 2008 Ron Paul himself endorsed Chuck Baldwin, but there were people who would go "batshit" (your words) at anyone who wasn't going to "write in Ron." The argument I kept hearing was "The media will count the under votes and we will know that was really a vote for Ron Paul." That "under vote count", of course, never materialized. It was just a stupid and cultish way to show how "Ron Paulish" you are on an internet forum to people that are mostly complete strangers to you. Worse, after Ron and actually dropped out of the race in 2012, but not said it clearly enough for people to believe him, this forum still kept Gary Johnson in the "opposing candidates" forum. Who was he opposing? At that point he was only opposing Obama and Romney because Ron wasn't running. Repeat Ron wasn't running! But even when Ron was still running, once Gary Johnson dropped out of the GOP race and took the LP nomination he still was not running against Ron Paul! Gary Johnson wasn't saying "Don't vote in the republican primary but instead vote for me in the libertarian primary." He didn't need to because that's not how the LP works. On primary day in Tennessee I am given the option of a democrat or republican party ballot. I'm not given the option of a libertarian party ballot. (I wouldn't want one if it was offered. And if it was offered it would mostly be empty.) So Gary Johnson couldn't "steal votes" from Ron Paul during the primary as an LP candidate even if he wanted to. Oh...but it wasn't about the votes was it? It was about the money! Folks were scare that somebody might not merely decide to ultimately vote third party, again what Ron suggested we do back in 2008, but they might decide to donate money to help the LP do whatever it is the LP needed to do for Gary Johnson to at least be a tiny factor when they should have been donating to the "delegate strategy" which the campaign itself knew was bollocks!

Ron should have come out and clearly said "I'm not running." But, because he didn't say that, and because he allowed (or encouraged?) people under him to continue to fuel the idea that he might somehow still become president based on the "delegate strategy" people taking the logical step of looking at possible third party candidates so at least on election night their protest vote would register on the screen were vilified. And yes, the people doing the vilifying should have been called out for being "batshit" (again your words). It's one thing to say "I'm writing in Ron Paul." It's another to say "I'm writing in Ron Paul and anyone who does or advocates any other course of action is a traitor to the movement."

Anyhow, in the ever increasingly likely event that Rand doesn't get the nomination I don't expect there to be the shrill voices this time saying "If you don't write in Rand Paul you are a traitor to the movement, motherhood, apple pie and lemonade!"

Edit: And as for your point about Santorum? Many of us where baffled by Ron Paul campaign's decision to target him, Gingrich and anyone other than Mitt Romney. That made zero sense when the campaign claimed to be doing a "delegate strategy" and hoping to win through a "brokered convention." The only path to a brokered convention would be for Gingrich and Santorum to have won enough delegates to keep Romney from getting over 50%. There is no way in hell Ron was going to beat Romney on his own. Romney's almost did itself in with the "etch-a-sketch" comment. Gingrich and Santorum came out with ads attacking Romney over the comment. Ron came out with an ad attacking Gingrich and Santorum for attacking Romney. That made no freaking sense. But you think the problem was people saying, after Ron had suspended his campaign, that Gary Johnson could at least make a splash in the general? Seriously?

 

[jmdrake]

FWIW I am actually going through the local coordinator process for CFL. My entire intent is to audit the process in addition to starting a legitimate group.

I can already tell some of my general gripes about how these things work are immediately obvious. For one, I do not for the life of me understand this cloak and dagger NDA stuff. They have some fairly extensive grassroots organizer stuff that I'm not allowed to even post here. Where is the logic in that? Transparency is what this movement needs, it's what they preach and yet for the sake of "we can't let the competition know what we're doing" they want to make all the local coordinator activity behind a wall of privacy.

That's dumb to me. If your organization needs building, you should be more transparent. What about letting our allies know what we're doing? If we can't see the inner workings, if we have to be secret, I think we're hurting ourselves. I can understand keeping a lid on contact lists but grassroots tactics pdfs?

Plus the "coordinator bootcamp" is nothing but a form that will require me a few hours to complete which consists of basically searching online for information CFL should have already compiled. It's very inefficient and I would say a high barrier of entry to an average supporter that this might all look like Greek to. I've just started though, I plan to give a piece of my mind publicly to it, once I've gone through the process and see how they are operating from a grass roots perspective. I'm pretty much aware of what they're actually doing with their money (raising more money), but transparency is my focus, and I want to see how they measure up.

Good luck with your coordinator work. But that's not what I was talking about. I'm talking about the big feather ruffling decisions like endorsing Ken Buck or the decision to snub Paulfest. (I don't think Ron was at all involved in that decision). Even on the Romney endorsement we are speculating on who made what decision. On a certain level it doesn't matter. A bad decision is a bad decision. And saying "Even if Ron himself made that decision it was a stupid decision" isn't "hating" Ron Paul. But some people act like it is. That's cultish.

 

[jmdrake]

The first was an internal GOP party event, a COUNTY Party event. Nobody there was voting for a Democrat anyway. The second was he clapped at a public event. CLAPPED.

None of of this is campaigning for the man. All of this is just "doing your Republican Party duty," just as I said.

Ummm....Gunny...nobody is upset about anything Rand did to help Mitch McConnell after he secured the nomination. This is the issue.

The first is in Kentucky. As he faces a tough race for re-election, McConnell needs all the help he can get, and Paul has been helpful. Recent polls show that, after having to defeat a tea party challenger in the GOP primary, McConnell has solidified his Republican base. Paul not only endorsed McConnell over the challenger, but has since worked to heal whatever party wounds there were.

And let's be clear. That issue isn't merely a problem for Ron Paul supporters. It's also a problem for tea partiers who didn't like Ron but were willing to take a chance on Rand. Yes the endorsement made Rand a more effective senator. But it also hurt his credibility. And it's not the fault of the voter when a politician does something that causes the voter to no longer support him anymore than it is the fault of the customer when a business loses his support. But Rand's defense of McConnell went beyond the election. In response to a question about Ted Cruz calling Mitch McConnell a liar....

“Ted has chosen to make this really personal and chosen to call people dishonest in leadership and call them names which really goes against the decorum and also against the rules of the senate, and as a consequence he can’t get anything done legislatively,” Paul said.
“He is pretty much done for and stifled and it’s really because of personal relationships, or lack of personal relationships, and it is a problem.”

Paul explained that he’s just as “hardcore” but has a different approach than Cruz.

“I just chose not to call people liars on the senate floor and it’s just a matter of different perspectives on how best to get to the end result,” Paul said.

Rand didn't have to do that. I can see the temptation. Cruz is a rival for the GOP nomination for president. And here was a good opportunity to take him down a notch. Only problem is.....a lot of tea party types actually think Mitch McConnell is a liar. They hear that on talk radio every time McConnell doesn't go along with defunding Obamacare and ever time McConnell goes along with funding the entire federal government rather than facing a government shut down. The tea party wants a government shut down as long as Obama is in power. The tea party would rather the government be shut down than funds go to Planned Parenthood who's minions were caught on video bargaining over baby parts. They tea party wants people it supports to be in your face not just with Obama but with the milktoast republicans that, to their mind, let Obama get just about anything he wants. And there's a rather large overlap of agreement with Ron Paul supporters and the tea party on this issue.

So here's the real problem. For a variety of reasons Ron Paul supporters of various stripes felt "unwelcome" especially after the infamous "Don't go to Paulfest" because "bad people are organizing it" Jesse Benton texts. (See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ15Y8p0akc) But most tried to stick with Rand anyway. Rand showed some promise. Then he did some things that ticked off tea partiers as well. Maybe the Ron Paul movement itself is "too small" to matter. Maybe the hard core tea partiers don't matter. Of course it was decided long ago that 9/11 truthers don't matter. But once you discard everyone that doesn't matter, who's left?