Monday, January 28, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Heading home, exhausted.
Posted today, January 15th. Written January 9th, 2008:
I guess it's only my second time flying in the past twenty years, but the roar of the jet engine as the plane accelerates towards lift off is unnerving and thrilling, as the airport flashes past the windows at two hundred miles an hour. I'm looking out on New Hampshire right now, at the forest of trees painted over the snowy white canvass, and the rolling White Mountains rise from the horizon and fade into the gray. Moving above the clouds seems a paradox I can't quite wrap my head around. Window seats, for me, remain essential.
We headed out of the Moultenborough house this morning around ten—those of us that were left. Most headed out earlier this morning around three, needing to hit the Manchester airport for early morning flights. Lorin and I both had to get there by this afternoon, so we jumped in the van with the trio from Pennsylvania that was staying with us, along with Dave and Pat Wallin, who had hitchhiked to get here two weeks ago and were once again hitching on back to Michigan.
We were all incredibly disappointed with the final New Hampshire primary results. Three weeks of ten hour days knocking on doors and going from house to house resulted in a solid 17,000 votes, but it also accounted for only 8% of the total Republican vote. Panama Harry was so disappointed when the vote started to roll in he couldn't even go to the "victory celebration" that we'd scheduled for the evening of the primary. Extremely high voter turnout was a part of the problem, as January 8th turned into one of the most gorgeous, balmy days in more than two months.
We were, however, also a little upset with the official campaign, and their strategy for “winning.” For instance, the official campaign made the strategic decision not to run very many television advertisements in the state, focusing instead on direct mailings and phone calls to as many Republican voters as possible—as many times as possible. “It worked for Congressman Paul in Texas,” we were told repeatedly. Clearly, it was too conservative a strategy for winning a primary.
Many of us here in the grassroots community are upset and concerned where we feel that the official campaign is not listening to us. There were many examples that could be cited where OLFDers were blocked by the official campaign's staff when we wanted more signs, or wanted to blanket canvass or wave signs or change the stock message we were told to deliver when making phone calls on behalf of the campaign. They were rather arrogant in their assumption that we were all amateurs who did not know what worked and what didn't, and they were also rather arrogant in their assumption that their strategy would be wholly successful.
This is the way it is: so many in the official campaign are amateurs themselves. Ron Paul's popularity has grown so quickly, and his funding ballooned so exponentially, that the official campaign is simply not yet prepared to actually utilize its resources properly and find a way to get non-Internet users to recognize and support Dr. Paul. They are using “tried and tested” techniques that worked in Paul's small Texas district—where he already knows everyone anyway and everyone knows him—and they're failing to realize what brought the entire grassroots movement to Dr. Paul in the first place.
We in the grassroots, on the other hand, know exactly what got our attention, and that was Ron Paul himself.
The official campaign's strategy so far is to basically stifle Ron Paul's message, then wrap him up and make him look like any other ordinary, Republican candidate. But we in the grassroots understand that Ron Paul is a fundamentally different creature than anyone else running for the Presidency of the United States, and we realized it by watching clips of Dr. Paul on YouTube. No direct mailing, or radio broadcast of Paul's positions can convey the honesty, sincerity, and common sense that the man speaks with, and the passion with which he speaks out against tyranny and for freedom. It isn't just Internet users—people all over the country are hungry for his message, as the viability of Barack Obama proves. People are hungry for his message, and for his principles and honesty, but unless they see him speak in the debates or in television advertisements, they will not understand who this man is or what he stands for.
A number of us in the OLFD sat down and made a list of a number of things that went right in New Hampshire, and what went wrong. Here is a short list of what we came up with:
All for now. I'm in Chicago, waiting to board my plane for the final leg home to Nebraska. This experience was one I'll never forget, and I fully intend to write more articles and post here in the coming weeks. Until then, I'll be taking a few days off. There's little more exhausting than working your ass off for three weeks, and seeing incredibly little impact for the work you've done. We all feel like that right now, but we'll get over it. This movement will continue with or without Dr. Paul, but we'll all be a little more hopeful if he remains our flag bearer.
I guess it's only my second time flying in the past twenty years, but the roar of the jet engine as the plane accelerates towards lift off is unnerving and thrilling, as the airport flashes past the windows at two hundred miles an hour. I'm looking out on New Hampshire right now, at the forest of trees painted over the snowy white canvass, and the rolling White Mountains rise from the horizon and fade into the gray. Moving above the clouds seems a paradox I can't quite wrap my head around. Window seats, for me, remain essential.
We headed out of the Moultenborough house this morning around ten—those of us that were left. Most headed out earlier this morning around three, needing to hit the Manchester airport for early morning flights. Lorin and I both had to get there by this afternoon, so we jumped in the van with the trio from Pennsylvania that was staying with us, along with Dave and Pat Wallin, who had hitchhiked to get here two weeks ago and were once again hitching on back to Michigan.
We were all incredibly disappointed with the final New Hampshire primary results. Three weeks of ten hour days knocking on doors and going from house to house resulted in a solid 17,000 votes, but it also accounted for only 8% of the total Republican vote. Panama Harry was so disappointed when the vote started to roll in he couldn't even go to the "victory celebration" that we'd scheduled for the evening of the primary. Extremely high voter turnout was a part of the problem, as January 8th turned into one of the most gorgeous, balmy days in more than two months.
We were, however, also a little upset with the official campaign, and their strategy for “winning.” For instance, the official campaign made the strategic decision not to run very many television advertisements in the state, focusing instead on direct mailings and phone calls to as many Republican voters as possible—as many times as possible. “It worked for Congressman Paul in Texas,” we were told repeatedly. Clearly, it was too conservative a strategy for winning a primary.
Many of us here in the grassroots community are upset and concerned where we feel that the official campaign is not listening to us. There were many examples that could be cited where OLFDers were blocked by the official campaign's staff when we wanted more signs, or wanted to blanket canvass or wave signs or change the stock message we were told to deliver when making phone calls on behalf of the campaign. They were rather arrogant in their assumption that we were all amateurs who did not know what worked and what didn't, and they were also rather arrogant in their assumption that their strategy would be wholly successful.
This is the way it is: so many in the official campaign are amateurs themselves. Ron Paul's popularity has grown so quickly, and his funding ballooned so exponentially, that the official campaign is simply not yet prepared to actually utilize its resources properly and find a way to get non-Internet users to recognize and support Dr. Paul. They are using “tried and tested” techniques that worked in Paul's small Texas district—where he already knows everyone anyway and everyone knows him—and they're failing to realize what brought the entire grassroots movement to Dr. Paul in the first place.
We in the grassroots, on the other hand, know exactly what got our attention, and that was Ron Paul himself.
The official campaign's strategy so far is to basically stifle Ron Paul's message, then wrap him up and make him look like any other ordinary, Republican candidate. But we in the grassroots understand that Ron Paul is a fundamentally different creature than anyone else running for the Presidency of the United States, and we realized it by watching clips of Dr. Paul on YouTube. No direct mailing, or radio broadcast of Paul's positions can convey the honesty, sincerity, and common sense that the man speaks with, and the passion with which he speaks out against tyranny and for freedom. It isn't just Internet users—people all over the country are hungry for his message, as the viability of Barack Obama proves. People are hungry for his message, and for his principles and honesty, but unless they see him speak in the debates or in television advertisements, they will not understand who this man is or what he stands for.
A number of us in the OLFD sat down and made a list of a number of things that went right in New Hampshire, and what went wrong. Here is a short list of what we came up with:
As far as door-to-door efficiency goes, put two or three in a car, then hit ONLY houses with cars in the driveway or lights on in the house. And when we talk to people, we need to make sure to ask if they're willing to support Dr. Paul in the election before we move on.
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All for now. I'm in Chicago, waiting to board my plane for the final leg home to Nebraska. This experience was one I'll never forget, and I fully intend to write more articles and post here in the coming weeks. Until then, I'll be taking a few days off. There's little more exhausting than working your ass off for three weeks, and seeing incredibly little impact for the work you've done. We all feel like that right now, but we'll get over it. This movement will continue with or without Dr. Paul, but we'll all be a little more hopeful if he remains our flag bearer.
Monday, January 7, 2008
One Day Left
We're working the last day of door-to-door here in New Hampshire. Today Steven, our house captain here (who also happens to be an amazing cook), and I are running around doing Get-Out-The-Vote. Should be an interesting day.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
The New Hampshire Debates
Our car headed forty-five minutes north to Conway. Riding along in Doug's car were Pat, Aaron and I, and we got started early sign waving at the busiest intersection in Conway. Around 10:30 AM, we split up: Aaron and I hit the trail going door-to-door in the area, and Doug and Pat held down the intersection as a Ron Paul stronghold.
Door-to-door went really well. It seems Conway is a little more open to campaigners than people in Manchester or Concord - probably because they don't get hit as hard most of the year. Ran into one 80-year-old ex-military who supported Giuliani - and made fun of us since we weren't fighting in Iraq ourselves. Don't worry about wars, he said, the military can handle it. Well, obviously that wasn't the issue (never mind the fact that Ron Paul gets more monetary support from active military and ex military than any other candidate), but unfortunately he was in more of a fuming, pissed off mood, rather than a conversational one, so we extracted ourselves from the situation and continued on our way.
Lots of positive responses from undecided voters, and we left Constitutions and the new DVDs that we've been shipped, and we gave up around 4 PM for the day: that's earlier than we'd like to stop, but going door-to-door asking for political support is very mentally and emotionally draining. It was best to stop before we were all pissed off and worn out.
The ABC/Facebook Debates were fantastic - that is, Ron Paul actually got a chance to speak on a national stage, and he took full advantage of the opportunity. He hit a couple of home runs answering questions about Barack Obama, oil prices and the War, directing his answers towards economic reasoning for the most part. We had a number of points to cheer about here in the Moultonborough house, and it was very satisfying to see our candidate finally get a fair chance to speak at one of these debates.
Now we get to see what Ron Paul plans for tomorrow - he's purchased one hour of airtime tomorrow at the same time as the Fox News Forums from which he was excluded.
Run Paul Run.
Door-to-door went really well. It seems Conway is a little more open to campaigners than people in Manchester or Concord - probably because they don't get hit as hard most of the year. Ran into one 80-year-old ex-military who supported Giuliani - and made fun of us since we weren't fighting in Iraq ourselves. Don't worry about wars, he said, the military can handle it. Well, obviously that wasn't the issue (never mind the fact that Ron Paul gets more monetary support from active military and ex military than any other candidate), but unfortunately he was in more of a fuming, pissed off mood, rather than a conversational one, so we extracted ourselves from the situation and continued on our way.
Lots of positive responses from undecided voters, and we left Constitutions and the new DVDs that we've been shipped, and we gave up around 4 PM for the day: that's earlier than we'd like to stop, but going door-to-door asking for political support is very mentally and emotionally draining. It was best to stop before we were all pissed off and worn out.
The ABC/Facebook Debates were fantastic - that is, Ron Paul actually got a chance to speak on a national stage, and he took full advantage of the opportunity. He hit a couple of home runs answering questions about Barack Obama, oil prices and the War, directing his answers towards economic reasoning for the most part. We had a number of points to cheer about here in the Moultonborough house, and it was very satisfying to see our candidate finally get a fair chance to speak at one of these debates.
Now we get to see what Ron Paul plans for tomorrow - he's purchased one hour of airtime tomorrow at the same time as the Fox News Forums from which he was excluded.
Run Paul Run.
Friday, January 4, 2008
The Post-Iowa Run
I worked the phones for most of the evening at campaign HQ in Concord. We all worked in the streets of downtown Concord handing out Constitutions to everyone in the streets, ducking into shops when we had the opportunity to hand out Constitutions to shop owners - and to get out of the four degree chill.
We quickly organized a march around 12:30 through Concord all the way to the State Capitol down the street, shouting "Ron Paul Revolution! Give us back our Constitution!" Yeah, it was corny, but we were all sincere about it: whatever ultimately happens in these elections, a movement has been started which is going to grow and live on well beyond the final U.S. pullout from Iraq - whenever that occurs, however much money and however many more troops will have died by then.
We rushed to Murphy's Tap Room in Manchester after we were done for the evening. Murphy's is a sports bar, but wouldn't you know it, all screens were on CNN this evening, and all eyes in this packed bar were eagerly anticipating the results for Dr. Ron Paul. We were rather upset that CNN's Republican pie graph had the results showing for Romney, Huckabee, McCain, and Thompson, and then there was a large white chunk in the top left corner that had no name attributed to it - the entire night. Ron Paul's name was never shown in the graph, but he ended up just behind McCain and Thompson, coming in at 10% of the total vote. It was a bit disappointing because we were really hoping for third place, which we missed by about 3%, but it wasn't a bad showing, and it should give some momentum heading into New Hampshire, where we'll almost certainly do better.
The owner of Murphy's is a Ron Paul supporter and gave us all free beer, and another supporter covered all of our meals for the evening.
Today we're heading for Berlin - New Hampshire (not Germany). Into the north, where few canvassers ever reach. They should be interested enough to hear us out, at the very least, which is all we need to convert most voters.
We quickly organized a march around 12:30 through Concord all the way to the State Capitol down the street, shouting "Ron Paul Revolution! Give us back our Constitution!" Yeah, it was corny, but we were all sincere about it: whatever ultimately happens in these elections, a movement has been started which is going to grow and live on well beyond the final U.S. pullout from Iraq - whenever that occurs, however much money and however many more troops will have died by then.
We rushed to Murphy's Tap Room in Manchester after we were done for the evening. Murphy's is a sports bar, but wouldn't you know it, all screens were on CNN this evening, and all eyes in this packed bar were eagerly anticipating the results for Dr. Ron Paul. We were rather upset that CNN's Republican pie graph had the results showing for Romney, Huckabee, McCain, and Thompson, and then there was a large white chunk in the top left corner that had no name attributed to it - the entire night. Ron Paul's name was never shown in the graph, but he ended up just behind McCain and Thompson, coming in at 10% of the total vote. It was a bit disappointing because we were really hoping for third place, which we missed by about 3%, but it wasn't a bad showing, and it should give some momentum heading into New Hampshire, where we'll almost certainly do better.
The owner of Murphy's is a Ron Paul supporter and gave us all free beer, and another supporter covered all of our meals for the evening.
Today we're heading for Berlin - New Hampshire (not Germany). Into the north, where few canvassers ever reach. They should be interested enough to hear us out, at the very least, which is all we need to convert most voters.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Moultonborough
New home here in Moultonborough, New Hampshire, and here's where I'll be spending the rest of my OLFD days. But I'm not retiring, nor are the other two hundred supporters who showed up on New Year's Day, ready to rock the Granite State for the next eight days.
The house here is a pretty sweet dig. Apparently Vijay set us up in some sort of boarding house for backwoods snowboarders, or something. There are about twenty bunks in this place, and we're gonna need 'em all 'cause we're gonna be packed full and tired as hell. Speaking of which... more updates later.
The house here is a pretty sweet dig. Apparently Vijay set us up in some sort of boarding house for backwoods snowboarders, or something. There are about twenty bunks in this place, and we're gonna need 'em all 'cause we're gonna be packed full and tired as hell. Speaking of which... more updates later.
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