Update: Retort by Dan from Prayeramedic at Retort: Ron Paul supporters aren't foolish
Although he did not win either the presidency or the Party’s nomination for president, Ron Paul was highly successful in many respects—which as it happens are the very places the Republican Party needs the most work. As I have mentioned in previous articles, I believe the GOP is in need of, among other things, urgency, energy, and appeal. Ron Paul in his run for president in 2008 provided at least a glimpse of where Republicans should go as we dramatically rebuild and reform our party.
In this past election cycle, Ron Paul and his Libertarian supporters frustrated mainstream Republicans to no end. Ron Paul’s ardent followers obstructed party activities at the local and county level, at state conventions, and they even had a significant influence upon on the national party. This past June I watched from the Indiana Republican State Convention floor and in various caucus rooms as "paulistas" cast their votes in faithfully united blocks. Thanks to their leader, they were also well-schooled in Robert’s Rules and the typical organization of state party rules. They disguised themselves as Republicans, and used their procedural expertise to amend party rules in many states to allow open nominations from convention floors, so they could then, in turn, nominate Ron Paul insiders as state or national delegates. While all of this is extremely aggravating for traditional Republicans, there is much we can learn from their success.
First, although many of Ron Paul’s positions are out of touch with mainstream America to say the least, he was still able to sell this message to people of many political persuasions, most of whom felt disenfranchised or left out of politics altogether. However draconian his words may have been, they captivated people. For instance, the campaign masterfully coined “revolution” in the call to the movement, igniting a fire in the hearts and minds of many followers. He also authored a “manifesto” that included an outline of his beliefs as well as a step-by-step guide to change history, and gave away copies to faithful volunteers in exchange for their support. This is precisely the type of urgency that we currently lack as Republicans.
Second, Ron Paul’s campaign shattered new ground in national politics by making his “revolution” into a hyper-Internet fundraising spectacle. He utilized MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube like never before to ignite an enormous grassroots infusion. He invented the concept of the “moneybomb,” which consists of a single day of fundraising rallied around a particularly historical event with the snowballing publicity of a plethora of media. Publishing the results in real time on the Internet fueled the mass media's interest, and he was able to reach an unprecedented number of supporters in a short burst of activity. He was able to net over $6 Million and $4.5 Million from more than 50,000 donors each at his two most successful events, respectively setting and breaking his own record for the most money raised in a single day by any candidate.
While I would attribute a large portion of Ron Paul’s success to the intense discontentment with spendthrift neo-conservatives over the past decade, as well as a common weariness about politics as usual, there are valuable lessons we must learn if we are to be successful going forward. For Republicans, this means a complete rethinking and retooling of our entire playbook. Libertarians, on the other hand, witnessed that staging a revolution from within the Republican Party is not only possible, but perhaps the most effective way of accomplishing their goals, instead of continuing a separate—and some might say futile—existence as a third party in a two party system.
6 comments:
I found this article interesting from a marketing perspective, but from a political and ideological standpoint it is insulting. You said:
"... although many of Ron Paul’s positions are out of touch with mainstream America to say the least, he was still able to sell this message to people of many political persuasions, most of whom felt disenfranchised or left out of politics altogether. However draconian his words may have been, they captivated people."
This dismisses everything he and his followers stood for as foolish, completely disregarding the reality that his followers had such success because they believe in his political message -- because it is the only differing political voice on the scene. He stands for the Constitution - Republicans and Democrats should try that some time.
As of yet, both parties have failed to produce even one candidate (besides Paul) who upholds the Constitution. That's why people are listening, not because of his personality cult. Sure some jumped on the popularity bandwagon, that's why Obama won, but a majority of Paul's followers faced scorn even from within their own party - he was not a popular candidate to support.
Remember Dr. Paul predicted this financial crisis years ago and has continued to be the only real "conservative" candidate, supporting less government and less spending.
Ron Paul said that if we continued to run our economy on runaway government spending, endless amounts of debt and the insanity of letting the Federal Reserve control our currency then eventually the United States economy would crash.
Did that not happen?
But neither party is seeking to end this orgy of debt. Instead both parties pushed the "Wall Street bailout" and both parties want to spend even more money.
Ron Paul said that the United States cannot police the world. If we bomb countries, invade countries and torture everyone in sight then people around the world are going to hate America.
Did that not happen?
But neither party is seeking to end the wars. Instead Obama is promising to keep troops in Iraq for at least 18 more months, and he is promising to send a lot more troops to Afghanistan and he has talked about how we may need to send troops into Pakistan and Sudan.
Ron Paul said that if we passed the "Patriot Act" and these other fascist police state pieces of legislation that we would lose our individual liberties.
Did that not happen?
But neither party is taking any action to repeal the Patriot Act.
"The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is." -Ronald Reagan (1975)
When will people start listening to Ron Paul?
Ron Paul recently appeared on FOX News with Neil Cavuto to discuss the latest bailout package.
The following are a few key quotes from that interview:
"When companies get too big and make mistakes they should fail."
"We’re propping up all the bad mistakes."
"Governments can’t make the correct decisions. They aren’t smart enough."
"This whole idea that Washington are geniuses… that they can do central economic planning. In this country we don’t call it socialism, we call it interventionism and a planned economy."
Watch this interview at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnrA6ewaZrw
But is anyone listening?
No.
Obama and his advisors seem determined to take us even further down the road of big government, big spending, bailouts and socialism.
So is there any hope for the future?
What we could really use is a reformed Republican Party led by Ron Paul that would embrace a platform of smaller government, less taxation, abolishing the Federal Reserve, returning our individual freedoms and liberties and protecting our nation's borders and sovereignty.
Here is an excerpt from Congressman Ron Paul's latest "weekly straight talk":
"We will face more tough economic problems during this new administration. In fact, the worst is yet to come. A vast amount of problematic mortgages have not begun to reset their variable interest rates and go into default. We already have unprecedented deficits, spending is out of control, and more big industries are coming to government with their hands out. My hope is that this administration will handle this economic crisis better than the interventionists and big government spenders of the 1930’s, the bureaucrats that prolonged the Depression. I hope that new government programs and spiderwebs of red tape do not pop up to interfere with American productivity, and that we can quickly get our financial footing again. We have to understand that an economic correction needs to take place and the only way out of the coming recession is to go through it. Efforts to avoid it can only prolong it. I hope we can somehow find our way back to sound money and reject corporate cronyism".
If the American people will just wake up then perhaps the movement that Ron Paul has begun can give us hope for the future!
Dan, terrific comment, I have moved it up to post level on the main page at http://reasonbellpundit.blogspot.com/2008/11/retort-ron-paul-supporters-arent.html
For the record, I too feel we could learn alot from those that support and have supported Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, Barack Obama, and other charismatic leaders who engendered excitement and built organizations at the grass roots.
Thanks Steve, I kind of "went off" a little bit there, tired of people invalidating the only genuine conservative political views out there these days.
I liked the rant, we need that more often here on this site. Isn't that what we learned from these online and grass roots organizations? They allow and encourage rants.
I'm pushing to break 100 RSS's subscribers, so anyone out there reading today for the first time or returning readers, please add us to your RSS reader. We'd love to have you looking in every day.
First off,
I would like to say I was asked to comment by Mr. Dalton and as always, when I comment on anything local, I do identify myself for I have nothing to hide.
Introduction:
I am Joel Ferguson, current organizer for the Lake County Republican Paulers meetup at meetup.com and the Organizer for the Lake County Republican Party meetup at meetup.com.
I would like to dispel the myth that the word Libertarian and conservative do not go hand in hand, rather they very much do.
I've always been taught and applied the philosophy of when there is an elephant in the room, introduce it, pun intended.
Elephant = Ron Paul
Through not fault of anybodies, Ron Paul has become that "elephant" in the room. We can all sit around and speculate as to why he is now that elephant, but from my own personal perspective the real reason is he embraces almost to a Tee what Ron Reagen was originally all about. What Ron Reagen was elected for in 1980. The only difference between what is described as a "neo-conservative" and a Ron Paul conservative is that we embrace the ideological philosophy of what the Party used to stand for in foreign policy. Even when the Federal Reserve took hold in 1913, it never sat well with the base and realistically, it still shouldn't. Only through years of indoctrination has the "base" accepted the Federal Reserve as a status quo fact of matter.
Is the above article insulting as suggested by another commenter? Yes, for it still embraces the "Draconian" ideal that we are not Republicans, which in turn, turns off the enthusiasm, excitement and hard working individual sovereigns that our party does need and requires for future growth and prosperity.
Problem = Republicans or conservatives by nature are not loud individuals for we all like to be left alone and generally keep to ourselves. On the other hand, Democrats or socialists are loud for they carry the promise of a "better life" for the poor and hard working and by there nature they are loud, for they have to be... for their message is nothing but a lie.
We all know that it is a flat out lie, but we as conservative fail miserably at explaining why and thus fail with the electorate in large populated cities which for the most part can and do swing elections for the evil (and i mean in every sense of the word) socialists. Not every socialist is evil, but the ones in power truly are for they are educated and should know better.
Ron Reagan said it best:
If you analyze it, I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.
The fact that I have been scorned by my own party is insulting. When I was younger, I walked in and pushed the Republican button and walked out never knowing why I did that other than I was raised that way. As I got older, I began an exploration as to why I am conservative and what is at the heart of being conservative. Obviously, my exploration led me to Libertarianism.
Libertarians are scorned by the Party since their break away in 1972. If you go to the Cato Institute, they have polling data that indicates Libertarians not only vote overwhelmingly Republican, but at the same time they will also vote Democrat and when they do, they swing elections. Their polling data shows that 15% of the nation can be identified as Libertarian and which ever way that base swings, decides elections.
Libertarianism is at the heart and soul of being a conservative. To deny that is to deny the foundation of what it means to be Republican. If the Cato Institutes polling data is correct, and I suspect that the actual number is relatively conservative, why would Republicans choose to ignore, isolate, condemn, ridicule and scorn this most important base? The base that wins them elections. The base at the heart and soul is conservative.
Solution = The "elephant" has arrived but will the Republicans build a door wide enough for him to fit through?
Ron Paul did something that no other Republican has been able to do so since Ron Reagan or Barry Goldwater. He made the quite, little meek voices of Libertarian thinking individuals, the ones that swing elections, get loud and the Party scorned, ridiculed or flat out ignored that base.
Lets face it, and I did vote for McCain against my better judgment, McCain lost that election for one reason, he ignored that base and voted, promoted and became a cheerleader for the bailout, the one issue that would have more than likely swung that base to him.
Every so often that base swings the wrong way, attempting to remind Republicans that they are important, yet will room for the elephant be made or am I and other like me just "crazy" and are that out of touch with reality.
Obviously, I would beg to differ and suggest that Neo-Republicans are the ones out of touch with Reality for if they continue to ignore that base, we are in real trouble as a party.
Republicans are going through a phase of self examination, but I fear that they will not understand or identify their root problem which has become the biggest oxymoron of our generation, social conservatism.
Another Quote by Ron Reagan when he was asked why he had left the Democrat Party:
"I did not leave the Democrat Party, the party left me"
Thus, your base is feeling in mass numbers and has been so for the last four years for Republicans are not embracing that which has made them successful:
Humble Foreign Policy
Small Government
Limited Taxation
& a True Understanding of the Blessings of Civil Liberties or the essence of Freedom which is what made this country the once envy of the modern world.
For years, we have been wrong in calling Democrats Liberals. They are not Liberals they are socialists and Republicans are the true Liberals in every sense of the word. If we fail to embrace that, then we fail to embrace the true essence of conservatism and are doomed to the moronic expression of social conservatism, that which has brought destruction to our Party.
Article facts that are wrong:
"They disguised themselves as Republicans..." ~ my friend, that is perhaps the most insulting statement in the blog, we are Republicans, and that is the greatest mistake the Party is making.
"... and used their procedural expertise to amend party rules in many states to allow open nominations from convention floors, so they could then, in turn, nominate Ron Paul insiders as state or national delegates." ~ Truth of the matter is that the State Party in violation of their own rules regarding rule changes, changed the rules 48 hours before the convention to prevent nomination from the floor. I was an "insider" so to speak. We navigated many options including seeking an injunction, but decided for the future of our involvement with the party, it was better to play "nice" and by the rules, perhaps that was a mistake since obviously the party at the top doesn't know how to play nice. No Gold Star for them. At any rate, this sets bad precedence and shame on them for we did not even have the numbers to make the noise needed to have any affect on the nomination process. WE played by the rules, why couldn't they? It is a terrible shame Nevada never got sat at the RNC.
"He invented the concept of the “moneybomb,"...” ~ no the grassroots movement invented that and to be specific, an individual supporter invented it.
Joel, thanks for commenting, I took your comment and turned it into a main post as well.
I'm torn, on the one hand I'd like to see the Ron Paul movement get more involved in helping totally reform the Republican Party. We need grass roots, online social networking, activists who care about local, state and national issues. I don't think I've ever more angry than when I talk to someone and the only thing they know is what they read in the Times or Post.
But, I'd also really like to see a viable third party in our county, state and nation. It seems so hypocritical to me that we are the nation of democracy, exporting freedom to the rest of the world, and yet we have stacked the deck to favor only two parties. I don't like the feeling.
I would really like to see a law requiring a runoff election if neither candidate in an election gets 50% plus one vote. That way conservatives, conservative libertarians, liberty party or constitution party members could field a candidate and get some solid support, perhaps even beat the Democrat. Wouldn't it be awesome to set the Democrats entirely out of the mainstream over the next 10 years?
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