If my party does not figure this out soon, they are in for another drubbing. Perhaps drubbing is putting it too mildly. They are going to have their decimated a$$es handed to them in November 2008 by whomever the Democrats nominate.

A July 22 Rasmussen poll showed that Paul, when placed in a head-to-head battle with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, won 34 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 49 percent. These numbers would be less than cheerful if Paul were a well-funded candidate who had received coverage by the mainstream press, but he is anything but. If Paul, a virtual unknown with just enough money to run a shoestring campaign, can garnish 34 percent of the vote against the Diva of the Democrats, imagine what he could do with money, media and manpower.

For the Paul campaign, this poll shows that 34 percent of the people have responded to their grassroots message of freedom. It shows that Paul, without money or major media coverage, is able to convince a third of those polled to vote for him. That is an accomplishment.

Compare such results to Romney, a candidate with money, media and formidable political machine. When Romney is placed head to head with Clinton, he receives 40 percent of the vote, just 6 points ahead of Paul. If Paul had Romney’s money and media, the country could be looking at a replay of the election of 1980.

The Lone Star Long Shot

And this from “Pam,” a Ron Paul MeetUp member who was working in the GOP booth at the Maryland State Fair on August 26th.

Here’s the best interesting story of the night: A man with a John Edwards button came by. He asked if, for his collection, he could get some Republican stickers. We said sure.

He looked at me with the RP shirt and said, “you know he’s a really great guy.” Then he turned to the party chairman and said, “If you guys were smart, you’d nominate Ron Paul. He’s the only one you’ve got that will beat us. We’re not afraid of any of the GOP candidates except Paul. But I don’t figure you’ll give him a chance, so the Dems have this election in the bag.”

WOW!

Then he turned back to me and said, “You’ve got a great candidate there and no offense, but I really hope he loses.”

Of course I said, “For America’s sake, I pray he wins.”

http://ronpaul.meetup.com/13/messages/708042/

Dear RNC,

Would you please get a clue before it is too late?

Sincerely,
A Republican

Hammer time:

If, on the basis of their rejection of the neocon stand on Iraq you think that people like George Will, Pat Buchanan, Andrew Bacevitch, the late David Hackworth, Kevin Phillips, Paul Craig Roberts, Charley Reese, Joe Sobran, Robert Novak, and Ron Paul are, or were, liberal America haters who want nothing more than to have Democrats run the country, you’re an idiot. If you don’t think that these guys and others on the right who agree with them on Iraq are so motivated, you’re misleading the listeners you claim to be faithfully informing. If you aren’t aware that such prominent Founders as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Quincy Adams strongly warned against our country messing around in the internal affairs of other nations, you’re ignorant. If you are aware that they opposed such interference in the affairs of other nations and reject their position, you’ve neglected to inform your listeners of the Founder’s views and explained why it’s conservative to reject them. If you’ve never heard of General Butler, that’s understandable, since the militarists you worship aren’t inclined to publicize the war-is-a-racket philosophy he acquired through hard-earned experience. If you are aware of what he wrote years back and you can still cheerlead for what’s going on in Iraq today, you’re disgusting. Many of us are on to you, Sean. You’re far from being a Great American.

Read it here.
Digg it here.

Ooh, that’s gonna leave a mark. Or rather, it would if Hannity ever read it.

On one of my MeetUp mailing lists someone quoted a post on the Yahoo group “lpsf-discuss · San Francisco Libertarian Discussion” wherein the poster, in discussing an interview with Ron Paul on “Free Speech Radio News,” a program on Berkeley’s KPFA community radio station, said

Of particular note to this group, Paul mentioned that “marriage is a religious institution, not a government one” and since the separation of church and state is codified in the Constitution, he therefore supports same-sex marriage, and even says the government has no business sanctioning civil unions. Marriage is a contract between individuals, and the government should have no involvement in such matters.

I felt compelled to respond thusly:

I think you read a bit much into Ron Paul’s statement that “Marriage is first and foremost a religious matter, not a government matter” (http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul160.html) to say he “supports gay marriage.” In fact one could argue that based on his co-sponsorship of the Marriage Protection Act of 2004 (http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul197.html) that he is against gay marriage.

The fact of the matter is I’ve never heard him come out and say one way or the other. If anyone else has I’d like to have a cite, please.

This question is one that is sure to come up more when Ron Paul is the Republican nominee and his position on this and other “social” issues such as the abortion and the war on drugs are compared to those of whoever his Democratic opponent is.

One of the things I admire about Ron Paul is that he does not let his personal opinion color his reading of the Constitution, especially when it comes to the powers granted to the federal government by the states.

We all know that he is personally opposed to abortion, but that does not stop him from saying “Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, but not because the Supreme Court presumed to legalize abortion rather than ban it. Roe was wrongly decided because abortion simply is not a constitutional issue… Under the 9th and 10th amendments, all authority over matters not specifically addressed in the Constitution remains with state legislatures. Therefore the federal government has no authority whatsoever to involve itself in the abortion issue. So while Roe v. Wade is invalid, a federal law banning abortion across all 50 states would be equally invalid.” (http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul301.html)

To me that is quintessential Goldwater, who once said “I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible.”

My point in all this is to say Ron Paul is not like any other politician on the scene today. He will not say one thing and then turn around and do another. He will not tell an audience what he thinks they want to hear only to vote the opposite way when they aren’t looking.

We should not be doing the same thing. We should not be trying to force his positions to sound like something we think a potential supporter might like. It makes us and him look dishonest.

Without a clear statement one way or the other about whether he supports or opposes something like gay marriage (which based on his religious convictions I suspect he would be personally opposed to), it would be better to say what he has plainly said: Ron Paul is opposed to the federal government having any role whatsoever in defining marriage, legislating controls on it or allowing the federal courts to impose any restrictions on any state’s exercise of it’s sovereignty in such matters.

The bottom line is Ron Paul supports the right of the individual states and the people to set their own policy on those issues that are not the concern of the federal government.

While some liberals might interpret that as “support” for gay marriage, others might see him being opposed because he does not want a single federal policy legalizing the matter.

Conservatives could also see it as “opposition” to gay marriage because he would not support blanket federal legalization, but conservatives might oppose him be cause he does not want a blanket federal ban.

Each group has members who think the federal government should be imposing one-size-fits-all solutions to complex social issues. We will never win the support of those people. Each group also has members who realize that in a free society morality cannot be imposed from the top down. Those people need only be made aware of Ron Paul and what he stand for. They will come to the conclusion that he is the man for our time without us dressing up his words to make them more palatable.

(Side note: it occurs to me that I have lately taken to quoting Ron Paul’s speeches and essays they way I used to quote scripture when arguing points of Christian doctrine. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it is kind of amusing.)

Keep sleeping people, they’ll be coming after you next.

Need I remind you?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment 4, United States Constitution

Or is that too anachronistic for you?

Anyway, read it and weep.

ACLU sues DEA on behalf of trucker whose money was seized

The Associated Press
Aug. 24, 2007, 1:02PM
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A trucker has sued the Drug Enforcement Administration, seeking to get back nearly $24,000 seized by DEA agents earlier this month at a weigh station on U.S. 54 in New Mexico north of El Paso, Texas.

Anastasio Prieto of El Paso gave a state police officer at the weigh station permission to search the truck to see if it contained “needles or cash in excess of $10,000,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the federal lawsuit Thursday.

Prieto told the officer he didn’t have any needles but did have $23,700.

Officers took the money and turned it over to the DEA. DEA agents photographed and fingerprinted Prieto over his objections, then released him without charging him with anything.

Border Patrol agents searched his truck with drug-sniffing dogs, but found no evidence of illegal substances, the ACLU said.

The lawsuit alleges the defendants violated Prieto’s right to be free of unlawful search and seizure by taking his money without probable cause and by fingerprinting and photographing him.

“Mere possession of approximately $23,700 does not establish probable cause for a search or seizure,” the lawsuit said.

It said Prieto pulled into the weigh station about 10:30 a.m. Aug. 8 and was let go about 4 p.m.

DEA agents told Prieto he would receive a notice of federal proceedings to permanently forfeit the money within 30 days and that to get it back, he’d have to prove it was his and did not come from illegal drug sales.

They told him the process probably would take a year, the ACLU said.

The ACLU’s New Mexico executive director, Peter Simonson, said Prieto needs his money now to pay bills and maintain his truck. The lawsuit said Prieto does not like banks and customarily carries his savings as cash.

“The government took Mr. Prieto’s money as surely as if he had been robbed on a street corner at night,” Simonson said. “In fact, being robbed might have been better. At least then the police would have treated him as the victim of a crime instead of as a perpetrator.”

The DEA did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

Peter Olson, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, which oversees state police, said he could not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit names DEA Administrator Karen P. Tandy, DEA task force officer Gary T. Apodaca, DEA agent Joseph Montoya and three state police officers identified only as John or Jane Doe.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5081398.html

There are folks who are actually touting this unmitigated drivel as a reason to be excited by Fred Thompson. They actually expect Republicans to be inspired and filled with a sense of joy and hope for America because “Fred Thompson reconsidered running for reelection after 9/11 but later decided to handle things on his own. He was soon seen entering the Middle East with a bottle of tequila in one hand an a handgun in the other. They’re still counting the dead.”

Give me a break.

I hear lots of Whoot! Whoot! but if you want to win the dispirited Republicans I’ve been talking to over the course of the past few months (yes, believe it or not I am a registered Republican who actually donates money to my local party committee and turns out to do things like volunteer at the GOP booth at county fairs in one of the most hardcore Democratic counties in America) you going to have to tell me his position on actual policy issues like abortion, government spending and any number of other conservative issues.

Even though the debacle that constituted the 2006 congressional elections was primarily about one issue–the war–there is a great deal of merit to the argument that a contributing factor was the fact that the GOP has completely abandoned its traditional platform of limited government, states rights, low taxes and fiscal responsibility. I was alive when a great Republican said “I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty, and in that cause I am doing the very best I can.”

I was too young to understand what was at stake when Barry Goldwater ran against Lyndon Johnson, but I remember how he was portrayed as a war-mongering racist throw back to the 19th century and I have lived through the consequences. Today I understand what Goldwater represented. Except for that brief moment when Ronald Reagan talked the talk (but didn’t quite walk the walk) the GOP has abandoned everything Goldwater stood for. Mitt Romney is no Barry Goldwater, Rudy Giuliani is no Barry Goldwater, John McCain (a truly tragic figure) is no Barry Goldwater and Lord knows Fred Thompson couldn’t even play him on TV.

Give me a candidate who walks, talks and votes like Barry Goldwater and I’ll give you a Republican party that can truly build a shining city on a hill. Till, then I hope your ready for Clinton II.

I spoke with the Maryland GOP today about the straw poll at the Maryland State Fair.

Voting will be for the duration:
August 24, 2007 10 AM - Monday, September 03, 2007 10 PM

It is open to all Maryland residents. Photo ID required.

More info about the poll.

If you read this article from the Baltimore Sun on August 11. It should give all Maryland Ron Paul supporters a greater incentive to participate. We have a chance to have an impact beyond just winning a straw poll.

From a thread on digg:

Socialists and Neocons VS Ron Paul

While thousands of children die in Iraq and Afghanistan, socialists and neocons talk about Ron Paul not choosing to fund stem cell research at the federal level.

While the President gets all the power he wants to spy on and kidnap any innocent Americans indefinitely, socialists and neocons talk about how Ron Paul’s supporters spam the intarwebs.

While the American economy implodes a little further with the boom / bust cycle created by the Federal Reserve, socialists and neocons talk about how Ron Paul can’t win.

While the American Constitution and the people’s rights are utterly destroyed, socialists and neocons talk about how Ron Paul message of individual liberty is “anachronistic”.

While people suffer without health care because of government intervention in the market, socialists and neocons talk about Ron Paul’s ghost writer of more than a decade ago.

While the Bush administration along with the Democrats in Congress plot to drop nuclear weapons on Iran, socialists and neocons spin every great Ron Paul victory to be failure.

While Ron Paul educates America on economics and freedom, neocons and socialists spread Marxist and Keynesian myths that undermine freedom.

While Ron Paul continues to win the fight against lies and liars, neocons and socialists redouble their efforts to no effect whatsoever.

Posted by bryanedds on this thread

NASCAR Style Scoring of 2007 Republican Straw Poll Results

As one more way to spin the numbers before the primaries and caucuses I’ve taken the results of fourteen straw polls conducted from March 2 to August 18 and attempted to score them NASCAR style. I am not a NASCAR fan so I am indebted to Brent Sanders, a candidate for U.S. Congress in Louisiana’s 5th District, for explaining how it works. His website is here: http://www.joinsanders.com.

I’ve scored the cumulative performance for each candidate. 1st place scores 100, 2nd scores 98, 3rd scores 96, etc. A score of 0 in any given poll means that candidate either wasn’t included or got no votes. The candidates are ranked by total cumulative score. I have included announced candidates, unannounced candidates and write-ins. Basically if someone tried and got nothing, placed or won big I’ve included them.

Right now I’m seeing four front runners, based on their relatively close scores: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rudy Guiliani and Fred Thompson. The spread between the highest and lowest of that group is 122 points. John McCain, 148 points behind Fred Thompson, leads Tier 2. I’m calling everybody below Tom Tancrado also-rans since the 176 points between Tancrado and Newt Gingrich is nearly as great as the 198 point range of Tier 2.

The numbers in the top row indicates the poll. Poll information is listed in the second table with links to the sources used.
This page will be updated as new straw polls are conducted.

Aditional Sources
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/StrawPolls.phtml
http://cycloneconservatives.blogspot.com/2007/08/mitt-romney-wins-ames-straw-poll.html
http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2007/08/16//news/local/doc46c4e2256a2f9270245306.txt

We’re not just the Internet!

read more | digg story

OK, people, it’s our turn! Bring your friends, bring your family! Notify your MeetUp!

When: Friday, August 24, 2007 10 AM - Monday, September 03, 2007 10 PM
Where: Exhibition Hall
State Fairgrounds
Timonium, MD
Who: 410-263-2125

http://www.mdgop.org/Calendar/Detail.aspx?EventID=7656

I am a 52 year old support engineer working for an Internet service provider in Imperial City, DC.

I’m just old enough to remember seeing John F. Kennedy speaking at the West Virginia Centennial Celebration in 1963 and I know what AuH20 means because I remember seeing the signs.

I am a child of the Sixties.

Nuff said.

I enlisted in the Air Force in 1972. As with many of my contemporaries it was a great way to dodge the draft. I saw myself with three choices: 1) go to Canada and risk a felony conviction 2) carry a rifle in Vietnam, or 3) fix broken airplanes in Arkansas. It was a no-brainer.

I got out shortly before Jimmy Carter was elected.

I set out to study electronic engineering in digital electronics, but ended up dropping out to make my living as a singer/songwriter. After too many years of just enough money to drive to the next gig (think Lodi), I finally got a real job working as quality inspector in Southern California during the tail-end of the Reagan Defense Boom. The company I worked for eventually tacked the letters V.P. after my name. I was 33, single, making way too much money and living less than an hour’s drive from L.A. I lasted about 3 years and ended up driving across the country with all my worldly possessions jammed into disintegrating Celica GT, weighing about ninety pounds and living on the last batch of meth I could afford. I ended up on my sister’s doorstep in Pennsylvania proving that home is indeed that place where when you have to go there, they have to let you in.

I became an on-fire Pentecostal and married my sister’s best friend.

We were together about seven years, finally parting amicably when the Jesus wore off and we both realized we where neither of us the person we married.

I was working again in Quality Assurance but slowly migrated to IT as the company I worked for started using these new fangled computer things. Not long after my divorce I left my job when the small but successful and very proud manufacturing company I worked for got swallowed up by a large conglomerate which proceeded to destroy everything we loved about working there.

After that I worked as an IT contractor around the DC area and abandoned Christianity completely.

I was initiated into Wicca, but ended up drawn more to Ceremonial Magic rather than garden variety Paganism.

I could tell you about people, places and organizations, but, heh heh, its a secret.

Shortly before September 11th I had been fired from a gig at a federal office in Maryland because I couldn’t get a security clearance. I had been slowly gravitating toward small el libertarianism. My journey began with a debate on a citidel style bbs about Lincoln and secession. I had always considered him on of the Great Presidents ™ and thought that preserving the Union was his finest accomplishment.

I started googling “secession” to gather ammunition for the debate, tooling all around the intertubes until I stumbled upon this oddball website called LewRockwell.com.

It was quite an education. The scales began to fall from my eyes. Before to long I found myself reading this: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/paul16.html

The more I read his stuff the more astounded I became.

Eventually it lead me to blog this: http://isilion.blogsome.com/2005/07/…move-to-texas/

The day I heard about this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=4HLkASWLPF8 I wrote a check for $100.00. I have never given money to any politician in my life.

The rest, as they say is history.

Now, you’ll have to forgive me for going overboard on this post, but there is madness to my method. I have lived long enough to have a vague recollection of the dream of America. I have passed through some of its worst nightmares. I have seen us at our best and our worst. This video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSlcNqcvdXg could be the story of my life.

There is just about nothing I haven’t seen, heard or done. I am an intelligent man who has explored life from many perspectives. I like to think I have obtained a little wisdom in the process, if only by the tried and true method of making mistakes and learning from them.

What I see right now is that we are at a pivotal moment in history. We will either succeed in passing the glorious benefits of Liberty to those that come after us or we will witness the descent of a tyranny unimaginable by those who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to pass that gift on to us.

Whatever reason one may decide to berate Ron Paul or his supporters, it might be helpful to step back and consider what you’re really against. Are you honestly just mad because there are so many articles out there praising Ron’s policies and his stances on the issues? Then why are you reading them? Is there someone with a gun at your head forcing you to read them? Then don’t read them and leave the rest of us who want to read about Ron Paul alone. Are you mad because your candidate isn’t able to generate the kind of grass roots support and Internet buzz that Ron Paul is able to generate? Then write articles about how great your candidate’s big government tax and spend programs are going to be and try to create that buzz yourself. Perhaps you’re against a certain issue that Ron Paul is for. Fine, then make that argument and make an intelligent, well thought out argument supporting your point of view, don’t simply dismiss those who support an opposing point of view by calling them names. Or, perhaps you’re against freedom and liberty. Perhaps you’re against the constitution. Maybe you’re one of those who feel the constitution is a quaint antiquity and the bill of rights just gets in the way of your security. Perhaps you simply don’t want to make your own decisions in your life and feel the government should mandate everything for you from what you learn in school to the kind of job you do to what doctor you see for your health care. Perhaps the idea of an endless war on terror appeals to you. Whatever the reason, you’re going to have to defend your position. Ron Paul has rubbed the magic lamp and now the genie is out. The ideas of freedom and liberty are once again loosed upon the world and they are gaining support. Name calling and ignoring Ron Paul and his supporters will not make them go away. People care again. If nothing else, politics in America has changed because of Ron Paul, and I think that’s a good thing.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=35308

Ron Paul creates enthusiasm. And not the fake, choreographed, everybody-wave-his-name-on-a-stick-and-wait-for-a-pause-to-go-wild “enthusiasm” endemic to modern campaigns.

No. REAL enthusiasm. The kind of enthusiasm that compels you to ride from South Dakota to Ames on a motorcycle in order to have the privilege of passing out campaign literature for eight hours in the hot sun in exchange for no money. The kind that causes you to attend campaign events not out of a sense of duty, or responsibility or to be a team player, but for the same reasons you would go to a movie or a sporting event. It’s not where you HAVE to be, it’s where you WANT to be.

Moreover, you find yourself in the company of some pretty gnarly types at a Ron Paul event. It’s a DMV-esque crowd; some of us haven’t bathed, some of us think the government blew up the World Trade Center with lasers from space, and some of us think that the world is run by a conspiracy involving lizards from space and the reanimated corpse of the Queen Mum. And it doesn’t matter. You wind up loving those guys, because when they look at a humble country doctor from East Texas, they see what you see. They hope what you hope. They yell what you yell.

And man alive, do you ever end up yelling.

http://thecrossedpond.com/?p=1270

[Tip of the Hat to livejournal user rightc0ast]

Everyone wants to win at what they do. In Iowa, a first place finish is not always a win. Here is why, if he didn’t win (Huckabee has that claim IMHO), Ron Paul did exceedingly well.

First of all he was predicted to finish dead last by the GOP in Iowa, according to their own boards straw poll. Not a one of them thought he would finish above 11th place. He finished ahead of six people he was “supposed” to lose to. He _far_ exceeded the expectations of everyone who isn’t a Ron Paul supporter. That is a huge victory in itself.
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/realclearpolitics/20070806/cm_rcp/iowa_republicans_see_romney_as1

Time plus money vs expectations:
17 Days in Iowa Ron Paul(1) 76.76 votes a day
04 Days in Iowa F. Thompson(2) 50.75 votes a day
89 Days in Iowa M. Romney(3) 50.74 votes a day
70 Days in Iowa M. Huckabee(4) 36.95 votes a day
66 Days in Iowa T. Tancredo(5) 29.71 votes a day
115 Days in Iowa Brownback(6) 19.06 votes a day
26 Days in Iowa Guliani(7) 7.03 votes a day

Romney spent over $22,000* $2,000 per vote compared to Ron Paul’s 200 dollars. Lose.
Brownback bused in 51 busloads at a cost of millions. Lose.
Tancredo has lived in Iowa for 2 months. Lose.
Tommy Thompson spent even more time there and visited every county in the state. Big Lose.
Guliani spent 9 more days, and tried to make it look like he was not participating simply because he was not there that day. Not true. He ran 3 seperate radio ads for weeks, and blanketed the state with mailings. Big Lose.
McCain. Big Lose.

Source:
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/tracker/candidates

Romney’s vast investment in the straw poll was designed to outmuscle former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the GOP’s first real contest of the election, and to give Romney a needed early boost as he works to build national recognition. But his preparation may have been too impressive for his own good. Watching Romney spend so much, Giuliani and McCain dropped out of the straw poll in June. Romney plunged ahead anyway” Still not even garnering a third of the vote. Lose.

Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/09/AR2007080902379_pf.html

Huckabee spent less than the other guys, excluding Paul, but now needs to raise cash fast. Not as fast as Tancredo, who is now flat broke, but fast.

Unlike Tancredo, Huckabee should be able to raise the cash now. Him and Paul are the sole “winners” when they whole thing is looked at objectively.

Now for a very nonobjective rant, wait until New Hampshire! Paul may just win that one. Not a moral victory, a 1st place finish. He needs more support, and money than ever now. Anyone that can help him in NH with cash or bodies, should. A win there builds on this very respectable, and even shocking (to some) finish.

—
*An astute reader who obviously does a better job of proofreading than I do pointed out that $22,000/vote would mean Romney spent almost $100 million. Even his pockets aren’t that deep. Dr. Paul still spent 1/10 what Romney did and ended up with a percentage over four times what the traditional polls predicted; Romney belched out cash and did not do as well as he had hoped.

I’m sure some of us may be a little disheartened because we had our hopes up high–probably too high; some of us are angry because of 1) Diebold machines where used in the first place and 2) because of the “malfunction.” I want to ask you, though, did any of us not realize we are in the fight of our lifetime? If any of us thought it was going to be as easy as just clicking buttons on online polls and it would magically restore constitutional government and individual liberty then we are as deluded as as the Old Media and the professional pundits says. The march toward tyranny in the this country has be going on for nearly a century–some might even say it started even earlier. Regardless, we are up against a monster and if we want to prevail we are going to have to redouble our efforts and keep hammering away.

I’m sure many of us though we were going to astound the world at Ames–we didn’t. I’m also sure that the Old Media thought we would come in last–we didn’t. What did happen is we showed we are real, we demonstrated, against a money machine and campaigns that had literally pulled out all the stops–spending millions of dollars and months of effort–that Dr. Paul, who may have spent around $200,000–maybe a little more, maybe a little less–and who only started actively campaigning in Iowa the past few weeks, destroyed the notion that his perennial zero to two percent in the traditional poles was an indication of his actual support, that with what could be considered minimal effort he beat the numbers by almost 5 to 1.

Both sides did not get what they want. We all wanted to blow out the Ames Straw Poll so we could dance in the streets and start burning our 1040s. They wanted to be able to justify their contention that Dr. Paul should be dismissed as a nobody with no chance. Neither side won a clear victory and both are going to have to work harder at their goal. If we don’t win the greatest experiment in government in recorded history–the US Constitution–is going to fail. Even if we do win the long term survival of liberty is still not guaranteed; if we don’t fight, that failure is assured.

The following is an e-mail that I sent to one of my MeetUp groups. I’m not posting it to draw attention to myself, I’m posting it to show what we have to keep doing. We have to step away from our computers, get in the trenches and start slugging it out. If we let Ames break our spirit then it proves that we were only playing games to start with.

I want to thank everyone who turned up at the Montgomery County Fair today. It was a long hot day, for me anyway, but I’m very enthused by the way things went.

I had my very first “Who is Ron Paul?” moment.

First, a little background. The first time I saw a slim-jim I thought they would be great in places like Carroll or Frederick County. Ideal for Rosco Bartlett country, but not really the kind of stuff that’s going to take the Peoples’ Republic of Montgomery by storm.

With all that said, I pulled into the parking lot at the fairground with three Ron Paul signs in my car windows and a Ron Paul bumper sticker. I was loading up my backpack with some generic GOP literature that I’d picked up from the DC Republican Committee HQ–I work right around the corner from them–some copies of the beautiful Ames ad I’d printed a work, a small stack of my own blurb I’d written comparing Dr. Paul to Barry Goldwater, and, of course, a few slim-jims I’d picked up a while back at an Arlington MeetUp in DC.

So I’m busy getting it all ready to carry in and a young long hared fellow walked up to me and asked “Who is Ron Paul?” I had a bunch of slim-jims in my hand. “Who is Ron Paul?” I replied. Here take look and handed him a slim-jim. He thanked me and walked away as I picked up my backpack and laptop to head for the entrance. I was watching him as he moved away reading. A few seconds later I heard him say “End the IRS? Whoohoo!”

It was music to my ears. Needless to say, I now love slim-jims.

It took me a while to find the GOP booth. When I did I introduced myself to to the local party folks and they pointed my to the pile of Ron Paul literature, pins and bumper stickers that the folks from yesterday had left. Thanks folks it all came in handy. I added my stuff to the pile and soon Amy showed up. We began passing out literature to the folks who came by. Just so you know we had more people looking at our stuff than they were for Mitt, Rudy or John McCain.

I met Brian Metzger, a congressional candidate with the thankless task of taking on Chris Van Hollen in the 8th district. He shared his positions which sounded pretty solid–except for, as his literature put it–his firm resistance to a “cut-and-run” policy in Iraq. I have to give him credit for two things: he was there meeting people while his primary opponent Meyer Marks wasn’t and when we discussed Iraq he listened respectfully as I laid out the benefit of a non-interventionist foreign policy. I could tell he was taking it all in and I have to say I got a sense that he was not dismissing it out of hand. I like to think I may have planted a few seeds and perhaps he will continue to weigh it in his mind. It’s more than I would have expected from you typical “conservative” Republican. Who knows?

A little later the other Chris showed up and the three of us spent the day passing out literature, talking to people–mostly very receptive people–and tried to be on our best “catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar” behavior for the “official” party folks. For a while other than the Ron Paul crew there were only the “officials” and no one backing anyone else. Eventually a Rudy guy showed up. He was an Air Force 1st Lieutenant soon to go on his first tour in Baghdad. Chris, who was/is(?) in the Army and has already been to Iraq struck up a conversation with him. Me being a former Airman from back in the day had a good laugh with the Rudy guy when I said “I don’t know anything about the military, I was in the Air Force.” He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and said “Shh, your not supposed to say that where people can hear it.”

A few other Ron Paul supporters joined us later–I’m lousy with names–and at one point we posed for a picture–five Paulicans and one Rudy guy. Amy I want a copy of that picture!

Eventually a few folks from the Arlington MeetUp showed up Laurie? and Eric? (me and names again) and then Liz and some others showed up for the night shift. I was pretty much worn out from eight hours in the heat and had just got the news that the Ames Straw Poll results were “delayed due to a malfunction” and headed home to try to get some news so I could call and let everyone know what was going on. I was stuck for over an hour in the parking lot and called a friend who looked online to tell me we had come in fifth at $200.00 per vote while Romney came in first at $2,000.00 per vote.

All in all it was a good day.

I’m beat and I must sleep now. Since Dr. Paul is in this to the end how can I be any different? I’m heading back out to the Fairgrounds tomorrow for another round, but I’ll be honest, I doubt I’ll be able to put in another eight hour day.

We are going to do this. Do we really have any other choice but to press on?

My only response to the Ames Straw Poll News: Well, folks it looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us.

—
This is not a political agenda.
This is not a party platform.
It is a revolution.
Stop Dreaming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWfIhFhelm8
www.ronpaul2008.com

In avoroth’s own words:

“I don’t care if RP gets 1st place, or last place. I’ll vote for him no matter what happens. I’ll still post things on youtube. I’ll vote to remove every incumbent from congress. I will always vote for a person who personifies the constitution. Quite an evolution for me really, going from a raving mad Neo-con to an anti-war libertarian flying under the republican banner. We all have stories to tell I guess. But there is one story I will never tell. And that is…

“If Ron Paul doesn’t get the presidency, someday my daughter (when she is old enough) will ask me what I did when all of our rights where taken from us, or, what was I doing when the USA collapsed, or where was I when the North American Union came. I will be able to tell her on that day that I did everything in my power to stop it, to give her a country that was more free than mine was. I will not take any of this crap lying down, and I hope none of you do either.”

—
This is not a political agenda. This is not a party platform. It is a revolution.
Stop Dreaming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWfIhFhelm8
http://www.ronpaul2008.com

I never thought I’d be writing something like this.

I wish to offer my highest praise for yesterday’s interview with Ron Paul on the Big Story. I will be the first to admit that I am no fan of Fox News, but I was pleasantly surprised, delighted actually, by this segment. I have been an admirer of Dr. Paul for several years so I was not surprised by his responses. He continues to offer sound policy options based on a principled reading of the Constitution and a profound faith in freedom and personal liberty. I was truly stunned and deeply impressed, however, by the choice of questions and the professionalism of Julie Banderas. She comported herself with dignity and respect while not shying away from insightful probing queries. They were just the questions that should have been asked, dealing with those issues which might be a source of hesitation on the part of intelligent, but skeptical voters both Republican Democratic. Whatever any individual’s final judgment on Dr. Paul, it could not be said that after watching this interview they did not fully understand Dr. Paul’s positions and the reasoning he used to arrive at them. This segment stands out in my mind as an excellent piece of political journalism.

Kudos to Fox News for a job well done.

RON PAUL ON FOX BIG STORY AUGUST 05, 2007 part 1

RON PAUL ON FOX BIG STORY AUGUST 05, 2007 part 2