How Ron Paul Wins in 2012
Like me, you probably care deeply about becoming the best grassroots activist you can during the Ron Paul 2012 campaign. We are on the verge of a true intellectual revolution sweeping this country. There is no doubt that Ron Paul supporters have a monopoly on enthusiasm and energy. Now, our challenge is to channel this massive energy toward effective action.
The Perfect Storm
In the past, the Liberty movement has been pushed to the sidelines of the political discourse. Many of us were accustomed to pursuing intellectual arguments that the average citizen had never considered. Today, now more than ever, due to the state of the economy, mountainous government debt and endless war, a perfect storm is brewing and our time has come.
If you haven’t noticed, Ron Paul is the vehicle for many, if not all, of our shared ideals. Whatever your pet issue within the Liberty movement, for the next few months, our central focus must center on winning the primary contest for Ron Paul. What will this look like?
How We Win
Winning an election is a numbers game. When it comes down to it, a shockingly small segment of the population decides an election. Think about it, among the entire population–for our purposes, let’s say 100 people. Of this group, 60 will be eligible voters (think children, illegals and felons). Of these 60, 40% will be registered to vote, leaving us with 24. Of these 24 voters, 25% will likely turn out on election day. That leaves us with 6 people, of which 3 will vote in the Republican primary. In order to win, you need only 50% +1 of this final pool; this assumes a contest of two candidates. In a primary with multiple candidates, even fewer votes are required for victory. (These numbers are approximate and vary from year to year.)
While our activities can take many forms, they must all focus on identifying and influencing this exclusive pool of likely Republican primary voters. For many of us, this requires a whole rewiring of our activism mindset. The time has come to shift from education mode to full-on effective campaigning for Ron Paul!
At iroots.org, we pledge to provide you with the resources and training you’ll need to be the best and most effective activist you can be. So go ahead, jump right in and share your activism success and horror stories and stay tuned…there is so much more to come!
In Liberty,
Aaron Jones
Activism Coordinator
iroots.org
If you are ready to join with us in this worthy cause, you can help by making a partnership donation to ensure our work continues.
It looks like these folks have a facebook page too and twitter, above.
But the facebook page looks handy: http://www.facebook.com/ronpaulactivism
This is valuable information, thanks!
Thanks for all of the help on this, Matt. Hoping for the best in Iowa… Click the facbook link top right to share that page too. Great stuff…
I would love to help spread the word and educate people in my area(Sea Isle NJ) more about Ron Paul, his beliefs, core values and his plan of action when he becomes president but I am having a hard time finding a website with a concise and clear description of this info. Can someone please help direct me and our fellow supporters to this info. Thank you in advance for your time and assistance.
dailypaul.com or go to youtube and watch the interviews he does it shows a lot of his ideas
Check out his “the issues” page. This might help get you started. http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/
You are so right. In the 2008 Arizona primary, I got a list of registered Republicans in my precinct and did nothing more than knocked on doors and talked to my neighbors (one weekend). The average percentage voting for Ron Paul in the city I lived was 3.8%. In my precinct, it was 11.4%. That fairly significant difference was the result of me persuading 10 people to vote for Ron Paul. That’s not a typo, just 10 people.
Imagine if this happened in every precinct in the country! Imagine if we each spent 2 weekends talking to our neighbors. Consider that Paul is at 14% in the latest Gallup poll but never cracked 5% last time around!
The establishment has no idea what’s coming their way! Actually, they do, and they will combat it with every fiber in their being. That’s why… #2. We need to support the campaign financially as much as we can so we can combat the misinformation and ridicule that we’re about to get bombarded with.
Looking forward to vote Ron Paul in 2012!
I have been a Ron Paul supporter and activist from 2007 onward. I fully endorse your concept in spreading the message of liberty and the constitution as Ron Paul has been doing for the last 30 years. However your chart regarding the voting populous is totally misleading. Please check your facts and realize the last election had a total amount of voters of 123,000,000. That represents about 40 percent of the population. Your analyisis over simplifies the task at hand. If you are serious in giving inspiration please be more realistic in your approach to pie charts.
You are correct in your assessment of the numbers as they relate to a general election in a presidential year. However, our chart was developed to convey the numbers as they relate to winning the average primary contest.
In a presidential year turnout of registered voters is likely to be closer to 60%, instead of the 25% stated above. If we rerun the numbers we come up with around 7% of the population voting in the Republican primary.
The main point is we waste a whole lot of time broadcasting our message in an unfocussed way. (Think sign waves) There is really a tiny subset of the population that we need to sway in order to win.
Sounds great but there are a lot of assumptions, like votes actually counting. Here in Pennsylvania, the voters have no say in the Republican nominee. Many states are the same.
It’s naive to think that Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and the rest of the bankster elite will just step aside because the “majority” want something different. They won’t have their trillion dollar gravy-train interrupted by mere voters.
Meaningful activism is about freeing minds, not electioneering.
Using what turns YOU on about Ron Paul to sell him to this target audience is more than dumb, it’s counterproductive.
I’ve got professors, the elderly, schoolteachers and nurses on my street, and they all listen to me, a friendly neighbor, a middle-aged professional. They love to vote and would go GOP primary if motivated.
If I try to sell them Ron with gun rights, I’d be a fool. Bilderbergs, idiotic strategy. Life begins at conception, forget it. I’ll use the Ron Paul Peace yard sign, guilt about burying grandkids in debt works on the elderly, and crushing Corporate influence in Washington.
Another thing, I won’t go for the whole pie. If they bite on Peace, I don’t need to switch to an issue that might make them spit Ron out. I need their vote, period. I don’t need to convert a new political soulmate to hold hands with and sing Kumbaya.
FIRST DO NO HARM.
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The first 5 million supporters of Dr. Paul are ‘early adopters.’ The next 10 million will require a modified approach.
I was very pleased to find this web-site.I wanted to thanks for your time for this wonderful read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you blog post.
Why? Why do we need another grassroots activist site? Will it take direction from the campaign? Will it corral to the phones those who would prefer to hang off highway overpasses and yell at empty buildings????
First off, lol. “Will it corral to the phones those who would prefer to hang off highway overpasses and yell at empty buildings????”
Probably can’t take direction directly from the campaign for some odd legal reason. Our goal is to steer activism in the direction that is inline with actually winning elections–which is inline with what the official campaign is doing, so far.
Those who prefer to hang off highways? Well, they are probably a lost cause, sadly! Our goal is to capture the hearts/minds of the new supporters so they don’t go down that fruitlessly dark path of meaningless signwaves…
We are just getting started, but have you seen another activist site that is focussed entirely on…actual activism? I’d like to see one–we will link to them immediately!
I don’t pretend to be 100% correct about everything. My goal is to create a site where activist leaders can recieve training and resources to make them more effective. Forums are coming soon for sharing links to useful resources: flyers, doorhangers, posters, balloons, table banners, aptitude tests, webinars…
Thanks for making me laugh with the “yelling at empty buildings,” line!
Reminds me of “Don’t Worry about the Government” by the Talking Heads:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9CjnDufqeQ
For example, I think rp2012.org is the best site yet for phone-banking. That is the #1 sort of activism that 90% of RPers can do since the only state that matters is the next primary/caucus state. Since it’s focused on voters, it needs to be fed by a reliable source of activist recruiting. If your goal is to effectively train activist leaders, that’s one site they can put their training to work and you can see the results of your efforts….
Yes, and I know Jun fairly well. I would prefer that people make calls with the official campaign, but I’ve made calls on the rp2012 system and it was good. I do have some reservations about systems that are off the radar and may duplicate what the official campaign does–but for focused events, it makes sense. Our goal is to provide activists with training and a forum for fleshing out what works and what doesn’t.
The official campaign has a calling system too–it is fantastic. You may need to reach someone in the campaign to verify you and get you approved, but it works very well. The very first thing you should do if you are supporting Ron Paul is sign up with them right here:
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/sign-up-as-volunteer/
Primary turnout in 08 was 57.4 million out of 305 million people. That enlarges your hypothetical primary pool from 6 to 19.
I have been creating targeted, sorted voter lists for our county meetup groups but my group still does sign bombs, tableing, etc. I prefer door to door in my neighborhood but then try to get new recruites to the meetings to participate. Should I discourage the sign making parties, sign waves, and the like and stricktly go for the phones and canvassing or should I still do the group things to get people “fired up”? Should I try to “make the sale” at the door or just do a survey and then re-target. Or should we just do calls since Ohios primary isn’t until June now? Time is running out ….
Rick Duffin
Cleveland Ron Paul 2012
Meeting Organizer
Thanks for the response. You have to convince the group (or the main people) that sign waves are just the fun activitiy you do in between the real campaign work. Sign waves do more for the volunteers than they do for getting votes. It’s always good to build local connections with area businesses–have you tried business canvassing?
Thanks Aaron, so we continue to sign bomb for a sort of pep rally and team building purpose. Actually, I got a business to allow our bumper sticker bomb to use its parking lot on a busy road. Of course the owner supported RP in 2008 so it was not hard. I also supply him with literature to hand out to customers.
I am also confused on the instructions for canvassing. The “standard” stuff talks about going out and taking a survey first than going back to target voters. It also talks about the goal being to make sure that people that support Paul are registered and will vote. I disagrea but want your input. I show a chart with US at 700b and China at 100b in military spending (not counting our 1.? trillion that is off budget) and simply say “We spend this (point) and our nearest competitor, China spends this (point) so we can be the policeman of the world. We have to borrow from them (point) to do it. Ron Paul wants to cut this so we can shore up our own finances. This seems to work well. If they are pro-war I just move on down the streeet because I doubt I can change their minds. No matter their other issues, if they are truly pro-war they will know RP’s stand on it pretty quick and not vote for him. I don’t have time to make multiple trips, only if they are not home when I visit. Registered republicans hardly know anything about him, If I don’t “sell” him, they will vote for whoever the media says they should. If they are allready a RP supporter, chances are they will get to the polls even in a blizzard.