ron paul=awesome/kickass?

[Nitro Express]

I think what Ron Paul is trying to do is expose the corruption in the primary election process. Both parties seem to have the same corruption. People in the Democratic Party are trying to expose the corruption on that side as well. It's pretty clear we need to reform the election process because it's not working. Things are so bad we might end up having to have a constitutional convention and that's scary because we could just end up fucking ourselves even more with that.

[Dr. Love]

Translation: Ron Paul is dropping out of the presidential race.

I think he did that quite a while back.

His goal is to have his followers take over as much of the local/state gop as they can, so he's spending his money to assist in that regard. It will be interesting to see if he still continues to beat Romney for state delegations even after "dropping out" ... and interesting to see how Romney's campaign handles it.

[Nitro Express]

If there are enough delegates up for grabs it might be a good left hook strategy. The Romney people will just figure Ron Paul is out and not put so much attention on him and then BAM! they get smacked the last minute by the left hook they didn't see.

[Dr. Love]

I dunno about that... half the RP supporters I read think that it's all a secret strategy, the other half are packing up and going to Gary Johnson. I'm just gonna watch for a little bit. I think he's signaling the end and admitting he won't win the nomination (no surprise) while still encouraging people to try to change their local party.

[Nitro Express]

Gary who?

[Dr. Love]

To: Supporters, Interested Parties

From: Jesse Benton, Chief Strategist

Date: May 15, 2012

Re: Paul Campaign Convention Strategy

Every day, I see firsthand how humbled and encouraged Dr. Paul is to have the enthusiastic support of so many who are committed to revitalizing our country.

Let me be very clear. Dr. Paul is NOT dropping out or suspending his campaign.

As Dr. Paul has previously stated, he is in this race all the way to the Republican National Convention in Tampa this August.

And he is deeply grateful for every resource he has been entrusted with to run an historic campaign that continues to defy all expectations.

Looking ahead, our campaign must honor that trust by maximizing our resources to ensure the greatest possible impact at the National Convention.

So while our campaign is no longer investing in the remaining primary states, we will continue to run strong programs at District and State Conventions to win more delegates and alternate delegates to the National Convention.

To this end, our campaign has several positive and realistic goals:

1) Having recently WON Maine, we believe we can win several more states.
2) We will win party leadership positions at both the state and national levels.
3) We will continue to grow our already substantial total of delegates.

We will head to Tampa with a solid group of delegates. Several hundred will be bound to Dr. Paul, and several hundred more, although bound to Governor Romney or other candidates, will be Ron Paul supporters.

Unfortunately, barring something very unforeseen, our delegate total will not be strong enough to win the nomination. Governor Romney is now within 200 delegates of securing the party’s nod. However, our delegates can still make a major impact at the National Convention and beyond.

All delegates will be able to vote on party rules and allow us to shape the process for future liberty candidates.

We are in an excellent position to make sure the Republican Party adds solid liberty issues to the GOP Platform, which our delegates will be directly positioned to approve. Our campaign is presently working to get several items up for consideration, including monetary policy reform, prohibitions on indefinite detention, and Internet freedom.

Finally, by sending a large, respectful, and professional delegation to Tampa, we will show the party and the country that not only is our movement growing and here to stay, but that the future belongs to us.

Dr. Paul will begin this new phase of the campaign this Friday by speaking and holding several events at the Minnesota State Convention. He has also recently accepted an invitation to speak at the Texas Convention, and we are busy scheduling appearances around other State Conventions later this month and into June.

As Dr. Paul stated in his message yesterday, this fight is NOT over. We will continue fighting and expanding, and “we will not stop until we have restored what once made America the greatest country in human history.”

But for Dr. Paul’s efforts in the remaining State Conventions to be successful, and to ensure we get as many Ron Paul delegates to Tampa as we can, he needs you to continue standing with him.

Along those lines, as you probably already know, the grassroots are holding a Money Bomb on Thursday, May 17. Any money raised from that Money Bomb will go toward winning delegates and finalizing our plans for Tampa.

As those plans for the National Convention come together, we will make sure all of our delegates, whether bound or unbound, get the information and aid they need.

Your support on May 17 will also help us reach more Americans with the solutions we know can restore our nation. Each person we add to our cause strengthens our movement for the critical work that awaits us beyond Tampa.

Dr. Paul, John Tate, myself, and the entire campaign staff know what incredible sacrifices have been made by each of our supporters.

Thank you for all of your hard work and your dedication to liberty. Together, we will champion Ron Paul and his message in Tampa, and we will lay the groundwork for future victories.

About what I expected. We'll see if he continues winning state delegations.

[FORD]

I've heard it speculated by several different people that Ron Paul isn't even in this for himself anymore, as he knows he can't be president, and he's already announced his retirement from Congress at the end of this year, so his political career is basically done, and what he's doing is actually trying to advance his son's political future.

Well if that's true, fuck him. Rand is a goddamn idiot. And when even professional homophobe Tony Perkins says your comments about the President's support of marriage equality were out of line, it's evident that Senator Aqua Buddha is not someone who NEEDS a political future of any kind.

[Nitro Express]

I don't see how Ron Paul advances his son's political future by retiring. He's an old man and probably tied of the game. Ron Paul's main goal was to get the Federal Reserve audited. I think he's staying in the race even though his chances are pretty much done winning it to bring attention to the corruption in the Republican Party and show how biased the media is. If you are not a corporate crony you get ignored.

[Dr. Love]

I've heard it speculated by several different people that Ron Paul isn't even in this for himself anymore, as he knows he can't be president, and he's already announced his retirement from Congress at the end of this year, so his political career is basically done, and what he's doing is actually trying to advance his son's political future.

Well if that's true, fuck him. Rand is a goddamn idiot. And when even professional homophobe Tony Perkins says your comments about the President's support of marriage equality were out of line, it's evident that Senator Aqua Buddha is not someone who NEEDS a political future of any kind.

I doubt Paul is doing this for his son. Rand may benefit, however.

I think Paul is doing this for party philosophy first and politics second. He wants to put the GOP on a different path.

[Dr. Love]

Ron Paul is not OUT!
“We are absolutely not dropping out of this race! We are focusing our efforts squarely on winning delegates and party leadership positions at state conventions.”

- Jesse Benton, Campaign Chairman

Ron Paul announced today he would not be competing in the upcoming primary states, saying that he would focus, instead, on his delegate strategy. A strategy that is working, by the way, and transforming the Republican Party. It is something he has said many times since the February 11, 2012 caucus in Maine.

Only this time, the main stream media gave the announcement full attention and treated it like the end of his campaign. Drudge ran it as a front page headline “Ron Paul is out.”

It is all evidence that Alfred Harmsworth’s famous quote that “news is not when a dog bites a man but, rather, when a man bites a dog” has now been offciaily turned on its head.

For the last two years the national media has been saying that Ron Paul is out. So how could that possibly be news? One might ask, “When has the mainstream media ever thought that Ron Paul was in?”

Bracing for a Ron Paul win in Iowa, major new outlets last January announced that if he won, the Iowa Caucus, itself, would be discredited. According to the New York Times and the Associated Press, Ron Paul is still listed as the recipient of one, count em, one delegate from Iowa, a state that he now dominates.

Likewise, the fact that Ron Paul supporters took a big chunk of the delegation of Mitt Romney’s home state of Massachusetts was not big news. This was evidently not a man biting a dog. There were no headlines, just small reports saying we were “flooding” state conventions with delegates. We were sucker punching the front runner. Even this, “we were stealing delegates.” Now, that’s a trick.

It was a ridiculous assertion. One cannot “flood” state conventions with delegates. Nor can one “steal” a delegates, unless they mean we packed them away in vans and drove them off to camps behind barbed wired. Each delegate was elected at District or County caucuses by delegates that were elected at precinct caucuses. So yes, one can flood precinct caucuses with people who in turn must get elected but that had to happen last January or February. It was then that we beat Romney in Massachusetts, and all the other states, it was in the heat of battle.

Now? We are trying to make nice. Like our attempt to “give” him the delegation from Arizona, an offer his man refused to make. So after three attempts to give him a majority we reluctantly won instead, thank you.

The fact is that all of this fighting makes Ron Paul nervous. Yes, he is taking on the establishment. Yes, he wants the monetary policy reformed so that the poor and the middle class and even the excluded rich can know the thrill and opportunity of free markets that aren’t rigged for insider trading. But Dr. Paul is a happy warrior on these issues. He is a person who has always believed in a respectful dialogue and debate. As John Tate says, “That is what he wants his legacy to be.”
.
Shouting people down is not Ron Paul’s way. Winning a battle of ideals based on principles, in a respectful way, is how he approaches the contest and it is how he wants others to approach the contest, as well.
.
By ending the primary battles, Ron Paul is signalling to the field that this is the end of hostilities. In primaries you end up tearing each other down. It is millions of dollars spent on negative advertising. In caucuses, as brutal as they may be, you change the Republican Party, you empower the new and challenge the established.
.
The delegate strategy is working. That is the way we will impact the platform in Tampa. That is the way we will begin the process of change. It is through the caucuses that we are attracting youth, like the twenty-one year old woman recently elected to the national committee from Maine or the Ron Paul Hispanics or the Independents who have never been involved in party politics.
.
Yes there is pain.
.
The establishment turned off the air conditioning at the Arizona State GOP Convention last weekend, trying to sweat the Ronulans into leaving.
.
In Oklahoma they pulled out a ballroom divider to cordon off Ron Paul supporters and shut them out of participation. Later they turned out the lights. Voice votes that were clearly lost were declared won.
.
In Carson County, Nevada they turned off a microphone when a Hispanic tried to speak, they knew that Hispanics were for Ron Paul.
.
In Minnesota they told their people not to vote for any delegate under the age of fifty.
.
In Alaska, they defeated the majority by retaining the committee which “interpreted rules” and later, after taking the delegation, reluctantly gave up the party control to the new majority but transferred all of the money out of the Republican Party accounts.
.
In Virginia, at a District Convention, they coaxed the Ron Paul delegation outside and then locked the door. The pastor of the church that was hosting the event was, himself, locked outside.
.
In Missouri they had all the delegates sign up at County Conventions and then had their County Chairman take the rolls outside and lock them in their car trunks so they could block roll call voting and have their chairman declare lost voice votes as won. At another convention delegates were arrested.
.
Our people have been punched, yelled at, lied to and worked until they can hardly stand. But on they come, fighting for their children, fighting for their future, angry at the corruption of the banks, of Wall Street, of the lobbyists, of the congress, of the White House. The battle for liberty is not over. It has just taken on a new phase. It cannot be stopped by the national media. If that were the case it would never have been born in the first place.
.
And some will say that it is a lost cause, which I will not concede but it does remind me of Clarence Darrow’s famous line, “Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.”

from Doug Wead

[LoungeMachine]

from Doug Wead

Sorry, but that has to be a fake name.....

[Dr. Love]

He's the guy that secretly recorded conversations with gwb and released them in the early 2000s.

[Dr. Love]

Paul should pick up more delegates today. He is now openly concentrating on state conventions to try to stack as many supporters in the state GOPs as he can.

If they continue on over the next few election cycles as they have been, they may be able to overtake a majority of the states and start influencing who represents the GOP in national congressional elections by controlling which candidates receive GOP supporting funds.

[Dr. Love]

Summary of many of Paul's political positions.

Abortion: Paul’s views come from both his Christianity and his career as an obstetrician. He has sponsored legislation that would define life at conception at the federal level, arguing that it is a scientific, not political, statement and prefers no federal involvement. Opposes government subsidies for abortions, as well as a deregulated adoption market.

Bailouts: Paul opposed TARP, the financial bailouts of 2008, and socializing the losses of industries in general. In response to the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, Paul said “where many mortgage-backed securities and other similar assets are horribly overvalued. The market response would be to allow these assets to be sold on the market at whatever price they would bring. This would result in a shakeout of bad debt and a shorter, sharper correction than would otherwise occur.”

Capital Punishment: While supporting it earlier in his political career, Paul is now against the death penalty for fear that an innocent person may be executed.

Drug War: Firmly opposes federal involvement in the regulation of the sale and use of drugs. Supports medicinal marijuana, the pardoning of non-violent drug offenders, abolishing the DEA, and views drug addiction as a health issue, not a criminal one.

Economics: Supports free-market, “Austrian” economics, and opposes Keynesian economics and government intervention in general. According to Paul, the free market is the most humanitarian system in the world because it allows human beings to be free, produces wealth, and creates cooperation, order, and peace.

Education: Paul sees no authority for the federal government to be involved in education, and if elected president, wants to abolish the Department of Education. Paul supports homeschooling and decentralization of responsibility. He argues that schools should be accountable to parents, not to federal bureaucrats, and that subsidies increase cost.

Energy: Opposes subsidies to energy industries and wants the free market to allow producers and consumers to find the best sources of energy. He also believes that private property rights are a far better way of protecting the environment and resources as opposed to government programs like the EPA.

Executive Power: He argues that a president has important, but narrow functions specifically delegated in Article II, Section 8 of the Constitution. Paul Opposes executive orders that create legislation and the idea that presidents can wage non-defensive war without a declaration of war from Congress.

The Fed: Paul has been a thorn in the Fed’s side for decades, stemming from his Austrian economics background. He sees the Fed’s interest rates as price-fixing because only the market can determine the price of money. Paul supports competing currencies and a repeal of legal tender laws. He claims central banking allows governments to spend without limit and is the only way to pay for a welfare-warfare state as well as destroys the dollar’s purchasing power. His book on the subject spawned chants of “End the Fed!” at his rallies. Paul was inspired to run for public office after President Nixon removed the last gold-backing of the U.S. dollar in 1971.

Foreign aid: Government-subsidized foreign aid is an unconstitutional wealth-transfer. If people want to help those around the world, they should do so voluntarily through private charities, non-profits, etc.

Health care: Paul opposed Obamacare, Medicare Part D, and opposes any federal involvement in the distribution of medicine and insurance. He would like to see a much freer health care market (like the technological sector) where prices go down and quality goes up. Paul argues that government intervention cartelizes service and drives up costs.

Immigration: Paul supports bringing the National Guard (and other military forces) home from border disputes around the globe in order to better enforce U.S. immigration law. He believes immigrants tend to be scapegoated during tough economic times even though they provide more benefits than costs. He supports the expansion of private property rights and boundaries along the border rather than a fence.

Marriage: Marriages should be privatized. People should be free to contract with whomever they choose.

NDAA: Paul strongly opposes the provisions that give the federal government the authority to arrest U.S. citizens and hold them indefinitely without trial.

PATRIOT Act: Paul was one of only 66 congressmen to vote against the bill in 2001, and has opposed it ever since. He has said that the bill basically nullifies the Fourth Amendment and gives the federal government too much broad power to wire tap without a warrant, monitor communications and financial transactions, and undermine basic civil liberties.

Taxes: Taxation is essentially the initiation of force, and Paul wants taxes to be as low as possible. Paul routinely calls for the elimination of the federal income tax and argues that private citizens should spend their money as they see fit, not as directed by politicians and bureaucrats.

Torture: Torture is not only immoral and uncivilized, but it produces little reliable evidence. It is unconstitutional and illegal as well. “It is un-American to accept, on principle, that we will torture its captives...” Paul said in a 2011 GOP debate.

War and National Defense: Since the beginning of his congressional career, Paul has advocated a consistent foreign policy based on armed neutrality, diplomacy, and trade and a Christian “just-war” philosophy that argues that war is only justified in self-defense. He wants an immediate withdrawal from the multiple “hot” wars being engaged in, an end to the stationing of troops and weapons across the globe, and the U.S. out of NATO and the United Nations (see his collection of House speeches against empire, preventive war, entangling alliances, and interventionism).

Whisteblowers: Paul supports Wikileaks and Julian Assange, arguing that a free society depends on openness and transparency. He opposed the treatment of Private Bradley Manning and has said that under a Paul administration, Manning would be protected, not tortured and imprisoned without a trial.

Hard to disagree with many of those positions. Contrast those against Romney and Obama. It's demoralizing to realize how much of that one or the other, or both, disagree with.

Especially on the patriot act, the ndaa and whistleblowers.

I really hope the upcoming generation of republicans and voters engage and change the direction of our electoral politics.

I've been researching my local GOP with the desire to get involved and Try to ultimately get elected to positions where I can influence what we do locally (and ultimately what we do beyond that).

We cannot afford to continue the warfare/welfare state. It will end eventually. The only choice we have is whether we manage ourselves out of it or let it ultimately collapse and wipe everyone out.

I wish more people took the time to understand what is going on.


---
I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?w3rhat

[Dr. Love]

Hahahaha... RP did so well in Minnesota today (his final total is like 86% of the delegation) that even Michelle Bachmann couldn't win her vote to go to the national convention. The Paul people then gave up 1 slot so she could go so as to try to calm down a lot of the pissed off establishment people.

Guess Bachmann is going to have to depend on the kindness of Ron Paul supporters in MN for the next several years if she wants to keep her job.