Paul Campaign comes to an end … I think
With sadness I announce that Ron Paul has ended his presidential campaign … well, I think he has … maybe… Lew Rockwell, who usually knows all this stuff, senses that it might very well be over … perhaps. Here’s the video—if any of you all out there can make heads or tails of it, I encourage you to comment.
Throughout the Cold War, a whole industry of Kremlinology popped up in which PhD-ed analysts would interpret the significance of who was sitting next to the Great Leader at the latest Great Harvest festival in an attempt to understand the inner-workings of the opaque Soviet regime. I think we might need similar efforts in exegesis to understand what the hell the Paul campaign is actually doing. At any rate, the fact that major news organs are going with “it’s winding down” as a newsbite does not speak well for the campaign’s efforts in communications.
So, it will all “soon wind down”—but when? In the next few weeks? In November? why announce this? And then there’s the equally ambiguous, “I will make every effort to visit any state where the enthusiasm for liberty exists.” OK…
After thoroughly confusing us about his presidential run, Paul goes on to thoroughly demoralization those who want to build a broader movement.
Paul says, “Let’s hope that one day we can look back and say that this campaign was a significant first step that signaled a change in direction for our country.” But then he offers little in the way of direction. Paul “still likes the idea” of a major march on the DC mall, but then senses that this might be a logistical hassle for the campaign—another quasi-indication that he’s still running for president, sort of—and thus hopes that his supporters will arrange it. Perhaps sometime in June would work?
Yes, the freedom movement should be a “grassroots effort” and not a “top-down, rigidly controlled operation.” But there’s a difference between inspiring the troops and passing the buck—Ron Paul is clearly doing the latter.
The groups Paul says will be the new institutions of the broader movement, the Liberty PAC and the FREE Foundation, are both based in Lake Jackson, TX, Ron’s home district, and have actually already been around for years. FREE is run Mark Elam, the campaign’s “media director” who, judging by the embarrassing back-to-the-’70s quality of the official videos, won’t exactly be remembered as the Leni Riefenstahl of the freedom movement. Elam seems to hold multiple posts under the Ron Paul umbrella—state coordinator for Texas, national media director. Why exactly Paul would entrust this man—who can’t put together a coherent YouTube video—with so much responsibility is beyond me.
The campaign succeeded in online fundraising and it was generally competently run by Lew Moore and Kent Synder—who were able to grab up some delegates in caucus states even if they never developed a real ground game in New Hampshire. But the Paul campaigns forays in traditional PR and communications cannot be considered anything but an absolute disaster.
While the aesthetically challenged Elam was hired as media director, the campaign never brought in a team of professional speech-writers and opinion journalists to help craft talking points and a clear message that would have appealed to Republican voters. Thus when Paul was given the opportunity to directly confront John McCain in a nationally televised debate, he asked a tedious, soon-forgotten query about the president’s working group on financial markets. Only rarely did Paul speak of being the only “real conservative” in the field, and more often allowed himself to be defined as a Daily-Kos cut-and-run liberal—sometimes even playing this up such as when he mentioned on “Leno” that he has much in common with Kucinich and is well-liked among Obama supporters.
Only well after the great opportunity of New Hampshire had passed did the campaign hire a full-time blogger and writer, the rock-solid paleo-libertarian (and Taki’s contributor) Dan McCarthy. Most other campaigns had had bloggers and staff writers for over a year.
Should we be surprised that the end result of a year of slap-dash public relations and cronyism is a major public statement on the future of the campaign that no one really understands?
Comments
Wow… clueless AND wrong on several points concerning the campaign; to wit:
1) “Wind down” means that active campaign is over (well, that’s an understatement, it has been OVER since February 5th)—to elaborate that means NO more ads on TV or radio, NO more candidate appearances or “campaigning” (what little there ever was). But what it ALSO means is that the website will stay up, they will continue to take DONATIONS (make your most generous pledge today!), and the central campaign staff (aka Snyder, Moore & Co.) will continue to fiddle-faddle-fart around and draw their paychecks. Is that CLEAR now?
1a) Obviously that video was READ from a teleprompter, and the ambiguity was CAREFULLY CRAFTED. You cannot be that ambiguous without TRYING REALLY HARD! (Oh, and BTW, it was almost certainly written as a “committee” effort… the reason for the ambiguity? Obvious. Staff member FEAR and PARANOIA about nasty “blowback” from the more rabid supporters if they actually ENDED the campaign clearly… you know THAT is true. The movement is being squandered because the campaign staff are a bunch of wussies afraid of their own shadows, and unwilling to accept and take public accountability for their own actions.)
2) Mark Elam apparently did NOT have anything to do with the early “70’s” style TV ads—that was all under the stuper-vision of people with last names of Snyder & Moore. Elam did the later (more professional, but still ineffective) TV ads and the single GOOD 1 minute Radio ad. (Hey $32 Million to buy one good minute long radio ad… cheap at twice the price, right?).
3) Yeah, we know you’re best buds with Dan McCarthy, but jeepers hiring someone to write one or two sentence “wrappers” around links to articles on other websites… does that even qualify as “blogging” ?? And it was done mainly as a sop to supporters, to get them to quit calling HQ; apparently it worked for a while, but certainly wasn’t worth the price of admission.
ON THE REST ...the worthless “march”, the end destination of the remaining funds (what is left after salaries and those “Performance Bonuses” for the main team members. W00T!), as well as the wasted opportunities to actually sharpen the candidate for prime time… on those you’re pretty much spot on.
Well, so long and thanks for eating all of our fish!
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Well at least Paul got a mailing list that he can milk for years. Disappointing doesnt quite describe my feelings regarding this Presidential run by Paul. Right message, wrong canidate.
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it’s over, it’s over, it’s over (Tom Waits):
what a waste of the young’s enthusiasm and hard-earned cash that they really could not afford to donate and often put on credit cards. You’d think that at least they would send every meet-up group a check and tell them to go have a few beers.
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“Right message, wrong canidate.”
Perhaps, but it had an affect on me. It took me from a vaguely libertarian anti-warrior who would immediately glaze over at the mention of economics or monetary policy to a focused rebel patriot who has learned to speak Austrian--albeit on a grammar school level--whose eyes are wide enough open to not fall for empty hopeful platitudes as I most certainly would have had I not been hanging on Ron Paul’s every word for the past year. I’ve also gotten my first taste of local party politics in a state with a vulnerable GOP which may be the most import lesson of all. Except for a few brief moments after the Paul/Giuliani clash in South Carolina and exultation of November 5th and December 16th I suppose in my heart of hearts I knew he would never win the nomination, but he did win something else: me and a multitude of others like me who will never be satisfied with anything less than liberty. There are many of us and we are angry in a very focused way. Where it goes from here remains to be seen.
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Winding down means, he’s kinda going with the flow, he won’t win, but he has no use of quiting, so if someone wants him to speak at a rally just give him a call. Try to get delegates just for the heck of it, maybe he can go speak at the convention.
Mark Elam was put on when everyone complained. His commercial was the last 2, the last 2 were the best 2. Sadly, he wasn’t put on till the very end.
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“Right message, wrong candidate.”
Not so sure--in my opinion, more a case of “right message, wrong Public Relations and
Internet staff.” Ron Paul was always way too far behind all the other candidates in
terms of the number of TV ads and being up to date technologically. In today’s America,
you’ve almost got to have a tech-savvy campaign to get votes, as almost everyone has a
computer and the Internet.
My question is: why didn’t Ron Paul use all that money he got from loyal supporters
(the grand total was over $6 million--that’s more than McCain has now) and run
a bunch of TV and radio ads, and really come across with a clear-cut, easy to understand,
hard-hitting, and maybe anti-McCain message? I mean, he’s had around $5 or $6 million for the last
few months now; why didn’t he use it? Did he just see his situation as entirely hopeless,
even then, before McCain clinched the Republican nomination? It’s not like Paul just
didn’t have the money to run ads and appear on TV programs, etc.--he just never did it.
Oh well. Maybe Ron Paul wasn’t the right candidate--his positions weren’t 100% in line with mine. And I’m not old enough to vote yet anyway. Regardless of what happens, I’ll still proudly wear the shirt I recently made for myself out of iron-on T-shirt transfers: it says “Ron Paul 2008” on the front, and “Detain McCain” on the back.
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The message was correct. The candidate was good. The fault is the political structure. To run as an anti-Hamiltonian/Whig
in the Hamiltonian/Whig party wasn’t going far. Solution: a new Jeffersonian party. But Gringos lack the skills in building a party.
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One of the last articles I read over at lrc was one by Gary North called “free lunch libertarians”. We live in the immediate gratification society.
I think Dr. Paul is about the same age as Ben Franklin was in 1776.
Yet all I hear is criticism. Everyone says they could have done better if THEY were running the campaign, an arrogance worthy of a socialist or even a Neo-Con who think they can run the market or the world better than everyone else.
For an egregious example of anti-war arrogance:
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2008/03/07/missed-mccain-knockout/
Ron Paul is both humble and successful. Go forth and earn 100 million dollars and spend it your way. Run for office and win reelection for a decade. Learn a complex trade where most practitioners think they are God’s gift and remain humble. Accomplish something. Anything. Then criticize and explain - based on your historic record of accomplishment - what ought to be done different.
Paul says he doesn’t know how to run my or anyone elses life. Yet too many Libertarians and even if not especially Anarchists (Rothbard apparently would be a better General than George Washington, and all the suggestions about private insurance and security firms in a stateless society...) are arrogant fools. And the two are related.
They know everything. Except how to get there. With real people in the current era. There is nothing they can’t do better than someone else did last week or year - of course without a state.
Socialists and NeoCons are only to be blamed because they are utterly wrong, not that they would use force. If the world would actually be so much happier, secure, wealthy, and utopian, why not use force against those who would prevent it (and anarchists think they will overthrow the state how exactly?). The problem is not that they are willing to use violence, but it is that they are totally wrong. Most people are. We are fallen creatures. We think we know something. And are willing to do stupid things and hurt a lot of people trying to make something work even when it is obvious we are wrong.
So we ought not do it, or suggest those who have tried to do something honorable should have done something differently.
Ben Franklin signed the document that ended saying they were depending on Divine Providence. Not their hubris. Not their strength. If you don’t believe in luck, or a pagan fortuna, then pure dumb luck.
A revolution takes time. I doubted there were even a dozen people in my town who would care about liberty enough to wave a sign. But there are thousands. Not enough to on short notice overthrow the MSM and the GOP machine.
Did you think freedom would be easy and “a free lunch”? Or that it would be hard. That this would just be the first battle?
Do you still care about liberty or not? If it isn’t easy it isn’t worth it? Are you in your arrogance saying we just need to hit the lotto with the right campaign theme? Organization? Press a button and in a few days UPS or FedEx will deliver it to your door?
Or are you willing to keep fighting. Some are fighting in Iraq today in a battle which is far more futile and probably won’t be worth anything when it is over. But they fight.
We don’t. We sit around and whine and complain. And say we could have done it better.
Why bother going to the march in june? You won’t win anything. It will take time and money. It won’t be comfortable. Why show you care about freedom? Because you don’t. Not if it requires a long battle.
I’m quite sure we could win with less effort and suffering than George Washington’s army and the rest of the revolutionaries had to go through. Tom Paine would be disgusted at us. We are all summer sunshine soldiers. Oh, I forgot, Rothbard said it was all so unnecessary. http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard171.html - right next to all the “Open Letters to normal people”.
It’s Lent. But you won’t sacrifice. You won’t suffer - beyond maybe $2300. You won’t go door to door in the snow or rain. You won’t gather except to drink beer. You won’t help. You won’t pay the price in time and treasure to restore the constitution.
And you say you care about the surveillance? The war? The dollar and the economy? You don’t. Not really. Your actions betray you, but you do protest too much about the failures of a single man and a single campaign.
Instead of telling Ron Paul and his campaign what he should have done, maybe you should ask what we can do now. The revolution is on. Do you want to be a part of it, or heckle from the sidelines?
The choice is yours. Not this year, but 1776 was the declaration, it was many hard years of toil full of lost battles before victory was achieved. Ghandi also noted it was not something easy or that would happen overnight.
Decide today you will do whatever is demanded - for we don’t know today what will be needed - to bring liberty under the Ron Paul Revolution or wherever it leads. Or shut up and go away.
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TZ, excellent post.
Wouldn’t it be very interesting
if McCain were to pick a younger
Ron Paul Republican as his V.P.?
Is there anyone who reasonably qualifies?
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