Ron Paul Announces Phase 2
June 14, 2008
As you know, I am not gung-ho about national politics. With respect to the Democrats, the only sensible thing I have read is Fred Reed's suggestion on June 11 that Obama select Jim Webb as his VP candidate. This is a stroke of genius, or at least of common sense. Read his article here. Since he is the most readable columnist writing today, even when he's wrong, he's terrific.
Let us turn to Ron Paul's announcement: http://www.campaignforliberty.com.
It's enthusiastic. Why shouldn't it be?
These past 17 months have been among the most exciting and eventful of my life. Together you and I delivered a message of freedom the likes of which American politics had not seen in decades. I wasn't sure the country was ready for it. But it was a message, I discovered, that many Americans had been waiting for a long time to hear.
He arrived in Washington in 1976. His Presidential campaign took off 31 years later. He became an overnight sensation! The lesson: keep on truckin'.
I have been blessed with the most informed, well read, and enthusiastic supporters of any presidential campaign. Your extraordinary efforts in organizing and fund raising grabbed the attention of millions of Americans and shocked just about everyone in politics and the media. I still cannot get over all the fantastic work you did.Something of great significance has just occurred in our country's history.
Let us hope so.
With the primary season now over, the presidential campaign is at an end. But the larger campaign for freedom is just getting started. Therefore, I am happy to announce the official launch of the Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty.
So far, so good.
The work of the Campaign for Liberty will take many forms. We will educate our fellow Americans in freedom, sound money, non-interventionism, and free markets. We'll have our own commentaries and videos on the news of the day.
For background, click here.
I'll work with friends I respect to design materials for homeschoolers.
For background, click here.
Politically, we'll expand the great work of our precinct leader program.
For background, click here.
We'll make our presence felt at every level of government, where just a few people with our level of enthusiasm can make a world of difference.
Given enough time, and also given people who are willing to work at thankless tasks for decades, yes. But it will take trained volunteers. They need training materials for local politics. These materials were available 30 years ago: the "Kasten system." They have been ignored ever since. They need to be updated for the digital era. There had better be programmers out there who can work with a specialist in local political mobilization who knows how to integrate software and grunt work. The troops need software tools, such as templates that can be used with the free program, Open Office. They also need operations manuals. They need a Website that sells all this at low prices. Someone needs to coordinate this under Dr. Paul's general supervision.
We'll keep an eye on Congress and lobby against legislation that threatens us. We'll identify and support political candidates who champion our great ideas against the empty suits the party establishments offer the public.
If he can raise the money.
We will be a permanent presence on the American political landscape. That I promise you. We're not about to let all this good work die. To the contrary, with your help we're going to make it grow -- by leaps and bounds.This is the most ambitious venture of my political career, and I think it can achieve great things. But I can't do this alone. I need you to help me. I need your energy, your creativity, your ideas, and your dedication.
People frustrated with our political system often wonder what they can do. I have founded this organization to answer that question, to give people the opportunity to do something that really makes a difference in the fight for freedom. Please join me by becoming a member of the Campaign for Liberty. Our goal is 100,000 members by September. Can we reach it?
If he can, then he really is going to inflict pain on the empty suits.
He needs a director of Meet-ups. It will not be easy to keep activists in touch with each other. Some meetings should be exclusively for recruiting. They should feature a speaker or a 20-minute DVD on the freedom philosophy. A DVD could be a lecture by Dr. Paul or an interview by Dr. Paul of an expert. Then open the meeting up for questions. Serve freshly baked cookies. They might even be Hillary Clinton's favorite recipe. These recruiting meetings should be one hour long, maximum. Don't scare people off; bring them back for more. Here are the basic rules for a recruiting meeting. Other meetings should be devoted exclusively to nuts-and-bolts training for local politics. In election years, these can become organizational meetings.
He needs a specialized Website that has nicely typeset reprints of basic documents of liberty, such as Bastiat's The Law, Leonard Read's essay, I, Pencil, and an annotated (by Dr. Paul) edition of the U.S. Constitution. He should write a brief introduction to each of them. In the back pages will be promotional pages for his various Websites. These documents should be in PDF format, so that people can download them and print them out. They should also be in HTML, for people who prefer reading on-line. (I don't.)
This site can be used to introduce newcomers to ideas on liberty. It must have videos and other introductory materials. It should not be a specifically political site. It must be dedicated to teaching first principles to newcomers. When a newcomer asks, "What is this philosophy all about?" the recruiter can hand him a business card with the site's address. Where did he get this card? As a PDF on Ron Paul's political site. Just download, print out (33 per page), and cut (or use perforated labels).
Now what about the Republican Convention in St. Paul? Our delegates will attend, of course, and I expect our contingent to have a visible presence there. Without disruption, we will do whatever we can to influence the party and its platform, and return the GOP to its limited-government roots. This is very important.This brings me to my second announcement. I invite you to join us at Williams Arena at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday, September 2nd, for a grand rally. We intend to draw over 11,000 people. We'll have live music and entertainment, and special guests. I'll address you all as well. A massive rally will generate still more interest in our ideas. And what a great time it will be.
At a strategy meeting in Washington eight weeks ago, one activist recommended this. He said thousands of supporters will show up. I hope he was correct. I am glad they located a building to rent with enough space. The entire meeting needs to broadcast as a live streaming video on the Web. Not everyone can come who wants to get involved.
Let's hope C-Span tapes it. It surely is news.
Motel space will be scarce. Be prepared.
The entire meeting should be designed to convince people to do just one thing. Dr. Paul must decide soon what that one thing ought to be.
What do I think it should be? Get them to sign up for the mailing list. I have a very broad long-term vision and a very narrow short-term focus. The program to restore the Constitution begins with a mailing list. It then leads to specialized mailing lists. "Give me digits, or give me death!"
What will Dr. Paul hand out at that meeting and also post for downloading on his main Website, where viewers of the streaming video can access it? This is crucial. What Phase 2 program can he introduce? I think a one-page statement of political principles would be good. On the back is a personal commitment sheet to take home and sign and then file after careful consideration. Even if he only hands out a business card with a Web address to one page, which in turn offers links to Ron Paul's various mobilization sites, that's good enough. He must get those sites up and running during the summer. One site doesn't fit all!
Remember that it was Senator Robert Taft, who shared our views, who was called Mr. Republican. But we are not merely the Republican Party's past. If the enthusiasm of young people for our campaign is any indication, we are also its future.
We must mobilize and then train younger members. This can be done. This should begin with a home school course on the U.S. Constitution: how it was lost, and how it can be restored. Begin with a Website. The second course should be on local government: how it works, how to monitor it, how to set up a Website to report on it, and how to build a mailing list. In every town in America, there needs to be a home school senior who is learning the ropes in local government. Then he says in town for the next fifty years to implement what he has learned. Year by year, there will be more people just like him.
Right now I will need your patience and input as we develop our program and assemble just the right team of individuals. But it is my intention to launch the Campaign for Liberty in its full capacity at our rally in Minneapolis this September.
The problem is not lack of money. The problem is a lack of dedicated, competent, visionary people who are willing to keep on truckin'. They should be committed. They should read the 1956 book written by the ex-Communist mobilizer, Douglas Hyde, Dedication and Leadership. It is short and to the point. Once they have read this, they will be ready for his little-known follow-up, Dedication and Leadership Techniques. Here is where the rubber meets the road. I have posted it here.
"In the final analysis," I wrote in my new book The Revolution: A Manifesto, "the last line of defense in support of freedom and the Constitution consists of the people themselves. If the people want to be free, if they want to lift themselves out from underneath a state apparatus that threatens their liberties, squanders their resources on needless wars, destroys the value of their dollar, and spews forth endless propaganda about how indispensable it is and how lost we would all be without it, there is no force that can stop them."
Correct.
[I authorize anyone to mail, reproduce, or generally steal this report. If you know someone who ought to read it, send him a link.]