Rand Paul's Campaign Memo Says That Rand Paul's Campaign Rules and is Here to Stay
Ground game, history, youth appeal in Iowa, and smartly spent cash on hand will keep Paul in the game for the long haul, campaign insists.
A public memo of sorts from Rand Paul's presidential campaign as reproduced at the Daily Caller gives all the reasons why they insist the long-lived "Paul campaign on the ropes" rhetoric is bull.
Some key points:
• Campaign insists its "ground game" in unparalleled and points to ability to gin up wins at straw polls as evidence, and points to history for a reason to not be discouraged now: "Like John McCain in 2008, Senator Paul's campaign isn't showing up in October polling, but will be there when it counts-on Election Day…..to win in Iowa, a strong ground force, not money, is the true game changer. In 2012, Rick Santorum was vastly outspent by Mitt Romney, yet he won Iowa. In 2008, Mike Huckabee was vastly outspent and won Iowa. In 2004, Democrat Howard Dean had all the money and resources, but John Kerry's in-state volunteer force propelled him to the top. That's how Iowa campaigns are won-through the hard work of motivated, well-organized, and passionate grassroots supporters.
• The campaign believes that because the Iowa caucus this year is happening while college is in session, unlike past years, Paul's youth appeal will buttress him there.
• Other candidates are doing worse, so why doesn't the media pick on them? "The two most recent polls determining who makes the next debate-conducted by CBS and Fox-had SRP [Senator Rand Paul] outpolling Christie and Kasich. SRP is well within the criteria for the next debate-no question, he will be on the stage. Moreover, earlier this month Reuters-which independent analysts called the most accurate pollster of the last presidential election-had SRP in fifth place ahead of Rubio, Cruz, and others.
Although the criteria to make the cut for the next debate requires a 2.5% average in the polls, you never read anything about Christie, who currently sits at 1.9% in the RCP average of polls. The media is fixated on insisting that SRP should get out of the race even though he continues to win every time votes are counted and the polls show him on the rise."
• They may not be raising tons of money, but they have money and are spending it wisely: "SRP currently has over $2 million cash-on-hand and is running a lean campaign heavy on organization and light on expensive advertising. SRP has the financial resources to continue indefinitely and will keep racking up wins once the voting begins."
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A campaign isn't dead until donors flee.
They've flown. Paul is an embarrassment.
Well, he has at least one vote in the caucuses.
Unfortunately for Paul, none of the examples given in that first paragraph won the presidency.
None of them were running against an opponent as bad as SandHill, though. That's what we're calling the Dem ticket now right? SandHill?
That is an insult to big piles of sand everywhere.
I think it makes sense. A monolithic entity that shifts almost imperceptibly to follow the political winds. It's also amorphous and can take on any shape. Each piece of it is identical and therefore each piece is expendable.
Sand can be a useful material, though, unlike politicians.
Is this the Hill the Dems want to die on?
I guess it's their call.
They'd be dying UNDER the Hill - we've already established that she's a top.
No fucking way...
Fertilizer?
If you want to poison your plants, go ahead.
My sentiments exactly....Hil would kill anything living in her path...The bern needs to save the PLANTSZ.
Didn't I see that on Star Trek?
I believe what you're looking for is SandCunt
The campaign believes that because the Iowa caucus this year is happening while college is in session, unlike past years, Paul's youth appeal will buttress him there
Are college students really so fickle that they would let their semester schedule determine whether they vote? ::Thinks back to time in college:: Yes. Yes they are.
Well, it determines where many of them reside, so...yes.
But where you register isn't always where you reside. It all depends on whether your permanent address is still at your parents' house. And of course, no one in college has time to file an absentee ballot...
The Iowa caucus doesn't work like a state primary. You actually have to show up.
In college I registered at and voted in my college precinct since I spent 10 months a year there and only 2 months at my parents house.
My guess is that the vast majority of Iowa university students are in-state anyway.
I don't really seeing this being a factor.
The unknown....how many of the committed vote at home and on the road?
I'd guess a lot, this stupidity has wrecked my town.
Santorum, Huckabee, Kerry...only one of those went on to win their party's nomination.
I dunno, this sort of thing makes the campaign seem defensive. Especially complaining about the lack of criticism of other campaigns.
People don't want to vote for someone that always seems to be on the defensive, and is always complaining about being treated unfairly. They want someone who goes on the attack when necessary and/or acts big by just brushing off the small stuff, even if it isn't necessarily small.
I had a lot of hope for Rand but he really does come off as petty and oversensitive. It doesn't sit well. I can look past that for his policies (such as they are) but most people won't.
Yeah, they shouldn't be complaining about the lack of attacks on other campaigns. They should be touting it as a sign that the mainstream media is afraid of Paul and his supporters.
That's one approach. Another is to just brush it off.
People want an optimistic message. And libertarians are, I think, really well positioned to deliver that, even if many individual libertarians often seem pessimistic. I mean, despite all the awful stuff that happens, there has probably never been a time that is better to be alive.
The world is fucking awesome! We live longer and healthier and there is real reason to believe that within the lifetime of many of us, a lot of terrible disease and chronic conditions will be all but eliminated.
We can access almost any knowledge, any form of entertainment, any person instantly, from almost anywhere we are likely to find ourselves. That's not just some shiny distraction. It makes it easier to connect with loved ones that are far away, it makes it easier to learn new things, sell to more people, do what you want to do with your life. There is real reason to believe that technological advances will further diminish the effects of distance, that more people will be able to pursue knowledge and hobbies and careers that they enjoy, that we'll be able to experience even more things that were once reserved for a select few.
Our cities are getting safer and cleaner. Our food is getting cheaper, more abundant, and more diverse. It's easier to travel to experience different cultures and to see some of the great monuments of the past. More land is being made available for recreation in nature.
And the reason for all this progress is, by and large, the unleashed, freed power of human ingenuity and desire. We are fucking amazing creatures, and more people are able to realize their potential than ever before!
Lots of people are still being denied that opportunity. Far, far, too many. And so much potential is still being held back by fear, corruption, a desire for power. But the message shouldn't focus on how everything is awful. It should focus on how great everything is and can be if we advance liberty even further.
Rand is not the person to deliver that message, but I honestly think that the person who can really can cause the kind of revolution we as libertarians want.
That is way too optimistic for these here boards.
Off to the myopic reeducation center with you LynchPin!
You should be in charge of the Rand campaign.
I truly don't understand why *someone* doesn't at least give this type of rhetoric a try, especially after Obama did so well by striking a similarly optimistic tone (albeit with different goals/focus). Even if it's just lip service, what do they have to lose? Are the people running political campaigns really that out of touch or just plain bad at their jobs? Or do they genuine believe that things are awful?
"People don't want to vote for someone that always seems to be on the defensive, and is always complaining about being treated unfairly. They want someone who goes on the attack when necessary and/or acts big by just brushing off the small stuff, even if it isn't necessarily small."
To play devil's advocate, the ones currently topping the GOP polls spend the majority of their time complaining about being treated unfairly - by the mainstream media, by the party establishment, by secularists, etc. Positioning yourself as being unduly attacked by the media has played in both party's primaries for a while now. The trick is getting people to buy the narrative instead of just coming off as whiny, which I don't think Rand is quite managing. Would have been a good memo without the media bit.
I honestly don't listen to Trump, but my impression is that he attacked back, rather than just complaining about unfair treatment.
He does some of both. He has more than once declared that he's going to "boycott" Fox News over perceived unfair treatment, only to publicly announce a week later that he's calling off the boycott because someone apologized to him or some other bullshit. I'd guess it's very calculated - he knows he needs to appear of Fox News but he also knows it's useful to be the "outsider" who the "establishment" media is after and it keeps his name in the news in between the times he would appear on shows anyway. But in terms of how it plays, you could argue that's more of an attack, but it seems like more of the petulant "I'm not being treated fairly!" whining to me.
Radical!
He's running out the clock. Hoping to be the last one with cash for the campaign bus' gas.
Not going to work.
It has been dismaying to watch how badly the Paul campaign has been run this summer and fall. I imagine the Kesari/Benton indictments were a huge disruption to the campaign. But the primary problem has been Rand's increasingly desperate efforts to court the so-cons and war-hawks while simultaneously trying to maintain some libertarian bonafides.
All in all, it has been a terrible campaign.
Imagine Reason spent 1/2 of the column-space they devoted to Trump on Rand Paul
Just a thought-experiment
The campaign believes that because the Iowa caucus this year is happening while college is in session, unlike past years, Paul's youth appeal will buttress him there.
Rand's Advisor: "The [Davenport] gig has been cancelled."
Rand: "What?"
Rand's Advisor: "Yeah. I wouldn't worry about it though, it's not a big college town."
Actual quote? Because Davenport has a few colleges. It's not as big as Ames or Iowa City, but the youth vote could swing it.
I'm not sure if Rand Paul has run a terrible campaign, or if Rand Paul is a terrible candidate, or some combination thereof. As has been noted here, there is an identity crisis. Paul needs to find one rather than wearing the red dress for any special interest that might swing conservative. If he had pushed in hard on libertarian issues, he could have tapped into the populist sentiment that have made Trump and Sanders surprises. Instead, he ran as if he could win--and he never could--and he lost the opportunity to have an impact.
True dat, team red is not interested in liberty. No way around it.
If his delegate count is in double-digits, he'll be exceeding historical norms.
Carly's going to lay a double helping of whup-ass on him.
So "Ban Abortion Now!" has not panned out as a rallying cry for libertarian voters. Well, it has worked incredibly well for the Prohibition Party, right alongside the War on Drugs and the whispering campaign against the Demon Rum. Yet despite that setback, young Rand does favor individual rights for the male half of humanity, which makes him the most useful and semilibertarian politician in the Senate, where he belongs.
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