I spent several hours compiling this especially for you. I can tell that you have spent little to no time researching the upcoming election and since we don't have much time I'm sending you some 'tough love'. Knowing and beginning to understand our nation's history and the way our "politics" work vs what I knew before feels like night and day. I used to feel that politics was something secret, taboo, or even something to be ashamed of. It seemed to be the battle of dems vs reps; both thinking they were right and the other was wrong. I've come to understand things much more clearly now. I feel as if the fog has lifted and I dont think I can effectively express to you how very literally I mean that. I knew something was very wrong in our country for maybe a year or more, but I couldn't pinpoint what/who the problem was or if there was any fixing it. I was at the point, in August, that I knew *for sure* I would not be casting a vote in the primary or the general election if I didn't find somebody besides Giuliani, Romney, Hillary, Obama (and whoever else was in the news then). When I began reading about Ron Paul fireworks starting going off. I felt as if I had hit the jackpot!. For a while I was spending 8+ online researching all the big issues and related history. I had to do a LOT of praying and singing praise and worship while being online to get through some of what I found. It was a dark time for me. I felt betrayed by the last few generations. I felt like a fool for having taken the mainstream media news and Presidents' words to be gospel. But as hard as it may be to hear, the truth does set one free. I still a lot of time reading online, reading books, talking to other people in person and online about history and politics. And if you all didn't know, I used to HATE history. I honestly thought it was a hobby for boring people.
I am writing all of this to you in hopes that you will understand that I didn't just watch tv, or read one article and hear Ron Paul's name and think it was cool so I decided to vote for him. I'm giving you a window in to what's really going on; what tv just doesn't show. You know, I thought that Ron Paul and his supporters were getting a decent amount of coverage lately. But when I talk to people who still don't know who he is IT BOGGLES MY MIND quite literally!! He's everywhere, his supporters are everywhere - but just not on tv, where you, my family, have demonstrated quite clearly for me that people depend on the mainstream media to spoon-feed them their reality. Yes, I realize that is harsh. But it is true. I hope this will open your eyes.
-Erin
I guess for someone who isn't in the "Ron Paul community" which exists primarily online or in a volunteer groups (rather than on tv as the uninvolved depend upon news to be), it must be very difficult to understand how someone who IS a part can be so sure that the "national poll numbers" are wrong. So here's a little compilation:
# of youtube.com videos for each candidate
Rudy Giuliani 4,290
Barack Obama 8,110
John McCain 3,120
Hillary Clinton 22,700
Mitt Romney 4,880
John Edwards 6,630
Fred Thompson 2,610
Dennis Kucinich 2,200
Mike Huckabee 2,870
Mike Gravel 1,590
Ron Paul 80,000 (that's not a typo - it's eighty thousand vids created/uploaded by RP supporters; many original)
Small sampling of original songs about Ron Paul:
(Obama is the only other candidate that I know of who has a (one) music video "I'm in love with Obama")
http://www.ronpaulforpresident2008.com/pages/music.html
Meetup.com groups
If you don't know, meetup.com is a place where people can start groups about any and everything. Independent of the campaign, Ron Paul supporters started groups that get together to have sign-wavings, canvass, etc. If you click on "search by topic" you will see a list of "popular topics". On that list of about 26 topics, Ron Paul 2008 is included and no other candidates are listed, although "Democratic Party" is. Under the "Politics and Activism" category, here are the numbers for Presidential candidates groups:
# groups # members # cities
Ron Paul 1,431 79,928 1,079
Mike Huckabee 323 7,186 301
Dennis Kucinich 93 2,550 90
Barack Obama 65 3,190 61
John Edwards 48 1,862 42
Hillary Clinton 45 1,213 39
Duncan Hunter 22 418 18
Fred Thompson 11 156 10
Mike Gravel 8 119 8
Mitt Romney 8 38 8
John McCain 7 96 7
Of the 1,431 Ron Paul groups, (remember individual volunteers started these) the top 3 have over 1,000 members each; the top 15 have over 500 members each; the top 234 groups have over 100 members each. Mine, in Greenville, has 8 + some who haven't gone online to sign up, but are participating.
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/ronpaul2008.com This will take a bit of work on your part. This link is to alexa's web-traffic stats. They keep track of how many people visit a particular website. You should see ronpaul2008.com show up, but if not put it in. Then add whichever other candidate you want to compare. The only ones with anything to compare are hillaryclinton.com, mikehuckabee.com, barackobama.com. There is also joinrudy2008.com, mittromney.com. After you add those in, click "compare", and then "1 year" at the top to get a bigger picture. This is why it galls me to hear people say "who is Ron Paul?" as if because you haven't heard of him he doesn't have supporters. No, you just DONT hear it on tv. Plain and simlple, you DONT.
In support of Ron Paul, Lawrence Lepard bought a full page ad called "An Open Letter to the American People" in the USA Today. At one point I googled the cost of such an ad. It was $80,000+. He funded the ad himself, but did use the imput of many other Ron Paul supporters on Ron Paul Forums. Here you can view pdf or jpg of the ad: http://mysite.verizon.net/nathanielyao/USA_Today_Ad.html
Let's move on to Ron Paul's blimp, which is currently flying in/near Orlando. Have you heard of it? My guess is no. I can't imagine anyone not knowing if Giuliani or Hillary had a blimp. Okay, here also, a supporter came up with this idea on his own. His name is Trevor Lyman and is in no way affiliated with the Ron Paul campaign. He does not receive any guidance or mony from them. It costs $400,000 a month to keep the blimp flying, all of which is raised online, independently of Ron Paul's official campaign. There is a video on this page: http://www.ronpaulblimp.com/
The blimp is not Trevor Lyman's first incredible accomplishment for the Ron Paul Revolution (oh and if you've heard that phrase, it didn't come from the campaign either. It and the graphic came from some guy in Arizona). Anyway, the first thing Trevor did was create http://www.thisnovember5th.com Before Nov 5th, the page was set up to receive email addresses of those pledging to donate $100 to Ron Paul at ronpaul2008.com on Nov 5th. The fundraiser set a new record for online donations in a single day. Ron Paul received $4.3 million in a 24 hr period. Here's a video about Trevor and the fundraiser: http://youtube.com/watch?v=IL86jfea4S8 Notably, Trevor, age 37, has never even voted before, nor has he ever been involved in a campaign. He found Ron Paul on youtube by accident.
Before the Nov 5th, the next "money bomb" as they're known in the "Ron Paul Internet Community" (Foxnews coined phrase). http://www.teaparty07.com/ was the second website created by Trevor Lyman. This time, Ron Paul's supporters made him the record holder for a single day of fundraising. This is not just an online record. John Kerry previously held the record with $5.7 million in a single day. That was right AFTER he received the democratic nomination. Only 5 weeks after donating $4.3 million, Ron Paul supporters donated $6.04 million in one day, surpassing Kerry's record. There was tv and newspaper media coverage the day after, but I'd be surprised if you heard about it. They quickly went back to only referring to "national polls".
If you're wondering, Ron Paul does not have any corporate endorsements or any other big donations. His median donation is $50 and the average is $130. There is a joke that no lobbyists bother going to Congressman Paul's office because it would just be a waste of their time. His money comes from people like me. Oh, if you didn't know the numbers released by Giuliani and Romney (maybe others too) included millions of their own money that they loaned to their campaign. Ron Paul just finished the 4Q with over $19 MILLION. 3Q - 1st Place. Hillary $27 Million 2nd Place. Obama $21 Million. They didn't loan themselves any money. Last note on the money is that all of the GOP candidates money has decreased each quarter, with the exception of Fred Thompson who got all his money late, as he entered the race late, and Ron Paul who went from about $600,000 to $2.5 million to $5.2 million to $19 million. Yeah! One site to get info on this is http://www.opensecrets.org however it doesn't give all the details.
I can't believe it, but I almost forgot the straw polls. These are far more dependable than national TELEPHONE polls for the simple reason that anyone can stand there and observe, do their own unofficial poll even. I checked the other candidates pages in the past and no one lists all the results of the straw polls. Ron Paul does. Hmmm. Here, take a look: http://www.ronpaul2008.com/straw-poll-results/ Puzzling huh?
Of the 54 Republican straw polls:
Ron Paul 1st plc 31
Ron Paul 2nd plc 7
Ron Paul 3rd plc 7
Ron Paul 4rd plc 5
Ron Paul 5th plc 1
Ron Paul 5th plc 3
Oh and let's not forget what happened after the Foxnews debate which was one of the biggest eye-openers for me. You can read about it in my blog: http://www.myspace.com/hopeandhealinginjesus/blog/307586313
This is what is happening to those of us who ARE paying attention and are voting for Ron Paul. And we get mocked by people are are NOT paying attention.
In addition, almost every single presidential poll conducted online has Ron Paul winning by a landslide. I just read some stats that stated 70% of the US population is online. Only 1000 give-or-take are polled via "national telephone polls" and you must have a landline and quite often they only contact people who have previous voted in a GOP primary. I have neither. The latest aol poll here: http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2007/12/21/straw-poll-dec-21-jan-4/?ncid=NWS00010000000001 (you may have to vote to see results) has "polled" over 261,000 republicans. Also, Ron Paul has united republicans, democrats and independents. So, those dems voting for RP certainly aren't getting polled. Likewise none of the Independents are being polled. But they are all donating their money, which is apparent. Dad, I heard you say that there is no chance for the Republicans up against Hillary. You are absolutely right! UNLESS Ron Paul is nominated. At the above aol poll Hillary received over 200,000 while Ron Paul had only 75,000. BUT total dem votes only equaled 240,000. People who understand the truth about what is going on in our politics, people who have taken the time to look into the history of the US and the world know enough to refuse to vote for anyone besides Ron Paul. We will be writing his name in if he's not on the general election ballot. That's how serious this is.
The "national poll" numbers tell you one thing only and that is which candidate the person on the phone said they would vote for. Many of those polls DON'T even INCLUDE Ron Paul's name such as this one by Rasmussen from LAST WEEK: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/as_campaign_season_begins_only_one_presidential_candidate_is_viewed_favorably_by_majority_of_voters don't even include Ron Paul's name on them, just as Foxnews is not including him in their Forum on Jan 6th, right **before NH votes**. Oddly enough, they've already invited him to an event on Jan 10th **after NH votes............ Hmmmm Fishy? The NH GOP's Fergus Cullen has released this statement:
I don't have any idea who will be declared the nominee. When I look at these numbers, I can see which candidate has people who believe in his message enough to get up off the couch and go tell someone else; to donate their own time and money voluntarily without direction or resources from the campaign. These people care enough about our country to try to change it - for free. I also see the daily efforts to stifle Ron Paul's message and his supporters. Why? You be the judge. Why are we being ignored? You must want to know. My message to you wake up and pay attention. Read the Constitution. Read the PATRIOT Act. Read Directive 51. Read what the founding fathers and others said about a central banking system ie the Federal Reserve. I will leave you with some of my favorites:
"But if in the pursuit of the means we should unfortunately stumble again on unfunded paper money or any similar species of fraud, we shall assuredly give a fatal stab to our national credit in its infancy. Paper money will invariably operate in the body of politics as spirit liquors on the human body. They prey on the vitals and ultimately destroy them. Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice." -- George Washington in a letter to Jabez Bowen, Rhode Island, Jan. 9, 1787
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws."-- Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild
"The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from it's profits or so dependant on it's favors, that there will be no opposition from that class." -- Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863
"It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." -- Henry Ford
It might seem prophetic, but it isn't. Ron Paul supporters didn't make it up. This is history repeating itself. And it will continue if "We The People" don't start doing our job and deciding what happens in government, as the Constitution requires.
"When the people fear the government, we have tyranny.When the government fears the people, we have liberty"
-Thomas Jefferson
