The rhetoric that Paul is a marginal candidate has been slowly eroded. While his critics point to the internet campaign as artificially inflated, and telephone polls as proof that he has no national recognition, recent grassroots campaigning is proving these ideas false. On a recent one week West Coast campaign journey, Dr. Paul raised $300,000 dollars. His MeetUp group fund raising competition has raised approx. $750,000 by my unofficial count. And this week (Constitution Week), Paul's website has run another fund raiser, seeking to generate 1787 donations. By last count, the drive has generated 2,200 donations. It's not difficult to understand that at an average of $50 a donation, that is $110,000. At $100 per, $220,000. While other candidates are struggling to finance their campaigns, Ron Paul's Q1 cash on hand was approx. $500,000. His Q2 cash on hand was approx. $2,300,000 and I am expecting his Q3 cash on hand to be in the neighborhood of $6,000,000. This will make Paul the second most liquid Republican candidate based upon Q2 trends (Giuliani #1). Going into the Republican primaries, Paul will be able to mount a significant campaign in the early states. Lost in all of the telephone polls, and hard financial data however is the viral and grassroots campaigning that is happening. MeetUp groups are conducting their own local campaigns, both to raise money, and to promote RP via signage, rallies, canvassing, pressure on media and telephone callouts about the campaign. With limited campaigning for the straw polls, and consistent top half results, it's no surprise that Paul is starting to get a lot of attention from the media, and his fellow candidates. And he's doing it cheaply. Just some food for thought.
It should be noted that for donations to count, you had to use a certain project code that related it to Constitution Week. Ron Paul has been holding a contest among Meetup groups starting about a month ago, and to get credit for that, you had to use a project code that related it to your Meetup group. So imagine how quickly he would have gotten donations if they weren't split between various programs he's running right now?
I think the rest of Republican party (besides Paul) has done quite well with the angry white male crowd. Which is why we are overseas fighting "Ragheads".
I don't believe the donations a candidate receives are indicative of the beliefs of a candidate. If they were, how would you respond to the fact that Ron Paul has received more donations from military servicemen than any other candidate so far in either party, including John Mccain? Don't believe me? Check the 2nd Quarterly filings with the SEC, publicly available online.
I respond by saying this is not accurate. Please let me know how you respond, after confirming: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3601542&page=1 $800 separates second and third place.
Ron Paul is popular with a wide range of people including the US troops as Sean Hannity found out much to his dismay. As usual, I don't expect real counter arguements to counter Ron Paul's points.
I looked directly at the most accurate source, the FEC Quarterly Filings for the 2nd Quarter 2007: http://query.nictusa.com/pres/2007/Q2/ Then I went through and looked at all donations by employer, and I tried to find any instance of veterans or veteran affairs, any branch of the military (USAF, US Army, USMC, USN), and even found a donation from the Coast Guard. I entered this all into a spreadsheet, grouping common names together by branch. I even listed any veteran affairs, civilian donation, and the Coast Guard donation under questionable, since one could argue these groups don't represent the true will of the MILITARY. I honestly could not find any other donations to justify Obama supposedly receiving $27,000. If you can pull it off, please prove me wrong. More importantly, as a percentage of his total donations, Ron Paul is annihilating EVERY single candidate when it comes to military donations. Arguably at best, Barack Obama has received $27,000 in donations from the military; but that is 0.082% of the total donations he received in the 2nd quarter. Even if you go with the low number of $19,000, Ron Paul still received 0.802% of his Q2 donations from the military. Even McCain only received 0.164% of his $11,265,696.28 in the 2nd quarter from military sources. Ron Paul received, relative to his total donation base, 10x as much military support as Obama, and 5x as much as McCain. What does this show for his campaign? For one, his numbers in the 3rd quarter need to continue to rise tremendously to be considered as having a chance in this race. But it also shows that by far, Ron Paul is receiving more support from the military than any other candidate right now, either in terms of total donated, or percentage donated relative to total donations.
This is what I am talking about when it comes to free, grassroots marketing power. http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070922/UPDATE/709220410/1020 You gotta believe that as the momentum grows, so will his coverage as the underdog candidate.
This is what I mean when I talk about dishonesty, agendas and that facts don't matter, only the message matters. Despite evidence that clearly shows Obama is leading in donations, you comprise a dishonest spreadsheet to counter with. The numbers are adjusted to show your candidate in the prime light (Obama isn't even my candidate, but I can give him respect for his success), then go on to admit that in fact Obama is leading. Again, this doesn't match up with the facts. You are making up your own reality. Demonstrating that in light of clear facts that indicate who the leader is, in this particular area, only the message matters. Why you would choose to do this, in light of overwhelming evidence, is beyond me. If RP supporters spend all their time tearing down our country, perpetuating conspiracy theories, pretending to support the Constitution, seek defeat for our country and go to great lengths to demonstrate dishonesty, why would I want to consider that candidate for POTUS? If you want a real poll that shows how and who Veterans are voting for, as opposed to some made up reality, I suggest you take a look here: http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=28489 I was going to quote, but RP is holding a 1% favorable vote with Veterans. The lesson we've learned out of this is that, when RP supporters dishonestly say something about their candidate to make him appear more desirable than he really is, it's probably a good idea to fact-check them.
I wonder if RP has a good charity picked out to give all of his "campaign donations" to after he doesn't win the presidency?
GTech, you present me with a link that throws numbers out there with no proof to back it up. I'm showing you the FEC QUARTERLY FILINGS. They get filed every 3 months, and are accurate reports from each campaign that have to list how much was donated, how much was spent, and have to list the employer, location, and other details of EVERY donor. I even give you the link to this evidence, list the exact names under which I find my evidence, and I honestly can't find Obama getting more support. Rather than look at the evidence, you say I'm the one being dishonest. If I'm being wrong, PROVE IT. I spent about 30-45 minutes combing through the reports to find each instance of a military donation, and I listed all my evidence in a spreadsheet. If you think it's false, SHOW ME. So far, the burden of proof is very much on you to show me where my error is. EDIT: And GTech, you better pick a new candidate instead of Huckabee! He's polling the same amount as "bottom-tier" Paul in the latest Gallup Poll. Guess he doesn't stand a chance either, by your reasoning. http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=28702 EDIT #2: Also for that Gallup Poll link you gave me, your quote is very misleading. He's not in the first table, which has veterans declare if a candidate is favorable or not. He's in the 2nd table, which has them declare their preference for Republican nomination. I'd be willing to bet top dollar had he been included in the first table, he would be getting mostly no opinions, because his name recognition among the general public is not near the candidates listed there. I've been the first to admit he has a long way to go and has to get his name out there, but as evidenced by the donations, when people DO hear his name, they show their support quickly, as shown by him leading military donations, which you've just called a farce rather than taken the time to show me I'm wrong.
678 donations over the goal this week. That brings the count for online donations to 2878. Assuming an average of $100, that's a nice job during Constitution Week.
I'm just anxiously awaiting for GTech to show me how Obama has more donations than Paul from the military, and then to rationalize for me why Paul has orders of magnitude more support percentage-wise compared to the other leading two military candidates. And remember Guerilla, you had to pick the 1787 project code to get counted as a donor this week. What about all the people putting in project codes for their MeetUp groups so they can win the private visit from Ron Paul?
Maine GOP Party Chairman Mark Ellis http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...s_quiet_presidential_campaign_picks_up_a_bit/
If you're waiting for accountability, you will be waiting a long time. It's in your best interest to engage people who want to debate for knowledge, not people who debate just to argue. AFAIK, the MeetUp competition ended awhile ago. Clicking through on Ron's site, it looks like all of the donations online are being counted. Obviously what is not being counted are the money from speaking events and mail in donations. This is going to be a huge Q3 with a war chest for the early primaries. Frankly, I'm more interested to see who drops out in October. Fred Thompson seems to have no momentum, and Tancredo, Huckabee, Brownback and Hunter are all running low on cash. You can tell when the second and third tier candidates start missing debate and speaking opportunities at significant GOP events.
I definitely think we will see at least one of Hunter/Tancredo/Brownback/Huckabee drop in October. They all seem pretty similar to me, and don't have the name recognition of Rudy/Romney/Thompson. At least Huckabee is pulling the evangelical vote, the rest are kind of stagnant. And let's not forget McCain bleeding money like crazy, and firing his staff every chance he gets. If Paul passes McCain not just in money in the bank, but total donations received for this quarter, McCain is going to have an incredibly hard time recovering and staying in until the end.