Alex Linder
March 20th, 2008, 03:48 AM
Ron Paul was overwhelmingly re-elected to his Texas Congressional District recently by a two to one margin over his GOP primary opponent Chris Peden. Despite the lies and smears the neoconservative sock puppet was mouthing, Peden could barely make a dent in Paulīs strong support in CD-14. It just goes to show that when Ron Paul is able to campaign amongst people that know him well, he does well.
Getting the rest of the country to know Paul as well as they do in Galveston and Victoria was the biggest challenge the campaign would face and unfortunately it did not come close to meeting it. Especially in the two states that offered Paul the chance to best use his retail politicking skills, Iowa and New Hampshire. Given the fact that Paul is not exactly a very telegenic figure nor a compelling orator, being more at home giving speeches at Von Miesian conferences or a near-empty House chamber, it was imperative that Paul get to know as many voters in the first two and most important states in the process when it comes to setting the tone for the whole campaign.
Unfortunately, Rep. Paul spent the least amount of time all of the GOP candidates in both Iowa and New Hampshire. For this we can only blame candidate himself for this damaging mistake. While much-lampooned-as-lazy Fred Thompson spent the New Yearīs weekend traveling through every frozen town in Iowa (and probably hating every minute of it), Paul spent his time by the fire in his Lake Jackson home reading policy manuals, or at least thatīs what his campaign said he was doing. Well, Thompsonīs last minute bus tour worked. He won 13 percent of the vote ahead of Paulīs 10 percent and kept his campaign going long enough to affect the outcome. Had Thompson finished behind Paul, there was a very good chance he would washed his hands of his whole wasted campaign there and then. Instead, the result was well enough to allow him to campaign with a straight face in South Carolina and help John McCain win that crucial state in Republican politics and subsequently win the nomination.
Why did Paul spend so little time in such crucial states? Paul made it clear that despite campaigning for the highest office in the land, he was not going to stop doing his day job. He refused to miss any Congressional votes or committee meetings while campaigning. That meant only campaigning on weekends and not only that, campaigning in other early states as well like Nevada, South Carolina, Michigan and Wyoming which spread him too thin. Truly this was a noble gesture, considering how much time away from work candidates like Senīs. Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and John McCain spent away from their day jobs and shows how serious Paul is about representing his constituents. Itīs also utterly inane. No member of Congress who runs for president gets punished by the voters if they spend a little more time running for president than voting on a resolution establishing National Artichoke Day. For some odd reason Paul thought he had to do this (maybe to cast the dissenting vote). Not only did this gesture put him at a disadvantage to those members of Congress willing to shirk their duties as they tried to climb the Washington food chain, Paul was even more disadvantaged in a GOP field top heavy with candidates like Mitt Romney, Rudy Guliani, Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee who had no day jobs and could campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire as long and as often as they liked. Once again, the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire have shown they will not vote for phantoms. You either show up and speak to the voters and listen to them or you will not win.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/55545
Getting the rest of the country to know Paul as well as they do in Galveston and Victoria was the biggest challenge the campaign would face and unfortunately it did not come close to meeting it. Especially in the two states that offered Paul the chance to best use his retail politicking skills, Iowa and New Hampshire. Given the fact that Paul is not exactly a very telegenic figure nor a compelling orator, being more at home giving speeches at Von Miesian conferences or a near-empty House chamber, it was imperative that Paul get to know as many voters in the first two and most important states in the process when it comes to setting the tone for the whole campaign.
Unfortunately, Rep. Paul spent the least amount of time all of the GOP candidates in both Iowa and New Hampshire. For this we can only blame candidate himself for this damaging mistake. While much-lampooned-as-lazy Fred Thompson spent the New Yearīs weekend traveling through every frozen town in Iowa (and probably hating every minute of it), Paul spent his time by the fire in his Lake Jackson home reading policy manuals, or at least thatīs what his campaign said he was doing. Well, Thompsonīs last minute bus tour worked. He won 13 percent of the vote ahead of Paulīs 10 percent and kept his campaign going long enough to affect the outcome. Had Thompson finished behind Paul, there was a very good chance he would washed his hands of his whole wasted campaign there and then. Instead, the result was well enough to allow him to campaign with a straight face in South Carolina and help John McCain win that crucial state in Republican politics and subsequently win the nomination.
Why did Paul spend so little time in such crucial states? Paul made it clear that despite campaigning for the highest office in the land, he was not going to stop doing his day job. He refused to miss any Congressional votes or committee meetings while campaigning. That meant only campaigning on weekends and not only that, campaigning in other early states as well like Nevada, South Carolina, Michigan and Wyoming which spread him too thin. Truly this was a noble gesture, considering how much time away from work candidates like Senīs. Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and John McCain spent away from their day jobs and shows how serious Paul is about representing his constituents. Itīs also utterly inane. No member of Congress who runs for president gets punished by the voters if they spend a little more time running for president than voting on a resolution establishing National Artichoke Day. For some odd reason Paul thought he had to do this (maybe to cast the dissenting vote). Not only did this gesture put him at a disadvantage to those members of Congress willing to shirk their duties as they tried to climb the Washington food chain, Paul was even more disadvantaged in a GOP field top heavy with candidates like Mitt Romney, Rudy Guliani, Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee who had no day jobs and could campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire as long and as often as they liked. Once again, the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire have shown they will not vote for phantoms. You either show up and speak to the voters and listen to them or you will not win.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/55545