As the Democratic presidential race descends to new depths of personal negativity and John McCain disintegrates, the cause of human liberty has emerged as the clear winner in the 2008 presidential race.
A little over a year ago few people had ever heard of Ron Paul, there were no Ron Paul meet up groups. Rudy Giuliani was a shoo-in to win the Republican nomination and probably the presidency. The Republican Party was firmly in the hands of the big government neo-cons and the Libertarian party was as usual pondering its naval.
Cultural change has to happen before political change and as Avery Knapp, leader of New York City’s Ron Paul meet-up puts it “ collectivism won the 20th century”.
What a difference a year makes! Today pretty much everyone, whether they like him or not, knows who Ron Paul is. Twenty-somethings debate non-interventionist foreign policy, the gold standard and elimination of the Fed and the IRS. By the way they don’t debate “whether” on these issues, they debate “how”.
Of course that debate hasn’t made it through the thick skulls of the vast majority of major party candidates yet or even a majority of voters. But no one is dismissing the Ron Paul Revolution anymore either.
Let’s look at a few areas where the Ron Paul Revolution won resounding victories. The internet is considered by many to be the campaign tool of the future and the Ron Paul Revolution buries the competition with 106,000 meet-up group members, in over 1500 meetups. Mike Huckabee is a distant second with 19,000 members and 496 groups. But let’s look at what those meetups are doing. Ron Paul meetups are 10 times more active than Huckabee’s and account for about 90% of all presidential meetup activities.
Candidate Members Groups meetup events
Ron Paul 106,000 1500 37,000
Mike Huckabee 19,000 496 3,600
Barak Obama 7,000 105 1,000
Hillary Clinton 1,800 36 334
John McCain 36 1 0
Source: http://www.meetup.com/topics/polact/cand/pres/
How about fund-raising? Of course the party of big money, the Democrats, have their fangs much deeper into corporate America. Clinton and Obama have each raised about $140 million primarily from people connected to financial institutions and law firms. McCain gets his money from people in similar industries and firms but he has only raised about $50 million.
Compared to the big money crowd Ron Paul, having raised about $32 million, might not look like much. But as Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney know, money can’t always by you love. And when an unknown guy who ”had no chance” raises nearly as much as the winner of the Republican nomination you have to ask yourself where it all came from. It turns out that the guy who wants to bring the troops home from everywhere, and leave health care to the free market gets much of his money from people in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Health Care.
It’s also worth mentioning that “budget-balancer” John McCain has about $5.2 million cash on hand and about $5.5 million in debt. You do the math. Is that how he’d run the country? In contrast “crazy” Ron Paul has about $6 million cash on hand and 0 debt. What? Zero debt? Excuse me – I’ll have what he’s having.
Sources: http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/moneyweb.asp?cycle=2008
What’s wrong with this picture?
The democrats are busy spewing venom.
The big government Republican nominee has more debt than money and his army consists of a professional campaign staff. The sitting Republican President is a world-class bozo with record low approval ratings and the neo-cons are in disarray.
On the other hand, the Ron Paul Revolution is flush with cash and bursting with young, energized, committed volunteers who are busy right now expanding their grass-roots decentralized, free market network. They are preparing for phase 2: running Freedom Movement candidates, raising awareness and educating the public as to why Human Liberty works better for everyone, and taking action to change outcomes in DC, State Houses and City Halls.
As Arlo Guthrie said if “50 people a day do it they call it a movement.” This one goes by a few names, the Freedom Movement or perhaps the Second American Revolution and it’s happening now, right before your eyes. Everyone doesn’t agree on everything. That’s the beauty of the free market. But we share a belief in Human Liberty as the best way to improve the human condition.
The majority of the Ron Paul army is Republican or “libertarian-republican” but there is a significant minority of “libertarian-democrats” as well. It also includes some members of the Conservative Party and Constitution Party. We also share critical principles with social liberals.
Major party approval ratings dwindle and the Ron Paul army has declared it’s intention to save the Republican Party, to turn it away from Bush, neo-cons, big spending and war and back to principles of freedom and small government. Meanwhile, Libertarian Party membership is up 25%. Freedom Movement candidates are starting to build their campaign teams with veterans of the Ron Paul primaries.
People are talking about non-intervention, sound money, free markets and all the other thinsg that go along with Human Liberty.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Nothing is wrong with it.
Ron Paul wins, and so does the human race.