What is Ron Paul doing with all that money? (UPDATE)

December 17, 2007 – 4:58 pm

So, it is undeniable that Ron Paul raised a monstrously huge amount of money. He will likely have, Mitt Romney’s personal check book aside, the largest fundraising of Q4.  What is he going to do with it?

So far, we have cheesy ads. But we also have large mailings going into places like South Carolina, where Ron Paul is up in the polls. The press has not reported these mailings though, unlike Romney’s or, sometimes, John McCain’s. In those cases, it seems that the campaigns have actually given some of the mailings to the press. (presumably there are more targetted ones that they are not sharing)

Can someone email me mailings or post links to them? I’d really like to see them.

UPDATE: For starters, Hotlineblog reports that they are staffing up.

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What is the Paul bomb?

November 5, 2007 – 8:46 pm

The Ron Paul money bomb is amazing. On a certain level though, it makes a lot of sense.  I’m about to make a totally obvious point:

Ron Paul’s support is a protest vote.

There are a lot of Republicans right now who are really angry. Republicans are furious with their party.  In 2004, Dems were furious with theirs. A lot of them still are, but they are still in shell-shock after winning the 2006 elections. They don’t realize how much of a bill of goods they were sold. And beating Republicans is still important to them.

Here’s a hypothesis, but a difficult one to test. To some extent, Ron Paul supporters support him because he is a variety of the "Republican wing of the Republican Party". People who hate the war can support Ron Paul. People who hate the spending can support Ron Paul. Those are the primary places where the GOP is losing its base right now. And the part of the base that is leaving right now are the ones who are rich and online. Just like some of the Deaniacs. And the college kids look the same too.

They don’t give the money because they really like Paul. They are just more angry at the party than they know what to do with. In the end, they may be "dated Dean, married Kerry" sorts. They may vote for Paul. They may just force the party to pay attention to them.

And some of them are just racist, bigoted, neanderthals.

But there’s something legit here. And today, the Paul guys got our attention. Good for them.

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Ron Paul’s supporters aren’t Republicans

October 13, 2007 – 10:48 am

A standard question is "who is actually supporting Ron Paul?" There has been an assumption that the answer is "not Republicans", but there isn’t always evidence. Then I was reminded of this when a comment was left on a video of Mike Huckabee putting the smack-down on Ron Paul. The recent comment said:

If you support Ron Paul, understand that you MUST REGISTER TO VOTE REPUBLICAN. The cut off in most states is the middle of this month. That is only a couple of days away. It is CRITICAL that if you want Ron Paul to be our next President, you MUST vote for him in the Primaries, and therefore MUST register to vote Republican. To do so and to get this man into the Presidential Election, simply go to gopdotcom and take a few seconds to Register To Vote Republican TODAY. Thank You!

Then, of course, there is the 2nd banner on Ron Paul’s site. (banner URL here)

Yup. The Ron Paul team is campaigning to non-Republicans to change registration… Awesome.

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Huck only raises $1m??

October 3, 2007 – 4:55 pm

After Ames, Mike Huckabee was a rockstar. His campaign manager said that the fundraising calls were coming fast and furious.

And now he has only raised $1m? Only $200k more than the previous quarter? Surely Ames and all that free media was worth more than that, no?

And, as Marc Ambinder points out, Ron Paul beat that by 5x?? I assume that tomorrow we get Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. This chess game is so amusing.

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Huckabee on Ron Paul

September 6, 2007 – 1:59 am

One of the more interesting parts of the debate was the exchange between Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. After the debate, Governor Huckabee offered some reflections on that exchange.

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Romney, Paul, and the road to Ames

August 2, 2007 – 9:41 am

So Mitt Romney has won a number of straw polls by packing them. Reporters get the joke and have stopped covering them, but the Romney campaign knows that it can put these victories on mail pieces and ads. Normally, the question is whether the damage that occurs over the bad press is worth the result. For example, I only saw bad press, not Romney’s actual victory at the Young Republican straw poll.

Now Ames presents a difference. It will be covered by the press. Simply put it matters. But there’s something else different about Ames. Normally, you rig a straw poll by packing it with known supporters. But Ames is big enough that you probably can’t ID enough supporters, so the Romney campaign has been reduced to sending out mailers offering a free ride and a free registration to Ames. There are several problems with this.

First, the mailer gets posted on the internet. In other words, you get caught.

Second, the Ron Paul supporters may sign up for a ride on the Romney bus. Other campaigns will almost certainly place plants on the bus just to see what happens. Here’s what one Ron Paul supporter says:

Some say that then, after carefully weighing their options…..they may decide to vote Ron Paul at the Ames Straw Poll!

If interested, you could call Mitt for the free package at 866.505.2008 (details on flier below).

Now, it is not honest. But it is politics, which is rarely honest, and it wouldn’t be surprising.

And if Paul supporters had a conversion on the road to Ames, can Romney, who had a conversion on the road to Des Moines, really object?

Such are the dangers of the internet. This could be an interesting test of Ron Paul’s online army.

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Huckabee disappoints in Q2 fundraising

July 15, 2007 – 6:59 pm

In Q1, Mike Huckabee’s fundraising team disappointed. Looks like he did it in Q2 also:

Republican Mike Huckabee raised $764,000 for his presidential campaign from April through June and had $437,000 cash on hand at the end of last month, according to financial reports filed Sunday.

The former Arkansas governor spent nearly $703,000 during those three months. More than half went for payroll, travel, and media and fundraising consultants.

Compare that with Sam Brownback, who more than doubled that:

Senator Sam Brownback reports raising nearly $1.5 million for his presidential bid in the last three months.

That’s about $200,000 more than the Kansas Republican reported in the previous quarter.

However, Ron Paul is still the 2nd-tier Q2 winner.

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