www.newswithviews.com

While millions of Americans watched the 2008 Republican Convention on television, the well-staged event wasn’t all peaceful and enthusiastic, according to several delegates attending the St. Paul, Minnesota event.

Several delegates — who are avowed Ron Paul supporters — claim they were treated shabbily at best, harshly at worst.

“While almost every other GOP contender for president was permitted to speak at the convention, Ron Paul was not. The word was that Paul was invited, with the natural caveat that he (like the other speakers) endorse McCain for president, which Paul was reportedly unwilling to do,” said a McCain delegate from West Virginia.

“Instead, Paul held a separate ‘convention’ for one afternoon at the Minneapolis Convention Center,” said the WV delegate.

The McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee were unnecessarily nervous about the presence of Ron Paul delegates at the XCel Energy Center, and sometimes that fact was reflected in unwarranted actions, such as someone yanking away a banner proclaiming the word “Liberty” being held by a handful of Paul delegates outside the building, according to several delegates.

In fact, several told NewsWithViews.com that while the Rep. Paul delegates demonstrated little, if any, support for McCain throughout the convention — mostly sitting quietly on their hands while the rest of the crowd erupted around them — they caused no problems and were respectful and polite, including the Paul delegates from West Virginia.

“The Ron Paul movement has brought thousands of young people into the political process — shouldn’t the GOP find ways to welcome them rather than alienate them?” said “Patrick,” a delegate and Ron Paul supporter from Maine.

The actions of the GOP should surprise no one, but it’s worth documenting anyway.

http://www.december152007.com/
This money bomb for Kucinich was held on December 15th. These are the results:

• $131,400 TOTAL
• Approximately 1,592 donors

That’s about $82.54 per person. Not great but surely better than Barack Obama’s. I’m surprised their isn’t more support for Kucinich. He’s got a similar platform to the Greens but is more mainstream and likely to get somewhere in the election. I’ve only ever seen 1 Kucinich supporter in my treks around NYC but I’ve seen dozens of Paul supporters out and about. Of course that’s not when I’m expecting to meetup with them. I would think the Ron Paul Revolution would have energized some of the other smaller campaigns but at best we see half hearted copycat attempts. Speaking of copycats.

http://dec27th.hucksarmy.com : seems Hucks army noticed our Tea Party money bomb and have set up their own. They are looking to get 10,000 $100 donations. As of now they’ve got 257 ‘Lives & sacred honor pledged for freedom’ and $133121 ‘Fortunes pledged for freedom.’ Seems they have had an issue with their pledge bank however and it appears they have blamed Ron Paul supporters:

DEAR RON PAUL SUPPORTERS,

On December 16th, 2007 you made political history — raising over $6 million online in a single day. If Ron Paul were to win the nomination the credit will no doubt go to his passionate grassroots supporters and their incredible energy online — and deservedly so.

Then, on December 17th, 2007 we (Mike Huckabee supporters) launched our own grassroots fundraising drive. Within hours we were receiving wave after wave of false pledges from obviously fake email addresses referencing perverse sex acts, insulting Mike Huckabee, and (you guessed it) telling us to vote for Ron Paul.

Viewed symbolically, December 17th might have been the bigger day.

If Ron Paul doesn’t win the nomination there will be no one more to blame than many of his own supporters who give the very idea of freedom a bad name because of the way they abuse it. You may liken yourselves to American revolutionaries, but your behavior is more reminiscent of Nazi tactics — sending in hooligans to break into and disrupt political rallies for their opposition.

Mike Huckabee also has a strong grassroots campaign. Nevertheless we have always endeavored to communicate respect and good-will for our opponents and their supporters — just as Mike Huckabee has done throughout the campaign. I have personally written letters congratulating you on your successes.

In essence we have two strong grassroots movements, one characterized by anger and cynicism, and the other by compassion and hope. You’ve got us beat in money and organization, but the difference in the ballot box may boil down to character, and the way it is presented.

This Is America,

Brett Harris
Founder, HucksArmy.com

P.S. I realize that there are many respectable Ron Paul supporters out there. This letter is specifically addressed to those who have participated in spamming our fundraiser, as well as other similar and more

1. You can’t abuse freedom. Their complaint is about bogus pledges. Given that there has been no threats of violence nor theft nothing illegitimate has happened. There is also no evidence that Paul supporters did this. Their has been extensive usage of Ron Paul’s name to make him look bad. Are we going to assume all those are Paul supporters? It would make more sense that it was another candidates supporter.

2. As for showing up to opponents rallies… they are welcome to show up to their opponents to show how strong support for their guy is. Otherwise have private rallies.

3. In what way are those “tactics” Nazi like? That seems to me a completely ridiculous accusation. No one is “sending in hooligans to break into and disrupt political rallies for their oppositions.”

http://blog.wired.com/…

Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s supporters are hoping that they can best their Republican counterparts’ fund-raising prowess online.

Girish Manchaiah, a 35-year-old software engineer and Obama supporter in Springboro, Ohio, has set up an online fund-raising deadline of November 16th to raise $5 million.

Asked whether he was inspired by Texas congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul’s supporters, who recently raised $4.2 million in 24 hours, Macchaiah said: “Not really — I think Ron Paul’s people are inspired by what we’re doing online.”

I somehow doubt that. Lets look at the facts.

• Meetup groups:
  • 62,129 Ron Paul Supporters in 1,174 Groups from 920 Cities
    …and 7,184 more waiting to hear when a new Meetup starts!
    • 52.921 supporters/group, 67.532 supporters/city
  • 3,420 Barack Obama Supporters in 61 Groups from 53 Cities
    …and 1,901 more waiting to hear when a new Meetup starts!
    • 56.066 supporters/group, 64.528 supporters/city
• YouTube cumulative viewership by day:
  • Barack Obama: 4,767,826
  • Ron Paul: 6,000,541
• Blog mentions via Technorati on 11/13/2007:
  • Barack Obama: 809
  • Ron Paul 1,173
• Weekly traffic share, via Hitwise:
  • Barack Obama: 13%
  • Ron Paul: 23%

Only in MySpace and Facebook supporters does Obama beat Paul. I’m going to speculate that a Meetup supporter is worth more than a MySpace supporter. Being part of several Meetups for Paul and spending a decent amount of time with the people volunteering… I’ve not once heard a person mention MySpace or Facebook. They aren’t designed to organize people the way Meetup is. And WRT the blog mentions… it may not be as good as MSM mentions but a lot of people will run across the larger blogs when looking at the news online. I get a lot of traffic from Google’s blog search and regular searches. Also… it was the Paul people that did the money bomb thing first. I’ve a hard time believing that they’d be doing this if we hadn’t. It doesn’t matter. We aren’t fighting against any D’s… yet. This just makes the whole thing more competitive, even if they say otherwise, and that can only help drive the TeaParty07 money bomb further. If they raise $5m on Nov. 16th. We’ll raise $10m on Dec. 16th.