What's behind Ron Paul's huge '08 fundraising haul

Christian Science Monitor ^ | November 8, 2007 | Linda Feldmann

[George W. Bush]

The Republican '08 hopeful has raised more than $7.5 million so far this quarter, partly reflecting the success of the Internet in drawing like-minded people together.

Suddenly, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has become a money-making machine. As of 11:44 Wednesday morning, the libertarian-leaning, "get out of Iraq now" congressman from Texas had pulled in $7,556,621.90 in the quarter beginning Oct. 1.

<snip>

On Monday, an independent effort by Paul backers raised a stunning $4.2 million for his campaign, nearly all of it online. At the rate Paul is going, he will have a fourth-quarter funding total that rivals or even surpasses the top-tier GOP candidates.

<snip>

Paul's message of limited government, low taxes, and noninterventionism in foreign policy appeals to a certain swath of the Republican electorate that is unhappy with President Bush, the war in Iraq, and the growth of government and spending during Mr. Bush's tenure.

Some Paul supporters object to the label "libertarian," arguing that his opposition to abortion rights does not fit some libertarians' view on the issue. But Paul himself does not reject the label; in 1988, he ran for president as the Libertarian Party's candidate (while remaining a Republican), placing a distant third.

<snip>

Going forward, one question is whether the Paul surge will affect the other Republican candidates' positions. Will he, for example, make it safer for the others to distance themselves from Bush on Iraq? It would be unlikely for Sen. John McCain to go there, but former Gov. Mitt Romney had already been taking steps in that direction, pushing hard on the "change" message.

<snip>

[George W. Bush]

Some excellent points here. I'll highlight in my ping post.

[Reaganesque]

I have to wonder if some rich Democrats are donating money to him to prop him up in hopes of damaging the eventual Republican nominee. This is the type of thing Soros and friends would do. I have no evidence of this, just a feeling.

[STARWISE]

My thought exactly ... Clintondollars.

[alicewonders]

It’s possible, but I have to tell you that I am seeing more and more Ron Paul signs in yards and bumper stickers here in the small town I live in. They are in nice yards, in nice middle-class neighborhoods - some of them I recognize as having had John Kerry signs in them during the last election.

Is it possible that Ron Paul is striking a chord with a lot of people that are just sick and tired of the status quo? I realize he has a lot of the loonbat support, but the houses I see that bear his signs are not those of drugged out hippies or skateboard dudes.

There’s something going on, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

[George W. Bush]

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To touch the high points:

---

• Ron Paul has always been a Republican, never a Libertarian. Even when he agreed to run as the Libertarian candidate in 1988, he never joined them and he never left the GOP. He has related that he contacted the RNC chairman who then talked him out of resigning from the GOP. This is one of the few mentions of this fact in print. We constantly see the accusation that he is a Libertarian pretending to be a Republican. To the contrary, Dr. Paul is and has always been a Republican. In 1988, he did let the Libertarians pretend he was a Libertarian but even then his positions, especially his pro-life position, were never compromised in the slightest. Ron Paul is a consistent lifelong Republican.
  
  
• The fundraising total is now at $7.62M. As the article points out, it is now conceivable that Ron Paul may have more money than any other Republican in the race when the primaries begin. As of today and given his frugal spending and his $5.3 cash-on-hand at the end of Q3, it is almost certain he has over $10 million in cash-on-hand today. And his fundraising is continuing strongly despite the huge effort by supporters only two days ago.
  
  
• Ron Paul may well affect the entire GOP race and the general election, given how powerful his message has become. Less principled politicians may not agree with him, may not have a longstanding and consistent record. But those congresscritters and other Beltway creatures are impressed by fundraising and by fervent supporters and self-generating grassroots organizations.

---

An outstanding article. In its footnote, it does parrot the common American misunderstanding about the use of Guy Fawkes Day for the Paulian fundraising push. No matter, this article is well worth reading and is thoughtful and well-written as most anything from CSM is.

The startling result of the Guy Fawkes moneybomb and especially the continuing strength of fundraising over the last day indicates that Dr. Paul's campaign has achieved critical mass and could grow explosively.

[PROCON]

Aluminum tin foil hats are at an all time high on the big board??

[rineaux]

“Amazing! I have to admit being floored by the $4.2 million dollars you
raised yesterday for this campaign. And unlike the fatcat operations
of the opposition, the average contribution from our 36,672 donors was
$103.”

Snip from a letter from RP to his donors. Notice the 103.00 average. Far from the amount of donations Clintons get from ordinary dishwashers and busboys in china town.

[rineaux]

Thanks for the ping. Read it when you posted it.

[George W. Bush]

I have to wonder if some rich Democrats are donating money to him to prop him up in hopes of damaging the eventual Republican nominee. This is the type of thing Soros and friends would do. I have no evidence of this, just a feeling.

Soros spent his money in 2004 via his non-profits, mostly headed by MoveOns and other old hard Left operatives who funneled the money to Dim candidates. We've had no real word this year (that I've seen) on whether Soros is continuing this operation. We have not yet found any of these organizations or their staffs on the donor list but feel free to investigate, by all means. Also remember that Theresa Kerrey was using the Heinz fortune to funnel money this same way. And we know about the Xlintons and Hsu and Gore and his monks. However, there are no indications of this in the Paul campaign.

Prior to Guy Fawkes, the campaign did an analysis because some folks were worried that too many were maxxed out at $2300 already. The campaign reported that fewer than 3% of the donors had reached or neared that donation level.

The moneybomb two days ago was from ~38,000 people, most pledged to donate $100 or more. 18,000 of them signed up to pledge to donate but, given how conservative many RP supporters are, far more refused to sign up for the pledge because they did not wish to register and give out their email addresses.

The average donation by those 38,000 was $103, as I recall.

No, there is no evidence of Soros or other sly contributors. And you can routinely read the Code Pinko and MoveOn leaders warning their members not to support Ron Paul, not to donate, not even to vote for him in online polls. You should realize that the MoveOns and Code Pinkos would actually cause considerable problems for themselves as an ongoing organization if they were caught donating to Ron Paul. It wouldn't hurt him at all. But it would hurt them within the Dim party structure. Their job is control and focus or Judas-goat their followers to supporting Democrats. Never a Republican. Especially not a constitutional Republican.

The accusation simply holds no water. There is no evidence, the numbers don't indicate it, the list of maxxed-out donors doesn't indicate it, the actions and statements you see at DailyKos or HufPost don't indicate it...well, I can't prove a negative. But at some point, you should look at the FEC reports for yourself and try to identify these Soros minions. Surely, we must have some threads that identify them and their organization from 2004. I would be interested to see it myself if you can find them.

[willgolfforfood]

Ron is one of the very last guys I'd vote for in the primaries. You could put McCain and JulieAnny in that category, as well.

I think there is a very large group of "Leave Me Alone" people in this country, enamored with his message. People tired of tax codes that take up shelves of space, and they know they can't take the time or spend the money to make this work for them. So they understand that it has to work against them, instead.

People tired of unelected public bureaucrats determining if they can clear brush on their ranch, or tired of the same government regulators mandating that toilets can only flush 1.6 gallons. People tired of anti-smoking NAZI's. [I don't smoke] People as old as me who remember Reagan talking about FREEDOM and LIBERTY, like he really believed in the concepts, not like he was just giving lip service to them at the 17th campaign stop of the day.

We don't have NEARLY enough Republicans - not in the House, not in the Senate, and not running to be the next President - who present this message: I'm going to Washington to make every bureaucrat there leave you the Hell ALONE!

And we really need to asking ourselves why that is. These should be natural Republicans, people.

[billbears]

Well since you have this 'feeling' could you tell me when George Soros is going to send me a check for my donation?

This is hilarious. The support is coming from the old Republican party, the party that helped elect Reagan. It's coming from them and their children. But the 'elite' in the party know so much better don't they? Let them continue to discount Dr. Paul's support. Going to be quite lonely sitting in RNC headquarters Election Night watching President elect Hillary's acceptance speech because you wouldn't listen though...

[George W. Bush]

Aluminum tin foil hats are at an all time high on the big board??

Shoo, newbie retread pest.

Tin foil isn't up. But the American dollar is now worth less than the Canadian and gold is at $800 p/oz. Major investors are converting their holdings to sound currencies.

And the Dow just dropped. Last night, I heard financial analysts on TV use the word "recession" along with "depression" for the first time in decades. At least they didn't use the phrase "bank run". And the Chinese announced they are divesting from their positions in holding $3.5 trillion in U.S. debt.

The free-trade and globalist chickens are coming home to roost. Dr. Paul and many fiscal conservatives tried to warn all of you for many years. Maybe you should start to think about what the glorious Fed has done to your 401K and your stocks in order to bailout the subprime crisis created by irresponsible banking and massive debt load. BTW, our debt just passed $9 trillion. And Democrats are holding Congress and planning major tax increases and entitlement expansion.

We have failed as a party. We must return to our conservative roots. It could not be more clear, particularly after the '06 election debacle. This country has no use for two liberal parties and the Dims have a franchise as the party of liberalism. The public will accept no cheap Republican subsitute.

Conservative principle is all we have. It is all we have had for the last forty years. What a shame (and a sham) that our party will only turn to it when disaster looms.

I think the GOP had better start to get a lot more serious about the economy, fiscal conservatism, and repudiate all their porkbarrelling and vain grandiose plans to remake the world in Wilsonian grandeur while gobbling up Canada and Mexico on some dark night and flinging open our borders completely to Third Worlders and terrorists so they can come here to sign up for welfare.

[svcw]

I have met may people excited about RP, in all honesty I believe they have never actually heard anything he has ever said, they only hear what other people who have never heard him say he says.

[alicewonders]

I agree with a lot of the points you’ve made.

Smaller government is the foundational cornerstone of conservatism.

The Republicans have become virtually unrecognizable as a conservative party.

The American people in BOTH parties are sick and tired of the government we have now.

[traviskicks]

"On Monday, an independent effort by Paul backers raised a stunning $4.2 million for his campaign, nearly all of it online. At the rate Paul is going, he will have a fourth-quarter funding total that rivals or even surpasses the top-tier GOP candidates."

Good video of Paul on this surge (tucker carlson) here.



Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.

[George W. Bush]

The Republicans have become virtually unrecognizable as a conservative party.

The prevailing belief is that we can survive as nothing more than national security Republicans and the alternative to Hitlery.

Well, it didn't work in '06 when we relied on Fear Of Nancy, did it?

Rush says, "Run as conservatives. It works every time it's tried." And Rush is right.

The only question is how many defeats must we suffer before we again turn back to our real strength as a conservative party. The GOP is worthless unless it is a party of conservative principle and governance. That is all we can offer, that is the only thing the public wants or will accept from us. Everything else is a distraction.

We must return to the ideals of Reagan and Gingrich. And Ron Paul.

[Eric Blair 2084]

Fair warning right now:

If in 4 months the GOP voters nominate Giuliani and he picks the smoker banning Huckabee as his VP nominee thinking that a southern Baptist minister can take some of the stink off of him

AND

the Hildabeast wins the Dim nomination as expected

AND

Ron Paul runs as a third party candidate...

Well, if it’s a choice between a Baby Kiler/Nanny Stater GOP ticket and Karl Marx with breasts....

I will donate money to Paul and shamelessly shill for Pauls campaign.

[Turbopilot]

Thanks for posting that video; I'd never have seen it otherwise.

What strikes me about every media appearance Dr. Paul makes is that it is never about him. It's about the message of smaller government. He never tries to take credit for his personal accomplishments or claim that he, personally, is the only choice to lead our government. He's just the person who happens to be delivering that message now - and, foreign policy disagreements aside, it is the right message. I can't name another candidate for any office who considers himself less important than the ideas he wants to implement.

[Eric Blair 2084]

Some Paul supporters object to the label "libertarian," arguing that his opposition to abortion rights does not fit some libertarians' view on the issue.

That line is total bullshit. A REAL libertarian understands that government exists to protect life and liberty. If Gubmint allows people to "legally" stick sharp objects into the skull of a crying infant they have failed miserably in their job.

That IS their job. To protect their citizens life. Not to perform social engineering or redistribute wealth.

[rineaux]

Well put Turpopilot, I agree with you 100%.

No matter what happens to RP, it’s his message that is catching on to everyday americans. Since V was mentioned, as he said in the movie, “ideas are bullet proof”. The ideas of our founding fathers are bullet proof. RP is just reminding us of them and introducing them to our younger generations who no longer are tought them in school.