How Ron Paul Can Win: Part Two

By James Buchanan – EURO

First of all, don’t blame Ron Paul’s ten percent finish in Iowa solely on the evangelicals. The reason Huckabee and Romney did so well in Iowa was that they LIED about their position on immigration. The Iowa voters heard several candidates all claiming that they wanted to “secure the borders.” No one challenged Huckabee’s brand new and highly dubious position on immigration or pointed out that his entire previous political history has been in support of Open Borders and Amnesty. With all of the candidates apparently saying the same thing about immigration (that they wanted to “secure the borders”), the people of Iowa then turned to a fellow evangelical, Mike Huckabee.

Last September, I wrote an article suggesting that Ron Paul follow a simple strategy of focusing on the two biggest issues of 2008, ending the Iraq War and Enforcing Immigration Law. I suggested making short, direct commercials that focused on those two key issues and running them nationally.

Instead, the Ron Paul Campaign spent three months running ads in four small primary states. Ron Paul supporters after seeing these ads on youtube, widely condemned the ads as terrible. The Ron Paul campaign -finally- in its last week in Iowa started running an ad that clearly spelt out Ron Paul’s position on illegal immigration –something I suggested doing three months earlier. Unfortunately, clearly stating your position on immigration is only half the battle. You have to expose the other top tier candidates as phonies, who are claiming to be tough on illegals after a career of being for Open Borders.

I suggested running national ads to “sow the seeds” of a Ron Paul Revolution all over America as soon as possible. I mentioned that these ads would pay for themselves with donations from new members recruited by the ads.

The Ron Paul campaign pooh, poohed the idea of doing national ads as “too expensive” (completely ignoring the possibility that donations from new people might pay for the ads). I wrote another article on October 17th, noting that 75 commercials could be run on 25 nationally-syndicated shows for about one million dollars. Once again my words fell on deaf ears, and the Ron Paul did absolutely no national ads when they would have done the most good.

The Boston Tea Party fund-raiser brought in two million more dollars than the Guy Fawkes Day fund-raiser just six weeks earlier, thanks largely to donations from NEW MEMBERS, who had joined over that six week period. Imagine how many more supporters and how much more money could have resulted from national advertising if the Ron Paul campaign had dared to advertise nationally earlier. Someone on the Ron Paul staff seriously deserves to be fired over this mistake.

In October, I suggested that we spell out the fact that Ron Paul OWNS the immigration issue. Ron Paul needs to point out the fact that all the other top tier candidates are recent “flip-floppers” on the immigration issue. Every single one of them can’t be trusted. They are totally insincere when they say they are going to “secure the borders” and we need to remind the American public of this. I suggested doing a commercial, where actual quotes are flashed up about immigration by Romney, Giuliani, Thompson, McCain and Huckabee, showing that each one of them has supported Open Borders right up until very recently. I don’t care if people call this “negative campaigning.” If we are running quotes from the opposing candidates, how can quoting them be considered “negative”? This would be a clever way of exposing their untrustworthiness on this critically important issue.

It’s much more important to protect your political turf on the immigration issue than to obsess over appearing “nice.” We should not let some phony like Huckabee sneak in at the last minute to horn in on the popularity of enforcing immigration law, especially when it’s clear he’s lying.

Ron Paul also needs to assert himself on the Iraq War. Paul is the only viable candidate who can be trusted to end the Iraq War. Hillary is LYING when she suggests that she’ll bring our troops home —ever. All of the Democrat candidates were asked whether they would commit to bringing our troops home by 2013, and all three of the top Democrats, Hillary, Obama and Edwards said “No.” We can’t repeat this fact often enough. Ron Paul needs to spell this out in national ads so that he clearly OWNS the anti-war issue. Ron Paul needs anti-war Democrats and Independents to switch parties to vote for him, and he needs to keep an eye on Hillary and Obama to make sure that their failure to support a withdrawal stays in the political spotlight.

Ron Paul’s ten percent vote total in Iowa is a very marginal start. Ron Paul could have done much better if he didn’t let Romney and Huckabee get away with their two-faced claims that they will “secure the border.” It seems as though there was virtually no cross-over vote in Iowa for Ron Paul from Democrats and Independents, which suggests that there has been a failure to convince Americans that Paul is the ONLY trustworthy anti-war candidate.

Instead of Paul benefiting from the anti-war vote, Barack Obama cleaned up in Iowa by pretending to be anti-war, getting 38 percent of the Democrat vote. Obama is the only top tier Democrat who voted against the Iraq War, which worked to his advantage. Unfortunately no one told the voters in Iowa that Obama refused to promise to bring our troops home by 2013. This would have put a huge element of doubt in the minds of Iowa voters. Maybe enough doubt to create a lot of cross-over voters for Ron Paul.

It seems as though people on the Ron Paul campaign staff see the Republican debates as valuable national advertising. No they aren’t. The Republican debates are nearly worthless. Very few people watch those debates and most of the people who do turn off the debates as soon as they hear Giuliani or Romney drone on about how tough they are on terrorists. Even if Ron Paul hits a home run, only a tiny percentage of Americans will see it. Don’t think your message has gotten out on that incredibly ineffective forum.

I don’t want to be writing articles for Ron Paul saying “I told you so.” I’d rather have Ron Paul listen to my advice, which is echoed by many patriots, and watch him win.

So what should Ron Paul do now? Exactly what he should have been doing much earlier.

1).Focus on the two biggest issues: Enforcing immigration law and ending the Iraq War. And defend those issues as your own turf. Don’t let Huckabee or Romney claim he’ll “secure the borders.” Run ads that mention their Open Borders past. Don’t let Obama or Hillary steal the anti-war issue. Remind people with ads that Obama and Hillary would not promise to bring the troops home by 2013.

2).Run national ads RIGHT NOW that focus on enforcing immigration and ending the Iraq War, and fire your campaign director if he doesn’t approve.

3).Make it clear in those ads, that Ron Paul is the only viable candidate who can be trusted on immigration and ending the Iraq War. Scroll quotes from Huckabee, Romney, and other top tier candidates showing that they really support Open Borders. Also, don’t let Hillary or Obama steal the anti-war issue. Point out that they would NOT commit to bringing our troops home by 2013.

4).Expose Huckabee.

4a).Run a commercial about Wayne DuMond and the two women he raped and killed after Huckabee pressured the parole board to release him. Quote the parole board members from Arkansas, who say Huckabee is lying when he claims he didn’t pressure them. Quote the rape victim, who confronted Huckabee and warned him that DuMond would rape another victim.

4b).Run a commercial about how Mike Huckabee covered up and obstructed justice in an animal cruelty case in which his son hung a stray dog. Find the official, whom Huckabee fired over that incident and let him tell his story.

It’s getting too late for more mistakes and I don’t want to be writing another article in February saying “I told you so” again, when it will really be too late to change.

We’re running out of time. If you agree with this article, feel free to e-mail it to the Ron Paul campaign:

mail@ronpaul2008.com  

 
Read more James Buchanan at WhiteCivilRights.com