Top Ten Reasons Ron Paul Lost Iowa

This is cribbed directly from DailyPaul.com. Digg won’t allow me to submit that site, saying ” This domain has been consistently flagged as an intermediary to the direct source of news and/or video content. Please linke directly to the story source. ” Which is fine, but this doesn’t appear to be an intermediary, it’s a direct post. Digg, get your act together, fix this. By trying to avoid intermediaries, you are forcing ME to be an intermediary because you won’t allow me to link to the direct source. That is a problem.

Moving on.

Top Ten Reasons we Lost Iowa — Not for Faint of Heart

Posted January 5th, 2008 by Kyle in Flint MI

Only when you study your failures, can you improve. Here are my Top Ten reasons why we lost in Iowa — not for the faint hearted.

1. NHQ did not see importance of Iowa: A month ago; polls showed us in a three way tie in Iowa. Someone should have had the insight to say, “Hey if we finish third in Iowa, that will propel us into major media coverage, major donations, and give us a major boost into NH.” Actions do not show that was the case. Real Leadership sees an openning. Because they did not see the vision; a half hearted effort was made.

2. Ron was not there for the last days: Where was Ron. Well for New Years — according to a sad AP story that went nationwide; while many of the candidates were having New Years in Iowa; Ron was “reading policy papers” back in Texas. Did Iowa think Ron cared that much? Of course he did and does, but NHQ should have had him campaigning there then.

Fred, Mike and John had buses going around the state — Ron did what; one or two events? Again; NHQ — for a presidential primary has to do multiple events. They are responsible for the schedule of the candidate.

3. Ron did not campaign there: Hillary touched down in each county; she had a hellicopter; Fred, John, Mike had buses and campaigned straight for days; Fred for almost two weeks; all around the state. I have seen press reports that Ron did not do this, and only actually visited a small percentage of the state’s counties. He spent most of his time in eastern Iowa — where he pulled in his best numbers. NHQ should have had him in a bus, and covering each county.

4. The Ads: I actually have not seen them. All I know is that from the constant and high volume of Daily Paul comments – they were ineffective and really bad. I have read here where the folks that did the Jesse Ventura ads, and other outside the box campaigns, wrote NHQ and offered to help — oh, here we go again — no reply.

Can’t open the mail, keep track of it — will not return emails — will not return phone calls — hey; fix this.

I have lost count of the comment “our youtube videos are better”.

5. No State Director: Yes we had a “State Coordinator”, but the press and volunteers react differently to a request by a Director than a Coordinator. Just look at the press coverage % quoting the State Directors for the other campaigns, compared to ours.

6. No State Media Spokeman: Same thing; same results. I followed the Iowa newspapers; always quoting Iowa campaign staff from the other campaigns; very little from ours. From what I am told; NHQ wants to handle all the media. This is hurting us. When 70% of the people have not heard much about Ron Paul; you need other voices. The local Iowa papers wanted to speak with someone from Iowa; not Jesse in VA. Iowa media want to speak to a local Media Rep.

7. Failure to address real issues affecting everyday persons: The Message; The MESSAGE. Why did Obama win; the message.

Yes; the Constitution hangs by a thread; yes — we need to come home from Iraq; yes; fix the tax system — but how about the price of gasoline; high credit card interest rates; banks taking back cars and homes — everyday economic issues. Ron has to expand his message.

One blogger called him the “Pre-telegraph” candidate. If we want to move above 10% we have to expand the message to relate to the middle class, and their economic issues. NHQ has to expand the message if we are going to expand our base.

8. To negative — what are you going to do?: Another trait that is poping up too often is the “angry old man”; too negative. The way to overcome this is to offer suggestions. For example: “We need to improve our relationships with other countries; one positive change I will institute, will be to require each Ambassador to be fluent in the language of the country they are assigned.” Positives inspire.

9. Local offices; we had 2 and Obama had 27: From what I have read; we had 2 offices in Iowa; Obama had 27. He sent a message. And, he hired locals to manage his offices; and guess what — they showed up at the caucus and they brought their friends. How you spend your money is more important than how much you raise. Hopefully NHQ will learn from this one.

10. Not targeting base with effective mailings and reach-out: This killed us in Iowa. Did we have specific mailers to Home Schoolers, and Gun Owners, etc — I have not heard of them. The Huck — from Press reports, created at least 9 new ways to make it harder for Home Schoolers — yet — according to the media reports — it was the Home Schoolers that gave him big numbers; those should have been our votes. They don’t know if you do not tel them.

11. Preceived ego of National Campaign staff: I have read so many stories on Daily Paul where phone calls and emails and suggestions to Ken, Lew, Joe, Don and Holly at NHQ go unanswered. This is just poor office management and leadership skills. In politics and in the non-profit sector, Volunteers are your life-blood. You uplift them and they work harder; you ignore or insult them, and they do not work hard, or worse — they walk away.

No; Ken, Lew, Joe, Holly and Don cannot answer each phone call, each email, or letter — but they should have staff that do.

Others have said they (NHQ) are closed to suggestions. Name one suggestion from the grass roots that they have implemented. A NHQ cannot be their way or the highway. They have to be open to ideas.

They should have a Daily Column either on Daily Paul, or as a Press Release to inspire the base — the volunteers who are the grassroots. It should really be on the main campaign page.

Having led various computer based, or physical volunteer drives; if you want to motivate the base; do daily updates. Give them a shot of motivation each day if you expect them to volunteer each day.

Other things that are holding us back:

1. Not accepting Matching funds; Some say it is against a Libertarian principle to accept matching funds; my reply is that the principles of the Constitution — which hang by a thread — are more important.

NHQ needs to see this and do something; are we in this to win or to just make a statement?

2. Campaign website: Unless they really do not want volunteers visiting because of the costs of hits, then they should start using the website as a motivational tool — you do this by having real daily updates — a couple times a day. How this works is — you want your volunteers to have a new infusion of motivation a couple times a day. This propels them to share the message with their friends and relatives, and people they come into contact with; AM and PM updates.

3. Office Manager: We need a Office Manager that tracks incoming mail (like the NRA debate invitation that was lost — according to reports). Also tracks phone calls. If Ken or Lew or Joe does not want to respond to an email or phone call — or not even read the email — it should go to some staff person who can respond.

4. Media Spokesman/person: We need a real deal Media Spokesman/Person. I could not believe the Fox Forum Fiasco where NHQ issued several statements — one saying — “Fox is not returning our phone calls.” A real deal Media Spokeman has the home phone numbers and cell numbers for media folks at all of the networks – because he already has a long term relationship with them. A real deal media spokesman already has relationships with the press reporters and assignment editors; that is why he gets “stories and press coverage”; it is all about relationships.

5. At the bottom of the home page (or top) of ronpaul2008, there should be links to Daily Paul, and other volunteer motivational sites.

6. I hope Ron, Rand, Lew, Ken, Joe and Don, and Holly are all in Wyoming for the caucus tomorrow for one last push — then to NH for that last push.

End Notes: You only learn from your mistakes if you are humble enough to see your mistakes, and then take corrective actions to fix them. We appreciate the hard work of NHQ — Ken, Lew, Joe, Holly, Don, Jesse, etc; we ask them to look, and consider what improvements can be made. We should have had 3rd; we needed third. Let us pray that NHQ will do the right actions.

Please vent and share your feelings why we did not do better in Iowa. And importantly, improvements that the NHQ can make.

This is a pretty scathing indictment of Dr. Paul’s campaign, but from what I can tell it is accurate. This was probably the first major blunder in Dr. Paul’s campaign, and if he has any hope of moving forward, it will have to be the last. I hope that the campaign does not accept matching funds, though, Dr.Paul has worked hard to maintain the high ground, and it would be a huge mistake to sacrifice that high ground for money – the antithesis of Dr. Paul’s campaign ethics so far.

Good luck, Dr. Paul, I hope you learn from this mistake and can carry forward to win the nomination. You are the Republican’s only hope and the only Republican candidate worth voting for.

Again, I apologize for acting as an intermediary. I tried to submit the direct site and was not able to. Please visit the original post to read the comments there.