Boyd Coddington Passes On to that big Cruise in the sky

I just got word that Boyd Coddington passed away Yesterday. Bummer. Here's the You Tube of my uncle Lyle Fisk appearing on Boyd's 'American Hot Rodder'.

See the World

Exotic places and beautiful faces
that's what they said I'd see
Three squares and a roof over my head
now that's a cube at least
they were right about something

When I killed my first man I was barely seventeen
I closed his beady eyes as he read a magazine
He didn't seem real threatening but the Captain he was shouting
and then slapped me on the back while laughing

he said, "Clean yourself up son you look white as a ghost."

I replied

Can you get me out of here
I can't close my eyes lest I see that face
I've got to get myself away from here

maybe, just maybe, dyin' ain't so bad

Now its better him than me
because I am a wiser man
That teenage boy went in to hiding
to keep the man from crying
The man crushes bones
and the boy sends letters home
But I wonder what will happen if I ever make it back

I hear

"Hey boy get your rifle we rolling out again"

Can you get me out here, ma the boys are taking care of me
I've got to get myself away from here,
tell Jimmy not to come there ain't nothin' left to do

Now I see the world
for what it is and what it was
while I was fightin for your freedom
you was starin' at the teevee

I'll let you in on a secret
I didn't set you free
and if I did you'd never know
'cause the flag got in your eyes

I fear

living dead people unliving dead lives

Can you get me out of here
where's the freedom that you offered
Don't you want to get out of here
thirty pieces won't buy a cup of coffee

War and death and taxes ain't no way to see the world

Human Flying Squirrels

Some people are nuts

McCain: Like Hope, But Different

Open Letter to Ron Paul Supporters

Hold fast folks. We have to stay in this till it hurts and then we win.

9/11 Changed Everything?

Mark Silva of the Baltimore Sun apparently didn't get the memo about the media blackout of Dr. Paul. Thank you Mr. Silva for making note of a tremendous and powerful speech. Silva thought that Dr. Paul's claim that 9/11 had nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq may have been a bit off-putting to some of the CPAC attendees. I wasn't there but didn't get that impression from the video. However, Iraq, and this is in George Bush's own words, had nothing to do with 9/11.

9/11 is only relevant to Iraq in that it is being used as an excuse to abandon completely the core principles of the Republican party and the constitution itself. Those who want us to remain in Iraq to preserve "honor" use 9/11 as the reason that everything has now "changed". Well nothing has changed. For thousands of years, leaders have used catastrophe to justify tyranny. This 9/11 fear-mongering is unbecoming to men of substance and principle. Unfortunately, there are very few of those sorts of men left. We've become a nation of women and children (my apologies to women and children), hiding behind the skirts of mommy government and for what reason? Threats from nations that would have to mount machine guns on migrating geese to have a formidable air force?

How far we've come when we could once stare down an empire possessing 45,000 nukes that actually existed as opposed to today where our own foreign policy experts expect us to pee ourselves over nations which may, 10 years in the future, possess a crude prototype. Republicans who call Ron Paul "kooky" or "insane" should be ashamed of themselves for acting like school girls and throwing 9/11 around as if it justifies any of the tyranny that they promote. While many use 9/11 as a justification for everything and unfailingly mention those who died as deserving of honor, they will in the next breath completely dishonor those same victims by using them as political bludgeons against anyone who disagrees with their plans to enslave us.

Ponder that a moment. Who is being provided security when we give up our privacy and other freedoms? Certainly not the common citizen. When Benjamin Franklin uttered the oft-repeated words about giving up safety for security, he was making a very belligerent comment. He was illustrating his utter and complete contempt for the dishonesty and cynicism displayed by those who would attempt to scare people into giving up their freedoms.

"He that would give up essential liberty to obtain a little bit of temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security."

If somebody tells you that they can protect you but only if you will concede a little freedom, they are lying. You should never trust a word that they tell you from that point forward. What they are saying is freedom to act in your own self-interest might impair their ability to protect you. By making such a claim they have conceded that they are not only incapable of protecting you, but also have no intention of doing so.

Dees Strikes Again

Another great illustration from David Dees.

No More Money Bombs

Stop the money bombs. I am glad for tomorrow's event. But from here on out we can't afford to wait anymore. We have to raise the bar higher and make it more consistent. This is a long-term project and we need to keep raising money every day. Open the flood gates and don't let up until this thing is over.

The success of the Iraq war.

Here's some information from somebody who knows. Somebody who's been there. The testimony here is prefaced by a bit of Ron Paul from the debate in SC.

Another News Story That Never Was: Ron Paul Second in Wyoming

Ron Paul came second in Wyoming according to CNN. Now, this should be a huge news story. But of course, it isn't.

My Country or my Vintage Fender Stratocaster

Pretty easy choice actually. Though I really love this guitar. If you happen to be somebody from overseas who wants to support Ron Paul then buy my 1963 Pre-CBS l-Series Fender Stratocaster. Viola! A great way to legally make sure my wife and I can reach the 2300 dollar max on donations to the campaign! Of course domestic purchasers are welcome as well :)

How to Get Ron Paul the Nomination

Because I am always interested in the mechanisms of politics as well as philosophical matters, this sort of thing is very interesting to me. There is only one part of this that may run afoul of the official campaign strategy and that is the decision not to waste time with the typical republican. This may not be an option in some states where the primary is not open. In fact, if the deadline has already passed for voter registration and the primary isn't open, talking to non-republicans is a complete waste of time. It bodes well for the general election though should we persevere.

What we did in Jefferson County

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please circulate

RON PAUL WINS JEFFERSON COUNTY !

GREAT NEWS FOR THE REST OF THE COUNTRY!
We had a great night here in Jefferson County, Iowa. Ron Paul won with over 35% of the vote out of 838 votes cast, Huckabee was second with 31%! The conversations at our victory party last night were about how wonder ful it would be if Jefferson County could secede and become our own country with Ron Paul as our President! We want everyone to know why we won and what you can do to improve on our results. We think we have some extremely important and positive information to share with all of our friends around the country, and the world, who believe in Freedom.

You should know where I am coming from so you can better appreciate the perspective that is being shared in this message. I did not grow up in Iowa, I grew up in the Chicago area and have lived in several different states including California for eight years. I have worked in virtually every major city in the country in my various business activities and as a professional speaker. I moved here with my family in 1982 and ran for Governor here as the Libertarian candidate in 2002. I have a pretty good perspective on this state and how unique it is.

The first thing you need to know is that Jefferson County has different demographics than any other county in Iowa. A significant portion of our population, like me, did not grow up in Iowa. Jefferson county is demographically more like the rest of the country than any other county in Iowa. We have a University here that has attracted families from California, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and literally all over the country. In my opinion this creates a diversity of opinion and backgrounds here that resembles the rest of the country more closely than other Iowa counties.

In general Iowans expect their elected representatives and the media to tell them the truth, there does not seem to be as much skepticism about what they hear in the media as in other states. There is no tradition of success for third party candidates in this state. Those of us in the Paul campaign tried to get, what seemed to us, basic constitutional reforms like eliminating the Department of Education, in the party platform last night. The general response was that we were being too radical. In summary, Iowa is a great state with wonderful people and a great place to live, but it is not likely to be a state that is going to lead the nation in embracing change. At this point the Ron Paul message is to extreme for the average Iowan.

If you look at the difference in the straw polls nationwide, versus the straw poll in Iowa, and you look at our caucus results here in Jefferson County, versus the caucus statewide results you get the picture. The picture looks pretty darn good.


Straw polls: Nation wide

Ron Paul has finished in the top 3 in 84% of the straw polls (41 out of 49)
Ron Paul has finished in the top 2 in 69% of the straw polls (34 out of 49)
Ron Paul has finished 1st in 55% of the straw polls (27 out of 49)

Straw poll in Ames, Iowa

Ron Paul finished in 5th in Iowa with 9.1% of the vote.


In the January third caucus Jefferson county's results were:

Paul----298---35%
Romney---132---16%
Thompson---80---10%
McCain--38----5%
Giuliani----25---3%
Hunter---3----0%
Huckabee---263---31%

State wide the results were:

Huckabee 39,814 34%
Romney 29,405 25%
Thompson 15,521 13%
McCain 15,242 13%
Paul 11,596 10%
Giuliani 4,013 4%
Hunter 515 1%


1. Jefferson county has more people from other states per capita than other Iowa counties and Ron Paul was a clear winner here, that bodes well for other states.

2. The Straw poll results in Iowa for Ron Paul were close to the caucus results in Iowa, 9% to 10%, if that trend holds for the other states that is incredible news for the Ron Paul campaign because Iowa had just about the worst straw poll results of any of the straw polls held anywhere in the country.

3. The fact that we did well in Jefferson County and we have a higher per capita ratio of out of staters is a strong indication that Iowa is unique and that the straw poll results will be a good indicator of how election results will turn out in other states.

We worked hard in this state and we did improve a bit on the straw poll results. However, if we just do as well in the other primaries as we did in the other straw polls Ron Paul will easily win the nomination.

One other point, our experience with young people here in Jefferson County leads us to believe that Ron Paul would have done much better state wide if the election had not been held during the holiday break. That probably cost us enough votes in the large college towns to keep us from owning a solid third place finish state-wide.

The other reason we did well in Jefferson County, in our opinion, is that we did not waste much time on regular Republican voters. We focused on anti-war independents, anti-war Democrats, and especially on young people. We highly recommend this strategy. We also did a lot of work here and I am including a complete list below of what we did. This list was compiled today by Roger Leahy, one of our key organizers.

I have to mention a couple of other items as well. We had a phenomenal campaign chair here that worked 18 hours a day seven days a week. His name is Brian Horsfield, he is a British citizen and can't even vote in America!

One great thing we did that we recommend to all the campaigns. We held a speech competition a week before the caucus and we had nine contestants participate. We went out of our way to recruit young people to participate. The two winners were Samara Burnes who is 21 years old, and Monty Congden a 28 year old military veteran. Both of them attended the local public high school. They absolutely blew people away at the caucus, both of them had many people approach them to let them know that their speeches tipped them over to Ron Paul. The speech competition also served to completely energize all the supporters who attended. We blew it by not getting their speeches taped for youtube. We have asked them if they will let us video their speeches so hopefully we will have them up for you soon.

One last item, my comments about the people in Iowa are not meant to be critical, it is just a unique culture here. I am confident that once the people of Iowa have the opportunity to get the full picture of who Ron Paul is and what he stands for they will come around and be very supportive. They did not really have that opportunity. The state's main newspaper, the Des Moines Register, makes Fox look fair and well balanced. They did not even list Ron Paul as one of the Republican candidates in their daily campaign reports! I guess there just wasn't enough room on all those pages.

Good luck to all Paulites
Clyde Cleveland

From Roger Leahy:
We have received compliments from the RP campaign staff, and inquiries from Ron Paul supporters in other states wanting to duplicate our success.
This has prompted me to recall those various ingredients. They have included:

An early rally in person by Dr Paul in August where 500 persons heard his message at the town square.

Enthusiastic travel and participation in the Straw Poll in Ames by local RP supporters.

Building a list, mostly locally with help from the campaign, of about 150 local RP supporters.

Having a fantastic Meetup organizer in Brian, who has inspired us on a daily basis with national RP news and setting up local RP events.

Staffing a booth on Saturday mornings at the Farmer's Market from August through December where we were available to discuss Ron Paul.

Staffing booths at the monthly Art Walk to promote Ron Paul.

Lots of local signs for Ron Paul, including 4' by 8' signs on the main roads and far more yard signs than any other candidate.

We set up a small local office on the town square, with internet and phone, where literature, buttons, signs and bumper stickers were available 24/7.

All these materials were provided free to the public and were sponsored by local donations.

We dropped Ron Paul literature on Sundays at church parking lots, and distributed RP literature on door knobs around town.

Weekly and Ads and occasional inserts were placed in the local (daily and weekly) newspapers for the past couple of months.

A focus on local areas of concern, particularly health freedom, restoring civil liberties, opposition to the Patriot Act,

restoring the Constitutional limited Federal government, a humble, non-interventionalist foreign policy, etc.

We met weekly over lunch for organizational meetings that were open to the public.

We help Public Ron Paul meetings in the public library about monthly, showing videos and giving talks.

Held a speech competition to choose and selected two great young speakers to talk for Ron Paul at the caucus.

We outfitted 2 pick-ups with 4 by 8 Ron Paul signs and parked them prominently on the main highways or on the town square.

We bought some RP magnetic signs and put them on our car doors.

We emailed and called our lists of friends and business associates to explain the importance of supporting Ron Paul.

We directed our efforts mostly to our friends, who were largely Democrats, Independents, or non-political folks.

We tried to win over Obama and Edwards supporters, in fact some of our Ads contrasted Ron Paul with them.

We made a strong effort to get people to register Republican just for voting for Ron Paul, even if they switched back the next day.

We communicated often via emails (sometimes dozens per day) sharing ideas and inspiration (allowing folks to opt out if they wished).

Although we had a Meetup Group (totally open and un-monitored), only about 1/3 actually joined it. The rest we just emailed directly.

We emailed and talked with each other continuously and inspired each other continually with Ron Paul news and links.


What we did not do:

We had very little contact with traditional Republicans or the conservative Christian community.

We did not make phone calls to Republican or any registered voter lists. (we tried it, but found it disappointing.)

We did not focus on Ron Paul's positions on abortion or immigration (unless asked about them).


When I wrote the above list, I was pretty impressed with our local activities.

We have such a core group of Ron Paul patriots, and we are not going to settle for less than a transformation of our country.

We wish tremendous success to the Ron Paul Revolution in New Hampshire and up to the Convention.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to inaugurate President Ron Paul?

GO RON PAUL!!

Roger

Keeping it simple

This is the best video on monetary policy made so far for the Ron Paul movement. It needs to be aired on TV. No, I'm not kidding about that last part. A sense of humor is key. The Revolution should be fun.

McPocrisy

So, John McCain, the guy who co-authored the McCain/Feingold campaign finance law, can participate in a debate on Fox News even though Fox has excluded the one man in the race who has outraised the invitees. And Dr. Paul has done this by not only sticking to the letter but the spirit of the law McCain wrote. McCain participates with nary an utterance that it the exclusion is wrong. A Pox on the man's (using the word lightly) house. Or should I say a Fox on his house?

Who We Are.

My open letter to the old media will be up at Lew's in the morning.

I Shoudln't Make Predictions

Iowa is a disappointment but there is data to be analyzed. In some counties, Dr. Paul came in second with over 25% of the votes. The quality engineering side of me wants to know the mechanics of the campaign efforts. The goal is to find some pattern that can be reproduced in the next states. Why was Dr. Paul able to do so well in some counties and is there a correlation that can be made? If so, then you might just find a winning formula

Great new Video

Laura posted this over at Red State Eclectic. I don't know where she finds them....

Why Ron Paul will win.

Because his supporters Rock. They are taking over the GOP. After all, it's their party, not Bill Kristol's or George Bush's party. When Ron Paul wipes the floor with the rest of his opponents because his supporters filled all of the precinct chair slots and at large delegates in every state, the first thing they should do at the national convention is to rescind the membership in the party of George Bush and Dick Cheney. That would certainly send a great message....

Oh...why am I saying this...

"In some counties, people are looking at Ron Paul supporters and they are not sure who we are and what we are all about," said Paul's state coordinator, David Hart. "Some people are concerned there is going to be a change in the power base, and they should be."

That's why.

Why we Homeschol

Oh...and why we support Ron Paul...

Political Science

Over at Laura's we've been discussing the dustup over Ron Paul's "acceptance" of the theory of evolution. It inspired me to fire off a piece about how science really doesn't belong in politics. Politics is a clumsy, brutal affair because it is essentially blunt force.