Ron Paul lost the 2010 SRLC straw poll because of me. I didn't go to cast the deciding vote. I should have bought a plane ticket and sacrificed a weekend in my beloved New York City to be there for my own freedoms, and to be there for Ron Paul, a man who has dedicated his life to restoring liberty for all of us.
Now that I've acknowledged my own fault in this loss, allow me to examine a few other thoughts of mine on the campaign to unite freedom lovers come the 2012 presidential election.
Subject: Gary Johnson
Gary Johnson might be one of the best modern day governors I know of. What little I know about him seems to be favorable and we should definitly keep tabs on him for the future. I hope he continues to be a voice for freedom moving forward. The problem is, Gary if you are reading this, 18 people, likely of which were Campaign For Liberty members, voted for you thus leaving all the headlines to Mitt Romney. Ron Paul has been plowing the fields of liberty with his blood and sweat for 40 years, and Gary Johnson basically just showed up in comparison. I love Gary Johnson and when it's his time I'll vote for him and send him money, but today he took 18 votes away from Ron Paul.
I don't know what a win here would have meant politically. One can only speculate. But no money bomb buys the publicity that comes with a conference win of this magnitude.
If we can spin this positively, I wouldn't say that it's "we competed" with the buses of paid Romney voters and beat the likes of Palin, but that you can't take any of these things for granted. Let's wake up and not relax. Victory will take relentless organized political action by members of YAL and C4L. We need to make it clear we support Ron Paul not because he shares our religion or personal lifestyle; we support him because of the philosophy and issues he speaks to along with the decades of votes to back it up. This is a war for the soul of America, and for now, Governor Johnson, our starting quarterback is Ron Paul.
Note: YAL does not support or oppose any candidates for office.
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He didn't "take" any votes away from RP. Those people can cast their votes for whomever they choose. This line of arguement reminds me of the people who complain the 3rd party candidates "steal" votes from the major parties, as if the D's and R's own everyone's vote.
I understand the sentiment, given the one vote loss, but I think that as a movement we have a problem of putting all our eggs in one basket. We need more liberty candidates, not less.
Wait, I lost something?
Campaign for Liberty bought 600 tickets and only 438 people voted for Ron Paul. So before you turn an eye towards Johnson, you should blame our own people, who failed to vtoe after recieving deeply discounted or free tickets. It's so easy to blame others, but attacking allies like Johnson is silly.
To be fair, at CPAC, at least, I know a number of people got discounted C4L tickets without actually being C4L members or supporting RP. People will take advantage of a good deal wherever they find one.
I'm not attacking Gary Johnson, I love the guy, but until Ron Paul hangs it up it's not wise to split our base. If you want to lose have both of them run. Bottom line you can only vote 1 time in the primary, you can't vote for both. Matt I don't know if you were at CPAC but Gary, who was invited by C4L was pandering to all the college kids from YAL, I like him but I just see this as a problem moving forward and technically it has already made an impact.