Postcards from the Bleeding Edge
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Armistice Day set aside a moment of peace to remember the fallen dead of World War One - the War to end all Wars.When I started writing this - 18 minutes past the midnight hour - 95 people had already donated to Ron Paul's campaign today.
In 1954, Armistice Day was changed to Veterans Day. Multiple wars had dashed hope for a lasting peace....
I think of all the people that died, and all the people that survived, all the wars that have ever happened, when I think of Armistice day. My head fills with Paul Simon's song about it. I struggle to remember what a Dsus3 chord is, and with how to get to sleep with a clear conscience.
Such hope was born for peace, in 11th day, in the 11th hour, in the 11th minute, of November 11th, 1918, only to be cruelly dashed again and again over the next near century. It's now been 53 years since Veteran's day replaced Armistice Day. Maybe our mindset can shift again to remember the dead of all wars, and to cherish those who survived them. I hope so.
It's 1:11 AM EST now. 189 people have donated to Ron Paul's campaign in this last hour.
Now, 190.
Goodnight.
Labels: election 2008, Ron Paul
¶ 9:24 PM 1 comments
Monday, November 05, 2007
One last note on Ron Paul's midnight ride
I got up long enough to check the news.Ron Paul Graphs has nearly collapsed from the overload, the last update I got was at 11:56 PM EST, and the total Ron Paul donations for the day stood at: $3,960,233.00. A slightly later graph shows the total raised in one day to be $4,004,0000.
Today's fundraising made the front page of google news, finally.
I read the lead article in the Pimes, and enjoyed many of the comments. I note that the article, as published, doesn't have the open comments link that it did in the original blog entry - so to hell with linking to the print version, the real deal is here.
Night.
Labels: election 2008, msm, Ron Paul
¶ 9:00 PM 1 comments
As of 10:11PM, the Ron Paul campaign has got 3.55 million in donations for the day. Odds are good they won't crack 4m by midnight, but I expect by morning that barrier, too, will have been exceeded.
I have blasted the MSM a lot in this blog lately, and I can imagine a few ways that the spin will go down tonight and tomorow, but I'm too tired to write more tonight. I confess to chuckling a little about what the talking heads will say without writers to back them up... Before I sign off, though, I just wanted to point to this google trends graph of interest in the top candidates from netizens. You'll note the wide disparity between demand (internet queries) and supply (news stories).
Earlier this week, I deleted the flash player from my machine because I couldn't stand filtering television anymore.
In the course of events today it was sadly easy to forget the imposition of martial law in Pakistan, the mass arrests of judges, and chaos there.
In the back of my mind today, I kept wondering, what would Ron Paul have done differently, there? He may well inherit that whirlwind one day.
Good night, and good luck.
I have blasted the MSM a lot in this blog lately, and I can imagine a few ways that the spin will go down tonight and tomorow, but I'm too tired to write more tonight. I confess to chuckling a little about what the talking heads will say without writers to back them up... Before I sign off, though, I just wanted to point to this google trends graph of interest in the top candidates from netizens. You'll note the wide disparity between demand (internet queries) and supply (news stories). Earlier this week, I deleted the flash player from my machine because I couldn't stand filtering television anymore.
In the course of events today it was sadly easy to forget the imposition of martial law in Pakistan, the mass arrests of judges, and chaos there.
In the back of my mind today, I kept wondering, what would Ron Paul have done differently, there? He may well inherit that whirlwind one day.
Good night, and good luck.
Labels: election 2008, hillary clinton, John Mccain, Mitt Romney, msm, Ron Paul, Rudy Giulliani
¶ 6:46 PM 0 comments
Ron Paul doubles his money in 20 hours
To ease up on the increasingly overloaded ron paul graphs server... the stats for the Ron Paul fundraising today are now:last updated: 11/05/07 08:16 PM EST
total raised today: $3,154,548
total at start of day: $3,115,107
A commenter on this blog has raised doubt about the validity of claiming that Romney's single day fundraising record was 3.1 million dollars, claiming it to be 6.5m.
I tried to explore the facts behind this early fundraiser of Romney's earlier today, but ran into a PR brick wall while googling for it, and no followup I could dig through. Definitely, from the tone of the news stories I read, I had good reason to discount the claims of 6.5m.
So, I find the Ron Paul campaign's claim of 3.1m dollars donated, and the remainder pledged, in that Romney fundraiser credible but not reliable. If anyone out there has a complete breakdown on the Jan 8th, 2007 fundraiser of Romney's, I'd love to see it and will correct my statements and blog accordingly.
But unless I hear otherwise on that, or my searches pay off... the Ron Paul campaign has obliterated Romney's record for dollars collected in a single day - with 3 1/2 hours left to go.
Labels: election 2008, Mitt Romney, msm, Ron Paul
¶ 5:18 PM 1 comments
3 million dollars by 7:31PM for Ron Paul
The Ron Paul Graphs website says it all:| last updated: | 11/05/07 07:31 PM EST |
| total raised today: | $3,009,32 |
I'm not going to extrapolate this. I mean, over 350k was just raised in an hour and a half, and half the USA is still driving home from work. Ron Paul Graphs has slowed to a crawl. Technorati has 45535 posts relating to Ron Paul. ABC news, and Usa Today are running stories....
And the night is still young.
It is certain Mitt Romney's single-day Republican fundraising record will fall, and the Ron Paul campaign will more than double the money they have in the bank.
A great shout of American outrage has emanated from the internet. Will it make a difference?
Labels: election 2008, Mitt Romney, msm, Ron Paul
¶ 4:26 PM 0 comments
Ron Paul might break Mitt Romney's single day fundraising record?
This morning I predicted that Ron Paul wouldn't crack 2.4m . I was impressed at 1.5m, saw the noon dip, and didn't think the donations could possibly be sustainable as over half of the people signed up on the thisnovember5th website had probably donated already, and the truly eager had done so at midnight.Well, as I write - at 6:00PM EST or so - Ron Paul's campaign has collected an astounding 2.66m dollars for the day - and the flood of donations has only slacked off to 10AM levels over the dinner hour. It is - remotely - possible - for Ron Paul's campaign to actually beat Mitt Romney's record - the best ever single day fundraising for a Republican - not with PAC or corporate money - but with the donations of actual, live, possibly normal people.
Yet, in the MSM, as I write, the big story (110 hits on google news) is that a comedian has decided to end his run for the White House.
The fundraising story is getting a little traction. Just now, the Toast published its Paul + Pro Wrestler
story, and the Pimes focused on Guy Fawkes.
(In the Advise and Consent series of novels, Allen Drury started referring to those two publications as Pimes and Toast. Can't help my sarcasm today)
I'll repeat myself...
Ron Paul might actually beat Mitt Romney's record today - not with PAC or corporate money - but with the donations of over 21,000 actual, live, motivated and possibly normal people.
Sure wish the Pimes and Toast would talk to some of them about this. All their names are published...
While I'm noting data points, I recall Ron Paul being at about 11,000 references on Technorati a few days ago. He's now at over 45,000.
Labels: election 2008, Mitt Romney, msm, Ron Paul
¶ 2:02 PM 4 comments
A brief note to Jackson Simpson
I got picked up today by Jackson Simpson over at the National Ledger. Since that publication doesn't allow open comments, I'll reprint what I scribbled into their teeny web comments form, here:- While I at first appreciated being picked up by your article, I would have appreciated you cutting that entire first paragraph.
I write that kind of stuff myself, just to get it out of my system, but usually delete it while I try to get to the facts.
For 6 long frustrating weeks, in a long string of blogs about election 2008, I have been campaigning for 1) civility in debate, 2) respect for truth-seeking and 3) honest journalism.
I'd like it if you tried the same for a while. It's hard, I know, I nearly gave up on it last week. Some of it is easy.
Kill off every adverb and adjective that colors your story. Report the facts. Link back to your sources. Prove what you say.
People that want to go deep on Ron Paul can – easily – with just a few mouse clicks – find much to admire and abhor on his web site.
Now, me, I am increasingly convinced that Ron Paul is tapping into something fundamental in American politics, something that Americans have not seen since Ross Perot. Unlike the Ross Perot story, this one is happening in the primaries, which arguably is the only national American election that matters anymore.
Moreover, my prediction of 2.4m for Ron Paul's receipts for the day was wrong. As I write, today's Ron Paul fundraising already cracked 2.4m and is looking likely to crack 2.8m, if not more.
7PM Update: I'm rather enjoying being wrong on my prediction. Ron Paul just passed 2.8m in donations. The National Ledger published a piece balancing Jackson Simpson's views.
Labels: election 2008, jackson simpson, national ledger, Ron Paul
¶ 1:41 PM 0 comments
Ron Paul on course for 2m+ today
With a half day total in excess of 1.5 million dollars - well beyond of what Ron Paul has done in his best week prior, donors per hour appears to have peaked. Odds are the total won't crack 2.4m unless the evening news picks up the story. Still, a very impressive showing.Update: At roughly 1:30PM Ron Paul cracked 2m for the day and donors per hour has not fallen off very much from its peak earlier in the morning. A 3m dollar day is looking possible, which would be truly historic.
Some are cheerleading on for the best single day fundraising total in history, but that appears unlikely. Example #1: John Kerry got 3m in one day, in June 2004 - admittedly much later in his campaign than Ron Paul is now. So I went looking for who got the most early money, ever, and it looks to be Mitt Romney.
A few days after Mitt Romney left office to campaign full time for the presidency, his campaign raised 6.5m in a single day, although it is very unclear if that was actual cash raised or merely pledges, and what proportion of the funds came from whom. (I am still digging for the facts here - can anyone figure out his actual donations from his own money and the hype?)
Update: According to an alert sent out a few minutes ago by the Ron Paul campaign, Romney took in 3.1m in cash donations on Jan 8th, 2008. I'm assuming we're both talking about the same fundraiser....
What's interesting to me is how much that fundraiser of Romney's must have cost. $300,000 was one estimate, but I think that's low. He used sales software ("ComMitt") specifically developed for the campaign. He rented out 30000+ sq feet of space, built "pods" and an enormous set of big screen displays, bussed in 400 supporters, supplied them with laptops, and then turned them loose on their Christmas card lists. All just a few days after leaving office.
I keep wondering what Paul could do if the campaign started using old fashioned flashy car salesman methods like that? It wouldn't feel right, though.
I'd be surprised if this whole November 5th thing cost the campaign more than 20k - Ron Paul and his supporters know how to stretch a dollar.
Labels: election 2008, fundraising, Mitt Romney, msm, Ron Paul
¶ 8:08 AM 4 comments
Preempting the MSM Ron Paul spin
While watching the 5th of November donations to Ron Paul's campaign crack 1 million before 10AM, I started cynically coming up with what the MSM headlines would be tomorrow - if they bother to pay attention. Over 400k was raised before 5AM so: "Nightowls for Paul". A linear projection of the total to be raised today comes in at roughly 2m dollars, and the goal for this one day fundraiser was 10m, so "Paul fundraiser falls far short of goal" would be plausible. Or "Known non-bots for Paul 1/5th expected". Or "Anarchists open piggy banks for Paul". "Paul supporters blow up Parliament" - or - NY Daily News style - "Fawke You, Washington!" - Oh, all the inaccurate alliterations I could come up with now that there's a writers strike and Hollywood starved for copy... if I could just prostitute myself that way on national tv - I could get 4 cents per DVD for the rest of my life! Maybe 8, if the striking writers win!
I can't. I'd rather try and figure out the facts for free.
I know that headlines like "Paul gets 1m in 10 hours" or "Paul raises 2m in 24 hours" or "Paul's fundraising blows Beltway minds" simply don't express the MSM zeitegist.
Still, in the hope that there's a working journalist out there that can read a chart...
In looking at the data today, I couldn't help but notice the number of donations from New Hampshire was at 48 per million, and the District of Columbia, 22 per million - and that an astounding 72% of the donors in NH appeared to be new donors, 80% in DC...
"New donors plunge in - 70+% for Paul" would kind of work. Well, actually, I kind of like "Fawke you, Washington!".
I also noticed that Paul now ranked in 3rd place on intrade - ahead of precipitously declining Thompson. Can't think of a better candidacy to write off than that one....
Happy November 5th!
Labels: election 2008, msm, Ron Paul
¶ 6:05 AM 0 comments
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Fawkes, the Federal Republic of Central America, and Susan B Anthony
I have a lot of cognitive dissonance today about the anniversaries of Guy Fawkes's gunpowder plot and Secession of Nicaragua from the Federal Republic of Central America, along with Susan B Anthony's first vote, and trial. All that plus The Panic of 1837, and Petrodollar warfare.Figuring out history is, if anything, harder than figuring out current events.
Labels: election 2008, nicaragua, Ron Paul
¶ 6:45 PM 0 comments
