January 24

January 24

My speculation was correct. Half the people had moved and at least a quarter of the people I telephoned did not speak English well enough to say anything to me other than that they did not speak English.

Phone banking my precinct is as done as it’s gonna get. I am, after all, using my father’s good name as I’m doing what I’m doing. Perhaps, a little further from home would be better for him.

Therefore, I’ll take on a few other precincts north of here. Last night was a success in terms of meeting with two of my friends who are Ron Paul supporters. They are both VERY talented guys. They are, as a result, in demand at work. If I could get them to focus a little more on Ron Paul, this campaign would have two terrific assets on their hands. Others realize this too, even the head of the Chicago meetup group has asked the three of us to be assistant organizers.

Our meeting was a good meeting, we hung out, talked Ron Paul, talked ideas about how the three of us could be effective, and listened in on the Statewide Ron Paul conference call.

The campaign is now short of county leaders throughout Illinois and short of precinct leaders. Ron Paul is getting the attention of some smaller newspapers because of his very successful fundraising from last quarter. Perhaps related, or perhaps unrelated, I still can’t understand why the other candidates would essentially gang up on Ron Paul in Louisiana, do they all recognize him as that big of a threat?

In Illinois, some smaller groups all over the state have been taking out some effective local newspaper ads. That has been good. One group has been baking cookies and handing them out at the Downer’s Grove commuter rail station.

Illinois is not currently a focus of any GOP campaign for Super Tuesday, including Ron Paul’s campaign. He will not be running commercials here it looks like. He is one of the only candidates who will be able to even run commercials at all, anywhere on Super Tuesday, as pointed out in Vijay’s letter about the MLK money bomb.

That money bomb, was not as big as the others, but none the less, a success. I would like to thank the folks in the group who participated. More importantly, I would like to congratulate the folks in the group who participated, for realizing and continuing to put their money behind, the fact that this campaign is far from dead, and this election is far from decided. Furthermore, Ron Paul’s message of freedom has been infectious here in the US. We are doing something right now that will create a much larger movement, rhetoric that Ben and I and others have been speaking for months now.

Already, Ron Paul supporters are running for Congress, so that Ron Paul as a president will have a few friendly faces in Congress, and so that their local districts will hear the same message of freedom and prosperity in a more personal way, from a politician they can be face to face with regularly. The fact that people are running for Congress, inspired by Ron Paul is meaningful as it shows a high level dedication to this message. How many people will those people inspire to run next time? How many seated politicians will take the time to learn monetary policy as a result of this campaign, to take time to reflect the purpose of their oath of office, to take time to reflect who their bosses are? Maybe no one, but in that case, Washington is a lot more hard headed (and hard hearted perhaps) than we realize.

I want to mention again Benjamin Franklin’s thought about the American Revolution. It happened from 1760-1775. It was a complete change in the minds of the people, bringing them from obedient colonists, to people who sought release from the empire. What followed was a bloody rebellion. If the revolution happens quickly enough, the bloody rebellion gets to be avoided. I do believe we are in the midst of a Second American Revolution.

-Allan
(writing from Blue Island, IL)