BTW, neither Biden nor his performance at the debate had a thing to do with Barack winning the election.

Jenfidel on April 12, 2009 at 5:37 AM

From the KC Star article:

In the CBS poll, of the uncommitted voters, 18% now say they will vote Obama/Biden, 10% now say McCain/Palin.

Once again, your assertions are at odds with the facts in evidence.

JohnGalt23 on April 12, 2009 at 5:40 AM

Don’t worry, JohnGaltAxelrod!
I have a feeling that after 4 years of suffering under Ogabe, the American electorate is going to expect a lot more from the 2012 presidential campaign than a glorified soap commercial.

Jenfidel on April 12, 2009 at 5:49 AM

Of course they will.

/condescension

On the bright side, I’ve got one cultist accusing me of being a high level operative for a successful Presidential campaign, and one cultist accusing me of being a janitor.

I’ll put it this way… Jen is closer… but not all that close.

JohnGalt23 on April 12, 2009 at 5:54 AM

Temper, temper.

Liar, liar.

JohnGalt23 on April 12, 2009 at 6:06 AM

Jim,

Big…

Fat…

LIAR

JohnGalt23 on April 12, 2009 at 6:10 AM

You’re no genius.

But you are a liar.

JohnGalt23 on April 12, 2009 at 6:13 AM

Perhaps it would have more oomph if you stamped your little feet.

Jim Treacher on April 12, 2009 at 6:15 AM

Size 13.

And your still a liar.

JohnGalt23 on April 12, 2009 at 6:17 AM

Jenfidel on April 12, 2009 at 6:38 AM

Are we to assume that you share Dr. Paul’s beliefs and values or was it just a job?

It was more than a job… it was b**w job!! :)

(Sorry, I could resist.)

Did I share his beliefs and values?

I’ll put it this way…

It was the first time in my campaign career that I can say I liked most of what my candidate said and stood for. Usually, you work professionally for a campaign, and your opinions and beliefs get put in a “lockbox” until Election Day. I never felt that way with Ron Paul or his campaign.

Ron is a strict Christian, though, and I’m a practicing Catholic. I keep practicing, but still I don’t get any better at it.

I dislike Ron Paul intensely

Odd. Your preferred candidate has a different opinion of Dr. Paul. Or at least she used to.

and the Paultards are a cult,

I thought so too, until I ran into the Palintologists.

JohnGalt23 on April 12, 2009 at 1:56 PM

Daemonocracy on April 12, 2009 at 7:15 AM

You worked for Paul? Was it really like a cult? i’m interested in hearing about your experience. I saw an interview with Ron Paul where he was kind of hiding from his own supporters and even admitted that sometimes they weirded him out. lol. Not my words, his. Just curious what your experiences were.

Yeah, I had the honor of working on his Presidential campaign for a number of months.

It was the time of my life, but I’m not sure I’d do it again. (Presidential campaigns, that is. I’d work for RP in a heartbeat, but Presidential campaigns are really stressful. I’ll stick to statewide and below probably.)

And yes, there was a cult-like aspect to it. You really have to divide the campaign into two groups., and each of those groups in two.

First, there was the grassroots. These folks were, by and large, crazy, either in a good or bad way. Most of them were just really fervent. Lots of people carrying guns and gold 24 hours a day. Lot of heavy pro-lifers. Lot of anti-immigration people. For the most part, the activists were cool, and really productive. But still crazy.

But there were some who were off the deep end. People with definite white supremacist tendencies. The black helicopter crowd. Toss in some ZOG types, and 9/11 truthers, and they could be downright dangerous, politically. They were a small minority of the grassroots, but they had a knack of popping up at really embarrassing times.

But there was a real cult-like feeling among most of both types of them. Far too many people had trouble separating the man’s ideas, which were brilliant, IMHO, from the man, who even he would admit lacks a lot of skills the candidate needs. Any mention of his shortcomings would enrage a lot of these people, to the point where you couldn’t reason with them. (Gee, sounds familiar.)

Then there was the paid campaign staff. They also fell into two groups. First, you had a lot of people who got hired because of their status within the meetup groups. Some of them were top notch, usually people who had experience with politics prior to the Paul campaign. For example, the guys I worked with ran the local meetup group, and they were great. One guy had worked on Paul’s 1988 campaign, and the other had done gun politics in another state. As such, they could look at things objectively, as pros have to do, and not get caught up in the rah-rah cult culture.

Unfortunately, a lot of the people picked from the meetup groups had never done politics,and it showed. They were the types who thought waving signs won people over to your cause, or thought it was a great idea to mention to volunteers as they walked in the door how the primaries were really fixed. They had no idea about organizing, GOTV efforts, or the importance of the public’s opinions of your candidate. They, much like the Palintologists, thought that his ideas would simply carry us through to victory. And boy, were they p**sed at the public when they didn’t respond the way they should have.

And then there were the professionals, either Paul’s full-time people from his Congressional office staff and his campaign people, and the hired guns, like me. For the most part, these people were killer. They understood about the long hours of a campaign, how to properly do events, the importance of a field program and GOTV(my specialty), and how to keep your candidate from looking like an idiot. Truth be told, for all the weirdness even among the pros (and there was some), those people as a whole were better campaign folk then a lot of the Giuliani and McCain people I met along the way. And I say that with a professional eye, not as a Paulbearer. Although, to be fair, the Romney people were the best I saw. I guess money really does make a difference.

Unfortunately, as I stated upthread, pros really don’t like hooking up with a cultish campaign. I tried to bring in colleagues who could have used the work, and would have helped the campaign immeasurably, but they wanted to stay away from the weird grassroots people, because working on a campaign like that can give you a reputation as a loose cannon. I didn’t care… he was my guy, and I was out in front for him publicly anyways. But good people were chased away, and that hurt.

And the Palin campaign, with the Cult Of Sarah as demonstrated here, will probably suffer the fate.

JohnGalt23 on April 12, 2009 at 2:34 PM