Thursday, January 10, 2008

Ron Paul Wackos Flood FOX News Poll

According to the first poll results on FOX News 38% of responders believe Ron Paul won the Republican debate in Myrtle Beach, SC tonight. (Now they're posting 35%. HEY, you RonPaulians are slacking off. Don't stop at voting 10 times. You all can count to 20 can't you?)

Even Ron Paul knows he lost the debate and any hope he may have had to make a difference.

Look for him to do a loser thing and run as an Independent. Just like Ralph Nader and another Texas loser, Ross Perot.

I believe I am more right to support Fred Thompson after the debate this evening.

Thompson Wins In SC IMO

Fred Dalton T was very good this evening. McCain so-so. Giuliani so-so. Huckabee less so-so. Romney stubbed his toe. Ron Paul remade himself into an Admiral Stockdale, eh?

Most Clueless Secretary Of State Pegs Bush As Worst Prez

It is like Chicken Little complaining that the sky isn't falling.

Albright: Bush 'One of the Worst Presidencies' in History
Former Secretary of State pegs global warming and adjusting to globalization as goals for next president.

The stately ex- Sec of St began with an unbiased promotion of her new book;

“Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership.”

Albright believes the real future of the next president is;

Albright served under former Vice President Al Gore, one of the staunch global warming “cheerleaders” who advocates a pledge that would require all developed nations to curb their greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent.

Mad is a little short on logic, but not partisanship.

UPDATE: This Ain't Hell has some excellent thoughts on Chairwoman Halfbright:

Um. Damn, that is just halfway stupid isn’t it? Yes, we need to know what other nation’s interests are, but, the President’s job is NOT to cater to the wishes of foreigners. I guess Albright could be an authority on the interests of North Korea…

Ron Paul Over The Cliff & Waving Bye Bye

I attended a central committee meeting and came home to watch the SC debate. I really meant to wait until the debate was over to ascertain what had been said by the candidates, but Ron Paul beat the Christmas rush and is proving he is completely incapable of being the president of the United States of America..

Belief & Heart: Politics As A Non-Profit

I'd never been to Seth's site before, but I'm glad I did because we share some similar thoughts. I'm pretty sure we didn't work together to get Ronald Reagan elected, but we just may have crossed paths through charitable non-profits. In the worlds of foundations and campaigns there is a constant; if it worked before it works now. Unfortunately, as Seth's blog shows, it no longer is the reality of non-profits. It is also no longer the reality of today's campaigning.

I gave at the office
Mark Rovner has an insightful post about the current state of fundraising and non-profits.
The short version: most big charities are based on direct mail fundraising, and as you're read here before, direct mail is dying. What to do?


I'll start with the bad news: I despair for most of the top 50 non-profits in the US. These are the big guys, and they're stuck. Unlike the Fortune 100, not known for being cutting edge in themselves, the top charities rarely change... if you're big, you're used to being big and you expect to stay big. That means that generation after generation of staff has been hired to keep doing what's working. Big risks and crazy schemes are certainly frowned upon.
The good news is this: the Internet is not a replacement for direct mail fundraising. It is, in fact, something much bigger than that for just about every non-profit.


As soon as commerce started online, many non-profits discovered lots of income from their websites. This was mistakenly chalked up to brilliant conversion and smart marketing. In fact, it was just technologically advanced donors using a more convenient method to send in money they would have sent in anyway.


The big win is in changing the very nature of what it means to support a charity. The idea of "I gave at the office" and of giving money in the last week in December speaks to obligation. Many people donate to satisfy a guilty feeling, or to please a friend. This doesn't scale. Not one bit. It's super easy to ignore a direct mail solicitation when all you have to do is hit delete and no one notices.


The big win is in turning donors into patrons and activists and participants. The biggest donors are the ones who not only give, but do the work. The ones who make the soup or feed the hungry or hang the art. My mom was a volunteer for years at the Albright Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, and there's no doubt at all that we gave more money to the museum than we would have if they'd sent us a flyer once a month.


The internet allows some organizations to embrace long-distance involvement. It lets charities
flip the funnel, not through some simple hand waving, but by reorganizing around the idea of engagement online. It means opening yourself up to volunteers, encouraging them to network, to connect with each other, and yes, even to mutiny. It means giving every one of your professionals a blog and the freedom to use it. It means mixing it up with volunteers, so they have something truly at stake. This is understandably scary for many non-profits, but I'm not so sure you have a choice.

Do you have to abandon the old ways today? Of course not. But responsible stewardship requires that you find and empower the mavericks and give them the flexibility to build something new, not to try to force the internet to act like direct mail with free stamps.


Fundraising is the major force behind campaigns and Ron Paul has shown, for example, how the Internet can be utilized as an easier and faster tool to not just raise funds, but get headlines. That fellow in Nigeria that keeps notifying me of the $25o Million he wants to give me is another example of raising funds over the Internet. As Seth points out this isn't new thinking, it is just new technology and a technology that all campaigns will eventually use.

Good ideas can spread into campaigns. Campaigns can domino into a larger effort capable of winning. Funding is only the start. Networking, thinking outside of the box, ignoring time and distance,and allowing volunteers to become local experts and to disseminate the message locally, statewide and nationally. These are the are ways to build a campaign. More importantly, it is a way for the campaign to retain and utilize volunteers to win.

Every campaign needs funding and every volunteer effort needs some ability to fund itself. When these ingredients are put together campaigns become viable. Just as small business is the lifeblood of the economy, volunteers are the lifeblood of winning campaigns. If the product is good.

Any thoughts?

The Protest Movement Is A Lie

We have protesters that on a daily basis decry the inhuman policies of the United States against those that only want to work and be good citizens even though they are here illegally. Why have the protesters and their propaganda experts not protested against the government of Mexico and those in Central and South America for abandoning their people?

This is only one example of the protest movement as a lie. What kind of government forces their people to pick lettuce in America instead of near their homes in their native country? A government that cares little of its people.

Below is an article from Pajama Media that is about Europe. Here, we only need to look at major cities and universities across our country to see a Lie Movement that ignores political reality because it is much more comfortable to have a comfy coffee shop nearby to relax in after one's protest against our system that allows them to protest conveniently.

Portrait of the Artist as a Dhimmified Man

Similarly, in October 2006 London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery removed erotic works by the surrealist Hans Bellmer. According to the curator, “the motive was simply to not shock the population of the Whitechapel neighborhood, which is partly Muslim.” The pictures were pulled merely one week after a Berlin opera house had cancelled — then sheepishly reinstated — performances of Mozart’s Idomeneo, in which the title character grandstands with the severed heads of Poseidon, Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed. Needless to say, the severed heads of Poseidon, Buddha, and Jesus were never an issue.

Amir Taheri has compiled other disturbing cases from across the continent: German carnivals prohibiting costumes that might look “Islamic,” Spanish towns canceling traditional festivals marking the victory over the Moors, the blacklisting of books deemed critical of Islam, and the removal from public view of illuminated manuscripts that feature images of Mohammed.

To those that protest, a few questions that all have a different answer than a simple, United States.

Why are there:

No protests against a government that has forgotten them
No protest against a government that tortures
No protest against a government that kills its own citizens
No protest against a government that lies to the people
No protest against a government that legalizes rape
No protest against a government that, as policy, uses mass murder
No protest against a government that sends its people to their death
No protest against a government that purposely impoverishes the people
No protest against a government that plans the subjugation of its people and other nations
No protest against a government that has racism as an international policy
No protest against a government that funds lies by artists and educators

Comparing President Bush to Hitler is not only childish, but politically, morally and historically ignorant.