We don’t trust the media and we understand that we need enthusiastic supporters. But we need to remember who our enemies are and how they play the game.

Anything that can be spun against Paul will be spun against Paul. We all know this. We need to be conscious of it at all times. A boisterous presence was very important on the island. It brought a lot of positive attention to the campaign. But there weren’t any undecideds on that ferry, so that release of energy wasn’t productive and it gave the anti-Paul crowd some ammunition.

We just need to minimize the number of times we put ourselves in that position.

Apparently Rudy was so “threatened” by Paul supporters that he felt the need to shake hands as he was leaving the boat and wave as he was walking away. I think its also interesting that this entire story came from a single source who has nothing to do with Giuliani’s campaign and that Giuliani’s spokesman said he “welcomes verbal jousting”. If he was truly threatened why wouldn’t he use this opportunity to hurt Paul’s chances?

I think the anti-Paul people on here need to stop whining about the enthusiasm of Paul supporters and quit lecturing them on the political process. And also quit trusting the media.

Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUE7RQ5I_g8

That’s great for all the people who pay close attention to the issues. For the other 60-70% of John Q. Public, though, they aren’t going to take the time to find out anything about a candidate if the most visible people from his campaign are nuts (and by “visible” I mean the ones who get on TV…not the ones who post on blogs). And frankly that’s not unreasonable. Most of the people I know with a passing interest in the election don’t know anything about Ron Paul’s, or anyone else’s, issues with any depth. But they do know that the “truthers” love him. And that’s enough to convince them that learning about or voting for Paul is just a waste of their time.

The “Paulestinians” can complain all they want about how unfair they think that is…that’s just life, and it shows just how little they understand the political process. Campaigns are about selling the candidate to the uninformed swing voters…the issues are often irrelevant. People who want Paul to win have to fill the role of salesmen, and most customers don’t generally buy things from salesmen who act like rude, idiotic assholes. And, like it or not, the most visible Paul supporters right now are a bunch of rude, idiotic assholes.

We can go back and forth on this all we want. Frankly, the only thing that’s probably going to change it is if Ron Paul himself comes out and says something directly and very publicly to shut the fringers up. Grassroots campaigns are nice and have their advantages, but at some point the candidate needs to start exerting control, start pushing out a cohesive message on a few important (and popular) mainstream topics, and start minimizing the fringe elements. Paul doesn’t do that…he discusses every topic with no emphasis on anything in particular, he’s not decisively separating himself from the “truthers”, and he lets the supporters take the lead on disseminating his agenda, and as a result his campaign’s not moving outside the fringe. He’s got to have a message that the swing voters understand and buy into and right now he doesn’t have that…and that’s Paul’s problem to fix right now, not the bloggers.

He was then taken, without incident, before anyone else could board, and put on the boat up in the pilot’s house, behind closed doors and windows. He had 2 or 3 security people with him, and I believe there were also a few police on the boat too.

The atmosphere on the boat (with the exception of two comments that I can recall) was akin to being at a WINNING college football game. You must keep in mind that we all just finished having dinner and a special visit by THE MAN, Ron Paul, and were feeling quite PAULitical. I was on the upper deck (in pitch blackness) as we crossed the Straits of Mackinac. There were cheers (not chants) of “Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Ron Paul”…sort of like ‘Go Blue, Go Blue, Go Blue”. There were a few isolated shouts of, “Where’s the gold Rudy?” Big deal. What, people are not allowed to express their opinion any more? Simply because Ron Paul doesn’t agree with that position, that 9-11 was an inside job, doesn’t mean that others are not allowed to think that.

There were NO official campaign people on board – just people who attended the event. The gentleman quoted in the Free Press that stated he was embarrassed to be a Republican was right, but for all the wrong reasons. I’m embarrassed to be a Republican too with pack of sold-out, globalistic, war hawks running as so-called ‘conservative Republicans’.
The man is also a Romney supporter (yeah…that’s real credible.).

Rudy Giluliani, Fox News, and much of the mainstream media has misrepresented Dr. Paul, his supporters, and the whole thing from the beginning. We shouldn’t have to walk on egg shells (although I’m all for, 100%, being polite, and reasonable).

Just check out the comments on any Dr. Paul article to get a feel for the real sentiment of the people. Just ask any of the other 150-200 people on that boat that night what they thought went down. I think that maybe even Rudy had fun!

Please, spare us, do you realize how old that “I would’ve voted for him, but…” BS is? Can’t you people just vote for Hillary quietly?

Ron Paul won’t win the nomination because of his militant supporters. They’ll be the ones coming up with more conspiracies on why he lost instead of considering that most people are turned off by the ones acting like jackasses. And, even though the jackasses may be a vocal minority, those are the ones that the press will be picking up on.

Seriously, “Paulestinians,” read this book.

So, let’s see… you were ALMOST a Ron Paul supporter, but just can’t do it because of his one or two whackjob supporters, right? You “would’ve” voted for him if it just weren’t for his supporters, right?

I know it is hard for you to understand when all the other candidates PAY for their supporters, but, really, each Ron Paul supporter is an individual with his own free will to do and say whatever he wants to say or do. The campaign doesn’t need to distance itself, the other supporters don’t need to distance themselves. Nobody DICTATES behavior to anyone, because it is about individual freedom. The mere fact that you cannot grasp that concept is almost proof that you are most definitely NOT a supporter of Ron Paul.

While I ‘wish’ those TWO people weren’t making the statements they did, it is their right to do so and make fools of themselves. I will gladly defend that right.

Please, spare us, do you realize how old that “I would’ve voted for him, but…” BS is? Can’t you people just vote for Hillary quietly?

I was on that ferry. Most of this crap in the news is just that, crap. Most of it are lies from people that were most definitely NOT on the ferry. There were nearly 100 Ron Paul supporters on that ferry and they happened to find ONE Long-Time GOP activist ROMNEY supporter to quote?

Even if the Ron Paul supporters had done nothing “rude” on the ferry, it would have been reported that they did, as can be seen by the lies in the news reports.

Exactly 2 people (and I know exactly who they were) mentioned ANYTHING about 9/11 was an inside job. But, from the sounds of the reports EVERYONE was screaming it. Well, I certainly wasn’t, nor was anyone around me.

Guiliani deserved EXACTLY what he got. I can promise you that NONE of the other candidates would have received this “rude” behavior (in fact, we RP supporters held extremely civil conversations with most of the other candidate’s supporters there… Rudy didn’t have even one supporter there that I could see.)

So sit down and shut up.

This is the concept of blowback.

“Blowback” can just as easily be the casual Republican watching this episode on the mainstream news and deciding, he’s not going to vote for whomever that guy is supporting.

Reading for the militants:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0091906814/
http://i495blues.blogspot.com/2007/09/open-letter-to-ron-paul-community.html

An interesting side-effect of supporting a campaign who’s refrain is “freedom and liberty” is that you’re going to have a bunch of nuts mixed in with the M&Ms. They don’t bother me so long as they don’t actually physically harm somebody, and I don’t particularly care what crazy things they believe, either.

Yes, but if the general public, and, more importantly, the mainstream Republican voter who will actually vote in a primary next year, tends to think that you’re candidate is associated with people who aren’t that far removed from the crowd that wears tin-foil hats so Big Brother can’t read their minds, then the campaign will.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The Paul campaign should disassociate itself from the 9/11 truthers the same way the William F. Buckley Jr. disassociated the conservative movement from groups like the John Birch Society.

It is impossible to win the Republican nomination by running against the Republican party. It is equally impossible to win the Republican nomination by overwhelming the Republican party with new voters. It has been tried before and it never works.

Truer words were never spoken.