[NYTr] The Nation: Ron Paul's Fundraising Revolution

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The Nation blogs - Dec 17, 2007
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?pid=260694

THE RON PAUL (FUNDRAISING) REVOLUTION...

by John Nichols 

Move over John Kerry, the best single-day primary fundraising record no
longer belongs to the prodigious money-collecting machine of the man
who won the 2004 nomination.

Ron Paul is now the champ.

Kerry collected $5.7 million on one day in 2004.

Paul collected more than $6 million Sunday. And, unlike Kerry who
raised his money from big donors on the day after he won the key
primaries that secured him the Democratic nod, Paul is raising his
money when it could actually help his quest for the Republican
nomination.

Where the senator from Massachusetts was the insider collecting money
from donors to rival candidates who now wanted to get on board with his
already successful campaign, the congressman from Texas is a classic
insurgent who is still dismissed by party leaders and media elites.

And Paul is continuing to raise money -- largely small contributions
from individuals who in many cases have never before given money to a
campaign -- at a remarkable rate.

The congressman's campaign is dramatically exceeding fundraising
expectations in the current quarter. The campaign's unreasonable goal
of $12 million has been exceeded by more than 50 percent already and
there is every reason to believe that Paul will almost certainly finish
the quarter with more than $20 million raised.

Paul could well end up raising more than any of the other Republican
contenders and providing the only serious competition for Democratic
money leaders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

But what is really fascinating about Paul's enormous haul of December
16 – in an effort organized by music promoter Trevor Lyman, a Paul
enthusiast with no previous political experience – is that it drew
24,940 new donors to the campaign in a single day.

What's the trick?

Lyman, who raised more than $4.3 million for Paul on a single day in
November, times his "money bomb" appeals to days that have deep
historical resonance for those who fancy themselves insurgents against
the current order.

The November appeal came on November 5, the anniversary of attempt by
Guy Fawkes to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London.

Sunday's appeal was timed to coincide with the 234th anniversary of the
Boston Tea Party.

Paul now has enough money to be a serious presence in the caucuses and
primaries through the winter – he's currently tied with John McCain in
Iowa and posting credible numbers in New Hampshire – and into the
spring.

That means that Lyman may have an opportunity to make an appeal on
April 19, the anniversary of "the shot heard round the world"
skirmishes at Lexington and Concord that anticipated the American
Revolution.

Paul's campaign refers to itself as "The Ron Paul Revolution" and there
can be no doubt any longer that it is revolutionizing the way in which
grassroots fundraising plays out in American presidential campaigns.
Now, the question is whether Paul's crusade can revolutionize the
campaign game itself by using the money to upset the political order.
Even those who do not share his "Old Right" libertarian views – which
tend to be throwbacks to the stay-out-of-trouble abroad and
keep-government-small at home positions espoused by Republican Senator
Robert Taft in the 1940s and 1950s – can and should be encouraged by
the fact that a candidate is breaking the rules and getting a
resounding response from grassroots donors.

If Republican primary voters follow -- even in reasonable numbers --
then Ron Paul's campaign really will be a revolution. And he will be
the 2008 candidate who is remembered for doing something that can
matter more than winning a party nomination or a November election, and
that is changing the politics of a country that needs every new
approach to altering a corrupt and dysfunctional status quo.