Now that Ron Paul's grassroots supporters have successfully raised some uber-bucks for his campaign, he and his senior staff should give strong consideration to creating a half-hour infomercial instead of repeatedly running sound bytes in 30 second ads. by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Thursday, November 8, 2007
The Ron Paul campaign for the Republican nomination is now a major player in the race, thanks to the support of Paul's true believers who organized the "remember, remember the 5th of November" money bomb that raised $4.2 million for his campaign. With a total bankroll for the 4th quarter in excess of $7.6 million so far, and with the campaign's goal of $12 million for the quarter still in sight, it makes sense to re-evaluate how the campaign plans to use that money.
The reviews of the ads currently running in NH have been decidedly mixed at best. Many Paulites were quite disappointed by them, although others weren't so upset. The general feeling is that the ads were a bit "forced" and "contrived" and that they don't really and successfully present all that is Paul to the voters of New Hampshire. The problem, of course, is that this is the nature of 30 second advertising. 30 seconds goes by amazingly fast (especially at TV prices!) and it's really hard to distill a complex message about freedom and smaller government down to a sound byte that Americans can identify with...particularly since most Americans have many questions about how viable and effective Paul's approach to governing can be after only hearing his sound bytes. They aren't necessarily opposed to him, but they aren't sold either because they haven't been exposed to all the nuances yet of a Paul approach to government, in order to be ready to sign on board with what he stands for.
I believe that Paul's message can indeed resonate with voters. When they actually get to hear him in an extended speech, that's when he is the most persuasive. When his ideas are debated based on their merits rather than based on a show host's desire to limit debate to short bursts of ridicule, that's when he gets his message across the best. Jay Leno was a respectful listener and gave Paul the chance to really explain himself. I believe that's why the Tonight Show audience received his comments so well.
All politicians have the same problem when it comes to TV advertising. The most they can ever hope for is to have their already well-known views compressed into sound bytes in the hope that voters will remember them. Of course, this approach assumes that the voters already know what that message is. With a Hillary Clinton or a Rudy Giuliani, that's no problem. They've been plastered across the newspapers and network news reports so much that people already know what they stand for, so 30 second sound bytes can serve a real purpose for them...to simply hammer home the same message in a few short words. But for a Ron Paul whom most of the public don't even know, that strategy can't be as effective because there is little or no message that is already known and thoroughly understood which his 30 second sound bytes can hammer home.
Ross Perot had it right
When a candidate is unknown, particularly when his message needs extensive explanation to make it clearly understood and to anticipate and answer as many questions as possible, reliance on 30 second commercials just doesn't work. That's why in 1992 when Ross Perot wanted to take a stab at changing the debate in this country, he used his influence to get on Larry King Live to launch his effort, then he followed up by spending his millions on 30 minute infomercials that aired with great advance fanfare on national TV. You can read about Perot's campaign in this Wikiepedia article. It was very expensive, costing him tens of millions of dollars, but it worked. His infomercials often outdrew the sitcoms that were then popular on TV. There was even one infommerical he ran in October 1992 that drew over 10 million viewers in one evening. It was a tremendously effective approach to getting the word out.
Even though I believe Perot's message was actually pretty limited and didn't have a whole lot to offer, he nevertheless succeeded in selling it to roughly 20% of the voters right off the bat. If he hadn't pulled a bone-headed play by withdrawing from the race that summer because of a family matter and then re-entering the race again a few weeks later, he might have even done well enough to split the vote three ways and (miracle of miracles) he might even have won the election. As it was, even with his huge gaffe, he still managed to pull down 18.9% of the vote or something like that.
That's the power of an infomercial, as the likes of Ronco's Ron Popeil and the Home Shopping Network have known for years. The big stumbling block, of course, is that putting an ad on national TV is hugely expensive.
The good news is that Ron Paul doesn't need to put his ad on national TV. He only needs to put it on TV in New Hampshire, Iowa, Michigan, and South Carolina for now. That puts an infomercial well within range of his current budget.
This approach is particularly well suited to a campaign like Ron Paul's where the candidate has a massive grassroots base to help promote the dates that the infomercial will air. Ross Perot relied on his interview with Larry King to get the word out when his infomercial would run, and the major newspapers picked it up and helped promote it. It was such a new and unusual event that they considered it to be "newsworthy." The result was that millions of Americans tuned in to watch Perot during prime-time as he paraded chart after chart in front of the TV screen as if he were presenting to one of his company's board meetings. It was actually pretty boring, but it worked. Perot got his millions of supporters, which briefly culminated in the birth of the Reform Party (and which later fell apart because it was really little more than an extension of Perot). Once Perot withdrew from the picture, the Reform Party collapsed. Still, there is value in the lesson that Perot's experience has for Ron Paul. Today, it will be harder to get the major media to report on such an event than it was 15 years ago, but it still can be done. That's where the Paulites would come into the picture.
Paulites: Flex Your Campaign Muscles!
Paulites have proven how strong and effective grassroots campaigning can be. When Paulites as a whole become energized by promoting an idea like the 5th of November money bomb, anything becomes possible. They are the best hope for the Paul campaign when it comes to getting the message out. An infomercial would be the most effective way to get that message out, and it would be well within the reach of the Paulite community to promote when the infomercial will run to the public at large.
An infomercial can take many forms. It doesn't have to be like a Perot presentation to the board of directors with charts and graphs that put everyone to sleep. When you have 30 minutes of broadcast time all to yourself, you can take all kinds of different approaches to it. You have much, much more flexibility than 30 seconds can possibly gain for you.
Many Paulites have pointed out that his campaign speeches are really the best way to get to know Paul. It would not be very difficult to grab some really good pieces of film of some of those speeches and edit them together into a 30 minute show that really presents Paul as Paul, and not as a 30 second pinup.
A Paul Infomercial Can Also Be Distributed on DVD
The power of the Internet has been a huge boon to the Paul campaign, but it's not the only useful technology. Many individuals now have the ability to make videos and DVDs right on their computers. If a Paul infomercial was made and was shown to the public with success, Paulites would undoubtedly start making and distributing their own DVDs of the infomercial to voters in their own local areas, as well as to local cable access channels.
I urge the Paul campaign and Paulites everywhere to rally around the idea of creating and running an infomercial rather than relying on sound bytes to sell Paul's message. It would give Paul a much better chance of winning the support of a lot more Republicans that he has right now with the current advertising plan. If any Paulites view this column, I urge you to visit the campaign website and tell Ron and his senior staff what you think. Pound the campaign drums. Make the youtube.com videos. Hit the discussion boards. Pass the word to the 1100+ Paul meetup groups around the country. Or just click the Tell A Friend About This Article link at the end of the article, and send an email to your fellow Paulites, asking them to read this column. Do all the things that you already know how to do to push for the Paul campaign to create and run infomercials rather than 30 second ad spots.
After all, it's your campaign too.
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I really think this would be a good idea. Especially making it available for download or burned to cd/dvd's. It could, of course be posted on youtube. A really good 30 minutes of solid Ron Paul would be an amazing strong tool. People who don't travel outside the US often don't understand the real crisis with the dollar. Teaching/explaining fiscal policy needs more than 30 seconds. We need Paulonomics 101 dvd!
There are dozens of excellent design templates on youtube waiting for this but the official campaign cannot touch these.for various legal reasons. They could copy in style, but any professional reworking would lose the natural spirit in the originals.
The best solution is for people outside the official campaign to make quality versions of these and run them as PAC ads.
Only we the guys in the trenches can use them we just need a place to do it though. There is one site but they need help.
Many of us are too young to remember Perot's campaign, but I like your idea none-the-less! It's not hard to sell the message, it's just hard getting the message heard!
Awesome idea. This must happen fast. "Social proof" content should be included too (cheering crowds, people waving signs, testimonials and enthusiastic quotes from supporters, etc.)
I think this is a great idea - there's only so much a DVD distribution campaign can achieve, and it will be important even in a longer infomercial format to have the message be clear and concise. Because RP's ideas are so contrary to what people have been hearing, it takes more than a 30 second commercial (or even a 5-minute interview)to explain his positions. Creative approaches like this are going to be critical if he's going to break out of the single digits.
Perot's "family matter" was his stated worry that the Republican dirty tricks machine would disrupt his daughter's wedding. Most people then thought he was paranoid and unfit to be President. Today, charges of Republican dirty tricks wouldn't sound so unbelievable, would they?
I too recommended this same idea to the Paul campaign three days ago! I work at an agency who purchases these time periods from stations for infomercials. Let me tell you, that 30 minute informercial times are much, much, much more inexpensive than general 30sec, 60sec, 5min etc. It could be a coup. I hope his campaign staff wakes up over there and produces a decent show.
The Trailer park crowd is once again on the move. When Christian morons want to know about God, they go to the likes of Jim Bakker, Jim Jones, Jimmy Swaggart, Oral Roberts, and Pat Tillman just to name a few. These sociopaths (a/k/a Shepherds) wouldn't recognize God in a room full of gargoyles. Likewise, when these Christians morons want less government, they rally around a politician who helped create the big government they hate.
Ross Perot was their kind of man. He said we'll do away with big government. These pithy little minds didn't even know that at that very moment, Perot was getting wealthier by the second off of big government money -- Medicare and Medicaid, to be exact--two of the programs contributing the most to the deficit he talks about so much.
In 1980, EDS won a contract that paid over $390 million per year for administering Medicare -- just in Texas! That's not the cost of the actual health care -- it's purely administrative expense for doing the paperwork. Medicaid is separate, and EDS has similar contracts with states around the country -- using software that they charged the federal government for developing, but kept the rights to.
Still, I owe most of what I own, and it's considerable, to Christians. In 2000 after Bush was sent to Washington by the unmoral majority, I invested in two small companies that supplied the Pentagon with flags, body bags, coffins, and sundries needed to store dead soldiers. Those two investments alone have paid for two round-the-world cruises; and my companion and I will be leaving in April 2008 on another one. But Mr. and Mrs. Forrest Gump don't worry; we'll be taking a laptop and will gladly keep you morons updated on what we see and do in Europe. This is only fair since you're paying for it. Oh, and I agree that Ron Paul should do an infomercial. "Morons Can Find Peace In Suicide" Glory be to God!
Posted By: Jerry Collette
Date: 2007-11-09 10:48:27
A national infomercial, even on an obsure cable channel that hardly anybody watches, or even on a channel that might generate some controversy, such as BET or a Christian cable station, would probably generate more value in news coverage than it would cost. It could also be viewed on the campaign page, plus all the YouTube pages that would post extracts from it, by all the people who miss it.
Ross Perot had the right idea of explaining ecomonic concepts in simple ways. Ron can do the same thing. Explaining inflation as growth in the money supply, not in the growth of prices, like he did with Bernake, for example, would be wonderful, and would be a great way to show how the government has been duping the citizens on this subject for years.
Done correctly, it would be hard to have this not be a great investment. Being a national broadcast is the key to generating publicity from it.
Somebody please post some figures of what it would cost to buy such national cable broadcast time.
Posted By: Jerry Collette
Date: 2007-11-09 11:01:28
Saturday or Sunday would be good, too, because they are slow news days. If it occured before the Sunday morning talking heads shows, it might even get discussed there, and picked up more.
As we have seen, the MSM are like sheep. What is discussed on another news outlet, is considered news, and gets discussed elsewhere.
Great Idea. Lew Rockwell could moderate. Much better to be able to explain why he would get rid of the Dept. of Education than to have some reporter state that Ron Paul would eliminate it implying he's anti-education. This goes for all the issues where most Americans don't understand his positions. I would also splice in clips of Ron Paul supporters (not the staged ones from the first tv ad) talking about him to the camera at rallies so the enthusiam and intelligence of Ron Paul supporters shines through as it does on youtube.
I would recommend picking five or six topics where Ron's positions are very popular once understood.
1. The Iraq war
2. Personal freedom and the role of gov.
3. Medical marijuana for sick patients.
4. Allowing young people to opt out of Soc. Security while maintaining benefits for people who have become dependent on it.
5. Monetary policy (explain why his ideas aren't kooky) This is looking better every day the dollar goes down.
6. Not subsidizing corporations and pandering to lobbyists.
His recent panel discussion with the New Hampshire press is a great example of this.
Posted By: roberta farrington
Date: 2007-11-29 00:26:38
I think that Ron Paul's backers should contact Ross Perot asking for his support, both financially, and his expert advice on how to run a successful campaign-that is, if Mr Perot is in accord with R Paul's viewpoints,ect. It would be a winning team, and probably a great satisfaction for R Perot.
Brilliant idea - great minds think alike. I suggested this on Ron Paul's national website. I remember quite clearly Ross Perot's informercials - they were brilliant! Ron Paul needs to copy that idea... absolutely. If he needs the bankroll of a billionaire, then he ought to seek one out to pay for them. This is the only way he will get the TV exposure he needs to win. The sooner he does this the better. If it costs him 10 million dollars to do a national 30 minute spot... then he just needs to get the money and take the time to do it.
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