From The Founder's Desk
columnist: Walt Thiessen

Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Operation Live Free or Die Begins Journey To New Hampshire

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Vijay Boyapati, former Google employee, is taking eight of his former co-workers plus another 1,000 volunteers from around the country to New Hampshire to provide grassroots support for the Ron Paul campaign.

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by Walt Thiessen
(Libertarian)
Friday, November 23, 2007

As I reported 10 days ago, Vijay Boyapati has changed careers from Google engineer to political operative. What's more, he is taking eight of his former co-workers from Google with him. Will Google be able to handle the brain drain? Almost certainly, but Google's loss is definitely Congressman Ron Paul's gain.

"I'll be in New Hampshire by December 1^st. We know the primary date now, which is a huge piece of news for our effort. A lot of people wanted to come but couldn't commit because we didn't know the date of the primary. Now that we have a date, I think that's really going to be helpful for us."

Boyapati has 250 of his 1,000 target already signed up from all around the country from more than 30 states. The intention is to gain all 1,000 by the first of the New Year, to give the team a week to really work New Hampshire very hard to get the word about the Paul candidacy out to as many potential voters as possible.

"We've already had a number of people move out there. There is one lady who drove with her husband and two children from Arizona. It's amazing. I get these emails every day. I had a single mother who had no savings, and she wanted to go to New Hampshire to help out. She said if I could find her accommodations, she would come. The sacrifice that people are willing to make; it's so humbling for me to receive emails like that virtually every day.

I asked him if a lot of the people are like those two examples. He said:

"I have people who are retired, some wealthy people, it's a whole cross-section of people. I have eight Googlers signed up, people who worked with me at Google. It's so exciting, because at Google we have an internal mailing list that I started while I was there, sort of a list to spread libertarian ideas and the message of liberty to Googlers, and eight people from that list signed up for this project.

"That's exciting for me because we need people with technical expertise, because it's not just canvassing and waving signs. We need people to put up websites and track databases too. That's the part I have struggled the most with, because I only have a month to grow this thing.

"There are [going to be] some serious growing pains, and having that many people volunteer, trying to find accommodations for them...I'm a little bit freaked out. I've got to get to New Hampshire quickly and start finding accommodations for people."

Boyapati is not thinking past New Hampshire. He says:

"I am focusing exclusively on New Hampshire because I want to deliver a shocking result. I hope there are other people picking up the ball in other states. There is so much to do, and I don't think there are enough hours for me to do more than just New Hampshire right now. It's exciting though. I feel very blessed that I have the chance to go out there and, in my lifetime, to be a part of the second revolution. I'm mobile. I'm well-off enough that I can do it. I feel really lucky that I can go out there.

"We have three bases of operation already set up in New Hampshire, with houses in Portsmouth, Concord, and Manchester. That's the first step in terms of trying to find places [accommodations for volunteers]...getting organizers out there. Organizers are the ones who are going to find housing for everyone else. We have five or six of them out there already, and others are coming from Pennsylvania, New York, and California."

Trevor Lyman, the man who set up the 5^th of November website, as well as the new teaparty07.com and rudysreadinglist.com fundraising websites, is also moving to New Hampshire. He'll be bringing his list of 20,000 or so donors with him, and the plan is to contact those people and see if some of them can be enticed into joining the New Hampshire volunteer train. Said Boyapati, "I'm sure some fraction of those people will be interested in volunteering to help us out."

Besides Operation Live Free or Die and the folks with the official Paul campaign, Boyapati told me that the Free State Project folks are already heavily involved doing their own canvassing and organizational work, so there is already quite a bit being done in New Hampshire. Once he succeeds in getting his 1,000 volunteers out there, there will be a whole lot more done!

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2007 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved.
Published: Friday, November 23, 2007
Last modified: Friday, November 23, 2007

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