ABC’s Nightlie by John Kozy (centrist liberal libertarian)
Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
NH Update: Volunteer Canvassing, a Petition to Support the Constitution, and the Next Money Bomb I caught up with Vijay Boyapati, ex-Google employee turned political activist who has been helping Paul volunteers journey to New Hampshire for the Paul campaign.by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Saturday, December 22, 2007
So far roughly 100 volunteers have converged on New Hampshire as part of the 1,000 volunteer drive engineered by Vijay Boyapati, former Google employee who left his plum job and moved across the country to help Ron Paul win the New Hampshire primary in January. "We're getting a real flood of folks in New Hampshire now. It's very exciting," he says. While they may not get the full 1,000 volunteers he was originally hoping for, he is expecting the majority of those who have agreed to come to be there by the end of December. Boyapati reports that it's been difficult to track how many people have actually arrived or are coming. Some people who signed up never made it, and others don't necessarily stay in touch while they're coming or after they arrive.
He reports that things are going very well with the grassroots campaign itself in New Hampshire, saying that they've discovered a really great way to promote Paul's candidacy that is greeted quite favorably by the voters they contact on the ground. He said:
"All of our volunteers are carrying around pocket copies of the Constitution with a stamp on them saying Ron Paul for President. When they visit people door-to-door, they say, 'This is Ron Paul's platform,' and they hand them their copy of the Constitution. Then they say, 'He's the only one who has been defending it.'
"It's been especially effective with people who are still undecided. The volunteers say, 'You should read this before you vote in the primary and think about it, because this is the law of the land.'"
Overall response to the canvassing has been mixed, but it has been better in the northern, rural areas. They've concentrated only on people who intend to vote in the Republican primary. "People in New Hampshire are very independent-minded. We've concentrated on the issues that people in New Hampshire care about: No Real ID (national ID), lower taxes, less government intrusion, and the other issues that the people of New Hampshire like."
Roughly 50% of NH voters are independent and don't necessarily identify with a particular party. The feeling there is that these voters could make the difference for the Paul campaign, since they are permitted to vote in the Republican primary.
I asked Boyapati about reports that there have been some volunteers whose efforts have been counter-productive. He confirmed that there were a few minor incidents. One person papered the windshields of cars in a shopping mall, and an irate car owner called the police. In the few cases where something like this happens, the volunteer coordinators have simply talked with the errant volunteer and explained that that's not how the campaign does things. They have to stop, or else they have to leave. He reports that so far all such incidents have been successfully handled.
He had heard about people who had set up automated calling systems that were pestering voters at odd hours of the night, and his take mirrored that of the other volunteers in New Hampshire. "We're against that sort of thing. We think it works against what we're trying to do, and we ask anyone who is doing that to stop immediately." He also said that, to the best of his knowledge, that activity wasn't coming from within New Hampshire among the volunteers there. He said the feeling was that it was someone from out-of-state who was not acting responsibly.
A Different Kind of Petition Drive
Boyapati and money bomb website builder Trevor Lyman have been teaming up in New Hampshire. They have a new project that was just recently launched called, Obey The Constitution. Rather than a money bomb, this website is intended to get people to sign a petition which they intend to present to Congress this Spring. He said, "We want to get 100,000 people to sign this petition, which they can download online.
The petition presents a grievance to the government that they're not paying attention to the Constitution, and that they need to pay more attention to it in the future." They want people to actually mail the petition rather than sign it electronically. They're hoping to deliver "several trucks" worth of mail to Congress, and they are expecting the petition to help provide a gauge of how many people in the country today are frustrated by the government. He also said, "We're planning on asking a member of Congress who has a record of defending the Constitution to accept the petition on behalf of the Congress. I can think of only one member of Congress, definitely, who would qualify." Apparently, they hope to make it a media event to help support Dr. Paul's candidacy.
The Next Money Bomb
Finally, Boyapati reported that the next big fundraiser has been set for Martin Luther King Day. It's called the Free At Last money bomb, and it's scheduled for January 21, 2008. He tells me that this one is somewhat controversial because many consider some of Dr. King's domestic agenda to be rather socialistic, but the reason they decided to do it anyway was to try to reach out to potential supporters among the Democrats show might be dissatisfied with their candidates' positions on the Iraq war and the Iranian situation. Despite that fact, in just two days they have already attracted 600 people committed to donating that day, so it's off to a good start.
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