From The Founder's Desk
columnist: Walt Thiessen

Topic: Ron Paul
Nationwide March for Ron Paul New Year's Eve

---

Another grassroots event is planned for New Year's Eve to have Ron Paul Meetup Groups march in major cities throughout the country.

---

by Walt Thiessen
(Libertarian)
Sunday, December 23, 2007

When Greg Thompson of Louisiana was out in San Francisco last week for their Tea Party rally marching with the local meetup groups, he was holding signs and passing out leaflets and such. Thompson has never done anything political before, so this was all new to him.

He said, "It was an eye opener to see just how excited and passionate everyone was about it. People who saw it were kind of surprised. In terms of publicity it was a really good thing. That got me thinking about doing it on a larger scale."

Thus the Ron Paul March idea was born. The plan is to get all the meetup groups across the country to March on the same day, New Year's Eve in cities across the USA. As so often happens with these grassroots ideas, the whole thing came together pretty quickly. A website was built and quickly launched. Email messages went out to meetup groups in major cities around the country, urging them to commit people willing to do the New Year's Eve march. Despite the fact that it's only a little more than seven days from now (and just 14 days after the idea was conceived), a great deal has already been accomplished. Nearly 400 marchers have already committed to the date.

Thompson says the ultimate goal is to get about 10,000 people marching, waving signs, and handing out literature that day. He says they're currently on track to get one or two thousand committed, and he admits that the quick timeframe is a bit of a hindrance. Nevertheless, he is pleased by the response he has seen to his brainchild thus far.

"There are roughly 100,000 meetup members across the country. We feel that if we can get 10% of them out there, it will be a success," said Thompson. "We only had about 100 in San Francisco, yet that still seemed pretty substantial. In Austin, Texas they had over 1,000 people. It was a huge presence, you know? So it doesn't take all that much in order to have an impact, especially if you can get the local media to pay attention."

While Thompson only contacted meetup groups in major cities, there's no reason why meetup groups in smaller cities and towns couldn't get involved too. Even if the local group only had 10-20 people for such a march locally, it could make an impact in a small population center, particularly within the context of the larger, major city marches.

"We're doing what we can to notify the media about this," Thompson continued, "But we're also hoping the various meetup groups will contact their local media as well." He also noted that they are planning to collect homemade videos of the marches from whichever meetup groups choose to film their activities, to turn it into a documentary or film of sorts. "So if any of the meetup groups want to film their event and pass it along, that would be great!" he said.

You can learn more about the Ron Paul March at their website at http://www.ronpaulmarch.com.

Did you like this article?
If you did, Thumb It!
40 thumbs so far

2007 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved.
Published: Sunday, December 23, 2007
Last modified: Sunday, December 23, 2007

The views expressed in this article are those of Walt Thiessen only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Walt Thiessen is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

Report violation by Walt Thiessen of Nolan Chart LLC's terms of use policy.