Bear with me, this might cut a little close to the bone.
When I first came to Washington, DC, I roomed with a former top communicator at The White House who had just finished up a major position overseas. He was 31 and I was 23.
After talking with me about what I hoped to accomplish he gave me some free advice which I'll paraphrase, "Before you came to Washington, 50 percent of the people in this city hated you simply because you were a Republican. Of the remaining 50 percent, 25 percent of the people you will come to know will hate you because of something you'll say, do, or become. The other 25 percent is on your side. Understand that basic premise and you'll do just fine."
I've always thought of that advice as I've made my journey as an aggressive communicator in the House, Senate, and on the campaign trail. I've recently found his advice to ring true in the blogosphere and in the daily struggle of running a small business. In other words, that piece of advice seems to provide comfort in just about every facet of political life - where competition meets you at every corner.
These past few days have been reminders of that reality.
Two individuals who I have considered friends and colleagues whether they have or not, Erick Erickson and Michael Turk, have posted public mantras on why, essentially, "David All" is an over-zealous self-promoter with only one goal in mind: his own.
They rhetorically kick over just about every sand castle I've built over the past year. And they question my allegiance to the Republican Party. Another Redstate contributor has said as much via email and I'm sure others will surface publicly or privately.
More after the jump...
Truth be told, I am my company's only marketing division. And my company is my brand. If it's a crime to be available and accessible to reporters then I'm guilty of self-promotion. I live and die by the creative imagination and pen of others. And if I'm irrelevant to the discussion, I've lost the fight entirely. That's the business of PR -- even in the modern world.
But I won't address their personal attacks further. It saddens me that two professionals/colleagues would act in such a manner, but it's their choice. I continue to respect both individuals for their numerous contributions to the movement and the Republican Party. Best of luck to both moving forward.
I would, however, like to address the spark which ignited the larger issue at hand which is that of Ron Paul's supporters and Redstate's ban of them.
Turk sums up his loss of "what respect for me he had left" by noting that the straw which broke the camel's back was my defense of Ron Paul's supporters which he terms an, "angry, vocal minority."
Wired's Sarah Lai Stirland's post on the matter sums up the entire disagreement:
And [Erick] takes on Web 2.0 consultant David All, who he says is more infatuated with the tech-savviness of the supporters than the substance of their ideology.
But All made some interesting points, not all of which made their way into my story. The first was that shutting the commenters down might galvanize them against the mainstream Republicans, and that in an environment where races are so close, that's a risk that they can't afford.
His second point: "I can only hope that whoever our nominee is, that his supporters have that level of energy."
All sees Paul's supporters' activities as a form of 21st-century canvassing. These days, a lot of young people's only consistent communications medium is their mobile phone or the Internet. So that's where Paul's supporters are.
All and Erickson's fundamental disagreement is over who Paul's supporters really are. The answer seems to be that they're a wide conglomeration of independent-spirited characters who can't be categorized. (Apart from being libertarian.)
Erickson thinks that they're a human political cocktail of Code Pink activists and Neo Nazis, and he doesn't expect them to vote for anyone other than Paul.
All thinks that a lot of them are those who buy into Paul's message of limited government and fiscal responsibility.
First, let me clarify my position -- I am not a Ron Paul supporter just as I will not be supporting one Republican candidate over another. Instead, I will support our Party's nominee and will actively work to defeat Hillary in the modern world. Period.
Second, I am not a Libertarian. I am a Republican.
Both Erick and Turk use a number of analogies and examples to conclude that anyone that supports Ron Paul is either "Code Pink and Neo-Nazi lurkers" or "anti-Semitic, racist, white supremacist, black helicopter Republicans." Their conclusions could be true for at least some of the "fringe" support which Ron Paul's candidacy is attracting. I agree that there is no room in the Party for those kind of supporters.
I would never doubt that there are a few bad apples in Ron Paul's apple cart. In fact, I've personally worked on a number of campaigns and realize that you can't always control who will support your candidate. Riff-raff exists on every campaign, especially when it's only a click away.
Paul's campaign and vocal presence is largely Internet-based, as Howard Dean's was in 2004. When your support is decentralized, it is nearly impossible to corral and quantify that support. Therefore, each website publisher in this country, including this one, can tell you their ridiculously inappropriate "Ron Paul commenter/spammer" story. They exist. They support him. And they should stop.
But Ron Paul's supporters are not all bad apples and it's inappropriate and unhelpful to conclude as such. Paul's support is deeper in the mainstream than people give him credit for and is digging deeper every day.
Take for example The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder's comments earlier this month about Ron Paul's fundraising impact (emphasis mine):
Oh me of little faith. Ron Paul cannot be dismissed as a gadfly; the chance for him to outperform expectations rises exponentially with additional million dollars he raises. 5.08m is real money. There must be, within the Republican Party, a vein of anti-war libertarian sentiment. It is longer and deeper than many of us had suspected. The Paul movement is probably one part Buchanan bridage and one part fiscal hawk. It is clearly active in ways that most of us haven't adequately understood? Paul may be in a position to be a giant killer now. Imagine if he finishes second or third in New Hampshire ....
Let me repeat, Paul's support is probably "one part Buchanan brigade and one part fiscal hawk."
And in New Hampshire, a state which Paul hasn't actively campaigned in, he places fourth in a poll which was just released today by the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College:
If the Republican party primary were being held today and you had to choose a Republican candidate, listen carefully to the candidates names and then tell me which candidate YOU would support.
* Mitt Romney 32%
* Rudy Giuliani 22%
* John McCain 15%
* Ron Paul 7%
* Mike Huckabee 6%
* Fred Thomson 5%
* Tom Tancredo 1%
* Sam Brownback 1%
* Duncan Hunter 1%
* Other 1%
* (VOL) None/ No answer/don't know 9%
Ron Paul is turning on people that have likely never been turned on to politics including young people. And regardless of what party they thought they belonged to, they are now supporting a Republican candidate.
Will we win them all to the Party regardless of who wins the nomination? No, just as we will not win every Democratic, Independent, or other party affiliation supporter that has been inspired by our other Republican nominees. And as I've noted above, nor do we want to win every supporter which is attracted to a candidate.
But think of it this way. Ronald Reagan inspired an entire segment of Democrats who lived in Macomb County, Michigan to become "Reagan Democrats." Just this past cycle on a campaign in Michigan that I was working on, we went after those same voters with a message that we thought could win their support. We knew a Republican had done it before and we were willing to give it our best effort because we knew that every vote mattered.
Regardless of which Republican emerges after the nomination process, they need as much support as they can get. That's going to take bridging some gaps based on issues.
As the National Republican Congressional Committee noted in its memo after a much closer than expected race in Massachusetts earlier this month, 2008 is going to be a "change" election. And right now, Ron Paul represents "change" more than any candidate. It is important for Republicans to understand how he's delivering that message, and not to dismiss it simply as the rantings of crazy people.
As I blogged in my original post on the matter, I feel that Redstate plays a strong, iconic role in the conservative blogosphere. For many, Redstate is the conservative blogosphere. By shutting off all Ron Paul comments/discussions they sent a very loud signal to all Ron Paul supporters -- even those that aren't crazy blog commenters and spammers -- that they were excluded from the discussion and were not wanted in the Republican Party.
I simply think a more diplomatic policy could have been applied, just as many traditional media outlets have put in place, to deal with the influx of aggressive online activity. Doing so would have been well understood.
To wrap this up let me say that no one who is a part of any establishment likes real and honest change, especially if you're not willing to embrace it. I have embraced it and I will continue to fight for the Republican Party the best way I know how - using the tools and tricks of the modern world - and whether they want my help or not.
Sure, it won't be easy. I know that the road ahead is long, lonely, and sometimes painful. But I find comfort knowing that I'll always have 25 percent behind me.
Revolution.
