I've had a couple of people suggest in comments and e-mails that they were awaiting an overview of the Rally for the Republic that went on last week. I've been pondering what to say, how much to say, and how to say it. But here's a shot at it.
First, my experience was not unusual, but perhaps not typical. I attended as Nebraska's Rally for the Republic organizer, so I was in on quite a bit of the pre-rally information. I also participated in activities beyond the Rally. So I think I'll divide the activities--for purposes of organizing my own thoughts--into what happened during the three days that we were there, and then provide a brief overview at the end. I'll try to be relatively brief.
DAY 1 (Sunday)
Each state was allotted 2 "leaders" who could attend the Real Politics Training. At some point, they expanded the numbers available--from the 100 that could have been there, to 500--however only 2 per state got to go at no cost. As it turned out, we were packed beyond capacity at that event--some 600 folks showed up--500 of them paying their own $85 take advantage of the training, which began at noon, and continued till after 10 p.m.
The air conditioner wasn't working in the room; the gentleman teaching the course was a man by the name of Mike Rothfeld--a professional political consultant who--based on what he said, I would guess cut his political teeth fighting some of the early battles in the takeover of the GOP by the Religious Right. At the least, he seemed very passionate about Right to Life issues, as well as Gun Rights. As a side note, it's my understanding that John Tate, who serves as the Executive Director of the Campaign for Liberty, has a background in that movement, as well--having, I believe, worked for Pat Robertson back in 1988.
I have 12 typewritten, single spaced, pages of notes from the training session. My sense at the end of the day was that the C4L was attempting to instill in its leadership a sense of reality--a sense of understanding the real political game, and knowing how to play it. There was lots (and lots and lots) of terrific information. Sadly, while we were welcome to take all the notes we wanted, the training was not taped in any fashion. Rothfeld's comment on that--and I understand where he's coming from--is that were he being taped, he would be constrained/limited in what he could/would say, and that some things are better understood if presented bluntly (which they were on occasion).
Overall, there are now 600 committed Ron Paul/liberty supporters out there who have some improved understanding of the political world, who will hopefully apply that knowledge wisely in the future.
I should note, as well, that while I had been getting a sense of this (and of course the t-shirts strongly suggested it), it became even more obvious that the plan for the Campaign for Liberty is to mobilize and become influential in the Republican Party. As one of the speakers (maybe the following day) suggested, you can vote third party--and that can be useful for some things--but the reality is that we are a two party system. It's been that way almost from the beginning, and it's not going to change. The two major parties we've got have realigned and changed their focus from time to time, but it's been the same two parties for the last 150 years, and isn't likely to change. That being the case, the sense is that the Republican Party is the one that we have the best chance of working within (gosh, what wise blogger has been saying that for months and months?), and if we want to have an impact, it has to be within that framework.
Mid-evening, when we were getting just a little fatigued, we noticed a fellow come in and hold up a note for our trainer. The exchange between the two was cryptic, and I guessed (correctly) that we were getting ready to have a visit from "the man" himself. About 10 minutes later, Dr. Paul entered to our right, and the applause and standing supporters moved like a wave as everyone realized what was happening. A nice little interlude, that revved us up for the last couple of hours of training. Dr. Paul left and moved to another location within the same complex to attend a reception for Ron Paul RNC delegates and alternates. Barry Goldwater, Jr. was also at that event. According to some of the Nebraskans who attended, the reception was one of the highlights of the trip.
DAY 2 (Monday)
Each state was allotted a leadership contingent equal to the number of members of Congress (Senate + House) that the state has, so in theory, there should have been 535 of us there. I don't know the precise number that were there, and am not sure if every state had full representation, but it was close. There was a full delegation of 5 of us from Nebraska.
The schedule for the "Leadership Summit" as it was called, seemed to have been in a state of flux almost till the last moment. At one point, there was supposed to have been some sort of ratification of by-laws or constitution of the Campaign for Liberty, although that never happened. I'm not sure if there were some legal snafus, or what. As I understand it, all the hoops for organizational recognition have not been jumped through yet.
As it turned out, we got a bit of an overview of what they have in mind, although it seemed to me to be a work in progress. There was talk of "command and control"--meaning, as I understood it, that they wanted to have some sort of firm organizational structure, and a means of communicating effectively with the grassroots. The whole structural thing is probably the fuzziest yet, from my point of view, although part of that was complicated by the nature of the crowd--apparently many who thought that the event was to be a debate over how things should be, and an opportunity to gripe about perceived wrongs by the presidential campaign, rather than an overview of the plans that WILL be put into place.
A group of Ron Paul "leaders" is an interesting thing to behold. Part of the "interesting" comes from the nature of the folks who Dr. Paul attracted. Certainly, it was an incredibly bright group--far more politically engaged than the average person--but not necessarily more politically savvy. One of the gripes--by one of the folks who thought that we were there to pound out the structure, rather than to listen to what the structure would be--was that he (I guess) was anarcho-libertarian, and didn't like the centralized nature of the proposed structure, whereas some Paul supporters were more paleoconservative and would be more comfortable with that. I'm not sure what this guy wanted, although that encouraged some who felt the need to complain about the inadequacies of the presidential campaign (although I'm not sure why the anarcho-libertarian would want the presidential campaign to have charge of anything). These objections were answered clearly, although I'm sure not to the satisfaction of some, with the following comments (paraphrased): "No organization is successful without some sort of command and control hierarchy" and "This is what the Campaign for Liberty is going to be." Some were also concerned that in order to become a "precinct leader" that you would have to pay a $35 membership fee. Personally, I think that if you're going to have access to records and tools (which have not all been rolled out yet, but which will include voter records, as well as some social networking capacity in the future), it's not unreasonable to expect that you make a bit of a financial contribution to the creation and maintenance. $35 dues will also increase the likelihood that those who are signing up are actually committed, and not just messing around and filling out forms.
I've long said--to anyone who would listen to me--that one of the strengths of the Paul campaign--the creativity and motivation of individuals and grassroots efforts--was also one of its greatest weaknesses. Each individual and each meetup group had its own personality--its own motivation. And from what I could tell, many of the leaders were convinced that whatever they were doing was the smartest and most politically intelligent thing to do, and should be done by everyone. One observer that I talked to noted that it seemed that: "everyone wants to be able to do their own thing--unless they can get everyone to do their thing." This is probably the biggest challenge to the Campaign for Liberty.
The afternoon sessions during the Leadership Summit dealt quite extensively with grassroots organizing within the Republican Party. And while there were a certain number of us who are pragmatic enough to see the value of trying to work within the Republican Party--endearing ourselves for a while, as we work to become more influential--there were also a number who are reluctant warriors in that battle; folks who think that the Party is beyond saving--or not worthy of being saved.
There seem to be two groups within the leadership ranks: the "angry Republicans" who have a real sense for how the political game is played, understand the need for prioritizing goals and compromising occasionally, and who are incredibly upset with the direction that the GOP went after 1994--but especially after the election of George Bush; and then the "purists." The "purists" among the leadership group was already stirring things up after the speaking schedule for the Rally was released--there was criticism of the selection of Grover Norquist to speak by some (those who accused him, rightly or wrongly, of being a "Neocon"), although on questions of taxation and role of government, his views seem right in line with most Paul supporters. To their credit, the organizers maintained a reasonable position--not requiring purity or total agreement even with Dr. Paul on all issues. The word came down that the C4L would work with whoever they could, on whatever issues they could, in an effort to build influential coalitions.
As I noted, from a structural and purposeful standpoint, the organization looks much like the Christian Coalition of the 80s, I think.
The Ron Paul Nation Celebration occurred after the events of the day, and while I haven't heard a firm count, I'm guessing there were several thousand folks there. It was a laid back event--with good music and good entertainment--and a Congressional candidate emcee who some in the audience were suggesting might be "the next Ron Paul." I also caught sight of at least a few other "Ron Paul candidates" who I am aware of who have won their primary bids and will be facing the Democratic candidate this fall. (Note: the beer line was REALLY long--my brother stood in it for well over an hour, but made friends with a few Free State folks who were in line near him. Mom's going to be really unhappy with me if he was serious about moving to New Hampshire! 
) We skipped out of the "later" party that night (I'm old, and really don't do well on 3 hours of sleep anymore).
DAY 3 (Tuesday)--The Rally
The rally was good, but since there are tons of YouTubes available, I'm not going to go into any great detail. With the exception of Jesse ("The Body") Ventura, former Governor of Minnesota (who promised to keep an eye on us and IF he saw that the movement was for real, maybe he'd put himself forward as a candidate in 2012), most of the speakers seemed to be pretty "paleocon" (or maybe "libertacon"). Presidential historian Doug Wead was one of my personal favorites--although I was happy to hear former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson whose style seemed sort of reminiscent of P.J. O'Rourke.
Ron Paul's speech was "red meat" for the faithful. There wasn't anything new in it--but it was everything that had attracted any of us to him. It was great fun to be a part of that crowd of somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000. One report suggested that the Target Center in Minneapolis is larger than Xcel Center St. Paul, and that we might have had a larger crowd at the Ron Paul Rally than was in attendance at the RNC Convention. I don't know if that's true (and suspect that it probably isn't--although in looking at the raw capacity of the two, the Target Center IS bigger, but I suspect that the layout was such that more were actually AT the Xcel Center). Still it puts things in perspective--we had a lot of people there.
Lots of press were there--a lot of reporters going around trying to find the craziest Ron Paul supporters they could. A guy from the Boston Globe came up and started asking me questions, found out that I had been at the earlier meetings, and started asking me about those. I was, if I do say so myself, giving very rational, reasonable answers to his questions--trying not to give too much away, but giving enough away to make him interested. Unfortunately, some guy from somewhere else overheard what we were talking about, stuck his nose into it, and started sharing a bit more wild-eyed version of what we've got in mind. The reporter left me and turned to the more "exciting" source. Then, walking into the hallway on the way to the restroom, a reporter and technician from the Canadian Broadcasting Network stuck a big microphone in my face and started asking questions. I have no idea if I made it on the air.
We had our share of fringies there. There were some "truthers"--who were encouraged by some of Jesse Ventura's remarks (those remarks, apparently, resulted in Tucker Carlson bailing out as the emcee halfway through the program). My brother, Mike (who wrote ONE post during the event, and who has yet to post his other thoughts) was on the lookout for a particular type of Ron Paul supporter--the "entertaining" type--and during one of our forays into the hall, we ran into one. I'm not sure exactly what this guy was up to, but it seemed to be related to the war, and not being willing to vote for McCain because he'd kicked veterans "in the balls"--or something like that (but I specifically remember the phrase in quotes). When we came upon him, he was in the face of what appeared to be an RNC delegate (based on his neckwear)--maybe one of ours, but maybe one of the curious ones who got a ticket. When the delegate finally escaped, he turned to my brother and started in on the same spiel. Mike looked at him and said something like: "I'd never vote for anyone who kicked me in the balls" and made his exit shortly thereafter.
That being said, for the most part, the group was very "regular"--and all of the meetings and the rally had a much older average age than I had anticipated. I suppose because of the Lincoln and Omaha groups that I've been a part of, I expected that I'd be one of the oldest in those crowds--but while I wasn't the youngest, I certainly wasn't the oldest, either.
The highlight, of course, was when Barry Goldwater Jr. introduced Ron Paul, and the good Doctor appeared on stage, and had red-white-blue confetti fall around him. The crowd went crazy--and a good chunk of us stood throughout his speech--in part because there wouldn't have been much point in sitting down, since we were on our feet cheering so much. It was a special time, and for an hour or so, it didn't matter what was happening on the other side of the river; we were there with OUR nominee accepting our nomination, we were celebrating our achievements, and we were committing ourselves to a long fight for liberty.
LLE
As a bit of a postscript, the Campaign for Liberty fell just short of its goal of 100,000 members on its site by September 2. As of this writing, they're within 1500 of getting to that number, with several thousand having joined since the rally.
