'I hope you don’t let me go from Ames being sad this year,' said Ron Paul on Tuesday. Paul ups efforts ahead of Ames

Ron Paul announced a five-city Iowa bus tour next week with his son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, as part of an increasingly intense straw poll effort aimed at coming in strong at Ames.

Paul himself said that coming in at anything less than third place would be a disappointment on Tuesday, the first time he’s publicly pegged his expectations. But after years of dominating smaller, less contested straw polls, Paul’s facing a new situation at Ames. Since only Iowa residents can cast votes in the straw poll, he’s had to focus on making inroads to new voters, rather than relying on his small but fervid group of grassroots supporters who trekked across the country without any involvement — or even explicit encouragement — to back him.


With their eyes on the legitimacy that they believe a win in Ames, or even a strong finish, would provide, the Paul campaign is gearing up with time on the ground and building organizational support.

In addition to the bus trip, Paul’s campaign has bought bundles of tickets to offer supporters at steeply discounted prices — or completely free if needed. They’ve reserved buses to take supporters from any of Iowa’s 99 counties to the site at Iowa State University and back. And Paul himself has tacked on a straw poll appeal to stump speeches that have until now rarely veered toward the explicitly political.

“I hope you don’t let me go from Ames being sad this year,” Paul told a crowd of more than 100 in Iowa City on Tuesday.

Raising expectations for his opponents is also part of the approach. Drew Ivers, Paul’s Iowa campaign chairman, scoffed at Michele Bachmann’s assertion that she’s an “underdog” in the straw poll field.

“I think it’s comical that she would claim an underdog status,” Ivers said of Bachmann, who has quickly become the ostensible front-runner in the caucuses.

Paul himself will stay in Iowa for the five days leading up to Ames. Phone-banking by staffers and volunteers is picking up speed, while a new Ames-specific campaign website looks to coordinate organizing and fundraising efforts.

Plus, they’ll have help from Revolution PAC, the new Paul-allied Super PAC, which this week began purchasing newspaper and billboard advertisements in Iowa to gin up interest in the straw poll.

Meanwhile, the campaign is playing its own expectations game.

“We’re moving along steady, no big quantum leaps,” Ivers told POLITICO. “Slow and steady.”

But Ivers made clear that he knew the stakes for a campaign that’s long combated perceptions of unelectability.

“Credibility is a huge issue right here,” Ivers said. “A win would be a validation of the message and the messenger, a sign that the message is being embraced.”