Posted by Zapper in IPR comments:

What are we seeing here?

The American people seem to be fed up, and yet for the most part, they don’t respond.

We’ve seen a second Great Depression, continuing economic malaise with unemployment, massive deficits, the housing crash, foreclosures, bankruptcy, people barely hanging on to their jobs and financial lives, or scrambling for new jobs at lower wages, most thankful to be getting by, or desperate because they’re slipping below the financial waves. The government is failing, their lives are failing. What takes precedence?

Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, political turmoil and revolt around a troubled world, America’s wealth is being drained AND YET we were attacked and needed to respond … But how much is too much? It’s a lot to think about, and at the same time, just surviving and raising a family is hard. Voters would like a clear vision and a leader… But who? Who has a vision? Who to trust?

The war on drugs is failing, too many people have gone to jail for marijuana, and thousands are dieing in Mexico, yeah this is a problem. Most would agree that we could legalize marijuana, tax and regulate it like wine, end the trouble in Mexico, stop the waste of money and human resources and police resources that could be spent on real crime. But really, when your family and financial life is at stake, is this important enough to jump into politics?

They’re all crooks anyway. They make promises and never deliver. All politicians are alike. Who can trust anyone in Washington? How can you trust a third party or independent candidate you’ve barely heard of? Better to go with the one you know? Gut feelings? Flip a coin? Sure the yellow dogs will keep following their parties, but what about the rest? Too tired, too busy, too disillusioned – especially in this cycle – the 2012 election cycle.

Many polls show that a very large percentage, a majority in some polls, claim they would consider a third party, more than ever now. But they never do. They never have. Things are different, but still they never do and they never have.

But, this time things could be different.

Sure, there wasn’t enough interest in Americans Elect. But it offered nothing. No answers, no solutions, no hope. It was a technical effort. They provided an amorphous Party apparatus – a turn-key political party – an empty shell. But empty means nothing. It offered nothing.

Sure, to those of us who understand that Americas electoral process makes ballot access nearly impossible for an Independent or 3rd party candidate for POTUS, this sounded like a dream come true – for someone. Surely someone or several someones would jump at this opportunity.

But, to the American voters, AE didn’t exist and had no reason to exist. The average American thinks that any crank can run for President and get on the ballot anywhere and it’s easy to do so. How many understand how difficult it really is? Maybe between 1/10 and 1/100 of 1 % … maybe less than that.

So, AE has died … maybe. They still could come charging back with a later announcement that some savior has emerged, if someone charged forward and grabbed this thing and gave it a big shake. Someone who could command immediate interest and had his own money – a Perot or a Bloomberg maybe.

But, the chances are very small.

So, what about the LP?

For us, this represents a great opportunity.

Governor Johnson and Judge Gray have credibility. They could present themselves to be the answer the public is seeking, in a gentle, pragmatic but extremely Principled way.

They could present the LP program – with a bit more emotion and heart than Johnson usually delivers – and with a bit more Principle: a little stronger on the non-intervention (with wiggle for a holocaust); a 43% spending cut is good, but add pay freezes and caps for the highest level government workers ($100,000 cap for all, graduated cuts below, esp. cut Congress and the Pres. pay and staff) and stress cuts in spending for wars abroad and wars on drugs, cuts for wasteful interest expense with a balanced budget; and repeal of the income tax and abolition of the IRS, replaced by an amorphous consumption tax, but stop promoting the Fair tax as that will alienate more people than it draws, although it can be given as an example of one of the many ideas available.

But, how do we generate hope in the hearts of the American people? How can we show them that we have a plan and are ready to lead?

They’ve barely heard of Libertarians or Gary Johnson. We can’t get enough free media to reach them – not yet, not now anyway. Sorry to say, but Youtube, Google, the Internet and even a Blimp or two won’t do it.

We need to start major network TV advertising. We need to start NOW.

That is the only way they will hear our message and the only way they will notice enough to consider us, to support us, to donate to us, to register their interest in us enough to get to 15% in the polls and get in the debates.

Then we get the free media.

And then we get more attention, donors, money, supporters, increasing poll numbers and we can finally acheive breakthrough vote totals.

So, how do we get enough money to advertise on major network TV?

The obvious answer is that if we think of nationwide, major network TV, then we can’t. Not now. Maybe never. We have to advertise to get the donors we need to raise the money we need to advertise to get the donors we need …

OK.

The Johnson campaign needs to start an immediate segregated advertising fundraising campaign. Every dollar raised, 100% will be used to buy time, during the best morning, daytime and evening time slots on major network TV.

Production costs of a few good spots – call Travis Irvine now – should be fronted out of other campaign funds. Make at least three good spots now. Get them up on Youtube – real 30 sec spots or maybe 60 second spots. Better yet, three of each and a five minute spot. Show the donors some great spots and promise 100% of donations to put them on the air.

Limited funds. Yes sure. But we don’t have to go nationwide. Just major network.

It’s about time we learned to target our advertising and campaign spending. We need to go where the major network ads are cheapest and where small bucks have a big impact.

We need to advertise and spend enough money to drive our poll numbers up in whole states. State by state. One state at a time.

We have limited funds, so we start with the States with the smallest populations which generally means the cheapest ad rates to buy enough rating points to drive our poll numbers up past 15%.

This means we look at certain States, gather all of their ad rates for all of the major network stations in the media markets that are wholly contained withing these states or overlap with other targeted states.

We can pick 8 to 10 small states to target. A group of small states with a total population smaller than many of the individual large states. With ad prices that start in the tens of dollars instead of thousands of dollars.

We can’t afford CA or LA. We can’t afford IL or Chicago. We can’t afford NY or DC.

But we can raise enough money to begin to saturate several smaller states with major network prime time TV ads for:

Gary Johnson

Libertarian for President

2012

We have to be willing to fund other states than our own. We have to see that the best use of our donations is to help states where we don’t live. We won’t see our state party grow, not right away, but we will see it later.

If we give our campaign dollars now to these smaller states, we will reap the reward when our seeds grow and bear fruit. We can see the whole of American eventually covered with free and paid media buys – if we give our money away now to fund major network TV buys in the smallest of our States with the cheapest ad rates.

But where?

Don’t look for your own State on this list. Think bigger. Think of how we can build our whole movement, the whole Johnson campain, the whole LP.

Here is the list:

Alaska,

Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont

Montana, Idaho, Wyoming

New Mexico, Arizona

Nevada, Utah

North Dakota, South Dakota

We need to look into these 13 states.

Media markets. Ad rates. Major network TV only .

No cable. No internet ads. These are a waste of our limited funds.

We pick the best opportunities. At least 7 or 8 states to start.

The campaign should follow up in these states with campaign appearances and events. When you buy ads on major network TV in local markets, the news reporters will followup with prime time interviews of the candidates – They watch their own stations after all.

This will result in our inclusion in polls taken in those states. Just being in the polls results in free media. (And being excluded means being at zero in the poll.)

When we generate enough interest in the first group of states, we will get more free media and more donations. Then we can expand to a larger group of states – the next group of small states.

(Yes. It has to be several states to avoid being ignored as a single state anomaly. And it has to be small states to start with because that’s what we can afford. It has to be whole states and not large cities because cities don’t have electoral votes, states do. And for most of you it has to be a state you don’t live in, and you have to give more money to this effort than you do to your own campaigns in your own state, so that the growth will come back to your own state in the end.)

The time is now.

Major Network TV advertising needs to be our number one priority.

Small states first.

Gary Johnson and Jim Gray, please take note.

The staff supporting Johnson/Gray, please take note.

My fellow Libertarians, please take note.

The time is now and there is no time to waste.