Two quick things:

1. Check out the video on our news page of Dr. Paul on MSNBC yesterday.
2. If you've got HBO, stay up tonight to catch Dr. Paul on Bill Maher. (11pm)

Just put in the first order for HQNH yard signs--which will be useless unless we get them in yards all over the state. So, if you want to declare your support for the best candidate, email us and we'll put you on the list to get one or more. (NH only for right now, please.)



It's time to start making it clear that there's one good choice for this primary: Ron Paul.

The new Zogby Poll released yesterday puts Ron Paul in fifth place overall with Republican voters (at 3%)--behind the guy who tried to stop body recovery at Ground Zero (27%), the guy who wrote the law to handicap political challengers (13%), the undecided guy who thinks the only legitimate Iraq debate is "how to win" (9%), and the guy who said once, without a hint of irony, "I'm pro-choice. My opponent is multiple choice" (9%). It's a real bumper crop this year, ain't it?

Seriously, as the numbers keep coming out (and shifting) the point is only getting hammered home: if most of the voters knew much about the frontrunners, they wouldn't be supporting them. These guys are running on slick presentation and sound bytes, and because there's so little underpinning, there's not much for a constituency to hold onto--that is, not much to hold on to a constituency. With 28% undecided (even in a preference, let alone a decision), and so much of the vote clearly blowing in the wind (Thompson gets 9% for just floating the notion?), there's a real opening here to win Paul converts just by getting the message around.

In addition to inviting and welcoming Dr. Paul up here as much as we can, I'm convinced that a large part of our work will involve dogging the other candidates and making the Ron Paul case to the curious voters who show up to hear them. To that end, I hope everyone will keep an eye on the New Hampshire Presidential Watch. It's a running calendar of who's coming and when--short on details, but a good place to get a heads up and then look for the specifics. (If I find a better lead, I'll post a link.) Fertile ground for meet-up activism; if you want plan to go and want some backup, we'd be happy to help.

It's tempting to ignore the Democrats for now, this being a primary fight at the moment, but at the same time, I wouldn't underestimate the clout of registered Independents who might want to see what Obama, for example, has to say. They could be leaning left because of Iraq, they can register with either party on the day of the primary--and they make up 44% of registered voters in the state.

In the incredible schedule jostling going on this cycle (at this point, I almost expect some state to lock down "first" status by declaring, "Primary Today!"), it seems to me that one of the most important factors of the famous New Hampshire primary is getting lost in the shuffle. It's an element unique to the Granite State, and it underlies our conviction that New Hampshire is the state that can make Ron Paul.

Yes, yes, traditionally New Hampshire goes first. That's very important, but crucial to the real value of our primary is the way politics happens in this little corner of the country. The presidential race here is not a media-driven affair; it's not enough for the candidates to blow out the air waves and then descend once or twice for a painfully staged speech or photo-op. As voters in a small state with a tradition of personal, local, argumentative politics, we expect to meet these people--to ask them questions, get answers, and respond (with civility) as we see fit. The glory of the "first in the nation New Hampshire primary" has been the elevation of our way of evaluating candidates--of giving voters in states too large for this sort of thing a chance to experience it through the media before they vote. Best of all, we have been able to give an early boost to the candidate who can hold his own without script approval.

I don't know how much longer this will last. With every state racing to have an early primary on the mistaken assumption that being first is all that matters, candidates may very well start treating New Hampshire like it's just any other state with electoral votes. And the election--the choice of the people--will suffer for it.

But, right now, we've still got it, and this is the year when it matters most. New Hampshire will have the nation's first primary in this election, and our process has the unparalleled potential to raise up the right candidate, to take an honest and responsible man and put him in the national spotlight.

This state has the potential to make Ron Paul the Republican front-runner for 2008. If we choose him, the national media will have to cover him, they will have to interview him, and they will have to take him seriously. No amount of money, no number of ads, could possibly do for his candidacy what we, the voters, can do for it here. All we have to do is be Ron Paul's campaign, and sell this state on a principled man. This is New Hampshire; selling honesty shouldn't be hard.

In a poll conducted by FOX News recently 32% of respondents said they'd like to see Clint Eastwood in the White House... well, hypothetically. The poll asked 900 registered voters, with a 3% margin of error, what Hollywood Star they'd vote for--the options were: Clint Eastwood (32%), Oprah Winfrey (30%), Mel Gibson (9%), Angelina Jolie (4%), Sean Penn (3%) and Barbra Streisand (2%). 16% voted "none of the above."

"We nominated celebrities who have in one way or another entered the political fray or who are talked about as potential political leaders," McCuddy said. "We tried to pick celebrities who have public personas that span the political spectrum."

Eastwood, famous for playing tough guys on the screen, served as mayor of Carmel, Calif., from 1986 to 1988. (He also got into the White House in the 1993 thriller "In the Line of Fire," where he played a down-at-the-heels Secret Service agent guarding the president against an assassin played by John Malkovich.)

The results of this poll got us wondering whether Dirty Harry would consider running as VP with the good Doctor.

So we thought we'd ask you:

We've been explaining the fact that Ron Paul's campaign will rely upon small contributions from individuals, but we really can't overemphasize the point. One or two $10,000,000 bribes from corporate sponsors would go a long way--but no farther than a million or two $10 dollar donations from individual Americans. We know Dr. Paul's corporate sponsors will be limited to honest, ethical companies who aren't trying to purchase political benefits--making them few and far between--so that means it's up to us.

So how much? How much of your hard earned money should you contribute? Well, obviously this is up to you--we just want to make sure you understand the importance of individual contributions in this race. Look at it like this: how much money would you give for the privilege of deciding the next president? What would that privilege be worth to you? How much can you afford to part with? Is there a better candidate than Ron Paul?

America is ready for a change--but the corrupt political establishment will not change itself. Ron Paul is willing to do his part--but he needs the people, en masse, to vote with their wallets as well as their minds. Principled men don't like asking for money--but principled people shouldn't have to be asked.

So do what you can.

To celebrate Ron Paul's official announcement, we thought we'd kick off a blog that will challenge everything you've been taught about the great American political "divide." So here's the first installment of why Ron Paul is the candidate for the right and the left.

For the last few election cycles, we've heard a lot about moderate politics, with each side accusing the other of partisanship and an interparty nastiness that didn't exist in the good old days. The implication is that whichever "We" is speaking are the white hats, the principled people who are willing to converse civilly and reach consensus. And "We" are also sure that the great mass of the American people are "moderates," too, not in-fighting extremists. "We" can bring the country together because "We" represent the midpoint between two poles.

It's time to ask what part of that nonsense speaks to the American people.

What is the midpoint between "yes" and "no"? What is the compromise between "up" and "down"? If you know you want to turn, but you don't know whether to go left or right, what exactly is the use of marching straight ahead?

The kernel of truth in that political rhetoric is that the American people are not in-fighting extremists; we do have more in common than not; and we are in search of political leaders who will use their time in office to unite, not divide us. But the answer is not watered-down principle--it's the right principle acting in full force. We're going to ask you to put aside your picture of the left-right divide for a moment, and consider what it is that you really think.

• Do you think American citizens should be sent overseas to topple and restructure foreign governments?
• Do you believe that the government has an unquestionable right to your earnings, and do you think it spends them responsibly?
• Do you think that your government, here at home, should be monitoring citizens--your bank activity, phone records, Internet use, or email traffic?
• Do you think that our $500 billion education system does a good enough job for your child?
• Do you believe that healthcare decisions should be between you and your doctor?
• Do you believe that the $9.2 billion spent annually on the incarceration of drug offenders is money well spent?

Are your answers to those questions left or right? Are they founded on party platforms, or on your intellectual and moral framework? And, most importantly for our purposes, do your answers line up with the official positions of any candidate for the presidency in 2008?

The odds are, regardless of your party affiliation, that your answers are in line with Ron Paul's. That isn't because Dr. Paul has taken a thousand polls and crafted a cafeteria-style platform that cherry-picks the most popular positions on the issues. It's because he, like you, has a principle in mind and keeps it: that America is a free country and ought to stay that way. His positions defy the left-right divide just as yours do, because that divide is more illusion than fact. (If you balk at that notion, try to list 5 issues that the parties disagree on with anything more than rhetoric.)

America is not a house divided; it is a well-built structure in need of a handyman who respects its craftsmanship. For 2008, that man is Ron Paul.