Today is the day. December 16th. THE money bomb.

It’s only 11:30 EST, and the Ron Paul contribution tally is already up to $13,592,907.81. By my estimates, that means we’ve seen $2 million worth of donations today. And it’s only just beginning.

I’m going to guess that we’ll be up to $16 mil by midnight tonight. It may be slightly ambitious, but I think we’re going to hit it.

It’s a proud day for this grassroots movement. I’ve got to go look at some houses, but I’ll check back throughout the day with updates.

Keep donating!!!!!!! And remember, purchases in the Ron Paul store count as campaign contributions.

Thanks, Stumblers!

A lot has happened over the past few days.

The Ron Paul blimp successfully launched.

The Ron Paul Girl made another awesome video.

And Ron Paul appeared on Mad Money with Jim Cramer.

I would love to post more, but I’m heading back to my college town for a little reunion. And I’m hungover, and typing makes me want to vomit.

So that’s all for now! More tomorrow….thanks for checking in.

Hot women (including Ron Paul girl, Liv Gillen) wrapped in the American flags.

And a little Ron Paul, too.

What more could a boy ask for?

A new 2008 calendar is about to hit the market, featuring images of the sexiest women who support Dr. Paul.

The calendars, Hotties 4 Ron Paul, will be ready for shipment on December 16th. And they’re only $8 when you make a $10 contribution to the Ron Paul campaign!

You can order here. Don’t even think about not getting one.

Thanks, Stumblers!

Wow.

Have we really come this far?

Mr. Absent himself, Alan Keyes, is invited to participate in yesterday’s Republican debate (essentially wasting everyone’s time), yet Dennis Kucinich was rejected from today’s Democratic debate.

The reason, you ask:

The sponsoring newspaper requires that all debate participants have an office and paid employees in the state of Iowa.

Are you fucking kidding me? An office?!

First off, what do an office or paid employees have to do with the validity of a Presidential hopeful? I know plenty of people who have big offices with tons of employees, and they’re still complete morons. I’d like the Des Moines Register (no, I’m not kidding) to explain to me the correlation between a physical office and one’s ability to lead a nation.

Secondly, doesn’t requiring the rental or ownership of a campaign office contribute to overspending during election season? Shouldn’t our goal be to an elect a leader who doesn’t need the big dollars from corporate America to win the people’s vote? And shouldn’t we focus our attention on the issues, as opposed to a trivial debate rule?

Excluding a valid candidate, like Mr. Kucinich, from a nationally-televised debate calls into question the fairness of these public forums. I have a hard time basing my voting decisions around a discussion that would disqualify a well-qualified and politically active candidate.

Not to mention the fact that, even if he had been invited to participate, Kucinich would have been largely drowned out as Clinton and Obama bickered away. But that’s a whole different issue.

The fact is that I’m disgusted by the lack of credit these lesser-known candidates receive during elections in this country. Where’s democracy gone? What’s happened to our freedom of choice in selecting our elected officials?

The media has somehow assumed the role of “election dictator”, effectively stripping us of our ability to make a balanced choice. And, sadly, the American people have let this happen.

Iowa Public Television….you’ve done it again!!!!!!!

Thanks, Stumblers!

…let’s fly, let’s fly away.

Tomorrow, Ron Paul hits the skies.

The official Ron Paul blimp takes to the air tomorrow morning from Elizabeth City, NC. It’ll arrive in Charlotte tomorrow (12/13) evening, and leave for Columbia, SC on Saturday.

For those of you who haven’t heard of the stunt (I assume that everyone has, but I’ll play along), several of this campaign’s passionate supporters have organized the flight of a full-sized Ron Paul blimp advertisement up and down the east coast. It’ll fly over several major cities, with a GPS system streaming its coordinates to the world via an online map.

To top it off, the advertisement’s call-to-action matches the three words that have defined the campaign thus far: Google Ron Paul.

From a PR standpoint, these grassroots organizers are pretty much geniuses:

-First of all, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real blimp. Let alone a blimp with a giant “Google so and so” on it. I picture families of all shapes and sizes coming out to their front porches to look at “that big-ass thing in the sky.” And thousands of people watching YouTube videos of it flying over the Status of Liberty. I can hardly control myself.

-Secondly, just imagine the media coverage this monstrosity is bound to get. The news CAN’T ignore a 200 ft. blimp floating by their office windows (or can they? Let’s just hope Rupert Murdoch has taken up bird watching).

So I’ve got to say that I’m really excited about this idea. When’s the last time you heard of something so creative and different in a political campaign? I don’t see Giuliani’s supporters mowing his face into a giant “Rudy” crop circle.

The campaign organizers still need to raise a little bit of cash to keep this blimp up in the air for the month. So, if you’ve got the bling, head over to RonPaulBlimp.com to show your support.

Thanks! And I’ll be watching tomorrow.

Thanks, Stumblers!

There was a debate today. This was the last time the candidates would meet on stage before the first caucus on January 3rd. Their last shot to really get their points across to America before the numbers start coming in.

And they decided to have it in the middle of the day.

What better time to hold a national debate than when everyone’s at work.

You know, it’s kind of hard to blog about a debate that I didn’t see. But even if I had put all of my work aside to watch the debate on the Internet, I couldn’t:

– CNN.com told me to turn my television to CNN (that makes sense).

– FoxNews.com had a giant image of girl’s panties that read “Who needs credit cards?” on their homepage

– And MSNBC.com linked me to Iowa Public Television’s streaming video feed

Somehow the words “Iowa” and “streaming video” just don’t seem to work for me. And they didn’t work for my computer either. I spent the first 20 minutes buffering like it was 1998, and the next 20 minutes with an audio feed from the crowd.

My first question is, “Iowa Public Television?!”

Listen, before you start blasting me about the value of public television, I want you to know that I appreciate it as much as anybody! There’s nothing I enjoy more than British comedies and cooking shows.

But, if you’re going to host a national debate that may shape the future of our country, why not let the major news networks handle it? Something tells me that CNN’s video technology may be a little bit above the same network that regularly airs Mr. Bean.

Nothing against Bean, but I imagine that many voters may be in the same situation that I am – employed with no television in my cubicle. Struggling to find a good video feed online. And unable to do so.

So that’s my first problem. My second problem: when I tried to READ about what happened today, I was let down once again, thanks to my old friends MSNBC.com (the same news site that offered round-the-clock coverage of American Idol contestant, Sanjaya Malakar, just 6 months ago).

In a debate wrap-up article, entitled Rivals tout spending cuts, unite on tax reform, the MSNBC journalist spent the majority of the first page discussing Huckabee’s fair tax and the other candidate’s relatively positive reactions to the idea. Blah.

Reading.

Reading.

Reading.

17 paragraphs later, the first mention of Dr. Ron Paul! WOOT (it’s in the dictionary; look it up).

That’s right. 17 paragraphs. Even Tom Tancredo’s name was mentioned before Paul’s.

But it wasn’t just ANY mention. Oh no. It was the one to beat them all. In fact, it was so good, that it was his ONLY mention in the two-page article.

Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, here’s what MSNBC.com had to say about Ron Paul:

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas was also participating…

So, no, I will not be commenting about today’s debate. I’ll probably watch it on YouTube later, but judging from MSNBC’s riveting summary, I think I have a good idea of how it went.

Thanks, Stumblers!

Is it just me or did someone just make a huge contribution to Ron Paul?

Earlier today, I believe his total for this quarter was somewhere around $10,800,000-something. Now, he stands at $11,357,362 (less than $700,000 from his 4th quarter goal of $12 mil).

I’m not sure who made this half-million dollar contribution, or whether it was a number of people, but THANK YOU!

EDIT: Correction. Someone pointed out to me that each person can only donate $2,300 per candidate. This huge increase may be because of the new wristband sales.

EDIT 2: I just received a comment from Norman (see comments just wrote in) that reads –

I just contacted the Ron Paul donate contact and I was told they had just added the offline funds. I had also noted that the RonPaul2008.com site amount had increased but the RonPaulgraphs.com site had not increased. They told me that both site would be in sink by morning.

Thanks Norman. It was still pretty amazing to see the number jump like that.

With the upcoming money bomb on December 16th, we’re going to blow all predictions and notions about grassroots campaign fund raising out of the water.

I was going to go watch TV, but I couldn’t help but touch on a story I just stumbled across on Reddit (told you I was Internet obsessed).

It appears as though Mr. Kucinich is close to putting the final touches on the President Bush’s impeachment papers .

In a Sunday night speech given at a convention center in Reno, NV, the Congressman from Ohio had this to say:

“On the way over here, I was reading a 50-page document that relates to Articles of Impeachment for the President of the United States. And I want you to know that I’m actually preparing this document for submission to the House.

This is a moment when we’re called upon to reclaim our country. You give me your vote, I’ll give you back your country.”

I’m not sure if this impeachment would be as sexy as President Clinton‘s, but it certainly will be interesting to see how this pans out.

Which Republicans will have the guts to stand up and support the justified movement? How many Democrats will run away hiding with their tail between their legs (*cough* Pelosi *cough*)?

First off, I want to thank everybody who visited my blog from Digg today. I received a ton of traffic – especially for my first entry. So thanks again.

I’m going to get right into it because I’m really tired and I don’t want to write another 8 page blog entry.

So you probably noticed that the name of this site is PaulANDKucinich.com. And many of you may be saying to yourselves, “Whassup with dat? How can you possibly support them both? They’re not even in the same party.”

Well, I’m doing it anyway. So deal with it.

First off, the political ideologies of the two candidates are pretty far off from one another. They disagree on everything from healthcare to energy to gun control. But they do have one overarching theme in common….

…the Constitution of the United States of America.

Upon entering office, members of government swear to honor and uphold this 200-year-old document. It is their obligation and JOB to do so. However, somewhere along the line, elected and appointed officials must’ve stopped reading it. Or maybe they just SparkNotes‘ed it.

In any case, Paul and Kucinich have been consistently united in a front to protect what our founders once laid out for us. Together, they’ve been successful in bringing the issue of Constitutional rights to the forefront, and reminding us all of the significance of the words ‘We the People’.

There’s been Internet speculation over the past month or so that these two candidates may eventually choose to run under the same ticket. While they’ve both offered support towards each other’s general beliefs, neither candidate has made an official statement regarding an election partnership. And they may never do so.

But this blog isn’t really about that (I don’t think). This blog is about two men who have risked their reputations and careers on Capital Hill to defend what they know is right.

Daily, Paul and Kucinich receive criticism from even their own party members, who refuse to accept that this nation isn’t about winning a war or arguing over trivial matters – it’s about remembering why and on what grounds we were founded in the first place. It’s about remembering those who have lost their lives to defend our basic Constitutional rights and create a better life for all of us.

We’ve lost sight of the big picture. We all claim to love freedom, but somehow we’ve lost much of it. It’s not any one person’s fault, but it’s happened.

And now is the right time for a Paul and a Kucinich to point us back in the right direction. So blog on, brother. Blog on.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Common Sense author, Thomas Paine: “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

I guess you’re wondering why I decided to start another Ron Paul blog. Aren’t there already hundreds of these out there already? Probably. I didn’t bother to check.

But let me start by explaining who I am. It may help to shed a little light on why I created this blog in the first place.

I’m a 23-year-old guy from Maryland who eats Chinese food 3 nights out of the week, spends a lot of time on the Internet and likes a lot of movies that people hate. I’m a die-hard Howard Stern fan, and I once appeared on Wheel of Fortune.

I was raised in a faithful Republican household, with family members who had close friendships with members of our local government. Kind of like Growing Pains, except with Nancy Reagan and Strom Thurman.

So, as a kid, I always just accepted that I was a Republican. My family was smart, right? So why question what they believed? It was much easier to accept my role as a Republican and move on.

And then I went to college.

It’s a pretty stereotypical story I guess. Young, responsible man goes to liberal arts school. Makes hippyish friends. Starts protesting something.

Being 20-years-old, in a college that looked like it should have been located on Haight-Asbury, and in the middle of a war launched by an unpopular, conservative commander-in-chief, it was the right time to be upset with the country. To be upset with our government. And to be upset with the thought that I could have been one of them…the Republicans!

It was much easier to identify with a party that appealed to an MTV Rock the Vote crowd than one that affiliates itself with Rush Limbaugh.

Let’s be honest with ourselves -it’s kinda cool to be a Democrat. No one wants to be the head of the Campus Republicans. Especially anyone with some sort of self-awareness.

Once I graduated, things didn’t change that much. Democrats = U2. Republicans = war. It’s hard to think otherwise when knee deep in pop culture and news.

The Presidential primaries came along, with every news story focusing on Hillary and Rudy. It was the same bullshit as always. A continual fill-in-the-blank with two more candidates that seemed to be all too influenced by their respective parties and political camps. Another “who cares” election. (Note to self, I kinda like that term. I might use it again. Nice work, me.)

As I’ve said before, I’m a self-professed Internet addict. This summer, I lived by Tay Zonday’s Chocolate Rain. I learned the words to Numa Numa. I bought a cat just so I could take a picture and turn it into an LOLCat (I’m allergic. I didn’t do that. But I would have if I could.)

This summer is also when I discovered Digg. For those of you who don’t know it yet, you will. In simple terms, it’s a site that lets you submit stories that other people vote on. The top stories make it to the homepage of Digg and a lot of people go to look at them.

So as I’m casually surfing around the site, I begin to notice a trend. Ron Paul hits the homepage at least 3 times a day. “Probably just another extreme, whacked out politician with a grand scheme to save our country,” was my immediate thought. In fact, I’m going to venture to say that’s what everyone thinks when they first see the Paul name. Go ahead. Ask someone.

But curiosity got the best of me.

I immersed myself in all things Ron Paul. I watched the YouTube videos. I checked out his MySpace/Facebook. I watched the Ron Paul girl take off her shirt. And I started “Digging” the stories.

The message and the timing were perfect. I suddenly realized that not everyone in this country was drinking the Kool-Aid. There was a reason that so many (seemingly intelligent) people around the Internet were passing the name “Ron Paul” around. And I knew that there were enough people fed up with the policies of all three branches of of this government to truly make a difference country.

This movement has taught me and many others that it’s okay to be a Republican.

That it’s okay believe in freedom without believing in war.

That it’s okay fight for individual freedom, privacy and rights.

And that it is our obligation to rally against our country’s leaders when they lead us off the path that our Founding Fathers once laid down for us.

Ron Paul has done something that no other candidate has ever been able to do – engage me in politics. I mean, for Christ’s sake, I wouldn’t even look at an election themed news article three years ago, and now I have a blog about two candidates who might not even make it past the primaries.

But it’s the message and inspiration from fellow Ron Paul supporters that have led me to this blog. I really do believe that there’s something unique going on in this country at this very moment, and that the Paulites are leading the way. People want change and we’re finally waking up to do something about it.

Over the next few entries, I’ll be going more into detail about what Ron Paul means for this nation and world. I just wanted to get the introduction out of the way first. Tomorrow, I’ll open up with what role Dennis Kucinich plays in all of this.

Thank you for reading (if you read it) and please comment and Digg me!