RP in IA

I just heard someone report that the democrats expect 150k for the caucus and the republicans 75k. His reasoning was the republicans aren't excited this year, so if that's 1/2 the normal turn out that should translate to Paul doubling his numbers.
Here's a similar statement.

Merry Christmas

Tea Party

Here's the wagers:
Stilwell: 4 and under, 7, 8
B-Burg: 5, 9, 10
Hook: 6, 11, 12 and over

I think it'll be 10 mil. I'm still amazed that the Nov. 5th donations were so linear with time. If the tea party follows we'll know by noon about what Paul will raise.
There's still hope the polls are way off. Besides Paul's momentum continuing there's some offset error in the polls. I'm a "typical" voter, but the polls would have missed me, I didn't vote in the Republican primary in 2004, or any Republican primary since sometime before 2000, and no landline anyway.

Subprime Freedom

Freedom is the right to be stupid, or so I thought. The government is protecting stupid investors. That's so nice of them, they're protecting the stupid people from evil companies that want to uphold their contracts.

I wish I was stupid enough to get a variable rate mortgage on a house I couldn't afford thinking it would go way up and value and make a huge profit, knowing the government would bail me out if it didn't work. No risk at all in a risky investment, I guess I really am the stupid one.

Deal Reached on Mortgage Rate Freeze

Blimp

Looks like the Ron Paul Blimp is for real. And it's now a for-profit company, so there's no election rules. Sign up for a raffle to ride the blimp.

The blimp is planning on dumping tea into the Boston Harbor on December 16th.

How will the 4th quarter rank?

Here's an article about the 4th quarter of the 2000 election.
Bush raised the most, 11 million.

I figured 2000 would be the biggest recent fundraising year. But we've printed a lot of money since then so here's 2004:
Howard Dean raised 15 million in the 4th quarter.
Sounds like Bush has the record:

In the last fund-raising quarter, from October through December, Bush raised $47 million. About $32 million came through fund-raisers, $14 million through direct mail, and $1 million over the Internet.

But wait:

Much of Bush's money came thanks to a network of business executives, lobbyists, attorneys and other volunteer campaign fund-raisers who gathered at least $100,000 or $200,000 in donations to become Bush "pioneers" or "rangers." More than 300 people have raised $100,000 or more for Bush.

Here's the amazing part, for all of 2000 (not just the primary), Bush raised 193 million, but from individual contributers of less than $200, he raised just 20 million.

North American Union

I've been pretty skeptical. The giant Texas highway did make me wonder.

But Paul recently mentioned SPP.GOV, so I went there, their mission:

* Coordinate our security efforts to better protect U.S. citizens from terrorist threats and transnational crime and promote the safe and efficient movement of legitimate people and goods;
* Expand economic opportunity for all our people by making our businesses more competitive in the global marketplace, cutting red tape, and providing consumers with safe, less expensive, and innovative products; and
* Enhance our common efforts to combat infectious diseases, develop responses to man-made or natural disasters to enhance our citizens’ quality of life, protect our people and our environment, and improve consumer safety.

This sounds pretty close to what the Federal Government is supposed to do, help coordinate the States.

The Fact section surprised me, it states that individual State's are currently building NAFTA Corridors:

Myth: The U.S. Government, working though the SPP, has a secret plan to build a "NAFTA Super Highway."

Fact: The U.S. government is not planning a NAFTA Super Highway. The U.S. government does not have the authority to designate any highway as a NAFTA Super Highway, nor has it sought such authority, nor is it planning to seek such authority. There are private and state level interests planning highway projects which they themselves describe as "NAFTA Corridors," but these are not Federally-driven initiatives, and they are not a part of the SPP.