You people need to MAXX OUT at $4,600 immediately! They need it to stay afloat the way they handle “other people’s money”. Send it in. Send it in! LOL

The masses are asses, it just didn’t seem there were so many LP members back in the 80s and 90s included!

I wouldn’t give him the time of day. I don’t wear a watch…

The question is the cost. $19,000 = 5% of what the campaign has raised thus far. $19k is a LOT to spend on AC. Yes, AC is needed, but would you install a system for $19 million? $19 billion? Saying that AC is necessary and saying the cost is justified are two different things.

$19k for five months. $4k a month. That’s a lot to pay just in RENT. Our Ron Paul HQ in Michigan cost $600/month. Barr needs a better place than we had, no question, but $4k a month JUST in AC? And then leaving an improved building for the owner when they vacate in November? Some schmuck just got his building upgraded with the money that we, me included, have donated to Barr’s campaign. Criticism of this is obviously valid.

OK, I get the message — you don’t think newspaper advertising is the best way to spend money. OK, no problem. Let’s put it in terms you MIGHT consider worthwhile:

At $2.00 per signature, the money spent on AC for the Barr campaign office would have purchased 9,500 petition signatures (collected by people working, for the most part, in outside, non-air-conditioned environments, btw) in states where ballot access hasn’t yet been achieved for the Barr/Root ticket and/or the LP’s state tickets.

I don’t have anything against air conditioning, but money that’s spent on it can’t be spent on other things, and it is therefore reasonable to question whether that particular purchase was a wise use of funds.

No Trent, it never has. Cite me one instance where it has worked?

Never.

Never. Only idiots suggest it. Which is why, always, it is suggested by the kind of idiots who populate the LP campaigns…and Knapp is one of those.

Idiots don’t grow more fond to me, they grow less.

IF you can keep that ad running from whenever thru the election, and do it in enough places, then yes, it might make some sense to include print advertising in your campaign budget.

We’re talking about something different. A third party never can afford that. And the yokels who spend money that way ought to be called out on it.

And I did not call Knapp stupid. I said that anyone suggesting that ads in newspapers is the way to get votes is an idiot…yes, I did say that.

So, Knapp, is that what you were saying?

If so, then yes, you don’t know your butt from any old hole in the wall.

Again, I ask everyone, simply look in your local newspaper.

This is JUNE, dammit. Where are the ads? They are not there.

IDIOTICALLY, some twerp blogger criticizes, without any information, buying air-conditioning for an office where people are working in the summer

Then, blowhards like Knapp and the author of this article chime in that they know better how to spend the money.

Can you spell Badnarik?

Knapp is asserting numbers which are incorrect. He’s taking circulation numbers and suggesting that everyone sees the ad, responds to it, is motivated by it…etc.

Ever try to sell a car?

Besides, this is an election. You DO NOT advertise to the general public when you want to reach voters for the simple reason that in most districts you’ll be trying to find 4 in 10 people. That’s the average ratio if you count voting age people only. 4 in 10 you see on the street MIGHT be registered to vote.

If the circulation is 800,000 then the actual number of registered voters would be a little above or a little below 400,000.

Then, consider page views.

Who the hell will see it? Knapp quoted column inch rates…he wasn’t talking full-page ads. He just wanted any old ad. Ok?

So, maybe 20,000…that would be one out of 40.

Ever watch anyone read a newspaper?

And, of that 20,000, MAYBE half would be registered to vote.

Then, on election day, IF you have a “high” turnout, take two thirds…so 12,000 voters would have seen Knapp’s ad.

How many would have known what the hell it all was about?

Well, let’s let Knapp design the ad. Maybe he has some magical touch which has eluded every other campaign operative ever to elect someone.

Maybe Michael Badnarik taught him some neat tricks.

So, again, ONLY AN IDIOT would buy newspaper ads…in June or in October.

First of all–calling Knapp stupid wont convince others here that you are smarter,it’ll do the opposite. We all know him to be intelligent.
As for newspaper ads–Knapp was right in his assertion that it wold reach 800,000 potential voters,wasnt he? As for your arguement, simply substitute “newspaper ad” for “direct mail campaign” or “TV Ad”–it still works.

“Reach”? You win campaigns by reaching VOTERS. Or, put another way, it’s the VOTES DUMMY!

Tell me when you see the ads for Obama and McCain…keep a sharp eye out, cause those newspaper ads for WINNING R and D campaigns don’t happen very often.

Why in hell would someone buy ads for an LP candidacy, unless of course it is to follow the LP’s typically stupid campaign “strategies”?

More to the point, the past LP fraud problems involve exactly Knapp’s sort of reasoning. Hucksters at the national committee and the Browne campaign bragged about just such stupidity. Talk radio appearances, etc.

The winning campaigns are struggling to reach voters. The typically moronic Libertarian campaigns are struggling to ape what they see on television, cause they think that is the campaign.

STUPID.

Keep an eye out now, and tell me what percentage of winning campaign budgets go into newspaper advertising.

Is there a “firestorm brewing” over the Barr campaign’s expenditure of $19,000 on air conditioning for a leased campaign HQ? Probably not.

Should there be? Maybe.

The Evans-Novak Political Report recently opined that Barr could might make hay as a “spoiler” in Colorado and Nevada.

The cost of a Sunday full-page ad in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which would reach about 200,000 readers is (if I’m reading the rate card right) $2,184, or a little less than one maximum $2,300 individual contribution.

The Denver Post charges $400 per column inch. If they bill out at the same full-page versus column inch multiplier as LVRJ (which charges for 21 column inches for a full-page ad), then those that’s $8,400 to reach another 600,000 readers.

So, the Barr campaign effectively decided that that air conditioning is more important than reaching 800,000 readers in key states — twice.

Does anyone believe that any given 4 or 5 individual max contributors to the campaign would rather have had their contributions go toward saving Barr’s campaign staff the inconvenience of setting up some box fans and using extra-strength anti-perspirant for a couple of months than toward reaching 800,000 potential Libertarian voters?

One blogger, hardly a nationally known blogger, criticizes the campaign (and I like and frequently agree with the comments I see from ElfNino’s Mom).

I, and a few other people are the only Americans who know there is such a blogger.

The article’s title suggests there is some kind of firestorm brewing, with all the activists denouncing Barr and the campaign.

As to the criticism of Barr’s other PAC, and it’s expenses, does any libertarian think he should have spent MORE money on filthy Republicans?