Historic Rally For The Republic

This will be my final post for this blog documenting my experiences at the Campaign For Liberty events. Since I haven't been online since Tuesday afternoon, I have lots to report.

After the Leadership Summit on Monday, we headed to the Nation Celebration, a free outdoor concert attended by thousands of Ron Paul supporters. What a blast! We arrived late and missed the first few performers. I was really looking forward to hearing Marc Scibilia perform his song dedicated to Ron Paul, called Hope Anthem. We missed it, but here's his music video for the song if you want to check it out. We did make it in time to see Aimee Allen perform her rockin' Ron Paul song. You can view her MTV video here. Ron Paul gave an inspiring speech, too, thanking all his supporters for the hard work they've done over the previous year. The Nation Celebration was one of my favorite parts of the week--I met so many cool, freedom-lovin' people and they were all instant friends. Liberty unites!

Here are some pictures of that event. The middle one is of Caitanya and another 15 year-old, Zach, who also attended all the events. Like Dr. Paul says, this movement has drawn so many young people.

Tuesday was the Rally For the Republic at the Target Center, with 12,000 people in attendance. What an amazing event! There was quite a line up of speakers, from Lew Rockwell, Doug Wead, Bruce Fein, Jesse Ventura, and Barry Goldwater Jr., to Olympic swimmer Erik Vendt and Adam Kokesh of Iraq Veterans Against The War. Every one of them got the crowd riled up--by the end of the night, my throat was raw from all the cheering and hollaring I did. Aimee Allen also performed again-- a super fun show. Here's a picture of that performace, as well as one of me, Jen, Christy, and Jenny Brown, one of Oregon's Ron Paul alternate delegates to the RNC, enjoying the show.

Ron Paul gave a phenomenal address, doing (as he always does) a fantastic job of speaking truth about the problems of an ever-growing federal government failing to follow the Constitution, failed foreign, monetary, and drug policies, and the Federal Reserve system and its connection to inflation, that our country faces, but also energizing us to carry forward to correct these problems: "What we need is a Universal Champion of Liberty," he said. If you haven't had a chance to watch his speech, here is a link to the C-SPAN2 coverage. Also, I have a short video (my camera can only record 1 minute videos) of when Ron Paul first came out on stage. In it, you can see the size of the crowd and their excitement.

Lastly, here are a few more photos of the Rally. All in all, this was an incredible honor to be involved in this event. The r3EVOLution continues!

Campaign For Liberty Leadership Summit

What a day! It started with breakfast with Dr. Paul. The man graciously shook the hands of over 500 people during the photo op. and I got to tell him that he's my hero--an honor for sure!

At the Leadership Summit today, they rolled out Ron Paul's Campaign For Liberty, his new PAC--it's totally impressive, very well organized, and designed to keep up the momentum of the liberty movement. Yesterday focused on political activism and today's program had political leadership as the focal point. Lots of practical tools and resources.

Two pieces of great news: the Rally For the Republic happening tomorrow is SOLD OUT! Over 10,000 people will attend. One cool thing is that all the folks at this Summit received VIP tickets to the Rally and will have the best seats in the house. Yipee!

Also, after a year of a total media blackout, we found out that CSPAN 2 will cover the entire Rally. That gave me chills. I thought, "We've finally broken through the matrix." Lastly, here's a bit more media coverage: check out this article in the Corvallis Gazette-Times about our trip to Minneapolis. Also, we were interviewed this morning by a journalist from the Weekly Standard--it was fun! An article he's writing about the Campaign For Liberty may run this weekend.

Real Politics Training School

After a grueling 36 hours on the road, traveling through Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota, in a van packed to the hilt, we FINALLY made it to Minneapolis at around 3:30 this morning! Here's a photo of the 8 of us that traveled together: (from left to right) Jamie, Ciatanya, Jen, Helen, Christi, Clint, me, and Terry.

A quick nap and then we were off to our first day of Campaign For Liberty events. And what a great first day it's been. We had a 10-hour training session on political activism, which may not sound very exciting to some, but the 600 attendees were totally pumped!

For me, the best part of the day came when Ron Paul surprised us with a visit and short speech. I'd never seen him in person before so it was a great thrill for me.

Lots of interesting news from the Ron Paul delegates to the RNC--seems Bush and Cheney won't be attending because of hurricane Gustav (I guess they want to be sure to not screw it up like they did with Katrina.) Also, all the RNC speeches have been canceled for tomorrow--only official convention business.

Here's a few more pics of our day: (1) Jen and me; (2) Clint and Christy with Barry Goldwater Jr.; and (3) the gals, Christy, Helen and Jen.

Headin' for the Grand Rally

Today, I'm setting out on a 30-hour road trip from Corvallis, Oregon to attend the Rally for the Republic in Minneapolis, MN. I, along with 7 other freedom-lovin' folks, will be taking this momentous tour in non-stop fashion--except for potty and food breaks, we are driving straight through. I think we may be a little crazy, but our excitement about the upcoming 3 days of events will make the trip there a whole lot of fun!

We'll have: Jenifer Runnion, graciously donating her van for the journey--without her energy and creative financial-problem solving this trip likely wouldn't have been possible; Caitanya Dasa, Jen's 15 year-old son who is a real rabble rouser and way into politics--we told him he had to leave his megaphone at home; Clint & Christy Johnson, organizer of our local Ron Paul/CFL Meetup and his wife who, like me, is fairly new to political activism; from Salem, OR, Jamie Jackson and Terry Hamel, who were state leaders in the Ron Paul Presidential Campaign and now in the Campaign for Liberty; and Helen Kelly, who lives in Eastern Oregon--I haven't yet met Helen, but look forward to getting to know her and all of these cool folks better on the road.

To kick off our trip, Jen, Caitanya, Christy, Clint and I met last night to deck out the "Liberty Van." Whoo hoo!

Bon voyage! I cannot wait to shake Ron Paul's hand!

Oh yeah! I want to say a huge thank you to the people who donated money to support us in taking this trip: Rich and Jaynee Germond (Jaynee is our candidate for U.S. Congress in the 4th District of Oregon--Go Jaynee!!), Sharon and Gordon Fritz, and Mac Stevens. Thanks to all of you for giving us nearly $1100.00 total!