7881 Total Pledges

Pledge for Paul Blog

Site information and behind the scenes progress reports...

Sunday Dec 22, 1:48PM CST

I just fixed a nasty bug that was created when we switched web hosts. It might have caused some unusual rate-limiting errors for some people. Anyway, it is not a problem any more. Happy holidays, everybody.

Monday Dec 17, 8:08PM CST

Our server exploded yesterday because our host could not support the thousands of hits coming from our button image direct-linked on sites like ronpaulgraphs.com. (A flood of Tea Party traffic.) Anyway, we have a new host now.

Friday Dec 14, 2:33PM CST

Thursday Dec 6, 11:19PM CST

I have been slowly updating the state pages with the links that I think are most important: the voting location lookup and voter registration form. It takes a while to look these things up for each state. For some states a voting location lookup website is unavailable. It would be helpful if some visitors could supply this information where it is missing, using the Contribute function. There is a "contribute" link under the graph on each state page. Thanks...

Tuesday Dec 4, 12:48PM CST

When I talk at length to people in Iowa about Ron Paul I typically get a good response. There are, however, two classes of negative feedback I get; Iraq and not having a chance to win. These are both legitimate concerns, and both take time to discuss (being an economist there are other areas I would enjoy talking about much more).

I have found it generally futile to discuss anything relating to the expense of the Iraq war. The average American has no idea what the magnitudes of GDP, government revenue, government expenditures, etc. are. It just doesn’t matter if the war cost $400 million, $400 billion, or $400 trillion (maybe trillion would strike some sort of nerve, maybe). Even relating it to “well x debt translates to $x per American” is still lost in amortized payments minus inflation over many years to come. I have never had any luck using this approach.

With cost out of the picture, my argument generally comes down to wars and occupation breeding more terrorists. This is quickly countered with some type of “no it doesn’t” argument followed by me listing some books, a general, and 2 academics that have written on the subject. This sometimes makes a minimal impact, but I doubt enough to really sway someone to voting for Ron Paul.

The second negative response I get is that they support Ron Paul, but won’t vote for him because he doesn’t have a chance at winning and they really don’t want [Giuliani, Mitt, or Huckabee] to win. Surprisingly the most traction I have found against this logic is from the RCP national head to head polls that show Clinton or Obama beating all 3 of them by a significant margin. This makes voting on principle a better option and has been giving me the highest “conversion count” (though granted they liked RP values to start with).

I’m going to see Obama (for the 2nd time) this Saturday (I think Oprah too?). Living in Iowa, it is nice to being able to see all of the political candidates. I wish these ‘rallies’ were more detailed and specific... really they are only a small step up from the 30 second sound bytes that happen at official debates (Ron Paul rallies included). It may make me an old codger, but I would really like to see a speech where everyone listens and thinks (instead of yelling and cheering) for at least 5 minute intervals.

Here are the top pledgeforpaul.com referring sites according to Google Analytics:

Friday Nov 30, 10:33AM CST

Last night I improved the State Breakdown page so that it shows plenty of information at a glance. Next up, I will be adding more information to the individual state pages (links to state election offices, polling locations, etc.). I'm also considering a comment box where people can contribute their own info for each state so that the whole community can enhance the site (and so I don't have to do all of it myself). One more thing: states with less than 11 pledges are not included in the scoring/ranking.

Wednesday Nov 28, 1:38AM CST

I am on a midnight train development schedule because the primaries are coming up soon, and if this little site is to make a difference, it has to be set on fire right now. I'm busy working on some maintenance things tonight, and tomorrow I'll set out to work on a heat map...growth of the site so far has been almost completely organic (read: not promoted), which is pretty neat.

Tuesday Nov 27, 1:59PM CST

Ron Paul Wins Poll Among Iowa State Students - A survey conducted by a sociology class at Iowa State (my alma mater) shows students are excited about participating in the caucuses. Oh, and by the way, Ron Paul took the prize among republican candidates.

Monday Nov 26, 10:46am CST

I worked on some graphs late (very late...) last night, just in time to display numbers that are beginning to take off.

Sunday Nov 25, 4:28pm CST

There has been a significant bump up in pledge growth today thanks to someone adding PledgeForPaul to Digg this morning. Since the site launched on Wednesday, the top referring web pages have been:
1. ronpaulforum.com - 55 visits
2. ronpaulforums.com - 43 visits
3. weneedronpaul.com - 42 visits
The real growth will start later this week when we start shamelessly asking for plugs from a couple key web admins. Thanks to everyone helping the site grow!

Saturday Nov 24, 3:56pm CST

There was a problem with the dns server last night and as a result some ISP's couldn't resolve for a couple hours. Sorry if you couldn't get on then. A most recent referer list was set up on the right. The Links section on the left was picked after going through about 20 Ron Paul sites... I'd suggest checking them out (webmasters - let me know if you would like your site considered). Graphs are still in the works.

Friday, Nov 23, 12:13pm CST

It is nice to see the pledge count broke into triple digits sometime last night. We should be in quadruple digits next week. The stats/graphs section will hopefully be done in the next couple days, then the focus will shift to promoting the site (emails to webmasters, press releases, etc). For anyone on facebook here is the PledgeForPaul official group: http://facebook.com/group.php?gid=6183762345

Thanks to everyone who has pledged...keep linking and keep the pledges coming.

Thursday, Nov 22, 7:04pm CST

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm stuffed. Yesterday was the first day online and we ended with 24 pledges. I'm going to work on some pledgeforpaul banners that other sites can use to link to us. In the mean time if anyone reading this could help spread the site via a message board/facebook/blog post/etc I'd appreciate it. I think I'm going to set a goal of 100,000 pledges by the Iowa Caucus. Any suggestions on promoting the site are welcome (email). I doubt we can get AP News plugs until there are at least 10,000 registrations. Thanks!

Site Menu

Top States

Links

Promote

Pledge for Paul Blog

Site information and behind the scenes progress reports...