United Liberty

During the Rally For The Republic I was approached at least a half dozen times and asked for an interview (because I sang the anthem). My standard answer was-

“I’m sorry but regulations prohibit me from talking to you.”

 

Vanity Fair was at both the Celebration and Rally for the Republic interviewing everyone they could get their hands on. They were truly interested in why we were having this ‘counter convention’. It’s a great read with a very positive, objective opinion of our movement. Of course, the part that excited me most was their coverage of BJ Lawson from NC’s 4th Congressional race. I was there when they first met Dr. Lawson - and instantly their attitude about the whole event seemed to shift. At the Rally the next day, they came back for another interview, and again, the reporter seemed very impressed. He must have been, because he had this to say about him:

Some 700 activists attended the Campaign for Liberty grass-roots training session on August 31. One trainee told me that three fourths of the people in attendance were either running for office or planning to run for office. It’s this level of intense engagement that was perhaps the most striking part of the Rally for the Republic. A goodly number of the Paul supporters I encountered at the concert on Monday night and the blowout on Tuesday told me with calm conviction—or slightly unsettling zeal—that it was just a matter of time until they sought office, if they weren’t running for Congress or state assembly already. And if most didn’t have the intellectual capacity of Bill Clinton or the charisma of Ronald Reagan, a few had genuine potential, and most, upon cursory inspection at least, seemed generally free of the conspiracy thinking and fringe lunacy that stalk the edges of Paul’s events.

In case you were living under a rock for the last week or somehow without the ability to access United Liberty via the Internet, a group of us visited the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to provide photo and live blog coverage of the happenings.  As a card-carrying member of my state and national Libertarian Party, visiting a rally to return the GOP back to its roots may seem like I was a fish out of water.  Lucky for me, Ron Paul’s message of liberty and adherence to the Constitution transcends party lines toward a very well-organized movement to restore American freedom.

From my arrival at the Leadership Summit, I felt very welcome among the Ron Paul faithful.  Don’t get me wrong…  I am very well-acquainted with Dr. Paul’s message, and I voted for him in Georgia’s presidential preference primary.  His candidacy brought about some much-needed attention to the liberty message, especially when the Libertarian Party struggles with things like ballot access and discord within itself.

Bill Maher put a video together of a montage of politicians and political pundits in attendance at the RNC or Ron’s Rally in Minneapolis.  Each was given a chance to deliver a funny one-liner; most fell flat, but Bob Barr and Jesse Ventura definitely delivered.  Though Dr. Paul stole the show with his.

Enjoy!

Over at CNN, there’s a slideshow of pictures taken at the Rally for the Republic in Minnesota. It’s worth checking out. I wish I was there with y’all.

To our faithful readers, we apologize for not updating since Tuesday. We’re all in various modes of travel back to our homes and trying to “recover” from a busy and exciting Rally for the Republic.

This morning, I’m visiting family in Plano, TX, doing something I rarely, rarely do- watch the “old media” on television. While listening to Meredith Vieira, of NBC’s Today Show, interview Katie Couric and Brian Williams on the floor of the Republican Convention in St. Paul, I was shocked by something I heard Katie say-

What is the media? You can’t paint it in the broad stroke you used to. It includes the thousands and thousands of bloggers and partisan reporters.

Thanks for joining us today at our live blog to complement the Campaign for Liberty’s webstream and C-SPAN 2’s coverage.

Today’s Bloggers: Shana Kluck & Brett Bittner, with guest blogger Matt Colvin