Disclosure: I work for Steve Kubby's presidential campaign as a volunteer in the position of communications director. This post is not a paid ad, nor am I receiving financial compensation/restitution for contributions to the campaign which may result from it. To the extent that it may be regarded as an "in-kind" contribution to the campaign on my part, I value it, in line with recent "pay per post" blogging I've done, at $10.Steve Kubby's
response to the State of the Union address went up on his
campaign web site before George W. Bush had left the Capitol building, and while US Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) was still delivering the Democratic response.
The "response to the response" brought our web server down as thousands of
Digg readers hit the site at the same time to hear what Steve had to say. We logged more than 5,000 unique visitors in the timeframe immediately around the crash -- we don't know how many got turned away during the outage.
We'd planned on launching our first "public" fundraiser shortly, but events have pushed it up. Here's the
real thing, to which I hope you'll respond, but I'll cover the high points right here, and stick in the clickables, too.
Bottom line: Steve Kubby's proving, every day, that he's a "serious candidate." Now we get to find out how serious
you are. The people who follow these things estimate that the "major party" candidates will each spend about $500 million or more on the 2008 election. Call it a million dollars a day between now and November, 2008.
We're not asking for a million dollars a day for 500 days. We're asking for
a thousand dollars a day for
five days. That's not a drop in the bucket to Republicans or Democrats, but it's enough to ratchet the Kubby campaign up to the next level of activity.
I've already told you about the tremendous response to the State of the Union piece. We need a better web server, because that's going to keep happening.
The campaign's first two radio commercials have been recorded and are in post-production. Some time in the next few days, we'll be making them available to Libertarian candidates to use in their own campaigns ... and we want to air them ourselves, too.
Steve announced his candidacy in front of a crowd of 50,000 in Seattle, and campaigned in Washington for LP Senate candidate Bruce Guthrie. He spent several days in Colorado in November, campaigning for Amendment 44. He's been attending Libertarian Party and non-LP public events all over California. He's already confirmed that he'll be attending LP conventions in Nevada, Oregon, New Mexico and California in February, March and April. That's just the beginning. We have plans to send him all over the country ... but plane tickets don't buy themselves.
Steve's made three radio appearances in the past week. More requests are already coming in and we're proactively seeking more such opportunities. By this time next month, we'd like to have him giving three radio, television or newspaper interviews
a day, and then up from there. While these affairs don't have built-in costs, they do have overhead. Specifically, the travel described above. It's a lot easier to get Steve on the air in Boise or Baltimore if we can tell the media that he's going to be
in Boise or Baltimore.
Oer the years, I've heard lots of Libertarians say (sometimes in the comments of this very blog) that we need a $10 million presidential campaign. I agree. That's a bare minimum to be really effective.
So, how do we get to $10 million?
We get there $10 and $50 and $100 and $2,100 at a time.
And where do those $10, $50, $100 and $2,100 contributions come from?
Well, from
you, of course. What, did you think there was a campaign fairy?
This next $5,000 will let us do the things we need to do to raise the $10,000 after that.
That $10,000 will let us do the things we need to do to raise the next $50,000. And so on, and so forth. But it starts here, and it starts with
you ... if it starts at all.
Here's the skinny:
Contributions or gifts to Kubby for President (FEC #C00428698) are not tax deductible. Business, corporate or individual contributions are welcome. Contributions are limited to $2,100 per person, or $4,200 per couple, for the primary election, and again for the general election. A husband and wife may make a contribution from a joint checking account in an amount of up to $4,200 if both spouses sign the check Credit card contributions are permitted up to $2,100 from the credit card holder.
Contributing Online
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Contributing By Mail
Make checks out to "Kubby for President." Per FEC regulations, we ask that you note your employer/occupation on the memo line or let us know about it in a separate note. Here's the mailing address:
Kubby for President
17415 Ocean Drive
Fort Bragg, CA 95437--
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Narrator of the outstanding documentary on American political prisoners, Through The Wire, among other "political media" projects.