Y'all, Steve Kubby's response to the State of the Union Address went up on his web site while Jim Webb was still giving the Democratic Party's response. It's available at:
http://www.kubby2008.com/node/22 Overnight after that response was posted, it caught fire at Digg, one of the Internet's most popular "social bookmarking" sites. We'll never know how many people tried to visit the campaign web site to read the response ... because when 4,000 of them tried to do so in a very short period of time, it brough the server down. We logged more than 5,000 unique visitors in the 24 hours after the response was posted ... and that doesn't include the ones who never got there. Consequently, we've launched the campaign's first "public" fundraiser in order to (among other things) get the site onto a more robust web server. To this point, our fundraising has been low-key and very targeted, and it's produced low-key and targeted results. To move this campaign to the next level, we have to come out start asking those of you who want an EFFECTIVE LP presidential campaign to pony up. Here's an explanatory link, but I'll explain more inline as well: http://www.kubby2008.com/node/23 Our philosophy from the start has been to do things, THEN show what we've done and offer to do more. This web crash pushed us a little ahead of that curve, but it's worth going over: - Steve has campaigned in three states so far. In August, he announced before a crowd of 50,000 in Seattle, and spoke at a fundraiser for Washington US Senate candidate Bruce Guthrie. In November, one donor financed a trip to Colorado, where Steve appeared at rallies speaking on behalf of Amendment 44, which would have decriminalized possession of marijuana. Before, during and since those things, he's appeared at numerous LP and non-LP events in California. He's committed to attending LP conventions in Nevada, Oregon, New Mexico and California in February, March and April, and now we're raising funds to send him to more, and more distant, places. - In the last seven days, Steve's made three radio appearances -- one national, one local, one "Internet talk radio." We're already receiving more invitations and starting to crank up our proactive efforts to put his voice and face on radio and TV. - The campaign's first two radio commercials have been recorded and are in post-production. Some time in the next few days, they'll be made available for any Libertarian candidate or organization to use. We're also raising money to air those commercials ourselves. The time to start putting the word "Libertarian" on the airwaves with a positive spin is now, not some time next year. It's very simple, guys and gals: Steve Kubby is making the effort, but making that effort has costs. We need a web server that Digg, Slashdot et al can't bring down. We need to book airfare to get Steve in front of more people in more places. We need to start making radio airtime buys. Our goal is $5,000 in five days. That's not large by LP presidential campaign standards. It's not even a drop in the bucket by "major party" standards (hint -- based on the spending projections, the GOP and Dem candidates need to raise about a million a day, not a thousand). If every reader of this list gave ten bucks, this fundraiser would be over, and the campaign would be in a much better position to raise "the big bucks" -- because we'd be doing even more than we've already BEEN doing. Steve's proven he's serious. Now we get to find out if YOU are. Regards, Tom Knapp Communications Director Kubby for President
