Ron Paul fundraising

[Anders Lindman]

I don't know much about American politics, and I'm not entirely sure that Ron Paul is the best candidate for the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

But imagine that one million web users, not only Americans but also web surfers from all around the world, would sponsor the Ron Paul campaign with $10 per person on average. That would mean $10 million, and then Ron Paul could become a serious competitor to other candidates such Clinton, Obama, and Giuliani.

The traditional way of fundraising is to have big companies or other wealthy institutions or persons sponsoring the candidates' campaign funds. What the Internet can potentially easily acheive is to create a new form of fundraising where ordinary people contribute to the lion share of the sponsored money.

[soglad]

I love Ron Paul, I think he is the only chance America has of regaining itself. Even though he would turn everything around, I don't see any hope in him winning. The methods of CHOOSING president have been corrupted through & through, and although Ron Paul means good, I don't think he'll ever see the White House, the average people won't vote for him, they are all spellbound by fear.

I think, like Babylon, that America needs to crumble as a final lesson, and that to me seems only fair.

[Anders Lindman]

I agree that in practice America's president is likely selected, not elected. Yet, an Internet fundraising scheme would be interesting to test. As far as I know, no serious attempt of public fundraising of this kind has been done in the past.

The technical solution is simple. A person wanting to sponsor Ron Paul's campaign visits a simple web page where he or she pays say $10 or some other amount of individual choice through PayPal or similar ordinary pay service, and at the same time the person has on the same web page the opportunity to fill in up to 10 e-mail addresses to people that might be interested. This creates a simple but efficient viral pyramid effect.

The sponsor page should be on a Ron Paul official site to prevent fraud. And some other form of protection may be needed to prevent phishing, website spoofing and faked sponsor e-mails.

[soglad]

Great idea, and if I was American I'd do it. This is something America has to do by itself. If it lacks the ability to fund/support Ron Paul, then they don't deserve him.

[Anders Lindman]

The sponsor web page/site should be set up by the Ron Paul campaign administration. But I don't agree that only Americans should sponsor the campaign. I would even myself be willing to sponsor with $10. American politics affects much of what is happening in Sweden and in other countries.

[soglad]

Yeah.....that IS true.

A lot of American traits (the good and bad) have been adopted by Europe....

I shall consider donating money. I might donate 20 euro, since the euro to dollar rate is quite good.

I do hope he gets elected.

[Anders Lindman]

I did a web search an directly found this page:

https://www.ronpaul2008.com/donate/

The problem is that you have to be a U.S. citizen in order to donate. Darn! Maybe it's possible to donate to Ron Paul directly, from me as an individual person to Ron Paul as an individual person. I doubt that that is against the law. But how can I make such a donation?