Thursday, January 17, 2008

Stumping for Ron Paul at the gas station

I want to relay a story that happened to me the other night. I was at the gas station in Nashville at the corner of Clarksville and Buena Vista. For those who don't know Nashville that is the "hood". (And yes I'm African American myself if that matters.) I had some of the "Ron Paul for President" slim jims with me. I started to put them in the little "take one" boxes that had credit card offers in them. But I knew I wanted to give one to the cashier one so I decided against doing "guerrilla marketing" this time. There was a young woman at the pump across from me. While I'm usually a shy person, I decided this was the time for action. I went up to her and asked if she was registered to vote.
She said "No. Is it too late?"
My heart sunk a little. "The last day to register for this primary was January 7th. But I want you to take this anyway. His name is Ron Paul. He's running for president. He is the only major candidate that will bring the troops home next year if elected. When Tim Russert asked the democrats during a debate if they would promise to bring the troops home by 2013, Obama, Clinton and Edwards all said no. They said it depended on what was happening on the ground".
"They said that?" she asked with a shocked look on her face.
"Yes" I replied. "Ron Paul is the only one that will bring our troops home. I have a friend who is in Iraq now and he's been sent their for the third time. That's why I support Ron Paul."
"Well I'll try to get some of my friends to vote for him."
"Thanks" I replied. I then went inside to get my gas receipt and to pass out a few more slim jims. (Actually the gas receipt was just an excuse. The slim jims were the real purpose.) When I came out she told me again that she would like to help. I told gave her a few more slim jims to give to her friends and told her to go to the Ronpaul2008 website where she could sign up to volunteer. Now what I should have done was get to trade contact information with her so that I could have followed up. But hey that's a start. So keep some Ron Paul material in your pocket at all times. Get down your stump speech. It might be different for different people. We are only going to win this fight one voter at a time.



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