CNN recently took a poll and published it on their website which repeats the same story I’ve been preaching this last year. If you want to win, do not run as an independent or a third party candidate. And to the activists, don’t vote for an independent or third party candidate. Here are the results of the CNN poll:

Washington (CNN) – Activists in the Tea Party movement tend to be male, rural, upscale, and overwhelmingly conservative, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday also indicates that Tea Party activists would vote overwhelmingly Republican in a two-party race for Congress. The party’s GOP leanings, the poll suggests, may pose a problem for the Tea Party movement if it tries to turn itself into a third party to compete with the two major parties in this year’s general election.

Full Poll Results [PDF]

“If the Tea Party runs its own candidates for U.S. House, virtually every vote the Tea Party candidate gets would be siphoned from the GOP candidate, potentially allowing the Democrats to win in districts that they might have otherwise lost,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “While the concept of an independent third party is extremely popular, most Americans, including most Tea Party supporters, don’t favor a third party that would result in a winner who disagrees with them on most major issues.”

According to the survey, roughly 11 percent of all Americans say they have actively supported the Tea Party movement, either by donating money, attending a rally, or taking some other active step to support the movement. Of this core group of Tea Party activists, 6 of 10 are male and half live in rural areas.

Nearly three quarters of Tea Party activists attended college, compared to 54 percent of all Americans, and more than three in four call themselves conservatives.

“Keep in mind that this is a pretty small sample of Tea Party activists,” notes Holland. “But even taking that into account, the demographic gaps that the poll finds between those activists and the general public on gender, education, income, ideology, and voting behavior appear to be significant differences.”

The poll indicates that about 24 percent of the public generally favors the Tea Party movement but has not taken any actions such as donating money or attending a rally. Adding in the 11 percent who say they are active, a total of 35 percent could be described as Tea Party supporters. That larger group is also predominantly male, higher-income, and conservative.

Some 45 percent of all Americans say they don’t know enough about the Tea Party to have a view of the movement; one in five say they oppose the Tea Party.

According to the survey, most Tea Party activists describe themselves as Independents.

But that’s slightly misleading, because 87 percent say they would vote for the GOP candidate in their congressional district if there were no third-party candidate endorsed by the Tea Party,” says Holland.

So what would happen if the Tea Party supported independent candidates for Congress?

The poll indicates that in a two-way race on the so-called “generic ballot” question, GOP candidates have a 47 percent to 45 percent edge. Throw a Tea Party candidate into the mix, and that two-point advantage becomes a 12-point deficit. That’s because virtually everyone who would vote for a Tea Party candidate in a three-way contest would choose a Republican in a two-way race. The Democratic candidate gets 45 percent in both scenarios, but the GOP candidate’s share of the vote drops from 47 percent in a two-way contest to just 33 percent with a Tea Party candidate on the ballot.

“Historically, that’s the problem many political movements have faced if they try to become a full-fledged party. They often wind up ensuring the victory of the candidate they dislike the most,” adds Holland.

Sixty-four percent of all Americans say they like the idea of a third party that would run against the Democrats and Republicans. But only 38 percent would support a third party if its presence on the ballot would mean that the winning candidate is one that disagrees with them on most major issues. According to the poll, Tea Party activists feel the same way: Only 4 in 10 favor a third party that would result in the election of candidates they don’t like.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted by telephone February 12-15, with 1,023 adult Americans, including 124 respondents who said they had taken active steps to support the Tea Party, such as donating money or attending a rally self. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points and plus or minus 9 percentage points for Tea Party activists only.

So now, in addition to my word, you have an official poll from a rather unlikely ally (I would have thought CNN would make some sort of attempt to suppress this information). We need to keep our eye on the ball. No matter how messy the GOP party is right now, we have to strongly encourage our candidates to run as fiscally responsible candidates within one of the two major parties–otherwise we don’t have a prayer, and I hope the country doesn’t totally self-destruct between now and 2012, because we won’t have another chance until then…

We are nearing the final lap of the race. To “Let Freedom Ring,” there is still much to accomplish. Many are wondering exactly what to do and how to do it to make sure we seat as many true conservative candidates as possible. iPoliticom is sponsoring a weeklong online activist/candidate training event. At the end of the event, participants will be given access to a video download  of  the conference, and a written plan of action to take to the streets, so we can win back our country.

The event will take place April 5th-10th, 2010 from 6-10pm.  Speakers will be broadcast live during their assigned time slot. You don’t to have to miss work, or spend a small fortune traveling to get training. For $15, you get 24 hours of live training plus a free download of the training. Oh, and if you are planning on going to the Washington Rally the following week, this will prep you with an action plan that you will want to share with others who might not have the chance to participate.

So far, we have Sheriff Mack, and Steven Crowder (from PJTV), and within the next week or two, we’ll have many more to announce. Tell us who you’d like to hear speak, and we will try get them as well.

Here’s a link to the press release that we sent out just today:

PRESS RELEASE

“Let Freedom Ring.” See you there!

An endorsement from Independence Caucus has a lot of value and means different things to different candidates. Upon receipt of their endorsement, Independence Caucus offers several services to their endorsed candidates. And while certainly not every candidate needs to feel obligated to take advantage of all of what IC has to offer, the menu of available services can give many candidates the leg up they need.

The endorsement itself means that a large group has just identified that candidate as someone who can be depended upon to act honorably in office and who will actually honor and defend the US Constitution. To receive that endorsement means that candidate is “one of us.”

Depending on their geographic area, a candidate can count on a bevy of additional volunteers to augment their staff. They have completed research on the incumbents about who’s getting money from who and what earmarks they are inserting into bills and who benefits, the incumbent’s voting record and who benefits from how they vote.

iPoliticom then steps in and will help a candidate with their fundraising efforts, training their volunteers in activating their precinct strategy, position training, administering and expediting candidates through the Independence Caucus vetting process, and helping the candidate’s campaign fully utilize the Web 2.0 tools to give their candidacy a ton of exposure on the internet.

Not every candidate is going to want or need to avail themselves of all of the services which can come from receiving an Independence Caucus endorsement. Some of our endorsed candidates have the machinery in place or know how to use Web 2.o, or are very effective at raising funds. Either way–those services are available to those who want them.

This is just a little trick you’ll need to know that will help you as you are out on the road campaigning. Keep a binder with you at all times. That binder should contain all the planks in your platform, where you stand on important issues that concern your potential constituents, questions that are asked in forums, town hall meetings, and cottage meetings, the research you’ve done on those questions, and your supporting materials to give you all the ammunition you need to skewer your opponent and answer hardball questions from reporters, delegates, potential constituents, etc.

Organize your binder as follows:

Section 1 – Your Platform, where you stand on each issue, proposed solutions to those issues. Each issue should have its own divider within that section

Section 2 – The communities within your voting district. If you are running for city council or mayor, break it down precinct by precinct. If you are running for a state or federal office, then break it down city by city. Each city or precinct gets there own tab. What are the issues or concerns that that specific bloc of constituents cares about the most? Have that in there and cross referenced to the material in sections 1 & 2.

Section 3 – Your Opposition research. Where does your opponent stand on key issues? What areas do you differ? What is his/her voting record and how can you capitalize on it and how he/she has conducted themselves while in office. How have they responded to their constituents? Who have they taken money from. Who have they given earmarks to. And so on and so forth.

This binder can be a key element to your success if you have the discipline to maintain it and use it properly.

Money is the mother’s milk of politics. We all understand that you can’t run a campaign without it. You may be able to do it for less than your opponent, but you still need cash. Here’s an idea to get you started fast.

Hold a Business Round Table Meeting and invite 10-20 small business owners that are negatively impacted by the direction our federal government is heading. Choose a topic of particular interest to these businessmen (National Healthcare, Cap & Trade, etc.) and invite a couple of locally based and well respected experts in the field of the chosen topic and ask them to address it. Invite the businessmen to share their thoughts and concerns. Come prepared with a well thought out solution and be very clear about your proposal(s). At the end, let them know that you indeed share their concerns and that as a candidate for office you will do everything in your power to oppose the negative measures proposed. Then state, “ladies and gentlemen, as your [congressman/senator/governor] I need your support to reverse the current direction of our government. We have three more weeks for this campaign fundraising quarter and I’m $35,000 short of my goal. I would appreciate your donations of the maximum amount allowable. Thank you.” Then sit down and let them get their checkbooks out.

Running as an independent or 3rd party candidate is like walking the plank, the outcome is always certain and never positive

Ron Paul understands it. His son Rand Paul understands it. Peter Schiff understands it. Even though they are Libertarians, they understand that statistically they don’t have a snowball’s chance in Hades if they run as anything other than a Republican (or a Democrat). People are disenfranchised with both Parties right now, and rightfully so. The Democratic Party has been hijacked by Progressive Liberals who hate freedom and capitalism. The GOP has been hijacked by squishy moderates who do not represent the ideology of the party. We’re not going to leave America just because we’ve got some rotten apples in charge, and we shouldn’t abandon the Parties either.

Those who blame the Democrats and the Republicans for our current plight have forgotten that the parties failed because many of us failed to show up for election after election in the kind of numbers that would carry the day. The moderates and the liberals HAVE been showing up and that is reflected in the kinds of politicians the Democrats and the Republicans decide to put out there.

Those of you who have heard me speak on this subject understand that we are teaching you how to get and stay involved to win our elections at the localist of all levels. If you get involved early enough at the local level then you can help get a good candidate into the primaries, rather than just waiting until the primaries come around and find out you are stuck with crappy choice A and crappy choice B because you didn’t do your part to get a good candidate into the primaries. We The People ARE the government and we can no longer abrogate our responsibilities and blame the Democrats and the Republicans. I hate to be the one to break the news, but we are the Democrats and the Republicans that helped bring us to where we are today by not doing your part to prevent it. I am equally guilty of that charge.

Now however, I’m doing my part to try to make up for lost time. But now let me make something else crystal clear. Time is short. The liberal left has made gained some serious ground towards implementing their socialist agenda. We don’t have time to field Libertarian, Constitutional, or Independent candidates. Most states have made that incredibly difficult to get names on the ballot. They require you to petition to have your name added to the ballot county by county and each county has slightly different requirements that need to be met, and trust me–it’s a lot of work and we just don’t have the time.

Combine that with the fact that 3rd party candidates and Independent candidates historically receive less than 10% of the vote–never enough to win. The only two notable exceptions I can think of recently are Jesse Ventura and Joe Lieberman. When an independent or third party candidate enters the race, 99 times out of 100 they split the conservative vote. In the end we are left with the liberal left-wing candidate as the victor because we were so stuck on voting third party or independent. If you really want a conservative candidate to win, convince the best candidates to run as Democrats or Republicans (depending on what the dominant party is in your area) and do your part in the early going to make sure they win the primary election. That’s where you make a difference. I’m not done making this case. Stay tuned for a litany of additional reasons why not to run as or vote 3rd party or independent.

It used to be the only way you could find out what was going on in government was to subscribe to cable and watch boringly long hours of your legislators on C-SPAN. And to those of you who still find the time to engage in that sleep inducing activity and TIVO (or DVR) it to put Congressional highlights (or lowlights as the case may be) up on YouTube, I thank you profusely. You do this country a great service and your names should be recorded and found in the annals of history for generations to come.

I’ve always been a technology geek, staying on the bleeding edge of technology (early adopter), and I found Twitter when it was only about 9 months old and had just over a million users. I immediately grasped it’s amazing potential for driving the political conversation. From the beginning of my introduction to this tool, I have believed it to be one of the most amazing tools for marketing and communicating any message you wish to share.

I came to work on Jason Chaffetz’s campaign just after Utah’s GOP Convention because as a state delegate, I had committed to my fellow precinct members that I would do all in my power to remove Chris Cannon from office. With Jason just 9 votes shy of the 60% of the delegate vote necessary to win the nomination, I really had no choice if I wanted to remain true to that commitment. Having started several internet related businesses, I understood internet marketing and promotion, and I knew the right combination of tools applied at the right time could make a huge difference to Jason’s campaign. I took the time to evaluate his internet presence and it was woefully inadequate.

So right after convention, I called up Jason’s campaign manager, Jennifer Scott and offered my services to the campaign. She asked me for a workup or a brief of my ideas and within a couple of hours I had it committed to paper and in her email inbox. She was impressed, and before I knew it, I was thrust into a leadership position within Jason’s campaign, managing the entire online team of about 150 volunteers. They were awesome, and we had them using Facebook, YouTube, and we even set up a blog to communicate between online volunteers. But my favorite tool to use was Twitter.

You see we set up what we called the “Rapid Response Team” and anytime we wanted to get a message to the team immediately to get them to act, I would post a message on Twitter which if the volunteers had it set up properly would text them that message to their cellphones and right away they would respond to the call (We couldn’t have done it without you RR Team!). We ended up beating a six-term, well funded incumbent by 20 points!

I chuckle now, because during the campaign I could hardly get Jason to use those technology tools (although he took to Facebook like a fish to water), and now it’s fun to see how much he “gets it” as our Congressman. He tweets from the House floor about bills he’s voting on. He tweets as he’s going into or out of committee on who’s testifying, or what topic they are discussing. He tweets from events he attends as a Congressman. And he even occasionally tweets the mundane aspects of being a congressman like going out to eat (I’m sure he’s going to put on the “freshman 20″ without his wife to cook for him in Washington), or being singled out by TSA for a patdown…

And that conversation is very much two way. You can be one of Jason’s “followers” and he will then “follow” you (kind of like being Facebook friends), and you can PM (private message) him how you want him to vote on an upcoming piece of legislation, or just thank him for being such an awesome, conservative, principled congressman. Before, all you had was phone, fax and email with no sure way of knowing if your message was ever received by the intended recipient. Now you know for sure that they got it, and you may even get a message back when your congressman has the time to respond. As a constituent, having that kind of access to your congressman makes me feel a lot better about the political process.

Of course, just like with the Town Hall meetings, they can simply ignore you tweets. The wise legislator will understand the power of this technology and use it to be a better representative.