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RLC supported but unsuccessful congressional candidate Rob Roark address to a state meeting of the Texas Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC), Sep. 30, 2012, at the Holiday Inn in Austin, Texas.
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coming this afternoon my name is Rob
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roor and I am a former Congressional
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candidate from cd35 I was endorsed by
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the RLC we've been out with a couple of
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the uh we've been uh a couple of
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different ones here in Austin and over
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in eggy country uh and a couple
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different forums that the RLC has had
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around the state uh for candidates and
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it's one of the things that I learned
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from the whole campaign and let me go
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back a second and give you a little bit
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of details cd35 is one of the new
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congressional districts that was drawn
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that was right in the middle of a lot of
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the Battlegrounds over District it goes
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basically from South middle of Travis
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County South Austin all the way to
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downtown San Antonio gets very narrow
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goes through Hayes County calwell County
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six different counties Comal and
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Guadalupe and one of the advantages this
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time around was that we were able to
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jump in into the race as relatively
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newcomer and I was able to get 30% of
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the vote across all six counties a
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little bit lower in Coal about 28 a
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little bit higher in Travis
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32 but we were able to show that we
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could do it on
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$7,000 is all that we spent on this
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campaign out of that money $3,200 was
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just the filing fee itself my opponent
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that won and she only got us by 12 votes
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would have got us into a runoff we were
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that close and she won uh the
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51.8% of the vote in a three-way race
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yeah so that shows just what the
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networking can do getting out there and
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working with the local
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groups just to get that name out because
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if we would have just gone by the
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Liberty uh folks that we know through
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the ROM Paul through the the local
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networks I probably would have beened
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about 15 to 20% so the message is out
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there we're growing that message and
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we're growing it locally and that was
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the important thing is that I learned to
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bring together people from both Austin
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and San Antonio at the local levels and
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a couple things I learned from the
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campaign that I think all of you'll
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probably shake your heads in agreement
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is that yes we can find people to
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run but it's getting the teams behind
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them that's important because not only
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do you have to have money you have to
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have campaign manag you have to have
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volunteer coordinators you have to have
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the people out there that you can tap
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into and when you only have a couple
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months those critical months when we
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need to have people in the
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primaries because that's where it's
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decided once you get through the
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primaries that's over if you can take
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them out look at what Ted Cruz was able
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to do look at what Donna Campbell was
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able to do and we can do that at all
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across the state we've learned how to do
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those kind of things but if we can get
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that in at the primary level
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then we can really take it out so my
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focus is not as much on what's happening
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in the next couple months here in
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November my focus is looking two years
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down the line my focus is looking at
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both not only at the regional
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congressional districts but let's go on
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down let's look at City councils let's
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look at the school boards let's look at
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getting people in place that believe in
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the Constitution that believe in the
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liberties that are guaranteed and
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bringing those back that they say no to
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the federal funding let's not go to the
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federal trough let's start looking at
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the local issues and L stop the spending
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because it starts locally if we get the
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people involved and we can get them
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there that's the important thing so how
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do we do it one of the ways is greig
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said local media be the
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media don't wait for somebody else to
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tell you what the story is you create
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the story you get that out there you get
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your candidates you get your local
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people out there you write you help them
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write a lot of us in the room know a lot
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of these things but others don't they
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need our resources they need our
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help
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networking there's so many people
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outside that we have influence on but we
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don't tap into that we don't map them
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out we don't have those networks
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available and we're not tapping into
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those very well so we've got to try to
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bring everyone together it's difficult
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because we're spread out all over the
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place
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well what if you had one place you could
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bring everybody to what if you had a
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facility this size a little bit
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larger and you had offices around the
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area that people could rent out on a
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monthly basis it's called shared
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workspace it's called Freelancers right
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now the economy has changed you have a
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lot of people that work from home that
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need offices but they don't want to just
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work at the coffee houses they don't
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want to work from home they need
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someplace to come together and I've seen
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what that does in the high-tech fields
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and what that's doing for development
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down in San Antonio and here in Austin
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uh places like um geek.com if you go and
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look they have facility that I tour down
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in San Antonio and if we can do that for
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the Liberty Movement if we can do that
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for the cons constitutional
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conservatives and we can bring people
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together so that people that have access
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and that have knowledge on how to do the
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visual Graphics if you look here
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okay you want to do a
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website I'm a candidate I'm not that's
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not my take you know I'm good at getting
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up in front of people and talking to
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people I bring people together I want to
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run I want to represent you and I want
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to manage those things so if you can
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bring people together that know not just
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the
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graphics but you also have to have
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content you have to have somebody behind
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the scenes that knows how to set that
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site up that has to be able to do all of
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the security that you need need and
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servers that you need to do on that okay
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so if you can have that for multiple
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candidates in one
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spot wow imagine the power of that so
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what we're working on is to come up out
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of San Marcus or somewhere along the
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corridor right now the project working
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is to have both a board and a for lack
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of a better word a pack a group that is
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looking for candidates and looking for
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the purpose of running them and being
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able to do this from a political side
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but then also to have a business an
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LLC that manages a facility that we can
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bring people in together and that we can
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bring that in under habitat for Liberty
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and that we've got a place that we can
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have a studio that say that Hector wants
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to run uh for school board down in uh uh
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San Antonio Harland I think or Harland
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General you know wherever the the school
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district is down in your area there and
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so we can bring them in we can get a
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interview with them we can put it up on
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a website we can get them in touch with
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people that have been out working on
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Donna Campbell's campaign we can get
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them in PE you know Ted Cruz's campaign
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is going to wrap up here at the another
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couple months we don't want to let those
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people go we want to start working on
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the next Campaign which is locally next
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spring so we bring the people together
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we allow them to be able to have for
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$100 $200 a month you have access to
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these facilities it's shared workspace
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you help each other out get people that
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are good at bundling wow if you can
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bring everything into one place imagine
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the power so this is the project that
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we're working on uh right now here in
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this area and since y'all are from
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around the state I want you to think
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about this because what's interesting
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about this concept is that it's
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transferable okay okay we can take this
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pick it up transplant it to anywhere in
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the country so we're creating the model
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life for kind of think about that don't
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think about the national right now but
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go back and look at what we can do to
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build your networks get the information
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out and to
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start looking locally before you look at
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the national so that's uh all my my
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little Spiel Chris did you have
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something earlier that you were going to
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ask your yeah how much she spent $70,000
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I apologize 10 times she spent
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70,000 if you would had twice as much
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money you would have won if I would have
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had we factored probably about another
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$5,000 the the biggest thing for us was
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the larger signs we just went with the
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smaller signs rather than the larger
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ones but what was interesting was we did
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we tried a couple different things this
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is one of the fun things about you know
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when we went in this we said let's see
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what works and what doesn't we came on
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up with two sign designs one of them was
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white kind of a more uh with u you know
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kind of more professional I don't know
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professional but it just it was a little
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bit more pleasing on the eyes and then
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we went with the one that I had learned
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when we had fought RFID chipping down in
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San Antonio we went with yellow and red
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it showed up you know with the big don't
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chip our pet and so we designed our Rob
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roor yeah you know it's as bright as
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your shirt is here Chris with Griffin's
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bright red you know on it and the other
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night when we were up at the U uh we
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were seeing the Ted Cruz rally the Ron
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Paul rally we had some of we had about
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four or five people that had our signs
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that were right up there right up front
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and those pictures are still there and
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you could spot them a mile
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away so wow you know here's some little
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Concepts that we learn about visibility
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and about what works and getting those
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out there so yeah and that was on the
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cheap you can you know go down to Super
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Cheap Signs get just a few of those and
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put them in the right spots that buys me
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a heck of a lot more than it did $1,000
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of advertising of billboards or for
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other things the other side of it too
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that I've learned what she employs and
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what still a lot of them are employing
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is a vertically
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integrated campaign strategy in other
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words you go out and you get these
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people that have done the same campaigns
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for the same people it works for them
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and guess what you got cookie cutters
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all across yeah the
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state well none of us in this room none
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of us that have been fighting in the
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Liberty Movement for the last you know
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four eight years two years you know
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wherever we stand with this you know 20
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years all of us do things very
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differently right and that's what's
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attracting you know that's what we
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talked about with the way that you know
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the older generation looks at it this
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way the newer generation we learned with
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the Ron Paul Revolution boom boom
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different ways picks up what's working
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here what's working there so if we can
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go instead of a vertically integrated
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campaign that we can start with the
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bringing everybody that you can pick and
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choose campaign in the box is kind of
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our model that we talked about so we can
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come in and say that Griffin wants to
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run for something what works for him
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what's good what's this you know here's
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this person here that'll work good for
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you for your style here's the things
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that'll work good for you we can bring
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those in and things that we learn from
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other
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campaigns so learning what works for you
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locally around the state building that
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Network I know we talked about uh you
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know earlier I wanted to talk with you a
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little bit more about some of the local
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races that you have down in the valley
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what's working for the Hispanics versus
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what's working in Houston versus what's
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working up in the
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Panhandle because all of those are
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different demographics different races
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different styles but there's some things
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that we can share so that's something
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here within the group within the room
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this is what the RLC brings together and
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then it also brings brings together with
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Dave's network of people from Washington
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and that we can tap into and I want to
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close with one of the statements that uh
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uh we'd met with u some people that are
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wanting to try to uh tap into this
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movement and tap in to the knowledge
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that we have in order to bring some
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things to the legisl session for this
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next time around and one of the
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statements was that the old way of doing
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things is not working any
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longer they wanted to come and to talk
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to people here in Austin area here
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across the state were the ones that
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knocked out Jeff Wentworth yeah we're
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the ones that knocked out and and you
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know the establishment and we're doing
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this at little different places across
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the the
12:46
state and they realized that you know
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well they're not going to be able to go
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and to push these things
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through without the people in the
12:54
legislature taking hit the people in the
12:56
legislature know that we're out here
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watching them now
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wow man that's power that's what
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politics is about so that's the kind of
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things that by being here with the RLC
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by being involved by us
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communicating across the state and
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across these networks that's what's
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important so you know please get more
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people out and get them involved and
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appreciate youall coming today I'm Rob
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or and
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Dave just
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quickly
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