National' Draft Ben Carson for President Committee January 22, 2014 John Philip Sousa, IV National Chairman Vernon Robinson Campaign Director E.J. Thomas Finance Director Perhaps you heard the interview of Dr. Carson on the Sean Hannity Show by guest host, Bob Just (December 27). In that interview, Ben Carson came closer than ever before to saying that he might run for President. He said, "If the circumstances were to evolve in such a way that that [running for President] seemed to be what God was calling me to do, I would certainly do it. And, I would never turn my back on my fellow citizens, if there was a hue and cry for such." Again, on January 7, 2014, in an interview by Newsmax reporter, Bill Hoffman, Dr. Carson re-affirmed that he will run if people continue to "clamor" for him to do so and if he feels that God is calling him to run for President. I feel confident that Dr. Carson will run for President if you and I make it clear to him that millions of Americans from coast to coast continue to raise a hue and cry for him to run. Dr. Carson is indeed the right person in the right place at the right time to save our nation from financial collapse, and to restore the rule of law through adherence to the Constitution of the United States of America. He will also provide much needed moral leadership for our nation. Your early support would be greatly appreciated. It was earlymoney that made the success of the Obama campaign in 2012. possible. And, it was the lack of early money that doomed the Romney Page 1 campaign to defeat. I want to provide you with an update on the status of the effort to draft Ben Carson as the next President of the United States. But, first I want to remind you why this draft effort is so critical. It was born of the realization that two dramatic events have changed what must happen if a candidate for President is to be successful in 2016. Those two events are ... 1. The technology employed by the Obama team in 2012, and 2. The Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case I realize that the 2016 Presidential election is long time from today. And, I realize that you and I, as conservatives, are concerned about the outcome of the 2014 elections. But, there are some very important reasons for us to also think about the 2016 election right now. We can't afford to get so far behind that we can't win in 2016. If we wait, the Republican candidate will lose. That's why the Hillary Clinton for President super PAC, Ready for Hillary, is already in the field. They, too, learned from Barack Obama and they understand the huge impact of the Citizens United ruling. Ready for Hillary has already raised $4.5 million thanks in large part to their finance co-chairman, George Soros, the far left multi-billionaire. And, although New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is currently mired down in a scandal, he will still be a powerful force to be reckoned with. His team is in the field right now, laying the groundwork for a Presidential bid. Clearly, both Clinton and Christie supporters understand that you must raise early money now, and build an organization now, if you are to win the White House in 2016. There's much to learn from how Barack Obama succeeded in getting re-elected in 2012. Of course, I'm not referring to the shenanigans and outright Page 2 voter fraud committed by groups like ACORN. I'm referring to the sophisticated, high tech organization that was created on his behalf. It was an amazing operation that identified every prospective Obama voter and then turned every one of them out on Election Day. There is no doubt that this approach made the difference between victory and defeat on November 6th. In fact, that is the message of the book written by Washington Post writer Dan Balz, Collision 2012: Obama us. Romney and the Future of Elections in America. It explains why the Obama campaign was light years ahead of Romney and the Republicans in 2012. I think you will find the following excerpts from this book quite revealing ... "As the Republican candidates were gearing up and then battling one another through the summer andfall Of2011, the Obama team was investing enormous amounts of time, money and creative energy in what resembled a high-tech political start-up whose main purpose was to put more people on the streets, armed with more information about the voters they were contacting, than any campaign had ever attempted." "No campaign had ever invested so heavily in technology and analytics, and no campaign had ever had such stated ambitions." "The next goal was to create a program that would allow everyone - campaign staffers in Chicago, state directors and their staff in the battlegrounds,field organizers, volunteers going door to door and volunteers at home - to communicate simply and seamlessly. The Obama team wanted something that allowed the field organizers in the Des Moines or Columbus or Fairfax offices to have access to all the campaign's information about the voters for whom they were responsible. They wanted volunteer leaders to have online access as well." "From modeling and testing, the campaign refined voter outreach. Virtually every e-mail it sent included a test of Page 3 some sort - the subject line, the appeal, the message - designed to maximize contributions, volunteer hours and eventually turnout on Election Day. The campaign would break out 18 smaller groups from e-mail lists, create 18 versions of an e-mail, and then watch the response rate for an hour and go with the winner - or take a combination of subject line and message from different e-mails and turn them into the finished product. Big corporations had used such testing for years, but political campaigns had not." And, this is the most important lesson ... The gap between the Obama and Romney operations crystallized in the ,key battleground state of Ohio in the closing weeks of the general election campaign. Members ofObama's team had been on the ground in Ohio for years. They knew the state intimately. Obama had at least 130 offices there, plus 500 or so staging areas for volunteers. He had almost 700 staffers on the Ohio payroll alone. Thousands of volunteers contacted voters." In stark contrast, the Romney team had only been on the ground in Ohio for a few months with a limited staff, few offices, and without access to the sophisticated technology that the Obama team was using. So how did Obama win? It can be summed up this way ... Early Money. The campaign raised very early money that enabled the campaign to acquire and build a ... State-of-the-Art Software Platform. This platform enabled the Obama campaign to develop an ... Unparalleled Grassroots Organization. This organization linked the entire team together, and made it possible to identify and get out every possible pro Obama vote. I Why am I telling you all of this about the Obama organization? Because the effective use of technology is the future of American politics. If a candidate does not have the technology, he will not have an effective ground game, and if he does not have early money he will have neither. Page 4 The fact is that in order to win a national election a campaign must gear up now, building a sophisticated software platform, and building a nationwide team that can first win the nomination, and then the election. - What happens in 2014 will determine the winner and the loser in 2016. That's right, the outcome of the 2016 election depends on what happens in 2014. But, it wasn't just the high tech campaign of Barack Obama that permanently altered the American political scene. As I said earlier, the Citizens United decision by the United States Supreme Court was equally transformational. Why? Because it took the shackles off of the political process by opening it up to virtually any person or organization that wanted to influence the outcome of an election. Before the Citizens United decision, it was not possible to form Super PACs like Ready for Hillary and the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee. The existence of a super PAC gathering early support for a candidate for President has become absolutely essential today. Without the existence of an independent Super PAC, it would be extremely difficult for either Ben Carson or Hillary Clinton to have any chance of winning their party's nomination in 2016. Remember, Obama was able to build a technologically advanced software platform that enabled him to construct a winning field organization because he started raising fund more than three years in advance of the election. But, because Mitt Romney waited until 2012 to build a campaign organization, it was too late. Romney had no chance. He was outgunned financially and organizationally. The bottom line is this ... If we don't want to lose again in 2016, we have to acquire the technology and build an organization now. There is no other choice. I Of course, the first thing you have to do if you want to be elected President in 2016 is to win the Republican nomination for President. And, in Page 5 our case, we must also convince Dr. Ben Carson to run for President. We can't put either priority on the back burner, preparing for victory in 2016, or convincing Dr.