Peter Schiff just pre-announced Senatorial candidacy

Hi All,

I just spent over an hour with Peter Schiff in his hotel room here at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas, talking about both economics and politics (eat your hearts out, guys!). Earlier today I attended Peter's lunch presentation. After giving an excellent speech on current events, Peter made a long-anticipated announcement about his intentions to run for Senate (against Chris Dodd) in Connecticut in 2010.

Peter announced that in order to win the senate seat, his campaign will be focused primarily on national-level economic issues, i.e. the credit crisis and the fact that unlike anyone in congress, he accurately predicted the current crises in both housing and credit. For that reason, Peter will need to raise money on a national level to support his senate candidacy in Connecticut. Since this is a little unusual, Peter's approach is to "pre-announce" that he intends to run if there is sufficient support. He will accept donations at www.schiffforsenate.com starting immediately. If there seems to be strong enough interest (i.e. adequate donations), he will run for senate. If there are not sufficient donations and he decides not to run, he will return all donations received.

By the time I caught up with Peter in his hotel room, there was a small stack of checks, many of them for the maximum legal campaign donation amount of $4,800. I would have added one of my own, but I don't travel with blank check stock. I'll be mailing my donation in to Peter's campaign on Monday when I get back home.

I think Peter is going to get a lot of attention very soon. Earlier today I saw him being interviewed by a TV news crew, and while I was in his hotel room, the national chairman of the Libertarian party showed up begging Peter to consider running on the LP ticket. But after some conversation he conceded that it made more sense for Peter to run as a Republican. It seemed clear that he would have the support of the libertarian party no matter what his official affiliation.

I hope others on this site will consider making donations as well. Peter Schiff is about as close to "Chris Martenson Thinking" as they come, and I can't think of anything better than to have a guy in the senate who saw all this coming, accurately predicted the crisis, and who knows how to fix it.

Again, the new website for Peter's campaign is www.schiffforsenate.com (yes, that's 3 Fs in schiffforsenate). Peter wasn't sure whether the site was ready to accept credit card donations yet, but he said it would be within a few days if it isn't already.

Erik