Wired on Ron Paul’s Web Campaign
June 28th, 2007Via: Wired:
When Texas Congressman Ron Paul entered the race for next year’s Republican presidential nomination, few political analysts paid much notice.
Paul has no backing from political bigwigs or any campaign war chest to speak of. As the Libertarian Party presidential nominee in 1988 he won less than one-half of 1 percent of the national vote.
Yet despite his status among the longest of the long shots, the 71-year-old has become one of the internet’s most omnipresent –- and some say most irritating -– subjects.
According to Technorati, “Ron Paul” is one of the web’s most searched-for terms. News about Paul has an outsize presence on Digg and reddit, two sites that allow users to highlight their preferred content. Paul’s YouTube channel has been viewed over one million times, dwarfing efforts from competitors like John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. The Ron Paul internet boom has born everything from Belgians for Ron Paul to a reggae music video promoting Paul’s views on monetary policy and habeas corpus.
During the 2004 election, a web-savvy campaign staff helped turn Howard Dean’s anti-war candidacy into the first online political phenomenon. But the Ron Paul frenzy seems to have sprung from the internet itself. Paul’s libertarian message – he is against big government, the war, and pretty much anything that costs taxpayers money – has attracted a group of anti-establishment, tech-savvy supporters who have taken everyone by surprise.
“The people who are actually working for the campaign are a little overwhelmed with what’s happening,” says Alex Wallenwein, a supporter who organized two of the 362 Meetup.com groups dedicated to Paul.
To many immersed in the political blogosphere, Paul’s passionate supporters seem to be everywhere at once. Editors of political websites are inundated with angry e-mails demanding they devote more coverage to Paul. Blog posts that criticize Paul are often followed by hundreds of livid comments from his fans. Most frustrating to those not on board the Ron Paul bandwagon, he routinely ranks first in online presidential polls on sites ranging from CNN.com to niche political blogs.
Not that I care one way or the other, but what I find hilarious about the whole Ron Paul popularity thing is the way it pulls the curtain back on media perceptions. If Paul does well in online polls, it must be because his fanatical supporters are “gaming” the system, whereas, the popularity of the establishment candidates is in no way connected to a gaming of the system. If Paul were crammed down people’s throats on TV like Clinton or Bush, regardless of the publicity’s tone, he would be perceived as more popular by the TV. But since he’s one of those candidates the TV people don’t want you to know about, they’ll say anything to spin away his online popularity.
Well, it tells you that the only way you “might” get heard is through alternate channels because mainstream (read: coopted) media only barks at its masters command. So when someone like Paul states the obvious, at least to those with eyes to see, it comes across as something new, or even “threatening” to the typical politi-droids the party will put up for canonization.
Americans need to be voting with their feet, i.e., making for the exit while they still can. All this election capering, it’s just more candles around the corpse.
I have voted with my feet, but it seems the American corporatist agenda is following me to Canada.
Likely my vote for Ron Paul in the Texas primary will be the last time I vote, period, unless a miracle happens and Paul is the Republican nominee. “They”, of course, won’t let it happen. If it did, I really think he’d either be assassinated or Bush will cancel the elections. I mean, what can Hillary do to dis the guy? He’s too clean. As for voting with my feet…my hubby won’t leave this country permanently and that’s all there is to it. But if things get too hairy even for remote area folks like me, I’ll simply walk the 80 miles or so into Mexico.
There is nowhere you can go on this planet where the American Hegemony won’t get you eventually. Voting with your feet IMO is just a delay of the inevitable. Not that that is a bad thing, it’s just that people should fully realize that it’s a form a procrastination.
The Ron Paul phenomenon… I see as yet another clang in the death knell of the mainstream media. It’s been a long time dying, but the time has come. Likely we’re going to see massive amounts of internet legislation in the very near future… well, unless there’s some miracle and Ron Paul actually wins that is.
Ron Paul is the first AMERICAN to run for president in almost fifty years.
Mad Mouth,
SPP, NAFTA, CAFTA, the “Amero”. . .
Hate to break it to you my man, but Canada is barely a separate nation these days. Give it a little while, and everything from the north pole to the southernmost Mexican border are all going to be a single nation state–if not in title, at least in effect.
Oh yeah–about Ron Paul.
Watching the first debates, my father (who is 64) mentioned to me–“That guy doesn’t sound like he’s been rehearsing his lines. He sounds like he just knows his stuff. I’m impressed.”
Later, I read an observation that Ron Paul, unlike other candidates, NEVER reads from notes. Not at press conferences, speaking engagements, etc. The associated comment noted that “You don’t need notes when you’re telling the truth.”
I have a Ron Paul sticker on my car, and a sign in my yard already.
Seems many moons ago now, but Kevin had a YouTube post here re Ron Paul and his statement re oversight needed re the Federal Reserve. Hello world – sanity. I also very much like Mike Gravel – he is also an overnight sensation re his performance in the Democratic debates. Seems to me no matter what the party represented, the Internets crowd loves a person who speaks truth to the money laundering, war mongering, corporate $ick sucking appeasers to the Illumanti, Skull and Crossbones puppet stick effigies that U.S. citizens “get” to vote for.Sheesh, I also like Kucinich. At least he has had his weenie hard on for Dick Cheney, much like I have had, for what it seems now most of my politically aware life. And for which Kevin will probably mod my statement because I just get too wound up on the cheney word.
Tsoldin, Mad Mouth, and Tad Ghostal are completely correct, running will only delay the inevitable, escapism in its truest form. No matter where you go, American-style corporatist hegemony and ‘kulture’ will be coming to you if not stopped soon (or not already there).
Like many Americans I don’t vote, haven’t in years because it made no difference, but even I would vote for a Ron Paul and Mike Gavel ticket. Just to piss off the establishment. Any chance at changing the paradigm is better than none.