Croydonian alerted me to this story this morning and I'm sure he will be writing about it too, but I am truly staggered at the success fo Ron Paul online. He's the Republican nomination candidate that gets the least amount of coverage in the UK media (and maybe the US) and yet he seems to command astronimical support on 'teh Interweb'.
If you visit thisnovember5th.com (no relation to Guido) you'll see that in just one day this little known, low profile possible contender for the White House managed to raise over $4 million online in just one day. Hilary Clinton managed $6 million once and her profile is huge compared to Paul.
Paul may be a libertarian, and the analysts may not think he stands a chance, but if you can command that sort of funding without having to rely on massive donors it might be dangerous to write him off so quickly.
7 comments:
Yes indeed, Ron Paul not only received the least attention from the major US media, but what he did receive was always a bit insulting -- e.g. the giddy dip Solidad O'Brian asking how he felt about people calling him "flaky"...awk! Polls favoring Paul were either ignored or said to be rigged -- a production of bots. Well, you don't collect $3 million from bots, and the media will have a tough time explaining that away, but they sure will try.
This is a very significant moment. The rules have changed. The Nov 5th fund-raising initiative did not come from the official Ron Paul campaign, but was invented and carried out by enthusiastic supporters. When a campaign can be, courtesy of the web, self-organising, a lot of todays powerful figures (journos, commentators, pollsters) are suddenly so many melting snowmen.
Could this have an implication for party politics everywhere, I wonder?
Except that Paul commands what support in the opinion polls? < 5% ??
What the web enables you to do is easily organise large numbers of people who live spread out. So Paul's supporters are very organised and can raise a substantial amount of money. Good for them.
It means diddly-squat to mainstream politics unless they can create a message, an argument of some sort, to take out of their self-selecting groupthink and change the minds of all the other people "out there".
Without that they can raise as much money as they like but it'll just go straight to the mainstream media in campaign ads and not make a difference.
First they ignore you then they ridicule you ... etc
Check out some of the Republican debates on youtube. He is constantly laughed at by the other candidates and even the show hosts - but he keeps it together quite well actually.
an interesting development indeed. especially since it was self-organised on the internet.
i wonder, is Paul's libertarian message attracting people that never bother voting? it's around the 40 to 50 per cent mark in U.S. presidential elections.
thats a lot of people to tap into.
timothy: The polls are based on people who voted in the Republican primaries 4 years ago, when Bush's second candidacy was inevitable. How representative do you think that sample is of wider US opinion ? I think the cash tells its own story
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