"LA Times: Mainstream media alert - Ron Paul news a...
"It's a shocking political development, to be sure, but news about Ron Paul and what his determined, fervent bands of supporters call the Ron Paul Revolution is beginning to spread like some kind of wildfire before strong primary winds.
First, there was this.
Then, there was this.
And that produced so many hundreds of Comments on this blog that it caused this later item on the Comments. Which produced even more Comments.
And, in turn,that led to this item on the previous item on another blog.
Supporters of the 72-year-old 10-term libertarian representative from Texas think he has a real shot at shocking the political establishment and snatching the Republican presidential nomination away from all those presidential pretenders like Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Fred Thompson with higher numbers in what must be obviously fraudulent polls.
But now comes news that news about Paul is creeping onto television, that great Satan that ....
reaches so many potential voters but normally ignores quiet-spoken grandfathers with radically simple political views such as political power belongs to the people and America should return to following the Constitution. That makes no sense in an age of proliferating political promises.
Now, believe it or not, John Stossel of ABC is interviewing the old guy and giving him more exposure, which is all his supporters ever sought because they think his ideas are so powerful they cast a spell. "With politicians from both sides of the political fence touting their new plans to fix America's problems, Paul, R-Tex., believes that the most effective way that a president can lead is by protecting basic freedoms, and relying on the collective power of citizens to sort out the rest," Stossel writes.
Paul tells him as president he'd eliminate the Departments of Education, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Hoiusing and Urban Development, Homeland Security and FEMA. Does that get your attention?
The trouble with discrediting polls and the mainstream media so much over many months is what do Paulites do when their man's poll numbers start climbing and the same ignorant media start paying attention. Are the polls still frauds and the dim mainstream media still manipulated by evil corporate influences?
All just because Paul supporters gave $4.2 million in one day to enable advertising in New Hampshire. And now with their fundraising guru, Trevor Lyman at the helm of a Ron Paul advertising blimp (really!), the Paul rebels are planning an even bigger fundraising day this coming weekend to mark the Boston Tea Party.
The media will have to pay even more attention if Paul's people set a new one-day online fundraising record Dec. 16. Or, heaven forbid, raise more money in the fourth quarter than any other better-known Republican candidate. Wouldn't that rock some boats? The implausible campaign has a website where the total so far is coming up on $11-million even before Sunday.
With all this mounting attention and success what in the world are Ron Paul's supporters going to rail against now? They'll find something. They have to. Can underdogs still succeed when they're no longer under?
--Andrew Malcolm
To Chicago:
"Chicago Tribune: Ron Paul revolution - It has just..."
"chicagotribune.com
Ron Paul revolution: It has just begun to fight
Young backers flock to aid GOP presidential hopeful
By Jason George
Tribune staff reporter
December 11, 2007
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Cheese pizza powers the Ron Paul revolution.
So do Doritos, Cheerios and beer. Junk food in general dominates the menu at this rented house, full of young people who’ve moved in from Seattle, South Florida and points in between to push for the Texas Republican’s long-shot presidential bid in the Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary.
At first glance, the abundance of T-shirted youths with laptops gives this outpost the air of a fraternity or an Internet startup. Instead it represents a new type of political fundraising and may be a sneak peek at campaigns to come.
Consider Trevor Lyman: Two months ago he lived in Miami Beach and ran a small online company that helped bands promote their music. Then he stumbled onto Paul’s campaign via a MySpace page—not from a newspaper article, television report or presidential debate. He liked what he saw, particularly Paul’s “out of Iraq now” stance.
Lyman knew he wanted to help. But instead of just giving money to the campaign, something he’d never done in his life, he created a Web site directing people to Paul’s campaign coffers on Nov. 5, a date other supporters had declared a day to “money bomb,” or send frequent and fast donations. They ambitiously aimed for $10 million.
Nov. 5 arrived and organizers fell well short of their goal, but they still made history by raising $4.2 million for Paul, a 10-term congressman. It was the largest 24-hour total for any Republican candidate this year.
The feat was even more impressive given that the Paul campaign had no direct involvement in the effort and that 95 percent of the donations were made through the Web, the largest online funding day ever.
“It was an amazing day,” said Lyman, who was immediately heralded as an online campaigning wizard—not a bad achievement for a 37-year-old who’s never voted.
“Sure, I had my part,” he added, sipping Corona out of a coffee mug. “But I didn’t do it. It’s the energy out there.”
That energy also streams through Lyman’s roommate Vijay Boyapati, a 29-year-old engineer who quit his job at Google to become a full-time volunteer for Paul, who polls nationally in the single digits.
“I think a lot of people think I’m a bit crazy,” Boyapati said, laughing. “But it’s very important to me.”
Boyapati rented the house that he, Lyman and up to five others will inhabit for the next month. He spends his days online, organizing a drive to get 1,000 out-of-state Paul supporters to New Hampshire for the primary (405 have signed up so far). He’s also raised $55,000, from roughly 3,000 donors, to provide housing for those volunteers.
When filled, each of these houses — soon to number 20 across the state—will have different people and missions. But all will share certain tools of success: new technology, little hierarchy, microdonations and a democratic delegation of work. You could call it wiki-paigning.
The fact that it’s coming from political neophytes and not seasoned Beltway bundlers makes sense, said professor Bruce Cain, director of the University of California, Berkeley’s UC Washington Center.
“Innovation often comes from outsiders. It’s the people who have to throw the long bomb,” Cain said. “If you’re a front-runner and try different things, it can backfire.”
The men in the house speak often of personal freedom, the Constitution and the idea of limited government—central Libertarian positions espoused by Paul, who ran for president as the Libertarian candidate in 1988. It’s a position that traditionally has attracted passionate adherents, but never in great numbers.
Costas Panagopoulos, director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy at Fordham University, said the Paul phenomenon is the technological descendant of Howard Dean’s blogger base in 2004. That “revolution” also created excitement, but Dean quickly faded once the voting started.
Paul insists his fate will be different than Dean’s, and not just because online campaigning is more important today––YouTube, Facebook and MySpace are all sponsoring debates—but because he’s tapped into a deep public sentiment. How else could he raise so much money, he asks?
“The disgust with government and the spread of our message, plus the willingness of these individuals on the Internet to organize, is going to make a difference,” he said in interview.
The Internet fundraising crusade has given Paul a far bigger role than he would otherwise have. Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said the campaign is budgeting advertising buys through the Feb. 5 primaries, no matter what happens in earlier states.
At the Manchester house, Lyman is working on “Tea Party ’07,” a fundraising push scheduled for Sunday, the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, which organizers hope can raise $10 million in 24 hours. Their goal is for 100,000 donors to each give $100.
Lyman is also working on the Ron Paul blimp, scheduled to fly along the Eastern Seaboard until the New Hampshire primary. The blimp will invite observers to “Google Ron Paul.”
Such original thinking came from hundreds of people, from attorneys to graphic designers to blimp pilots.
They all came together — where else?—online.
jageorge@tribune.com
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
VIDEO"
The guy has gone national:
"Newsweek Interviews Ron Paul"
"Free Market News Network
Monday December 10, 2007
Newsweek has provided a fairly major platform, via interview format, for the views of presidential candidate and limited-government proponent Ron Paul (R-Tex). While the information contained in the interview labels Ron Paul a “libertarian” and probes the idea of running as the candidate of a third party, it also points out that Ron Paul is now running at eight percent in Iowa and is a “legit wild card’ in New Hampshire.
See: http://www.newsweek.com/id/74471
What is not explained in the article is the reason to feature it as the magazine has. Is it possible that a recent, flawed article that received hundreds of rebuttals had something to do with this follow-up? A recently published article, Highway to Hell, basically denied the reality of what can be seen as a huge sociopolitical event, the so-called North American Union.
See: http://www.newsweek.com/id/73372
The Highway to Hell article seeks to make the argument that there is no grand political plan for a North American Union, as GOP presidential candidate – and limited government advocate - Ron Paul has suggested there is. Ron Paul is prominently featured in the article and “fired back” at the article in a piece that can be seen here:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59060
As WorldNetDaily recently pointed out, there are literally hundreds of feedbacks attached to the article. This is similar to the deluge that Rolling Stone received when it published a short, negative squib about GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul. The furor is yet more evidence that the life of a mainstream journo or editor these days (in the Internet era) is more precarious and fraught with sudden pitfalls than those directly involved with such prestigious papers might ever have imagined.
Copyright © Infowars.net All rights reserved.
Printed from: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2007/101207_b_Newsweek.htm"
"PBS: The Ron Paul Phenomenon"
Preview: The Ron Paul Phenomenon
NOW talks to Congressman Ron Paul and his supporters across the country about Paul's surprisingly popular run for the Republican nomination, led in large part by people acting on their own without help from Ron Paul or his campaign.
VIDEO"
I will be watching, you can rest assured!
A don't forget to watch the C(IA)NN Republican debate at 2 p.m. from Des Moines, Iowa tomorrow!!
Ron Paul will be there!
