That is the slogan of the Paul campaign on his website...http://www.ronpaul2008.com/
I must admit that I first got mildly fascinated and amused by Paul and his followers when I noticed that there were an abundance of them on a political message board that I spent too much time on. In fact, this is probably the truth in the overwhelming majority of political message boards. Check out the one at Pajamas Media...
http://www.pajamasmedia.com/roundtable/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=81f84829b0270fc3c6acad7bb02fec25
in fact, he currently leads this weeks' straw poll at Pajamas Media
http://pajamasmedia.com/strawpoll2008/results.php?precinctid=d7b93ad39dd2b3ab00924ee074aabdd3a
How does a candidate that barely registers a blip be such a force in the new media. This begins to explain the phenomenon...
http://www.bivingsreport.com/2007/ron-paul-and-digg-2008-elections-section/
According to this, Paul supporters are now manipulating the votes for Digg.com to favor Ron Paul. So, who is Ron Paul and what is going on?
Ron Paul is a small government, social conservative, libertarian, that is also dovish on the Iraq war on the war on terror in general. To say that this is a hard message in the current two party system is an understatement for sure. In 1988, he also ran for President only this time on the Libertarian Party ticket. Since 1997, he has represented the 14th District for Texas in the House of Representatives.
While he is running for President in the Republican Party, he differs with the base on the most important issue for the party itself, not just the war in Iraq, but the war on terror in general. He sounds more like a Democrat not only when speaking about Iraq, but Iran and our overall strategy in the war on terror.
For this reason, his supporters are NOT traditional Republican primary voters. I found some examples on line of his supporters... http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=178459979&blogID=278924416
http://www.dailypaul.com/ http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/Ron-Paul-Stirs-Up-Presidential-Debate-14838.aspx
As it turns out, they are all tech savvy. For this reason, Paul is the first candidate on I Phone...
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/iphone
So, his followers go around the tech world and manipulate the system. Who could forget that Paul led for a while in the Fox News poll after their debate?
http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/paul_ron_fox_news_rigs_entire_debate_attack_paul.htm
This is of course not the only poll that has been overrun by Paul supporters.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=25771_Ron_Paul_Supporters_Spamming_Polls_All_Over_the_Web&only
In fact, Paul supporters have been known to hype all kinds of things in order to create the illusion that his campaign is doing well...
http://donklephant.com/2007/06/08/ron-paul-raises-5-million-online/
Of course, the truth usually comes out http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/2838
In fact, the Paul supporters serve mostly the purpose of creating fodder for bloggers like myself. Their whole campaign is quite pitiful and pathetic. They manipulate unscientific polls and other mechanisms only to keep "their guy" in the spotlight so to speak, except no one cares, except those political junkies or commentarians, that only comment on the movement but would never support it themselves.
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13 comments:
You are not correct. Technorati and Google both proved that no one is manipulating anything where Ron Paul polls are concerned.
This support is real. The pollsters take 400 votes from colleges at least here in NH, so they are all liberals. They don't even ask about Ron Paul.
I know because I am a registered R and they call me all the time. The vote goes into the 'other' bin...
They proved it...
how exactly did they prove it?
If there is any way to bait Ron Paul supporters to come to a site that apparently hates us, I suppose posting a link directly on Daily Paul would do it. Am I supposed to spew venom at you now?
The suggestion that all there is to the Paul campaign is a few spammers is beyond laughable at this point. Your references to parody sites and hate sites lend no creedence to your argument. Yes, there are people that have gone overboard, but that certainly isn't the majority. Most of us online supporters post comments in relevant discussions, and vote in public polls that anyone can find.
I digg Paul articles of merit when I read them (the button is right there). I often arrive there in Google searches. I read the Digg feedback, and add comments when I have something to say. I don't really care much about techie stuff, per se, so I don't Digg much else. I see no problem with this, do you?
The rumors about fundraising are still just rumors. I'm still waiting for the real numbers with high hopes.
So what do you say to the fact that Ron Paul leads all Republicans in MySpace friends, Facebook supporters, Youtube views and subscriptions, Evenful demands, Meetups, and website traffic? Are we just a few supermen? Are ALL techies on the planet colluding to provide an illusion?
How did we pull off the largest rally for any Republican candidate in Iowa this year, dwarfing the multi-candidate forum next door?
The nature of the Paul campaign is bottom-up. There are a lot of folks trying new approaches on their own. Some of them are lousy ideas. Some of the people are probably annoying. So are trolls. :)
Ron Paul is not our boss. That's why we like him so much.
Mr. Volpe, why would you go to DailyPaul.com to promote your negative views of Ron Paul? Or are you that smart and know the surge in the number of hits your blog will get when you mention his name?
I have listened to Rush Limbaugh since 1990 and to Sean Hannity since he was a local radio talk show host in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1993. I've voted Republican since 1992, and voted for GWB in 2000 and 2004 only to have awakened in 2007 to the reality that I have become an outsider within my own political party.
The Republican party left its personal liberty, small government, low tax ideals long ago and I was too blinded by the Iraq War to see it. I thank Dr. Ron Paul for healing my vision impairment.
Blogs like yours regularly accuse Ron Paul supporters of artificially running up online polls, or 'rigging' digg or technorati. Time will tell if the magnitude of Ron Paul's online popularity was real or faked. Your desire to suppress Ron Paul's support by ridiculing members of your own party (like myself) for supporting his campaign only reassures me that I am doing the right thing. Your taunting only proves to me how 'real' Ron Paul's campaign is right now and has the potential to become.
Ignore and diminish his relevance if you like. But please don't seek out his supporters just to mock us and tell us how 'ignorant' we are.
It’s people like you who are the problem. You follow the same route as fox noise and undermine the accomplishments of Ron Paul to divert attention from the issues. To call showing support for a candidate as manipulation is absurd. Instead of spouting brainless commentary, taken straight from the fox noise arsenal, like “no one cares” or to frame the only people who do care as shut-in cult fanatics is the definition of fascism.
I’ll follow your example and make a generalization about Dr. Paul supports. While others write off their principles to defeat the better of two evils, we will walk out of the voting booths free from the weight of the immorality others have committed. We will vote for principle and even if we stand alone we can cherish the sweetest reflection that our vote was not lost.
if what you guys say is true, then why is there not one SCIENTIFIC poll that has Paul at anything more than a few points?
If your movement is so large, why did he only raise 1.5 million in the whole second quarter. At $50 per person, that is only 30,000 people. I have four people debating me here. You have this "powerful grass roots movement" and you all can't raise more than 1.5 million dollars in the quarter.
I, frankly, don't hate Ron Paul at all. On most things, I agree with him, except for the only thing I am voting on, the war on terror. Most true Republicans feel the same way I do.
The thing about Paul is that there was no reason for him to run as a Republican. One of the third party's would have made more sense, but then he probably wouldn't have gotten nearly as much exposure as he already has...
"So, his followers go around the tech world and manipulate the system. Who could forget that Paul led for a while in the Fox News poll after their debate?"
Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
Yeah, I talked about that, and I even referenced it in the post. You probably just didn't read that far after you realized that it was negative towards him. I think that debate victory is about as solid as the call from "anonymous sources" within the administration that he would raise five million this quarter, which I also referenced.
All of you really are like a cult. How did that happen?
The reason why Paul is not well known is because it is too early for most people to care. But, how well do most Americans know Mitt Romney or Barack Obama?
I just don't understand the amount of effort that some people go through to try to understand something that is really not that difficult and try to spin it into something it's not.
I think (just my opinion) that people on the internet are better informed than the average dumbed down Americans. I think they see that America is in trouble and has a lot of problems, and this is where Dr. Paul comes in. I am fed up with politically correct politicians who say one thing and do another. Dr. Paul is a straight talker and doesn't try to sugar coat the truth. I find that refreshing. It's not spam. Look at all of the youtube channel subscribers, digg users, meetup groups, myspace friends, etc. Are you suggesting that all of this is the work of a small number of spammers?
I guess I would expect more from someone like you that just posted an article about "Independence Day" and posted the entire Declaration of Independence. You understand that it's more than a 4th of July where we shoot off fireworks. It's about our declaration of independence from a tyrannical King George. To understand and blog about this, but not see how Ron Paul supports the Constitution as our Founders intended, it just baffles me.
Again, I agree with Paul on most issues, just not the most important one, the war in Iraq and the war on terror, and that is what you will find about most Conservative primary voting Republicans, and for that reason none of us would vote for him.
Yes, I firmly believe that all of this technological boom for Paul is due to a small number of tech savvy supporters. The reason I believe this is because there isn't one SCIENTIFIC poll that has Paul at more than a few points, and he raised a lousy 1.5 million dollars last quarter. Where are all his supporters when something important like raising cash is measured.
What cracks me up about your article is that if you had an inkling of knowledge about politics, you would know that supporters being active in polls on behalf of their candidate is typical. The fact that Paul supporters are able to accomplish what they do may not be evidence of how many people support Paul, but how dedicated and involved his supporters are. This is a good thing and is not in the least bit pathetic. Pathetic is writing such a brainless criticism of Paul supporters and then posting it on their websites to provoke them. Kinda childish in my opinion.
"Pathetic is writing such a brainless criticism of Paul supporters and then posting it on their websites to provoke them. Kinda childish in my opinion."
not if someone is trying to be a provacateur and then their job is to provoke.
What is pathetic is that you all think that you need to artificially inflate your guy in some meaningless poll. The spamming got so bad on Little Green Footballs that they had to take your guy out of the polls entirely.
Mike,
You're just having a bit of fun aren't you.
Having been to my own local Ron Paul meetup group in a random U.S. suburb where 20 strangers got together to make Ron Paul signs, I KNOW his support is real. Most people don't know about Ron Paul. But many that do are VERY excited and active in real life as well as online.
Also, the numbers haven't been released yet; it's all speculation -- But you knew that already didn't you. I would wait before using that as an argument.
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