Ron Paul?

Dr. No?

No … fucking … way.

That was pretty much the reaction after the first Republican debate where the libertarian constitutionalist ob-gyn flew past such favored candidates Rudy Guiliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney on a variety of internet polls. Blindsided by the apparent surge in popularity for the obscure candidate, the MSM – perhaps overly sensitive about being scooped yet again by the decentralized citizen-journalist aka dirty foul-mouthed bedroom blogger hoards – rushed to discover what was happening, what they were obviously missing. Many a story was written in the aftermath about the mysterious and unexplained “Ron Paul effect,” like some new planet or scientific law had been discovered, one that had heretofore been silently and unknowingly influencing poorly coded internet polls on earth …

Things have cooled off a bit for the Ron’s supporters (sometimes known as
“Friends of Ron Paul,” “Paulites” or even “Paultards” depending on who you’re sitting with) as of late, with his ownage of all things internet not really translating into support in the “real world,” unable to rise above 3% in any of the major opinion polls. Of course that could actually be the result of a sinister conspiracy of international banksters, the satanic global elite or the blood sucking neocons, but we’ll get to that later. Actually, to be totally correct, the MSM has slowed down its roll a bit on the stories about the strange powers of Dr. Internet, but Ron’s virtual grassroots have maintained – even increased – their near-religious fervor for their unlikely secular messiah, proselytizing and yearning for a New World of liberated economic transactions, non-interventionist foreign policies, golden standards and happy stem cells relieved to be saved from the clutches of Faustian research labs.

Of course using the net to organize isn’t really a new phenomenon anymore – see Howard Dean. But up to this point it has been those on the left side of the political spectrum that have been the most effective at organizing and energizing campaigns online, the Paul campaign is a ground breaking movement for the libertarian right, although at this writing the effects are tending to be more virtual than material.

Here are some of the techniques the Friends of Paul have been using for their online march to the White House.

Online Polls

Online polls were their opening salvo in their campaign, surfers organized and dispatched from a variety and of blogs and forums, swarming and clicking Ron to the top, much to the annoyance of the owners of the websites who ran the polls, to the point of removing Ron entirely. For example CNN’s
creepy “conservative” blowhard Glenn Beck removed Paul from the polls on his website, according this fellow who used his “smart brains” and “fingers” to sleuth the shocking truth.

For Ron’s supporters the online polls are the equivalent of crack cocaine, the rapid and heady rush of victory, the equally fast comedown to the harsh reality of actual poll numbers and money raised, anxious again, broke again, sucking at life again … wait … there’s a poll at World Net Daily …

Social Networking Websites

Not only does Ron Paul have more friends on MySpace and Facebook than your local emo band he has more than anyone else running for the Republican nomination, with 208 friends on Facebook at the time of this writing and a whopping 57346 friends on MySpace. He’s no Tom (199782345), but his friendcount is not too shabby either.

YouTube

Ron Paul’s videos are all over YouTube. News clips, speeches, home brewed promotional videos, Ron Paul/Megadeth mashups – with some getting hundreds of thousands of views, and tens of thousands subscribers to
his channel beaming an image of his soothing medical doctor’s face.

eBay

Ron Paul supporters or maybe just profiteers have a variety of buttons, stickers, magnets, t-shirts, and other promotional materials for sale (much of it apparently at cost) at internet marketplace eBay. “Google: Ron Paul.” “Revolution.” “Wake Up and Smell the Fascism!” etc.

Digg

The war between the Digg community and the Friends of Paul has been ongoing and bloody, with the “Digg bury brigade” swatting down the thousands of Ron Paul Diggs, and the usual accusations of gaming, spamming, manipulation and censorship from both sides, battalions of keyboard commandos fueled by rations of energy drinks and pizza ordered online click click click into the night, the latest edit of Terrorstorm downloading in the background, the war between freedom and governmental tyranny in it’s final darkest hour, click click click …

And a variety of other techniques such as online meet-ups and rallies, email writing campaigns (even targeting foreign heads of state and annoying the shit out of MSNBC), iPhone apps, bombing people with Ron videos from laptops at coffee shops, and on and on. I think it’s safe to say I’ve just scraped the surface of all the varieties of Ron Paul online campaign tools and tactics that are being deployed.

Don’t get me wrong, some of my best friend’s are Ron Paul supporters. And I guess – aside from the hyper-swarm behavior online – that has been one of the most curious aspects of this phenomenon to me. I can understand the attraction for your typical old school small government Christian conservative paleocon, but for your open minded dope smoking porn watching friends who think organized religion is a joke and who’ve probably taken their girlfriend in for an abortion at some time in the past? I assume that it has to do with Ron’s pledge to pull American troops out of the Iraqi nightmare, the ending of the intrusive Patriot Act and tax relief among other things, but as an example, for those who desire universal health care, there is not a chance in hell that it would come to be under his harsh individualistic Social Darwinist libertarian economic policies, not to mention Paul’s opposition to net neutrality and reproductive choice. Some are aware of that however, but see Paul as the only solution to the increasing oppression of the Military-Security state, very real fears in themselves. I guess it’s a testimony to the sad state of affairs that this is pretty much the only American political Presidential opposition to the blankly smiling uninspiring puppets and whores favored by of the corporate and special interest money powers.

Or maybe because the biggest Ron Paul supporters among my friends tend to have a conspiratorial lean, and Ron is de facto the candidate of choice for the conspiracy inclined. His comments on the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the Federal Reserve and the New World Order have appealed him to many a conspiracist, although it has been the 9/11 “truth” cult which has embraced and promoted him with the most fervor both on and offline. Although Ron has distanced himself from 9/11 conspiracy theories, stating that it was Osama in a cave rather than Dick in a secret underground bunker that commandeered the operation, for some reason that doesn’t seem to slow their embrace.

Paranoid hysteria aside, that doesn’t mean that those in power however are not afraid of Ron. From some reports it appears that Ron Paul supporters have been illegitimately prevented from voting in straw polls by Republican Party heavies. Whether this is just more hysterical paranoia or something more remains to be seen. But if you were the head of a military-entertainment-complex corporation, wouldn’t you pull what strings you can to quash anyone who could potentially disrupt your fortunes built upon untold misery, your secret underground bunkers filled with pornstars and cocaine, your vanity trips into space?

Anyway, to bring this back home, do I think the “Ron Paul effect” is hype or hope? As with most things, the truth is somewhere in between the two fanatical poles. While much of the Ron Paul’s support is as substantial as a Flash animation, there have been signs of the online organizing forcing advances in meatspace, such as the fact that Paul has surprisingly surpassed media darling/psycho John McCain in campaign donations, though still well behind Giuliani and Romney by substantial amounts. More than likely this phenomenon will be retroactively seen as an early manifestation and significant milestone of online politics and political organization, the importance of which will increase as the boundaries between reality and virtuality dissolve and your brain implant starts to be flooded with messages exhorting you to “Vote For FREEDOM!”