Can an Internet sensation of a politican become president?
02:39 AM CDT on Wednesday, June 6, 2007
By Lee McGuire / 11 News
Ron Paul hopes his message gains him votes for president. The Republicans running for president took each other to task again Tuesday night. This time, it was in New Hampshire — and if this debate is anything like the last one, then the blogs are buzzing about a little-known Republican from Lake Jackson.
Congressman Ron Paul didn’t do too well the last time he ran for president. In 1988 he got less than one-half of 1 percent of the vote.
But today he is the second-most popular search on the Internet, just behind “YouTube.”
To most presidential candidates, the lunch special at the Baytown Seafood Restaurant serves up a tempting morsel of likely voters.
But to candidate Ron Paul it’s just lunch. Traveling alone with no campaign staff, the entire presidential campaign of this congressman and Lake Jackson obstetrician is built around little more than a message.
“Republicans have dug a hole for themselves and they don’t know what to do,” Paul said.
That hole, he said, is the war in Iraq. His answer is what has fired up his base and cemented opposition to his campaign.
“We end it, our part in it,” Rep. Paul said. “We let them kill each other, we come home, there’s no reason to believe it might get worse. And there’s a whole lot of reason to believe it might get better.”
But what, then, of the argument that pulling out of Iraq would abandon millions of vulnerable people? Leaving them defenseless in a near-certain civil war?
“But we have a moral obligation to take care of Americans, a moral obligation to fight wars that are declared,” Paul said. “A moral obligation to protect our young people from getting involved in a war that we don’t know why we’re there, there won’t be an end point.”
Paul is a fiscal conservative. He’s pro-life. He’d like to put the U.S. dollar back on the gold standard. But this time, his presidential campaign is almost all about the war.
“How am I going to win?” he said. “Only time will tell, and the only thing I could say is we’re way ahead of what I ever dreamed of, and it has to do with what’s going on on the Internet.”
On the Web, Ron Paul is something of a superhero.
People search for his name more than almost anything else.
And look what happened when Fox News asked viewers to rate the candidates after a Republican debate: “In first place, Ron Paul, surprisingly, 30 percent.”
On MSNBC, the same thing: “The highest rated candidate at the moment, Ron Paul at 39 percent, and a mighty roar has just gone up from Ron Paul supporters.”
“I asked my staff to explain it, and they said, ‘oh it’s your message, it’s your message,’” Paul said. “And I hope it is the message.”
But as the Internet hummed, the media wondered — is Ron Paul’s support real?
“We’ve had so many e-mailers say that clearly some online communities are messing with the outcome,” Fox News wondered.
Turns out, Ron Paul barely registers among likely voters. In the last major presidential poll, just 1 percent of Republican voters said Paul was their pick.
Which brings us back to the restaurant and the reason Paul entered this race to start with.
“I was very skeptical of it, but since then I have come around to believing there are a lot more people out there who are receptive to this message than I ever dreamed of,” Paul said.
His challenge now is turning his vast virtual popularity into a campaign that brings in the real crowds.
AI
