Opinion: The Ron Paul Surge has just begun!
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
The Man’s been trying to bust his message. The MSM can barely admit he exists. Even the bloggerati won’t give him the time of day. But Ron Paul can’t be denied!
Netroot self-starters love him. U.S. Marines love him. Weirdo lurkers on Opinion L.A. chats love him. Gadfly, goldbug, groovy guy, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) is on the march, crisscrossing this great nation like a Johnny Appleseed of freedom, on the verge of crossing that presidential threshold of...1%?
Well, when you put it into actual ‘numbers,’ I guess the Ron Paul renaissance doesn’t look so impressive. But as a message campaign you could hardly ask for more. Paul’s stemwinder on the GOP’s non-interventionist history was the kind of deep-in-the-outfield take that made last week’s Republican debate a more interesting and freewheeling event than it should have been; the best gadflies are the ones who remind you of your own intellectual history. At the Chicago Tribune (which shares an owner with the L.A. Times), Frank James puts some perspective on Paul’s standout performance at the Reagan Library:
Paul’s website reports its hits tripled after the debate and goes so far as declaring Paul the debate’s winner. Based on all the increased interest in him, that may be. Whether it will be enough to significantly lift his poll ratings remains to be seen. The latest CNN/Opinion Research poll conducted from May 4 to 6 had him at one percent. I suppose if he goes to two percent that would be trumpeted by some as a 100 percent increase. The hard political reality is that Paul is the longest of long shots. It takes an amount equal to the treasury of a small nation to win a major party presidential nomination and then go on to wage a credible general-election campaign. It also takes being where the ideological center of gravity is in the party. Paul is nowhere near that center.
Does that matter? It’s news to nobody that we are several iterations in the multiverse away from that bizarro, Spock’s-beard world where Ron Paul could actually win a presidential race. But what’s a quixotic campaign worth if you can’t dream the impossible dream, and in the process force friend and foe alike to think harder about what they really believe?