Paul's their all (Boston Globe)

[JosephTheLibertarian]

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/09/27/pauls_their_all/

he's actually at 4%.. but they're saying 3

[Ron Paul Fan]

Awesome. People like Meghann Walker are what make this campaign so special and so great. Meghann, if you're reading this you are a true patriot and champion of liberty. I doubt Giuliani, Romney, or anyone else for that matter have people passing out flyers on a Friday night. Keep doing what you're doing and spreading the word of liberty. After some petty arguments that occured on here tonight, it's good to read a story like this that puts it all in perspective. For Liberty!!!

[LizF]

A very good article...bump!

[Abobo]

Good article, but it's sucks the guy didn't point out that the young activists he was talking to are excluded from any of those official polls. You would think that if you're doing an article about RP's young supporters that detail should be mentioned if they are mentioning low poll numbers.

[OptionsTrader]

...

[pcosmar]

It was a good article. There were no comments (that I saw) so I sent an E-mail to say thanks.
It is rare to see honest reporting. It was a positive piece for a change.

[Green Mountain Boy]

This article is on the front page of the Boston Globe. I'm happy with it.

http://graphics.boston.com/globe/acrobat/today.jpeg

[JosephTheLibertarian]

yeah, they were taking stories off this paper on "morning joe" on msnbc.. of course they don't mention the RP article

[austin356]

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/09/27/pauls_their_all/


http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f380/austinw356/today_thumbnail.jpg


Paul's their all
Impassioned young voters energizing Texas congressman's presidential bid

By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | September 27, 2007

CHICAGO - Late on a balmy Friday night in Wicker Park, a gentrifying neighborhood just northwest of the Loop, a small tribe of 20-somethings gathers outside a corner bar. Their leader, a petite, energetic 25-year-old named Meghann Walker, hands out leaflets to people heading inside.

"Do you guys know Ron Paul is going to be in town tomorrow?" Walker asks a short-haired young woman in jeans and flip-flops. "There'll be a lot of good people there, that's for sure."

"Cool," the woman replies.

Walker, a waitress and anthropology student who lives in Chicago, cried on Election Night 2004, crushed that Democrat John Kerry had failed to unseat President Bush. Last year, deeply disillusioned with the Iraq war and with politicians of both par ties who had failed to stop it, she began a political odyssey that transformed her into a libertarian Republican.

Now, she spends "every free moment" campaigning for Paul, a Texas congressman who vows that if he's elected president he'll abolish the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Reserve, let younger workers opt out of Social Security, and - alone among the GOP field - immediately withdraw all US troops from Iraq. She even has business cards identifying herself as a volunteer Ron Paul organizer.

"I don't really see my friends anymore," she said. "My new friends are the Ron Paul Meetup group."

Walker is part of a small but impassioned group of young people providing unlikely fuel to Paul's long-shot candidacy. Stuck in the single digits in the national polls (in the latest Gallup poll, he's tied for sixth at 3 percent among likely Republican primary voters), Paul has developed a feisty following on the Internet, migrating from obscure Libertarian websites to YouTube and MySpace, where he now has more "friends" than any other Republican candidate. His young fans, who appear to outnumber members of his aging Libertarian base, regularly storm post-debate online polls, giving their candidate landslide victories. He has even developed an international following, with Paul blogs springing up in more than a dozen countries.

Increasingly, his young fans are taking their campaign to the streets. Grassroots groups organized through the website Meetup now have more than 40,000 members in 751 cities and towns. They hang "Google Ron Paul" signs from highway overpasses. They show up in force at Republican events, wearing T-shirts trumpeting the "Ron Paul Love Revolution," waving homemade signs, and tirelessly chanting his name.

"The reason so many people are loud and energetic is that they're happy," said Michael Nystrom, 39, an independent Web consultant and developer from Arlington, Mass., who edits the Daily Paul blog, which he says averages 11,000 to 12,000 visitors a day. "It seems like it's been a long drought since any one of us have heard from someone who speaks for us. "

Some are Democrats fed up with their party's inability to stop the war; others are Republicans angry about the PATRIOT Act and other Bush-era laws they believe trample on individual liberties. Still others are antiestablishment youths who have never been involved in politics before, including some who are drawn to conspiracy theories, claiming that President Bush is leading a secret plot to cede US sovereignty to a North American union, for example, or that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were perpetrated by the US government.

What they share is a deep distrust of American government, bred by a strong aversion to the war on terror and the war in Iraq, as well as nagging insecurity about the country's economic future.

"Where we all seem to agree is that the government has stopped being responsive to the people," said Tom Kawcyznski, 26, of Bellevue, Pa., who owns a computer company and said he voted for Bush in 2004. "To a larger and larger degree, there isn't respect for the liberty of the people, and people feel so alienated."

Paul's supporters also share an idealistic, if naive, conviction that if this obscure 72-year-old iconoclast could somehow win the presidency, he could usher in a new golden age of liberty in America. They like the uncompromising stands that the former obstetrician/gynecologist has taken in Congress, where he has earned the nickname "Dr. No" for his refusal to vote for any bill that he believes is not clearly authorized by the Constitution.

"I don't want to vote for the lesser of two evils," said Casey McCowan, 25, of Chicago, who said he has never voted before but plans to support Paul.

Nobody seems more surprised by the youth-driven boomlet than Paul, a diminutive man with a gentle, old-fashioned manner. As more than 1,000 supporters gathered to hear him speak at a downtown Chicago hotel last Saturday, he slouched in a chair in a nearby conference room, wearing a grey suit with black sneakers and navy blue cotton socks.

"I'm just bewildered," he said, his tufty eyebrows climbing a notch higher. "I'm totally overwhelmed, because I've always thought of myself as a pretty quiet person with a very serious message."

Paul's message combines a traditional Libertarian philosophy - the federal government should be as small and as hands-off as possible at home and should quit its military meddling abroad - with an intense focus on monetary policy. He preaches that the Federal Reserve is an undemocratic and secretive institution that creates, rather than moderates, inflation, which is eating away at the middle class.

The way Paul sees it, his campaign platform combines some of the free-market economics of Republican Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign with the antiwar spirit of Democrat Eugene McCarthy's 1968 run - both insurgent, though ultimately unsuccessful, campaigns that sparked excitement among young activists.

"It's a very optimistic message," he said in an interview. "If you do have free markets and sound money, you can have prosperity, and you don't have to support war."

Many of Paul's views are at odds with his primary rivals' and have drawn ridicule from some of them. In one debate, Paul blamed the US military presence in the Middle East for terrorist attacks against Americans.

"They attack us because we've been over there," he said. "We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years."

Rudy Giuliani berated Paul, to huge applause, but Paul refused to back down.

A prolific author of books and speeches on free-market economics, Paul was the Libertarian candidate for president in 1988, winning less than half of 1 percent of the vote. He said he had to be convinced to run as a major party candidate this year.

Among those who lobbied Paul was the late documentary filmmaker Aaron Russo, a Hollywood producer and Libertarian activist who included an interview with Paul in his 2006 film, "America: Freedom to Fascism," which developed a cult following among the politically disaffected.

The film argues that the federal income tax is illegal, and that the Federal Reserve enriches a coterie of bankers and the military-industrial complex on the backs of ordinary taxpayers. Paul says he doesn't agree with all the film's arguments, but he says the film had "a huge impact" on the support his campaign is drawing.

The film also may be the reason why a surprising number of his young supporters get as fired up about the Federal Reserve as they do about the war. In his address in Chicago Saturday, he called for a radical change in the monetary system, and the crowd leapt to its feet and roared as loudly as at any other point in his speech.

The cheering crowd included Kristin and Chris Algmin, a middle-class couple from a Chicago suburb who, with their 3-year-old and 3-month-old sons, joined about 150 Paul supporters walking from Millennium Park to the hotel. The Algmins said they feared inflation would erode their children's college savings.

This was, they said, their first political rally.

"It's exhilarating," Kristin Algmin said over the crowd's chanting. "There are a lot of people like us coming out of the woodwork."

Lisa Wangsness can be reached at lwangsness@globe.com.

[OptionsTrader]

http://i21.tinypic.com/9fwumq.jpg

[austin356]

I havent read the other articles on the front page, but the titles lend themselves nicely to the paul campaign.

"Army stretched too thin do to Iraq"

and "police arrest protesters"

[JosephTheLibertarian]

WOW... a 100% pro-ron paul article on the FRONT PAGE of the boston globe! That's just the best...

[walt]

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/09/27/pauls_their_all/

Nice.

[DahuiHeeNalu]

That is a GREAT ARTICLE Props for sharing amazing :)

[Hurricane Bruiser]

awesome article.

[Bradley in DC]

Excellent article. Challenge for the rest of us for our local papers!

[Proemio]

Yes, nice.

"Paul's supporters also share an idealistic, if naive, conviction that if this obscure 72-year-old iconoclast could somehow win the presidency, he could usher in a new golden age of liberty in America. They like the uncompromising stands that the former obstetrician/gynecologist has taken in Congress, where he has earned the nickname "Dr. No" for his refusal to vote for any bill that he believes is not clearly authorized by the Constitution."

There is nothing "naive" about it - nothing...

[abstrusezincate]

Lisa is great. I had the pleasure of talking with her for an hour or so for this interview, and she wanted to learn all about the movement, so I helped direct her to a number of different people who could help. I think she has a genuine interest, so show her some love for this great article.

We need more of this.

[Stealth4]

Front Page-----wooot!!

[Nefertiti]

Excellent article. Challenge for the rest of us for our local papers!

Actually its a challenge for the rest of the Meetup groups to create such positive and dedicated support for Ron Paul so that you get positive coverage.

[stevedasbach]

I'm planning to email RealClearPolitics.com and suggest that this article be linked there. A lot of political reporters and pundits read RCR every day, so getting it linked there would really help disseminate the article.

EDIT: could someone PM me the link so I can have the correct URL? For some reason, boston.com is blocked at the school where I teach, and the link that displays in the forum messages appears to be shortened. I don't want to send RCR a broken link.

[Stealth4]

PM'd

[libertarian4321]

This is great- a fair article about Ron Paul in a MAJOR newspaoer- and the day before a Ron Paul event. Should help drive more people to his fundraiser (I wish the paper had given details on the fundraiser, though).

[csen]

http://graphics.boston.com/globe/acrobat/today.jpeg

VERY positive article, I must say:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/09/27/pauls_their_all/

If you need a login, use Alpha@Dog.com / 123456 (from bugmenot.com)

[hopeforamerica]

Damn that cool!

[dsentell]

Really nice article!!!

[aksmith]

That is as positive and fair an article as we'll ever see in the mainstream press. Just one question. Is Ron Paul diminutive? I've met him and I'm 5'7. He seemed quite a bit taller than me. Anyone know exactly how tall he is?

[Johnnybags]

That is as positive and fair an article as we'll ever see in the mainstream press. Just one question. Is Ron Paul diminutive? I've met him and I'm 5'7. He seemed quite a bit taller than me. Anyone know exactly how tall he is?

He is bigger than me at 5-9(who is'nt maybe I got Kucinich beat). He is just built slight.

[devil21]

The article is great but the picture on the front page is worth way more. People who have seen the signs around can now remember them and think "ah ok lets take a look". Ron needs more of this! I emaild the writer a thank you note. lwangsness@globe.com

[sunny]

http://graphics.boston.com/globe/acrobat/today.jpeg

VERY positive article, I must say:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/09/27/pauls_their_all/

If you need a login, use Alpha@Dog.com / 123456 (from bugmenot.com)

lol - i was just going to post that but you beat me by 10 minutes!

great article for msm!

[klamath]

Nice article. Pretty much covered us.

[jj111]

Check out this part of the article: they call Ron Paul "a diminutive man." What a completely erroneous description. Ron Paul is 6 feet tall!!

[Dustancostine]

The only thing that is aggravating is how the media always lies about the poll numbers. It infuriates me to no end. When he was polling 3%, they always reported he was polling at the bottom at 1%. Now that he is polling 4% and is doing better than everyone but Romney, McCain, Thompson and Guliani, they say he is at 3% tied with other people for 6th. How hard is it to call Gallup for the polling numbers?

[Shatterhand]

Umm, the article described RP as "diminutive."

Isn't he six feet tall or something? He is not diminutive.

[jj111]

Article author Lisa Wangsness can be reached at lwangsness@globe.com

Let's email her and thank her for the coverage of Ron Paul and hope that they will continue to cover his campaign.

[csen]

Check out this part of the article: they call Ron Paul "a diminutive man." What a completely erroneous description. Ron Paul is over 6 feet tall!!

huh, interesting. I actually didn't notice his height when I met him (I'm 6'1"), but now that I look at the pic of the two of us I've only got a couple inches on him (he does have a bit of a slouch), so yeah, 6'0" sounds about right.

[RevolutionSD]

Check out this part of the article: they call Ron Paul "a diminutive man." What a completely erroneous description. Ron Paul is over 6 feet tall!!

He's not 6 feet. I'm 5'11 and met him in person and am taller than him. I'd put him at 5'10. Not diminutive anyway.

Good coverage though! How many subscribers does the Boston Globe have?

[RevolutionSD]

The only thing that is aggravating is how the media always lies about the poll numbers. It infuriates me to no end. When he was polling 3%, they always reported he was polling at the bottom at 1%. Now that he is polling 4% and is doing better than everyone but Romney, McCain, Thompson and Guliani, they say he is at 3% tied with other people for 6th. How hard is it to call Gallup for the polling numbers?

It is frustrating but these numbers mean CRAP anyway. He's polling at 4% because they only as REPBULICANS who VOTED IN THE LAST PRIMARY! That's like only about 25% of my meetup group, so the so-called "official" polls are missing a helluva lot of people who intend to vote for Ron Paul in the primaries.

[Blowback]

Check out this part of the article: they call Ron Paul "a diminutive man." What a completely erroneous description. Ron Paul is 6 feet tall!!

He's ten feet tall and he shoots fireballs from his ass is what I heard!

[paulitics]

It is frustrating but these numbers mean CRAP anyway. He's polling at 4% because they only as REPBULICANS who VOTED IN THE LAST PRIMARY! That's like only about 25% of my meetup group, so the so-called "official" polls are missing a helluva lot of people who intend to vote for Ron Paul in the primaries.

Your correct. 25% is about right. The polling companies, and FRudy McRomneyson's campaign advisors know this. They get paid lots of money to. Behind the scenes, they are freaking out.

[jj111]

He's ten feet tall and he shoots fireballs from his ass is what I heard!

I can see describing Kucinich "diminutive" as he is 4 ft. 9 in. How a reporter describes a 6 ft. tall man as diminutive is beyond me.....

[pcosmar]

Umm, the article described RP as "diminutive."

Isn't he six feet tall or something? He is not diminutive.

I met Dr. Paul at Mackinac, He appears diminutive (pale, thin) but looks can be deceiving. We followed him on the walk up the hill. He left most in the dust, those that could keep up had to work at it.
I found him to be intelligent, articulate, and despite his calm, very high energy.
And he is a real nice guy.

[Green Mountain Boy]

Good coverage though! How many subscribers does the Boston Globe have?


The Boston Gobe has a daily circulation of almost 400,000.

The good thing is that thousands of people in New Hampshire read the Globe also.

[ronpaulitician]

Great article.

Let's hope there will be a nice follow-up once the third-quarter numbers come out.

[austin356]

The Boston Gobe has a daily circulation of almost 400,000.

The good thing is that thousands of people in New Hampshire read the Globe also.



Isn't this the main paper people in Manchester read for national news?

[aksmith]

Isn't this the main paper people in Manchester read for national news?

Doesn't the Union Leader have national news?

[Syren123]

It is good, but unfortunately, the underlying tone is still marginalizing (the naive comment), which I guess is to be expected.

What's cool is there are Meghan Walkers ALL OVER THE COUNTRY doing what she does. I know cuz I see them in our meetups and I'm one myself (only older). Ron Paul now OWNS YouTube with the greatest collection of inspiring, creative, and original videos of anyone on any subject. What else in America is inspiring this kind of interest and activism? Nothing and no one. Even my mom said "this is the most fun thing we've had to talk about in years."

Q3 is gonna blow the political pinheads away and the momentum is going to be impossible to ignore. And that is because you people ROCK.

[Syren123]

Umm, the article described RP as "diminutive."
Isn't he six feet tall or something? He is not diminutive.

He IS tall. But he's so thin he's not 'imposing' like someone maybe 100 lbs heavier than he is. But tall, yes.

[Syren123]

Lisa is great. I had the pleasure of talking with her for an hour or so for this interview, and she wanted to learn all about the movement, so I helped direct her to a number of different people who could help. I think she has a genuine interest, so show her some love for this great article.

We need more of this.

Good for you! Great job. Sending Lisa more love.

[ghemminger]

Great Article - But Localized - when AP or Reuters - puts out an Article it has 1000x the effect......just for perspective....

Top Tier candidates average 400-1000 MSM article per day

RP is averaging 10-20

[FSP-Rebel]

I met Dr. Paul at Mackinac, He appears diminutive (pale, thin) but looks can be deceiving. We followed him on the walk up the hill. He left most in the dust, those that could keep up had to work at it.
I found him to be intelligent, articulate, and despite his calm, very high energy.
And he is a real nice guy.
You're right, it's amazing that he has so much energy being so skinny and all. We need to fatten him up a little. The best part of that walk was seeing our state coord (heavier set) trying to keep up with the DOC. I, for one, was a sweat ball by the time we made it up the hill to the Grand.

[Green Mountain Boy]

Isn't this the main paper people in Manchester read for national news?

Not quite sure, but household penetration ranges from 6%-22% in southern New Hampshire varying by town.

[Shatterhand]

He IS tall. But he's so thin he's not 'imposing' like someone maybe 100 lbs heavier than he is. But tall, yes.

Maybe next time the journalist can use 'lithe' or 'lean.'

:D

[max]

He IS tall. But he's so thin he's not 'imposing' like someone maybe 100 lbs heavier than he is. But tall, yes.

RP is 6 feet?????

[Santana28]

Meghann is AWESOME. Let me tell you firsthand that she is all over this Ron Paul stuff for Chicago. Coolest girl i've met in a LONG time. Now i'm gonna run over to the meetup page and conratulate her for making the front page :)

[jimbarbale]

Check out this part of the article: they call Ron Paul "a diminutive man." What a completely erroneous description. Ron Paul is 6 feet tall!!

From www.Webster.com
diminutive
Function: adjective
1 : indicating small size and sometimes the state or quality of being familiarly known, lovable, pitiable, or contemptible

[drpiotrowski]

That picture of the supporters is myself [David Piotrowski] (on the left) and another Wisconsin supporter, Joe Baker. They had our places incorrect on the caption, but I'm still surprised and stoked.

When the photographer asked for our names, I never imagined we'd be pictured on the front page of the globe!

I need to go and buy a copy of this and read the article, too!