Bradley in DC
09-30-2007, 03:04 PM
http://commentsfromleftfield.com/2007/09/ron-paul-really
Ron Paul? Really?
By Mick Arran | September 29, 2007 - 2:13 pm - Posted in Ron Paul, Republicans, 2008
(Updated below)
I’ve been going to New Hampshire off and on for the last three weeks to see my brother. Week before last, I got off the highway to take the scenic route along the coast, then cut inland and went north to where my brother lives, and I noticed something fairly…odd. Ron Paul lawn signs everywhere. They outnumbered the Giuliani signs, the Romney signs, and the Hillary signs combined.
Now, I don’t want to make too much out of this, but I grew up in NH surrounded every 4 years by the primary machines of candidates from the excessively well-financed to the shoe-string-and-a-prayer. There are certain patterns that come with lawn signs, and very small but occasionally stunningly-accurate predictions can be made from watching them.
For instance: the Giuliani/Romney/Hillary signs are concentrated along the heavily-traveled coast road, Rte 1, the oldest and arguably, mile for mile, the most commercially over-developed highway in the nation. They were all mass-produced, obviously by the campaign, and placed in advantageous positions like somebody had worked it all out in advance. Very few just popped up at you where you might not expect them, which meant, of course, that they were all clustered in the same places. When I moved inland, they all but vanished.
By contrast, the Paul signs were scattered hither and thither like weeds sprouting in unused corners. Most telling, perhaps, many of them were hand-made. That wasn’t terribly unusual 40 years ago, but nowadays campaigns are so controlled and tightly-organized that it’s almost unheard of. I can’t remember seeing hand-lettered, hand-drawn political lawn signs in NH since John Anderson’s quixotic campaign in 1980 (not counting, of course, the hardy, off-center fringe whacks who make signs boosting everybody from Pat Paulsen to Lyndon LaRouche - a perennial primary favorite of the barking mad contingent of NH Pub righties - to Bugs Bunny).
There were fewer of them inland than there were on Rte 1 but unlike the signs from the campaigns of the major candidates, they didn’t disappear altogether. They kept right on materializing, seemingly out of thin air, in places off the main drags - private homes, usually. Some were remarkably crude, others had been lettered by someone with reasonably good penmanship.
In a way, there’s nothing particularly surprising about this. NH Republicans love mavericks and Paul is about as maverick as they come. What is unusual this early in the primary season (the mass of campaign-supplied signs won’t be in place for another month) is that they’re there at all, and for a candidate whose NH organization is, shall we say, underfunded.
What struck me almost immediately was the aura I was picking up of a grass-roots movement simmering under the radar. I’ve seen this before in Democratic primaries - the Anderson campaign in ‘80 and the Gene McCarthy campaign in ‘68 - but I think this is the first time in a Republican primary.
I’m going to go out on a slight limb here and suggest that what these signs may mean is an unexpectedly good showing in NH for Ron Paul - 3rd, possibly even 2nd. Given a Pub field led by a New York mayor who’s doing well in the NH polls but turns the stomachs of the kinds of people who turn out for the Pub primaries, an ex-Mass Gov NH voters know and heartily despise, an ex-favorite who’s changed beyond all recognition (personally, I think McCain will be out after an embarrassing loss in the NH primary), and a clutch of out-where-the-buses-don’t-run candidates so far to the right they’ll be competing with LaRouche for the John Birch Society vote, I suspect we could be looking at the potential for a real upset in February.
Ron Paul? Really?
By Mick Arran | September 29, 2007 - 2:13 pm - Posted in Ron Paul, Republicans, 2008
(Updated below)
I’ve been going to New Hampshire off and on for the last three weeks to see my brother. Week before last, I got off the highway to take the scenic route along the coast, then cut inland and went north to where my brother lives, and I noticed something fairly…odd. Ron Paul lawn signs everywhere. They outnumbered the Giuliani signs, the Romney signs, and the Hillary signs combined.
Now, I don’t want to make too much out of this, but I grew up in NH surrounded every 4 years by the primary machines of candidates from the excessively well-financed to the shoe-string-and-a-prayer. There are certain patterns that come with lawn signs, and very small but occasionally stunningly-accurate predictions can be made from watching them.
For instance: the Giuliani/Romney/Hillary signs are concentrated along the heavily-traveled coast road, Rte 1, the oldest and arguably, mile for mile, the most commercially over-developed highway in the nation. They were all mass-produced, obviously by the campaign, and placed in advantageous positions like somebody had worked it all out in advance. Very few just popped up at you where you might not expect them, which meant, of course, that they were all clustered in the same places. When I moved inland, they all but vanished.
By contrast, the Paul signs were scattered hither and thither like weeds sprouting in unused corners. Most telling, perhaps, many of them were hand-made. That wasn’t terribly unusual 40 years ago, but nowadays campaigns are so controlled and tightly-organized that it’s almost unheard of. I can’t remember seeing hand-lettered, hand-drawn political lawn signs in NH since John Anderson’s quixotic campaign in 1980 (not counting, of course, the hardy, off-center fringe whacks who make signs boosting everybody from Pat Paulsen to Lyndon LaRouche - a perennial primary favorite of the barking mad contingent of NH Pub righties - to Bugs Bunny).
There were fewer of them inland than there were on Rte 1 but unlike the signs from the campaigns of the major candidates, they didn’t disappear altogether. They kept right on materializing, seemingly out of thin air, in places off the main drags - private homes, usually. Some were remarkably crude, others had been lettered by someone with reasonably good penmanship.
In a way, there’s nothing particularly surprising about this. NH Republicans love mavericks and Paul is about as maverick as they come. What is unusual this early in the primary season (the mass of campaign-supplied signs won’t be in place for another month) is that they’re there at all, and for a candidate whose NH organization is, shall we say, underfunded.
What struck me almost immediately was the aura I was picking up of a grass-roots movement simmering under the radar. I’ve seen this before in Democratic primaries - the Anderson campaign in ‘80 and the Gene McCarthy campaign in ‘68 - but I think this is the first time in a Republican primary.
I’m going to go out on a slight limb here and suggest that what these signs may mean is an unexpectedly good showing in NH for Ron Paul - 3rd, possibly even 2nd. Given a Pub field led by a New York mayor who’s doing well in the NH polls but turns the stomachs of the kinds of people who turn out for the Pub primaries, an ex-Mass Gov NH voters know and heartily despise, an ex-favorite who’s changed beyond all recognition (personally, I think McCain will be out after an embarrassing loss in the NH primary), and a clutch of out-where-the-buses-don’t-run candidates so far to the right they’ll be competing with LaRouche for the John Birch Society vote, I suspect we could be looking at the potential for a real upset in February.