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12-26-2011, 06:17 AM
http://m.greenvilleonline.com/news/article?a=2011312260011&f=2540
Ron Paul picking up tea party supporters in state as other campaigns falter
By Ben Szobody | Staff writer
December 25, 2011
Like a hardy perennial, Ron Paul is back as a serious challenge to the Republican frontrunners for president, a top-tier candidate in all three early primary states who benefits from some of the tea party support winnowed from the wilting campaigns of his rivals.
He's more likely to win caucus states such as Iowa, political experts say, where several polls put him in the lead. In South Carolina, Paul has recently moved into third place in several polls, though results are mixed. In New Hampshire, he's running as high as second place.
It's not a surge made only of die-hard Paul supporters.
More than any other candidate, Paul has hammered recent frontrunner Newt Gingrich for what he calls hypocrisy and selling Washington access, chipping away with harsh TV ads at the former House speaker's popularity and potentially setting himself up to collect valuable Republican delegates in the event of a neck-and-neck primary season between Romney and Gingrich, Republican figures say.
The Gingrich campaign has declined to respond in kind, promising a positive campaign.
Perhaps the biggest indicator of Paul's standing now is the return of prominent examinations of his history, particularly a newsletter that used to circulate under his name.
Among notoriously fervent Paul believers, some of whom have essentially been campaigning since 2008, none of this is a surprise, and they believe Paul can win it all with both grassroots fervor and a more professional campaign than the one he ran four years ago.
Other primary voters say that after a whipsawing process that has seen the rise and fall of one tea party prospect after another, Paul is the anti-establishment candidate left standing.
Mike Frank, who administers Herman Cain Forums, is one such convert. What he liked about Cain was his common sense, his Washington outsider status, his belief in small government. Paul is similar in many ways -- consistent for 20 years, very much outside the establishment.
"Most of us were shocked and even asked ourselves, 'Why haven't we heard more about Ron Paul?'" Frank said in an email interview. Michele Bachmann was also examined, but he said her changing positions and public mistakes turned him off.
He fielded a request to endorse Gingrich, who he doesn't view as a true Republican, and the conversation turned heated. In the past two weeks, Frank reports "extreme growth" on the forums, to 21,000 total members.
David Haskins is a younger convert who voted for John McCain in 2000 and 2008. Here, too, his attraction to McCain -- personal character, consistency, a resistance to special interest influences and the "political party dynamic" -- best transfers to Paul.
"He was the tea party before there was a tea party," Haskins said.
Both Gingrich and Bachmann have rolled out lists of tea party endorsement in recent weeks. But in a state with 124 different liberty groups, longtime Paul supporter Chris Lawton doesn't find this indicative of any swell of support for one candidate.
He speaks of former Cain supporters and current Bachmann adherents who have or could soon switch to Paul, and he describes the people who have already converted much like himself when he first latched onto the colorful libertarian in 2007: they act like torch-bearers.
Reflecting the Internet-driven, socially disparate nature of Paul's support, a study this month by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism showed that in the highly opinionated world of political Twitter, Paul is the only candidate for whom positive remarks outweighed negative ones.
He's also the most favorably discussed candidate on political blogs, while he received less coverage from traditional news outlets from May through November than any Republican candidate except Rick Santorum, Pew reported.
"Paul seems to have struck a chord with some cohort in social media," the study reported.
Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia and an active Twitter user, describes the dynamic this way: If you don't write about Paul, you're deluged with aggrieved supporters. If you do write about him, you also get hundreds of responses.
Currently, Paul is focused on Iowa, spending much less time in South Carolina than his rivals. This leaves scant opportunity to hear him live or conduct interviews, but a recent profile in The Washington Post depicted a 76-year-old candidate whose campaign prefers small-scale events and uses direct mail to target undecided voters.
In parts of Greenville, envelopes dense with text-heavy letters with family photos and pages of arguments have been landing in mailboxes for weeks. And supporters such as Lawton are involved in tea party efforts to roll out a mobile precinct organizing system that he believes could elevate precision voter targeting.
Paul has been widely cited as having one of the strongest Iowa organizations, and Public Policy Polling has likened his strength among young people, new voters and independents to Barack Obama's 2008 effort.
"The big question is whether these folks will really come out and vote," PPP's Tom Jensen wrote. "If they do, we could be in for a big upset."
So what if Paul won Iowa, Romney won New Hampshire as expected and Gingrich won South Carolina, where he still has a double-digit lead?
That would cast Florida as tiebreaker, and Sabato said Paul isn't likely to do well in a state where heavy media spending and an emphasis on large turnout is required.
Still, he's been a top-tier fundraiser, raising millions with his "money bombs" and placing third for total fundraising in the most recent reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
With this prominence come questions refreshed from 2008 about a former newsletter associated with Paul that published disparaging comments about blacks and gays. Paul has said repeatedly in recent days that he didn't write the articles, didn't read them at the time and doesn't agree with them.
Sabato said Paul's role in the primary contest remains more likely to be as a thorn in the side of the eventual winners.
"His impact will mainly be through the caucuses and accumulating enough delegates potentially to keep somebody from getting a majority," he said, adding that even this scenario would require the field to remain fairly large with Romney and Gingrich competing evenly over a long period of time.
It remains an open question whether some core Republican primary voters are warming to Paul's views, many of which are more libertarian than some conservatives and evangelicals have traditionally stomached.
His support for pulling back on international military and allowing states to legalize drug use, for example, are still highly controversial among some conservative voters.
David Woodard, a Clemson University political scientist and pollster, said this is likely to stymie an increase in support.
"I think the Christian conservative element that is so active in the Republican Party is not going to be able to swallow his libertarian positions," Woodard said, mentioning drugs and abortion, where Paul has advocated a state-level approach.
"Then again," Sabato said, referring to Gingrich, "you'd think they'd have a problem with adultery and three wives. An amazing number are putting that to the side."
Gingrich, despite his promise to stay positive, said of Paul in a radio interview Thursday, "I think the key to his volunteer base is people who want to legalize drugs."
Lawton said Paul's stance on drug laws is simply one of states rights -- a now-frequent Republican mantra. He also emailed a link to a pro-Paul blog touting a 13-minute video as the answer to voters who say they like Paul, but not his foreign policy.
The video features military veterans and lays out Paul's argument that American military action abroad has triggered terrorist blowback.
Amid a frenzy of campaign activity in recent weeks, Paul hasn't been in South Carolina much, and Lawton said his only paid staffer recently went to help in Iowa.
But he said the lack of paid staff here doesn't concern him.
"Not when you have the kind of supporters we have," he said.
Ron Paul picking up tea party supporters in state as other campaigns falter
By Ben Szobody | Staff writer
December 25, 2011
Like a hardy perennial, Ron Paul is back as a serious challenge to the Republican frontrunners for president, a top-tier candidate in all three early primary states who benefits from some of the tea party support winnowed from the wilting campaigns of his rivals.
He's more likely to win caucus states such as Iowa, political experts say, where several polls put him in the lead. In South Carolina, Paul has recently moved into third place in several polls, though results are mixed. In New Hampshire, he's running as high as second place.
It's not a surge made only of die-hard Paul supporters.
More than any other candidate, Paul has hammered recent frontrunner Newt Gingrich for what he calls hypocrisy and selling Washington access, chipping away with harsh TV ads at the former House speaker's popularity and potentially setting himself up to collect valuable Republican delegates in the event of a neck-and-neck primary season between Romney and Gingrich, Republican figures say.
The Gingrich campaign has declined to respond in kind, promising a positive campaign.
Perhaps the biggest indicator of Paul's standing now is the return of prominent examinations of his history, particularly a newsletter that used to circulate under his name.
Among notoriously fervent Paul believers, some of whom have essentially been campaigning since 2008, none of this is a surprise, and they believe Paul can win it all with both grassroots fervor and a more professional campaign than the one he ran four years ago.
Other primary voters say that after a whipsawing process that has seen the rise and fall of one tea party prospect after another, Paul is the anti-establishment candidate left standing.
Mike Frank, who administers Herman Cain Forums, is one such convert. What he liked about Cain was his common sense, his Washington outsider status, his belief in small government. Paul is similar in many ways -- consistent for 20 years, very much outside the establishment.
"Most of us were shocked and even asked ourselves, 'Why haven't we heard more about Ron Paul?'" Frank said in an email interview. Michele Bachmann was also examined, but he said her changing positions and public mistakes turned him off.
He fielded a request to endorse Gingrich, who he doesn't view as a true Republican, and the conversation turned heated. In the past two weeks, Frank reports "extreme growth" on the forums, to 21,000 total members.
David Haskins is a younger convert who voted for John McCain in 2000 and 2008. Here, too, his attraction to McCain -- personal character, consistency, a resistance to special interest influences and the "political party dynamic" -- best transfers to Paul.
"He was the tea party before there was a tea party," Haskins said.
Both Gingrich and Bachmann have rolled out lists of tea party endorsement in recent weeks. But in a state with 124 different liberty groups, longtime Paul supporter Chris Lawton doesn't find this indicative of any swell of support for one candidate.
He speaks of former Cain supporters and current Bachmann adherents who have or could soon switch to Paul, and he describes the people who have already converted much like himself when he first latched onto the colorful libertarian in 2007: they act like torch-bearers.
Reflecting the Internet-driven, socially disparate nature of Paul's support, a study this month by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism showed that in the highly opinionated world of political Twitter, Paul is the only candidate for whom positive remarks outweighed negative ones.
He's also the most favorably discussed candidate on political blogs, while he received less coverage from traditional news outlets from May through November than any Republican candidate except Rick Santorum, Pew reported.
"Paul seems to have struck a chord with some cohort in social media," the study reported.
Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia and an active Twitter user, describes the dynamic this way: If you don't write about Paul, you're deluged with aggrieved supporters. If you do write about him, you also get hundreds of responses.
Currently, Paul is focused on Iowa, spending much less time in South Carolina than his rivals. This leaves scant opportunity to hear him live or conduct interviews, but a recent profile in The Washington Post depicted a 76-year-old candidate whose campaign prefers small-scale events and uses direct mail to target undecided voters.
In parts of Greenville, envelopes dense with text-heavy letters with family photos and pages of arguments have been landing in mailboxes for weeks. And supporters such as Lawton are involved in tea party efforts to roll out a mobile precinct organizing system that he believes could elevate precision voter targeting.
Paul has been widely cited as having one of the strongest Iowa organizations, and Public Policy Polling has likened his strength among young people, new voters and independents to Barack Obama's 2008 effort.
"The big question is whether these folks will really come out and vote," PPP's Tom Jensen wrote. "If they do, we could be in for a big upset."
So what if Paul won Iowa, Romney won New Hampshire as expected and Gingrich won South Carolina, where he still has a double-digit lead?
That would cast Florida as tiebreaker, and Sabato said Paul isn't likely to do well in a state where heavy media spending and an emphasis on large turnout is required.
Still, he's been a top-tier fundraiser, raising millions with his "money bombs" and placing third for total fundraising in the most recent reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
With this prominence come questions refreshed from 2008 about a former newsletter associated with Paul that published disparaging comments about blacks and gays. Paul has said repeatedly in recent days that he didn't write the articles, didn't read them at the time and doesn't agree with them.
Sabato said Paul's role in the primary contest remains more likely to be as a thorn in the side of the eventual winners.
"His impact will mainly be through the caucuses and accumulating enough delegates potentially to keep somebody from getting a majority," he said, adding that even this scenario would require the field to remain fairly large with Romney and Gingrich competing evenly over a long period of time.
It remains an open question whether some core Republican primary voters are warming to Paul's views, many of which are more libertarian than some conservatives and evangelicals have traditionally stomached.
His support for pulling back on international military and allowing states to legalize drug use, for example, are still highly controversial among some conservative voters.
David Woodard, a Clemson University political scientist and pollster, said this is likely to stymie an increase in support.
"I think the Christian conservative element that is so active in the Republican Party is not going to be able to swallow his libertarian positions," Woodard said, mentioning drugs and abortion, where Paul has advocated a state-level approach.
"Then again," Sabato said, referring to Gingrich, "you'd think they'd have a problem with adultery and three wives. An amazing number are putting that to the side."
Gingrich, despite his promise to stay positive, said of Paul in a radio interview Thursday, "I think the key to his volunteer base is people who want to legalize drugs."
Lawton said Paul's stance on drug laws is simply one of states rights -- a now-frequent Republican mantra. He also emailed a link to a pro-Paul blog touting a 13-minute video as the answer to voters who say they like Paul, but not his foreign policy.
The video features military veterans and lays out Paul's argument that American military action abroad has triggered terrorist blowback.
Amid a frenzy of campaign activity in recent weeks, Paul hasn't been in South Carolina much, and Lawton said his only paid staffer recently went to help in Iowa.
But he said the lack of paid staff here doesn't concern him.
"Not when you have the kind of supporters we have," he said.