0zzy
12-02-2007, 09:30 PM
Ron Paul is a baby elephant (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/12/03/ron_paul/)
But perhaps the best explanation of the Paul phenomenon came from Rammelkamp, the young man from Long Island who had taken on significant credit card debt for the Paul campaign. He told me that to understand Paul, I had to think of the American people as a baby elephant, chained to a tree. "It realizes that it can only walk 5 feet in each direction. It realizes that it is a slave. When it grows old enough, it is strong enough to break away from the tree. But it doesn't know." He pauses, to let this sink in -- the American people are a captive animal unaware of its own power to claim liberty. "When was the last time you tried it?" he asks me of breaking free. "Maybe you are strong enough."
"The message is so powerful, in spite of my shortcomings" (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/12/03/paul_interview/)
You are a result of how politics is changing with the Internet. How do you see in five or 10 years from now, whether or not you win, this country moving because of these technological changes, this ability for people to mobilize themselves? How does politics change?
The technology is absolutely secondary. It's a vehicle. It's a tool. The driving force is the philosophy. It just happens that the two have come together. Our country has gone astray. There are all kinds of problems. People are hurting. They want something new. The philosophy comes along. We offer this. And it's a potential solution. People are interested, and then the vehicle just happens to be the Internet. So it has come together. So many politicians come to me: "How do we harness the Internet to go after this, or these successful politicians?" It's not going to work. It's totally unrelated. I mean, there is the vehicle and there is the problem. People call us, because they are so naive, they'll call us and say, "We have some Internet lists. We'd like to rent them to you." Internet lists? They think we rent lists to go out and solicit people. But they solicit us, because of the philosophy, because of the problem, they put this together. It is not just the vehicle, the Internet. That is the tool to solve the problem, and it has been a very useful tool.
But perhaps the best explanation of the Paul phenomenon came from Rammelkamp, the young man from Long Island who had taken on significant credit card debt for the Paul campaign. He told me that to understand Paul, I had to think of the American people as a baby elephant, chained to a tree. "It realizes that it can only walk 5 feet in each direction. It realizes that it is a slave. When it grows old enough, it is strong enough to break away from the tree. But it doesn't know." He pauses, to let this sink in -- the American people are a captive animal unaware of its own power to claim liberty. "When was the last time you tried it?" he asks me of breaking free. "Maybe you are strong enough."
"The message is so powerful, in spite of my shortcomings" (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/12/03/paul_interview/)
You are a result of how politics is changing with the Internet. How do you see in five or 10 years from now, whether or not you win, this country moving because of these technological changes, this ability for people to mobilize themselves? How does politics change?
The technology is absolutely secondary. It's a vehicle. It's a tool. The driving force is the philosophy. It just happens that the two have come together. Our country has gone astray. There are all kinds of problems. People are hurting. They want something new. The philosophy comes along. We offer this. And it's a potential solution. People are interested, and then the vehicle just happens to be the Internet. So it has come together. So many politicians come to me: "How do we harness the Internet to go after this, or these successful politicians?" It's not going to work. It's totally unrelated. I mean, there is the vehicle and there is the problem. People call us, because they are so naive, they'll call us and say, "We have some Internet lists. We'd like to rent them to you." Internet lists? They think we rent lists to go out and solicit people. But they solicit us, because of the philosophy, because of the problem, they put this together. It is not just the vehicle, the Internet. That is the tool to solve the problem, and it has been a very useful tool.