RP08
07-22-2007, 12:09 PM
Not much new, but pretty good.
2008 Presidential hopeful Ron Paul is profiled in Sunday's New York Times, a mostly positive piece, as one might expect with the Times sharing similar views on the war in Iraq.
There is something homespun about Paul, reminiscent of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” He communicates with his constituents through birthday cards, August barbecues and the cookbooks his wife puts together every election season, which mix photos of grandchildren, Gospel passages and neighbors’ recipes for Velveeta cheese fudge and Cherry Coke salad. He is listed in the phone book, and his constituents call him at home. But there is also something cosmopolitan and radical about him; his speeches can bring to mind the World Social Forum or the French international-affairs periodical Le Monde Diplomatique. Paul is surely the only congressman who would cite the assertion of the left-leaning Chennai-based daily The Hindu that “the world is being asked today, in reality, to side with the U.S. as it seeks to strengthen its economic hegemony.” The word “empire” crops up a lot in his speeches.
Paul - his odds of becoming President of the US slashed dramatically from 200 to 1 to 15 to 1 in under two weeks last May - has become one of these most sought after political candidates among Web diehards. If it were up to them, he would be elected the next President of the United States by a landslide.
Gambling911.com Special Contributor Jennifer Reynolds has strongly defended Ron Paul and the mainstream media's depiction of him in recent weeks.
For months now, most mainstream media reports of Ron Paul and his massive Internet popularity have claimed that his supporters are really spammers – just a few nuts pushing for Ron Paul with the computer savvy to “look” like thousands of individuals. The underlying implication is "what else could it be?" When Ron Paul won or came in second in the first three Republican national debates the mainstream media claimed that his support had been faked somehow and the numbers must be skewed. When Ron Paul got twice as many supporters to attend his rally as the forum to which he was the only candidate not invited, they called it a fluke or lied about the numbers.
When they have nothing else bad to say, they pull out the trump card and claim that Ron Paul is only polling at 1%. However, these official polls cited by the mainstream media only question several hundreds of respondents. In online polls with a much higher response rate Ron Paul is winning by a landslide. See CNN's debate poll of 25,000 responses after the third debate and MSNBC's poll with over 72,000 responses after the first debate.
According to the Times piece, Paul is the most "befriended" candidate on MySpace and the most viewed on YouTube after Barack Obama.
Paul understands that his chances of winning the presidency are infinitesimally slim. He is simultaneously planning his next Congressional race. But in Paul’s idea of politics, spreading a message has always been just as important as seizing office. “Politicians don’t amount to much,” he says, “but ideas do.” Although he is still in the low single digits in polls, he says he has raised $2.4 million in the second quarter, enough to broaden the four-state campaign he originally planned into a national one.
Whether you like Ron Paul or not, his message is winning over large legions of people and reflects a common tone in today's society, according to the Times.
Over the years, this vision has won most favor from those convinced the country is going to hell in a handbasket. The attention Paul has captured tells us a lot about the prevalence of such pessimism today, about the instability of partisan allegiances and about the seldom-avowed common ground between the hard right and the hard left. His message draws on the noblest traditions of American decency and patriotism; it also draws on what the historian Richard Hofstadter called the paranoid style in American politics.
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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com
Originally published July 22, 2007 5:15 am ET
(http://www.gambling911.com/Ron-Paul-New-York-Times-072207.html)
http://www.gambling911.com/Ron-Paul-Large.jpg
2008 Presidential hopeful Ron Paul is profiled in Sunday's New York Times, a mostly positive piece, as one might expect with the Times sharing similar views on the war in Iraq.
There is something homespun about Paul, reminiscent of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” He communicates with his constituents through birthday cards, August barbecues and the cookbooks his wife puts together every election season, which mix photos of grandchildren, Gospel passages and neighbors’ recipes for Velveeta cheese fudge and Cherry Coke salad. He is listed in the phone book, and his constituents call him at home. But there is also something cosmopolitan and radical about him; his speeches can bring to mind the World Social Forum or the French international-affairs periodical Le Monde Diplomatique. Paul is surely the only congressman who would cite the assertion of the left-leaning Chennai-based daily The Hindu that “the world is being asked today, in reality, to side with the U.S. as it seeks to strengthen its economic hegemony.” The word “empire” crops up a lot in his speeches.
Paul - his odds of becoming President of the US slashed dramatically from 200 to 1 to 15 to 1 in under two weeks last May - has become one of these most sought after political candidates among Web diehards. If it were up to them, he would be elected the next President of the United States by a landslide.
Gambling911.com Special Contributor Jennifer Reynolds has strongly defended Ron Paul and the mainstream media's depiction of him in recent weeks.
For months now, most mainstream media reports of Ron Paul and his massive Internet popularity have claimed that his supporters are really spammers – just a few nuts pushing for Ron Paul with the computer savvy to “look” like thousands of individuals. The underlying implication is "what else could it be?" When Ron Paul won or came in second in the first three Republican national debates the mainstream media claimed that his support had been faked somehow and the numbers must be skewed. When Ron Paul got twice as many supporters to attend his rally as the forum to which he was the only candidate not invited, they called it a fluke or lied about the numbers.
When they have nothing else bad to say, they pull out the trump card and claim that Ron Paul is only polling at 1%. However, these official polls cited by the mainstream media only question several hundreds of respondents. In online polls with a much higher response rate Ron Paul is winning by a landslide. See CNN's debate poll of 25,000 responses after the third debate and MSNBC's poll with over 72,000 responses after the first debate.
According to the Times piece, Paul is the most "befriended" candidate on MySpace and the most viewed on YouTube after Barack Obama.
Paul understands that his chances of winning the presidency are infinitesimally slim. He is simultaneously planning his next Congressional race. But in Paul’s idea of politics, spreading a message has always been just as important as seizing office. “Politicians don’t amount to much,” he says, “but ideas do.” Although he is still in the low single digits in polls, he says he has raised $2.4 million in the second quarter, enough to broaden the four-state campaign he originally planned into a national one.
Whether you like Ron Paul or not, his message is winning over large legions of people and reflects a common tone in today's society, according to the Times.
Over the years, this vision has won most favor from those convinced the country is going to hell in a handbasket. The attention Paul has captured tells us a lot about the prevalence of such pessimism today, about the instability of partisan allegiances and about the seldom-avowed common ground between the hard right and the hard left. His message draws on the noblest traditions of American decency and patriotism; it also draws on what the historian Richard Hofstadter called the paranoid style in American politics.
----
Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com
Originally published July 22, 2007 5:15 am ET
(http://www.gambling911.com/Ron-Paul-New-York-Times-072207.html)
http://www.gambling911.com/Ron-Paul-Large.jpg