Ron Paul wows them in Pa. -- but does it matter?

A story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tells us that Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign is still puffing along ahead of the April 22 primary there, even though John McCain is already getting fitted for the coronation cape and crown at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. Paul spoke Thursday before a crowd of about 500 people at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and didn't make any news -- other than the fact that he's still campaigning in a Republican nomination fight that is long over.

The Paulistas like to argue that the reason Paul never caught fire is because the mainstream media (that would be us) froze him out. But with more than $30 million raised and a skeletal staff -- which means limited overhead -- Paul had plenty of cash to buy airtime in meaningful places to get his message out. In fact, he raised about half of what McCain raised.

And the Paulistas' savvy use of the Internet gave him yet another avenue to proselytize his political beliefs of a minimal, non-interventionist government. But those arguments just didn't resonate with enough Republican voters to get him the nomination -- Mike Huckabee, with half of Paul's cash, won 270 delegates to 14 for Paul.

So why do people still flock to hear Paul? Well, that's the interesting question. Judging by the comments lodged on this and other blogs, there's a fervent belief that Paul alone among the presidential candidates understands that something like U.S. disengagement from world conflicts, and the U.S. government's disengagement from the economy, is the only way to avoid economic disaster.

But there's also a touch of personality cult to it all -- similar to what we hear from fervent Barack Obama supporters. As Paul told the Pittsburgh paper, "steady determination" has marked his character over the years. "I think, if I should be compared to somebody," Paul said, "it might be called a true believer."

Maybe. But so are the supporters, many of whom use similar phrasing to talk about their embrace of Paul and the Ron Paul Revolution. The question is, where will these voters be in the fall?

-- Scott Martelle

Comments

[Jive Dadson]

Each of the anointed candidates received over 20 times as much free air time on the TV as Ron Paul. In the crucial weeks before Super Duper Tuesday, the ratio could not be calculated. One simply could not find Ron Paul on the television or in the old media newspapers anywhere. They disappeared him. I had Google and Yahoo alerts set for "Ron Paul." During that time, the only alerts referenced sympathetic blogs. The big newspapers even left him off of their lists of candidates on the front pages.

It was sickening and saddening. What has become of us? If I were one of the 'journalists' who participated in the blackout, I could not live with the shame.

Alas, the "spam filter" has blocked me. How thematic.

[Jim Whitehead]

This article or any other does not matter . Hillary will win. It is already in the cards. What the MSM, The politicians, the government as a whole has to worry about is the consequenses of thier actions. I can tell you from my dreams that whht happens above will happen below. The truth and RIGHT has already happenned above. Now is retribution. It is coming and nothing anyone can do to stop it.

All I can say is to save GOLD AND GUNS> We as individuals will need it. The elitist in politics, media and life in general are going to be F%^$#@ked up.\\

It is here and retribution is here. Just keep putting your money in wall street. That is your sure death.

[badmedia]

The McCain-Feingold laws put even more importance on the media, and gave the media more control over the elections. By reducing the amount of money people can donate to a candidate, you are reducing free speech.

When you have reduced the amount of money a candidate can generate, you reduce the amount of advertising they can buy. 30 million isn't really that much money compared to the amount of money most corporations spend on advertising. Look at how much a 30 second news spot costs. And in 30 seconds, you aren't going to get much information out, just sound bites and image.

On the other hand, you have the media giving away free advertising. And you have biased reporters who treat the candidates differently. It's just plain out ridiculous.

Ron Paul did everything better than the other candidates. Never went into debt, and did it right. The only thing he didn't have is media and big corporation support. So, I think the fact of this race shows exactly who is in charge and has the influence.

The media picked the republican party nominee, not the people. John McCain didn't do anything the entire election, no support and suddenly he is the nominee. I don't buy it for a minute. The man who was one of the worst on immigration gets the nominee after the people shut the phones down? Come on, who do you think you are kidding?

It's all a scam and people know it.

[WheelsTUrn]

Scott, I've got news for you...McCain will be out of the race by July and Ron Paul will be the **only** Republican game in town. Where will I be in November? Why, voting for Ron Paul, of course!

[Sig]

Mr. Martelle,

I can't tell whether you are enjoying a game of baiting your readers or whether you haven't educated yourself to the issues. What do you understand of economics? Of the Clinton/Obama/McCain economic platforms vs. Ron Paul's? Please address your readers respectfully. What do you really think, having studied the platforms? For your sake I hope you are baiting us.

[Tom]

Thank you so much for at least touching the subject. There have been reports of a media black-out on Ron Paul's campaign, and after reading this article, I realize this is the same type of coverage he got during the whole campaign, and I think this is a blog! Mainstream Media and blogs shouldn't be on the same level (no disrespect to bloggers, but c'mon). I have seen just about every guideline and rule for fair reporting entirely ignored for the past 6-12 months and I think its classless neo-con groupthink that enables it.

Maybe he wasn't the most likable candidate, but he didn't feed the masses more slop. It was refreshing to hear a candidate actually address issues instead of relying on a team of people. Ron thinks for himself, and he's extremely smart. We know Ron isn't going to win, we're just trying to send a message. This movement is growing and sooner or later the republican party is going to have to have to embrace it, or wither

Theodore Roosevelt - "A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends on the character of the user"

[Franklin]

Either Scott Martelle and Andrew Malcolm are the same person or there is a 3rd person that edits their blog posts so heavily that they end up with the appearance of being written by the same person.

All of Scott Malcolm's posts are filled with logical fallacy.

Example: "The Paulistas like to argue that the reason Paul never caught fire is because the mainstream media (that would be us) froze him out. But with more than $30 million raised and a skeletal staff -- which means limited overhead -- Paul had plenty of cash to buy airtime in meaningful places to get his message out."

Andrew Martelle should be able to tell us how much money McCain, Obama, Huckabee, Romney and every other candidate (not including Gravel and Kucinich) paid the networks to get exponentially more airtime than Paul. Candidates that received less votes and raised less money than Paul received much more airtime. This is not an opinion, it's an objective fact (the Project for Excellence in Journalism did a study - Google it). Since Scott Malcolm should know that none of the cookie-cutter candidates paid a cent for their airtime, the point is moot and forces one to wonder, is this the level of Andrew Martelle's intelligence or he purposely making absurd statements.

And what is with Scott Malcolm constantly referring to this blog as the "mainstream media"?!? How delusional is that?!?! Yes, you have "LA Times" in your name but you aren't even popular as far as blogs go. You certainly don't qualify as MSM! It's sad. I feel the same thing I feel when Bush, McCain, Clinton or Obama speaks... "how do you not get embarrassed?"

[Leonardo]

Poor Scotty,

You just can’t and won’t get it, even if it hits you in the head. Naïve or Ignorant? Hmm…you decide.
But Scotty,

Look on the bright side, you can sign up to donate your organs especially your “brain”
And you ask, why?

Because, it’s “Never Been Use”

LAT is hiring, writers needed. “No Experience Necessary?”

What do you think? Should I apply? Scotty?

Cheers.

[Edward]

The mainstream media has forsaken this country and for that they can rot in the depths of hell. They are an integral part of the problem.

It will be a glorious day when they lose their grip on the conduits of information to the internet. It could not come sooner.

[Tomas Engle]

Where will I be in the fall? Writing in Ron Paul if he doesn't endorse Bob Barr who hopefully wins the Libertarian Party nomination. I think I speak for most Paul fans when I say my passion for Paul is for his *principles* not solely the man himself just because. Obama has a bonified CULT on the other hand, I am waiting any day now for his campaign to make that final trip to Georgetown, Guyana. The RP Revolution will outlast the smooth talking, vague young man from Illinois in political effect, guarantee it.

[Bob Bowen]

Why do the Obama, Hillary & McCains of this campaign get so much MSM coverage and NO coverage for Ron Paul ? That is easy to answer. Obama, Hillary & McCain are CFR stooges in an election owned & operated (and probably paid for) by the CFR.

The sheeple simply do as they are told ! Vote for one of the Three Stooges ! They don't really care which one of the Stooges becomes President as long as they get some one in office they can control !

Ron Paul has too much integrity, so the CFR is doing all they can to keep him out. I am writing Ron Paul in as my President if he doesn't appear on the ballot in November.

I want my Constitution back in its original place as intended by the Founding Fathers, and Ron Paul is the one who governs by the Constitution. Now if we could just figure out how to elect an honest Congress......

[blakmira]

Fair and balanced free media coverage?

Just one month after setting the world record for single day campaign contributions, out of the 2,188 mainstream media stories about presidential
candidates between January 14th and February 10th, only 4 were about Dr. Ron Paul.

Contrast that to:
756 stories about Hillary Clinton
760 stories about Barack Obama
674 stories about John McCain
424 stories about Mitt Romney
281 stories about Mike Huckebee

That's right. Just 4 little stories about Ron Paul! Blacklisting a viable presidential candidate is deliberate sabotage of a campaign and smacks of collusion between the mainstream media and the election officials.

And when you add that in along with some very suspicious vote count tampering in the primaries and deliberately omitting his name on the ballot in several states including New York, then you've got yourself some real criminal activity going on.

Did Ron Paul ever have a chance? Yet even with all the high-powered resistance and obstacles in his way, we're still not giving up.

Oh, yeah, I'll be voting for Ron Paul. You betcha. I'll take a magic marker and write it on the Diebold screen if I have to (not that it will count) because I refuse to vote for the other 3 corrupt, lying, pandering, war-funding politicians who will take us all equally to Hell in a handbasket.

Ron Paul or Bust 2008

[SlowHand]

This is not journalism, its repetition...like he really had to work hard gettin this kind of story...

real news is Dr. Paul predicting all this economic dung happenning in your country...and not many willing to debate him on it. Even makes Ben Bernake look like a fruitcake everytime...

Welcome to the Illusion of the MsM.

Now go back and talk about Obama's bowling dance or something, you're to stupid to understand real news...

[John Engel]

Ron Paul was purposely marginalized by MSM which is part of the corporate elites which smooze it up with 'our' elected officials and actually write the laws voted on by those useless officials.

Why do millions of Americans passionately support the 2nd amendment? Sooner or later, the masses, when they have become very hungry, will have to use those arms against our government agencies already armed and ready to enforce martial law. All I can say to any rational, semi-aware US citizens, is get your guns, plenty of ammo and be willing to fight like a MFr to stay free. Our currency is almost defunct. Illegal immigrants are protesting in our Nations capital...(this would be an excellent opportunity to arrest and deport a lot of illegals, but we know that won't happen)...NAU is already a reality in Texas. One must ask, "Is anybody awake in this country?". If Ron Paul is kooky then so am I...and sooner or later so will millions of others.

[Ray of hope]

I will work at the local republican party level as a precint delegate and promote Ron Paul conservatism and in the fall I will write in RON PAUL! I don't know howw long it will take you guys to understand it's not Ron Paul, its Liberty!

"The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise see in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws."
-- Walt Whitman

[Jp]

You know it's so easy to criticize Ron Paul when one lacks a good understanding of monetary and economic theory. The only solutions to any problem in the United States that the MSM would dare consider amount to nothing more than socialism. Can you name any socialist program that has actually fulfilled any of its stated goals? The Fed(centralized banking - Marxist Idea), social security(completely bankrupt), etc... This goes beyond stupid left/right partisanship. You are looking at the wrong axis. Understand that the "political axis" we should be more concerned with is Libertarian-----Statist. Apart from libertarians like Paul, modern political discourse is dominated in both parties by Neo-liberalism, which is VERY statist.

[Robert Fanning]

Ron Paul is the only candidate that has exposed the mortgage crisis has cost the American taxpayer a documented minimum of $200 billion in recent bail outs from the federal reserve. This excludes the debasement of our currency, the dollar.
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home
To put that into perspective, the Iraq war has cost the American taxpayer $507 billion thus far.
ADDITIONALLY, The total market capitalization of the stocks like Bear Stearns, CountryWide , Merrill Lynch, and CitiGroup was a massive decline in shareholder value..most of those shareholders are people just like you and I, .. holding those securities in their retirement accounts.
Executives managing those financial service mills enticed and pushed legions of unscrupulous young professionals to make very bad loans to very bad credit risks on very illiquid properties. Those money brokers were given fat commissions. Those executives pushed their stock prices and the leveraged stock options to highly inflated and false prices based on phony earnings. Those executives knew that they were creating a pyramid scheme and were acting in bad faith.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/charts/chartdl.aspx?Symbol=%2feurus&CP=0&PT=10
The federal reserve continued to print money, artificially hold interest rates low, very low and debase the currency since 2002 to create liquidity for their buddies in the banking and brokerage industry..
Now that the currency has been debased 40 to 60 % ,yours and my entire net worth and purchasing power has also been debased because it was all done with borrowed money. Remember , these banker / broker types did their dirty work while America was at war.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/industries/finance/article/reasons-wall-street-dodges-regulation-gambles-future_541756_9.html
Now that egregious and irreparable harm has been done to the American economy by the Ponzi schemers on Wall Street and the banking industry, they are using the Chairman of the Federal Reserve to hold your attention with smoke and mirrors while they sneak out the back door with your net worth.
Illustration ; A $10 million dollar ranch in the eyes of those who follow the currency markets is now a $4 to 6 million dollar ranch in the eyes of those who understand the Jihad declared on and the 6 year debasement of Americas' currency.
Those responsible got off scott free and the Chairman of George Bush's Federal Reserve made good on their escape.
Ron Paul is the ONLY fiscal conservative running for President

[TJ]

I will tell you I will not vote for John McCain, Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama. Neither will the nearly 1 million Dr. Paul voters. So unless we get a candidate who understands what the real problems are in this country and has real solutions then I guess we'll see come November. Most likely Libertarian.

[SuperTruth]

This blog is evidence that the operators of the mainstream media mean well. They think that they are doing a good job. But, as a group, they are unknowingly destroying the country by choosing the wrong leaders. Anyone who HONESTLY studies the issue will conclude that free mainstream coverage (also called publicity) will lead to a type of recognition that advertising cannot duplicate. The Ron Paul campaign was a victim of the well-meaning MSM. The good part of this is that the RP revolution is now piosed for a major political move and it will backfire on the MSM.

[Web Smith]

It may not matter much to most today. Things may be a little or a lot more clear in the fall. Perhaps, by then, your advertisers will have run out of enough money to pay for ads and your employer may run out of money to pay you.

The thing that you have to realize is that at this time last year, Ron would not have attracted such large crowds. You should be asking why would so many people who realize that Ron is not going to win the Republican nomination bother. How many people are calling out the names of Giuliani, Thompson, Edwards, or what's his name from Utah, let alone driving four hours to hear them speak for a few minutes? Obviously something matters.

If you can think beyond today, which isn't all that good, you might start calling out Ron's name, too. Tomorrow matters.

[Lex]

"U.S. disengagement from world conflicts, and the U.S. government's disengagement from the economy, is the only way to avoid economic disaster."

Bingo.

There's no "Ron Paul personality cult" -- his detractors will be quick to point out that he's not high on the list of charismatic leaders.

Ron Paul supporters want two things:

1. Their freedom.
2. To save America.

[working poor]

I think many reporters know what is going on but they are not allowed to contradict the top candidates and expose what is really going on under threat of being fired or even worse. I am happy to see any coverage at all of Ron Paul in MSM.

There are some who know that in MSM black is white and white is black especially when it comes to reporting this election.

Revolution is still legal but MSM can't support it.

(Would contradict you but not allowed.)

[Delilah]

Or maybe the voting system in the US is rigged and completely corrupt and needs to be changed so we live in a democratic republic once again.

Why not state the obvious? Why write blogs or "news" if one is so dense as to not see the obvious?

[Michael Shanklin]

I'm sorry but I don't think most people have heard of Ron Paul and for a reason. I don't think it's a conspiracy, communism taught us there is nothing such as conspiracy....only truth we ignore! The truth is our country's leaders are getting rich off of government coercion. There is no way they want the people to get the rights and liberty and freedom back. This would allow the people to grow and would be best for the people but it would be horrible for people who have interests in oligopolies. McCain, and especially Obama and Hillary have had their names spewed all over the news(if that's what you want to call it.) I have heard Ron's name about 10 times over the last year on the news. Is this a fair and balanced assessment of our equal candidates? Is this fair journalism? I am not blaming you, but the truth is Ron stands for the people, the government will have nothing to do with him because he threatens their monopolies, oligopolies, and he defends the constitution which was made by smart men to hold down other government officials who would pop up in history. The blame also rests on the American people for believeing in a federal system and ignoring the constitution. This country is in a nosedive and there is no place for people to escape to now. Where will we immigrate when our liberties and freedoms are gone and we are bankrupt? Do you truly believe there is a difference between economic freedom and personal freedom? There is no difference except for the party lines that divide our great nation and send us into a civil war just like other countries. If we worked on protecting everyone's individual rights instead of worrying about the government's rights this nation would be alot better!

[Brian]

Follow the money!