The Political Whore

Our own Bar Tab maniac slipped by my cubicle this morning and dropped a Ron Paul for President biz card on my desk. He found it underneath is windshield wiper after a session drinking at the International Plaza (which he found hellish and which he will document in Wednesday’s issue of Creative Loafing). “Ron Paul 2008: Hope for America,” it starts.

It reminded me of just how rabid Paul’s supporters are. Not only are they buying these cards themselves (at 3-7 cents a pop, depending on the order quantity, operators are standing by), they are out and about slipping them under wipers all over the Tampa Bay area. That is when they are not planting Ron Paul yard signs all over Pinellas.

Just who is Paul anyway that he should inspire what appears to be a small but highly motivated netroots movement? My latest “Next President” installment in tomorrow’s paper will explore just that question. Here’s a sample:

If the 2008 presidential primaries were held solely on the Internet, it’s likely that a famously libertarian, 71-year-old ob-gyn and congressman from Texas who most of America has never heard of would win the Republican nomination.

It’s not surprising that so many in the nondigital world have never heard of Dr. Ron Paul, despite the fact that he is a huge hit online. Scientific polls across the nation — when and if they even include his name in the crowded GOP field — usually give him a score somewhere around … nothing.

But in online surveys and in dozens of meet-up groups across Florida, Paul is practically worshipped as the last, best hope to get our nation back on the track envisioned by the United States’ founders. He even has more campaign cash in the bank than the better-known John McCain, whose campaign is collapsing because of his support for the Iraq War.

Paul beat Rudy Giuliani, the G.O.P. frontrunner in most polls, by a 2-1 margin in an MSNBC Internet survey taken after the first Republican presidential debate in May. He had higher positives and lower negatives than any candidate after the debate, while just 9 percent of the voters were positive about him before, according to the unscientific MSNBC poll in which more than 96,000 votes were cast. An ABC online survey afterward was even more impressive for Paul: He received 25,700 winning votes. Second place went to “Doesn’t matter because I’m not voting to put any Republican in the White House.” It received 1,987 votes.

So if Paul is so clearly winning debates and support, why does nobody in the mainstream press give him a chance in hell to win, and why don’t scientific polls reflect his popularity? That’s what his supporters want to know, even if most pollsters and political scientists would scoff at such questions.

Here’s the full story.

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