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Ron Paul becomes $6 million man

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised an astounding $6 million and change Sunday, his campaign said, almost certainly guaranteeing he’ll outraise his rivals for the Republican nomination in the fourth quarter and likely will be able to fund a presence in many of states that vote Feb. 5.

Paul’s campaign spokesman late Sunday announced the campaign had eclipsed the $5.7 million that John Kerry raised the day after he locked up the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination – arguably the largest single-day fundraising haul in U.S. political history.

Paul, whose campaign has been embraced by a zealous community of online supporters, raised eyebrows when donors acting independently of the campaign dropped $4.2 million into his campaign coffers Nov. 5.

Still, the libertarian-leaning Paul is considered a distant long-shot by conventional political calculations and has languished in the mid-single digits in most national polls.

His campaign spokesman Jesse Benton said Sunday’s haul put the campaign over $18 million in fundraising since Oct. 1, 50 percent more than its goal of $12 million.

He said the extra funds would be used to pay new staffers and air more ads in early states.

He said the campaign planned to bring 300 students to Iowa to canvass over winter break.

“We have a lot of time to close in the polls,” Benton said, and he asserted traditional polls “underestimate … Paul’s real support.”

That’s partly because they attempt to query folks who have voted Republican, and Benton asserted that Paul’s base draws heavily from those who have shied away from the party or were not previously politically active.

For instance, he said 24,940 new donors contributed during the Dec. 16 haul.

It was timed for the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, a day meant to resonant with the libertarian sensibilities of his supporters.

The man who engineered it — a 37-year-old music promoter named Trevor Lyman — has no official ties to the campaign and had no political experience to speak of before he engineered the innovative model for the Nov. 5 fundraising haul.

He set up a website that solicited pledges for contributions to be made directly to the Paul campaign on that day — a technique that became known as a “money bomb,” which he used again to such great effect Sunday.

In an interview late last month, he told Politico.com he thought it was “bad for the country” that fundraising played such a prominent role in American politics.

“The democratic process should be based on candidates’ ideas, but we had to go within the system,” he said. “We have to use the money to get people to pay attention to what [Paul] actually stands for.”

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Election 2008: Did Ron Paul Break Fox News?
Indeed he may have--if the South Carolina GOP debate was any indication.
Comments (104)
Thursday, January 17, 2008
By Phil Maymin

Two days before the New Hampshire primary, Fox News staged a forum for the Republican presidential candidates and invited everyone who was at the ABC debate the day before, except for Ron Paul. They introduced the forum by saying that the GOP nominee would be one of the five candidates who were there, a statement clearly meant to suggest that Ron Paul doesn't have a chance to win.

That may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, if the camel was an American populace growing increasingly impatient and frustrated with Faux News propaganda.

Fox News wanted to have a forum where it talked with the five GOP candidates who basically agree with their way of thinking: who like the war in Iraq, who like the surge, who want to increase troops in the region, and who have no problem with an eventual war against Iran. What they didn't count on was the depth of support for Ron Paul.

It is hard to measure Paul's support. He is the most-searched-for candidate on the internet, by far, outpacing every Democrat and Republican. He probably raised the most money last quarter (probably, because he reports his donations live while others wait for the FEC deadline at the end of the month). In a graphic map of Meetup groups, other candidates have patches of red dots, while Paul's map is a solid red across the entire country. He has won almost every post-debate poll. Independent Paul supporters have helped him raise $10 million over two days, setting and breaking his own record. There is a blimp flying around the country that asks Who is Ron Paul? on one side and suggests you Google Ron Paul on the other.

Yet Paul came in fifth in both Iowa and New Hampshire. True, he beat Rudy Giuliani in the first, and nearly tied him in the second, despite the fact that Giuliani apparently spent more time campaigning in both states. But still, the other measures of Paul's support would suggest he should be winning these primaries, possibly by a landslide.

So is the mystery, why does Paul not do better in primaries? Or is the mystery, why does his support seem larger than it is?

It's almost an impossible question to answer. Almost because we now have, thanks to Fox News, proof in the stock market that the support is genuine, and the primary results so far are the aberrations.

The news that Fox News would be excluding Ron Paul from its N.H. debate came on Dec. 27. From that day on, the stock price of News Corp., its parent company, fell every day, losing a cumulative 10 percent, or about $6 billion, over the next seven days.

To be sure, other media companies fell as well. Time Warner and Viacom each fell about 6 percent over that period. The Paul supporters who spread the message of selling News Corp. stock, boycotting Fox News advertisers, and otherwise imposing their economic will cost the media giant billions.

The bleeding stopped Jan. 8, when Fox News relented to the economic pressure and invited Paul to the South Carolina debates. The stock price gained nearly 4 percent in just two days, right back in line with the other media companies.

Those debates were held last week. They were very similar to all the earlier debates, to which Paul had been invited. Other candidates get asked about policy issues while Paul gets asked about his electability. Other candidates snipe at each other and in particular Paul, while Paul ignores them and talks solely about the issues, the only candidate to answer every question that is asked.

But there was one major difference: Whereas in past debates, Paul received a vanishingly small portion of air time, in this one he received approximately equal time. I counted the number of words each candidate uttered. Paul surpassed the word output of John McCain, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and Rudy Giuliani. Only Mike Huckabee said more words.

Maybe it's because Paul talks faster than the others, or because he needed to respond to accusations against him by the other candidates. Or maybe Fox News has realized that the people buttering its proverbial bread are conservatives like Paul and they are trying to recapture that key demographic.

That was, in essence, the only difference in this debate. Everyone else still wants to keep our troops overseas. Everyone else is itching to go to war in Iran at the slightest provocation. Everyone else thinks it is up to the government and the Federal Reserve to stimulate the economy. Only Paul wants to bring our troops home, abolish the IRS, abolish the Federal Reserve, and slash our debt, spending and warring.

On the poll run by Fox News, where viewers can only vote once per cell phone number, the winner of the debate was, as always, Ron Paul.

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Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

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Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

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