Ron Paul

He's a fool. Why is he still wasting his money with a campaign? He has absolutely no chance at winning the nomination - that much was clear after he said we caused 9/11 ourselves in the GOP debates. Whether or not that's true (I think you can make an argument that our actions pissed people off enough that they would want to attack us - I don't buy that, because it's not that simple, but there is an argument to be made), it was a stupid thing to say during the debates, and it proves that he won't win. If that wasn't enough (which any poll will show that it was), it shows that he doesn't have enough awareness as a candidate to know how to phrase his viewpoints in a way that will convince red-meat republicans to vote for him.

However, I lied a bit above. Not just any poll will tell you that his candidacy is over. Ron Paul is currently tied with Fred Thompson on the Pajamas Media Straw Poll. In fact, Ron Paul does very well on internet polls - just, not at all well on national telephone polls. Internet polls are far from accurate, compared to the telephone polls, so, he probably is getting inflated support on the internet. My question is: How? Does he just have the support of a large number of extremely internet savvy people, and almost no regular people? (Is his campaign cheating?) And, the follow up question, Why? What does he think to gain from winning the online polls? They don't get widely reported in the mainstream press - in part because they are so obviously flawed, as proved by the fact that Ron Paul does so well in them. They don't change people's minds...and the number of people who actually look at them is extremely limited. So, why bother?

I think the two most interesting campaigns this cycle are the Ron Paul campaign, for it's strength in the face of obvious eventual defeat, and it's use of the internet, and the Fred Thompson Campaign, which has a chance largely because of the effective use of new media. In fact, you could say that it only has a chance because of the internet and the new ways to disseminate information.

We'll have to wait and see what happens, but at least we have these interesting campaign structure questions to keep us occupied - otherwise I might fall asleep until November 2008, and wake up not knowing who to vote for, or having missed the vote entirely. I know, small chance that will happen. But then again, look at the candidates...can I really stand another 16-17 months with these fools? I hope we get a better option.

Update: A Ron Paul supporter showed up in the comments, will he stick around? Also, will a Thompsonite show up to talk about what's happening with their side of the campaign? One can only hope.