It looks obvious

“Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” — Albert Einstein

The long distance between online success and the party’s nomination

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The Washington Post, in a more than fair article, attempting to explain Ron Paul’s increasing online presence:

The presence of the obscure Republican congressman from Texas on a list that includes terms such as "Sopranos," "Paris Hilton" and "iPhone" is a sign of the online buzz building around the long-shot Republican presidential hopeful — even as mainstream political pundits have written him off.

Rep. Ron Paul is more popular on Facebook than Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). He’s got more friends on MySpace than former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. His MeetUp groups, with 11,924 members in 279 cities, are the biggest in the Republican field. And his official YouTube videos, including clips of his three debate appearances, have been viewed nearly 1.1 million times — more than those of any other candidate, Republican or Democrat, except Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

As Paul’s supporter this online buzz is a good sign, but one have to wonder why it doesn’t reflect in the surveys. After few months of campaigning, 3 national TV debates and appearances on several mainstream media shows polls doesn’t show an increase in the projected votes for Ron Paul. Are the polls wrong?

I can see several factors that might explain the online interest, and support, in Ron Paul while not reflecting in primaries success. The online community is small segment of the population, mostly those who vote in the Republican’s primaries, and it is not a representative segment - larger number of young people, Libertarian  and so on are more likely to create an online buzz around Dr. Paul without effecting the actual election. In addition many of the people interested in Dr. Paul might be potential voters in the Democrats primaries - yes Ron Paul is interesting, mostly when he talks about foreign policy , but not enough to switch parties and vote for him. Furthermore, even for Republicans voters, interest (mostly when the candidate is so different from the rest of the pack) is not always a support. Yes, he is able to raise some interest - mostly after his little incident with Rudy Giuliani, but it didn’t necessarily turned into a support.

But is Ron Paul’s campaign is a failure? not if he will succeed to produce that:

"For a poor college student, that’s a lot," said Porter, a lifelong Republican. "But I’m not supporting him because I think he could get the nomination. I’m supporting him because I think he can influence the national conversation about what the role of government is, how much power should government have over our lives, how much liberty should we give up for security. These are important issues, and frankly, no one’s thinking about them as seriously and sincerely as Ron Paul."

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Written by Rogel

June 16th, 2007 at 10:22 am

Posted in 2008 campaign

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Viewing 3 Comments

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    Your own remarks are a good start. But, I think that the most reasonable explanations are organization and public appeal (the last is in some ways connected to what you're already said). Organization stems usually from the candidates support within his own party, and his ability to mobilize core party supporters. It is also an expert skill, but that can be paid for, and usually is – so all candidates end up with the same experts (same type at least) on their side. Public appeal is a matter of how the candidate is perceived. I would think that a key factor with this specific candidate would sound in the minds of many as something like this: "he speaks the right words, but… can he run a country?". I hate to remind you, but… he's also old(er) looking. You'll be right to through that back in my face, but… American electorate tends to attribute positive values to youth. A 25 year old would find it tough, but a 45 year old will definitely appeal to many voters more than an older (and older looking) candidate. One last thing to take in mind (well, there are endless things to take in mind, but I myself will stop after this one) is that the internet can be easily manipulated (and relatively at a cheep cost). A candidate struggling on polls may decide to invest in achieving good internet status. A stronger candidate, who stands a real chance in the ballot box, would not go overboard trying to influence the net. He/she will strive for internet presence, but put most of their effort elsewhere.
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    I'm trying to reconcile between a phenomena of a candidate that appears to drew a lot of attention on-line and yet his lagging behind on the general polls, somewhere around the margin of error. The difference is simply to wide to ignore.
    I agree with you that what seems as on line support is "not fully cashable",  but the reasons for that are what I'm after.
     
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    Well… just remember that public opinion is a "tricky" business… Public opinion polls done by anti-smoking activists have shown that the second most recognized figure by 6 year old children is Joe Camel (the first most recognized is Mickey mouse…). Yet, the tobacco lobby has always been "smart" enough to "bribe" (if you don't like the term "bribe" you can replace is with "support". Makes no difference to me…) real politicians and not fantasize about the electoral power of Joe… Public opinion does not always traslate into electoral power. This is even more evident when the internet is under debate. Internet super-star status is not fully cashable at the polls. Never has been…

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