Ron Paul: The Howard Dean of '08?

October 4, 2007

By Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post

Is Ron Paul the Howard Dean of 2008?

Among the Texas congressman's loyal, passionate, Web-savvy supporters, that's not a question. It's a statement -- and a semi-accurate one. Here's a very important similarity: Like Dean, Paul has been against the war on Iraq from the beginning, setting him apart from the rest of the GOP field.

And just as Dean's insurgent campaign effectively used the Web to raise money, rally its supporters and create buzz the year before the 2004 elections, Paul's campaign throughout the year has singularly relied on the Internet to fuel his engine.

All that popularity has translated to online money: $5.1 million in the third quarter, with at least 70 percent of it coming from online donors, according to Paul spokesman Jesse Benton. He raised about $3.1 million in the first and second quarters -- 80 percent of it from online donations.

For months now, the noted Libertarian -- he's for dismantling the Department of Education and thinks the USA Patriot Act, which allows the government to search personal data, including Internet use, is unconstitutional -- has dominated the Republican field on the social-networking sites that serve as a barometer in online enthusiasm. He has more Facebook supporters than former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who leads the Republican candidates in national polls. He has more MySpace friends than former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who's topping the Republican polls in the early primary voting states of New Hampshire and Iowa. His YouTube videos have been viewed more than Romney, Giuliani and Sen. John McCain -- combined.

"What we're seeing here is less about Paul being the Dean of this campaign but about the resurgence of libertarianism on the Internet. In the early '90s, the predominant philosophy on the Net was libertarian. Ross Perot had a lot of support from that group, which kind of faded in the background once the Republicans took control," said Jerome Armstrong, founder of the progressive blog MyDD and former Internet adviser for Dean. "Now that group has Ron Paul. And they're more about being independent than about identifying with either parties. It's a small voice within the Republican party, libertarians, but they're creating a lot of noise."

Added Joshua Levy of TechPresident, the bipartisan group blog that monitors how the candidates are campaigning online: "Ron Paul's online popularity is really bigger than Ron Paul the candidate. There's a void in the Republican party because there are no candidates speaking to the more libertarian financial conservatism that's been the bedrock of the party. There's a sense that what passes for the GOP right now isn't Republican and it isn't conservative. Ron Paul is filling that void."

And since Paul isn't getting the mainstream media attention that the top-tier candidates are -- Levy calls him "Jerry Brown of the Republican debates" -- his frustrated supporters are going
online.

In June, The Post reported that "Ron Paul" was one of the most frequently searched terms on Technorati, which offers a real-time snapshot of the blogosphere.

Nearly four months later, that still holds true.