Weather was keeping the Ron Paul blimp grounded, but when now that it's up, it could get the media attention his campaign needs.
Say what you will about the Ron Paul campaign - and I've had my concerns - they do have some cool ideas for promoting the candidate. I'm not talking about the endless spamming of online discussions with half-literate stammered declarations of love for their 73-year-old guru. That's more annoying than clever.…
Article comments
26 - Lumpy
The blimp is sexy! Sadly Ron Paul is not. The whole campaign is becoming surreal. None of the followers have any idea what they are campaigning for and Paul has no idea who the people suppprting him are. They both live in different fantasy worlds.
27 - Irene Wagner
"If there's a burr stuck in your saddle,
Don't be alarmed now.
It's just a spring clean for the G.O.P."
28 - Brian
For most Ron Paul supporters the extent of their research is to find out that he's the most anti-war candidate and that's about all they know.
29 - Al
Wrong... here's a hint.
Reinstate the Constitution, Restore the Republic.
Say no to big government by donating on the Tea Party.
30 - Baritone
It seems to me that the Huckabee surge just might take some of the wind out of Paul's sails. Huckabee has a similar approval rating amongst evangelicals which is also a large portion of Paul's base. While Huckabee has political baggage that has started popping up owing to the increased scrutiny his candidacy is getting, he appears to be intelligent and articulate (his "Satan/brother of Christ mumbling notwithstanding,) and his rise above the other party candidates seems to be genuine and not to be sneezed at.
As Dave noted in his previous post, Paul's supporters, and Paul himself must make his candidacy attractive to a broader cross section of the Rep party if he is to have a chance of winning the nomination.
It's great to have supporters who are enthusiastic. But that same enthusiasm may be blinding them from reality.
Baritone
31 - Irene Wagner
Baritone,
Huckabee will have to share with Mitt Romney the dubious distinction of, and the votes garnered by, endorsement of the Christian Right Honchos. There are a few aspects of reality that will come as a surprise to folks who support a candidates like Huckabee merely because he claims membership in a particular religious denomination.
32 - bliffle
#19 " December 15, 2007 @ 15:51PM " Jet in Columbus [URL]
Looks like it's time for me to Kamakazi the BlogCritic's blimp into it? Click on the word "blimp"!
Hello, Jet. Welcome back. People were worrying about you.
33 - Jet in Columbus
Thanks Blif (:-)
34 - Baritone
Irene,
Again, I think enthusiasm is great, but it seems that a number of Paul supporters are almost giddy, eager for Ron's coronation, first as candidate, closely followed by his ascension to the White House throne. There remains a long road ahead. Assuming Paul has his warts - what politician hasn't - the media and his opponents will be relentless in airing any dirty laundry that exists, or failing that, making some up out of whole cloth.
From my perspective, I don't particularly care who gets the Rep nod. I will back whoever gets the nomination for the Dems - be in Hil, Barack, or someone else.
All of the candidates in both parties claim to be christians and to believe in god. While that doesn't make me happy, I have enough political sense to know that no one claiming otherwise has a snowball's chance in heckydern of getting elected to virtually any political office, and certainly not the presidency. But the candidates who don't wear their religion on their sleeves will get a greater share of my attention. As you might guess, it is my view that religion has no place on the political dais. For this country to survive, the separation of church and state MUST be maintained.
B-tone
35 - Baritone
Irene,
Again, I think enthusiasm is great, but it seems that a number of Paul supporters are almost giddy, eager for Ron's coronation, first as candidate, closely followed by his ascension to the White House throne. There remains a long road ahead. Assuming Paul has his warts - what politician hasn't - the media and his opponents will be relentless in airing any dirty laundry that exists, or failing that, making some up out of whole cloth.
From my perspective, I don't particularly care who gets the Rep nod. I will back whoever gets the nomination for the Dems - be in Hil, Barack, or someone else.
All of the candidates in both parties claim to be christians and to believe in god. While that doesn't make me happy, I have enough political sense to know that no one claiming otherwise has a snowball's chance in heckydern of getting elected to virtually any political office, and certainly not the presidency. But the candidates who don't wear their religion on their sleeves will get a greater share of my attention. As you might guess, it is my view that religion has no place on the political dais. For this country to survive, the separation of church and state MUST be maintained.
B-tone
36 - Irene Wagner
From my perspective, I don't particularly care who gets the Rep nod. I will back whoever gets the nomination for the Dems - be in Hil, Barack, or someone else.
You don't know who that Democratic Whoever is yet. Thanks for the object lesson in uncritical enthusiasm.
37 - Irene Wagner
That was a bit snarky. I'm sorry Baritone. But you see the irony, don't you?
Now, stop raining on my Ron Paul parade!
38 - Baritone
Irene,
Oh, I can take a little snark now and again. Actually, I've more or less been supporting Hillary, but I wouldn't mind Barack. I don't like Edwards because he is one of those who makes too big a deal about his religion.
But no, there is no one about whom I am giddy. Personally, I think its at best unrealistic to believe that any candidate is going to be tantamount to the second coming. No matter who sits in the Oval Office, he or she will still have to contend with a recalcitrant Congress, relentless media, uncooperative heads of state, and on and on. The political agendas of most successful candidates often and quickly get lost soon after taking office. All those grand visions, those great plans for change, more often than not get dumped in the trash along with all the posters, the red, white and blue bunting, the deflated balloons, and confetti. Few politicians succeed in fostering significant change during their respective tenures. The beast they feel so confident of taming while on the campaign trail, when actually confronted turns out to be a very powerful, self satisfied and unmoving blob - kinda like Star Wars' Jabba the Hutt.
I think that the best one can hope for is if your favored candidate(s) actually get elected, that they will grow into the job and actually move things, if only ever so slightly in the direction that he or she promised.
You may think I am too jaded, but I think history does, for the most part bear me out. It's true that FDR was successful in making many changes in the way government worked. But, one must remember he took office during an extraordinary juncture in our nation's history with the Great Depression in full swing, dealt with that for several years and then became our war time president - and he was given nearly four full terms to carry all of these changes out.
I'm not sure what you think Ron Paul is going to do if elected that will be so far and away different than most of his predecessors. I think yours and others expectations are much too high. After all, he's just a guy.
May I offer you an umbrella?
B-tone
39 - Dave Nalle
Reinstate the Constitution, Restore the Republic.
Sadly Ron Paul's Constitution seems to have some vital sections missing from it.
Dave
40 - Jet in Columbus
"Sadly Ron Paul's Constitution seems to have some vital sections missing from it."
Indeed my friend, indeed
41 - neil
i like how people have to resort to outright slander just to spam Ron Pauls campaign.
Look up his record people.. and not only that.. question why he votes the way he does, and look up different resources.
Ron paul baby..
42 - Dr Dredgepool
How can someone be half-literate and spend a lot of time on the internet?
Do we even need to answer that question?
43 - Brian
Do we even need to answer that question?
This is an example of half literate. A one line post that says nothing. If you had an answer you should have posted it. If you have nothing useful to contribute to the conversation, why bother posting? Explain why you feel people who read, write and research are half-literate. Generalizations are a substitute for lack of knowledge.
44 - Baritone
Neil,
"i like how people have to resort to outright slander just to spam Ron Pauls campaign."
If he can't stand the heat...
Again, Paul's supporters seem to look upon him as the second coming. He's just a guy. He's a politician. His supporters see him as a super hero, a knight in shining honor. It's a recipe for big time disappointment. If Mr. Paul does manage a surge, he had better be ready to watch his back. The other candidate camps and the media will come after him with both barrels just as the others on the Dem side have come after Hillary. And I still see Huckabee as usurping Paul's thunder for a time, at any rate. Right now Huckabee is taking major hits from every direction.
I'm currently watching ABC's "This Week." With 10 minutes left in the program, I've yet to hear mention of Ron Paul and they just moved on to the baseball/drud mess.
B-tone
45 - Baritone
Dave,
Check out my last comment on the "Blurry Poverty Line" thread concerning British workhouses.
B-tone
46 - Martin Gradwell
"I suggest reading some of the Paul discussion threads here on BC with a clear eye. The level of rhetorical skills displayed is not high."
Maybe. But I've seen threads elsewhere where thousands of Paul supporters have commented (it tends to happen in response to media executives trying to explain why they've pulled an online poll which Paul won, or why they didn't include him in the poll in the first place). These vast avalanches of support tend to get dismissed as "spam", but they contain as many different messages as there are contributors, unlike the boilerplate of genuine spam. And they tend to demonstrate a high degree of literacy. I'd make comparisons with the support received by the other candidates, if I could find any discernable support for the other candidates.
Obviously I don't read everything. There may well be some messages of support that are an embarrassment to the Paul camp. But I did find this interesting 'confession'
It may possibly be intended as satire, but it has a certain ring of truth about it. Certainly there will be opponents of Dr. Paul who hide their intentions under a mask of support. That's unfortunately how politics works these days:
'We´re making sure Ron Paul will NEVER win by Ron Paul Hater on 2007-08-07 10:06:34
I and my friends cooked up a plan to make sure Ron Paul NEVER gets elected.
The plan is simple. We flood message boards, forums and any other online meeting place with mindless, poorly thought out, fanboyish "support" for Ron Paul. We cook up conspiracy theories about why the Mainstream News isn´t covering him and "Challenge" the nest to "acknowledge him" based on things like 6% popularity in Texas or 50% in a single online poll.
As a result, people are getting sick of his name. They never want to hear about him again and their brains file "Ron Paul" away beside things like annoying commercials and Spam. Soon, Ron Paul will begin spending his war chest, and when he does, he´ll already be a pariah online. This will spread, as people who HAVEN´T seen him online hear their friends rant about him being the "Spammer Candidate"'
47 - Baritone
Of course, I don't suppose it matters how "literate" Paul's supporters happen to be. If they know how to vote, that's all that's necessary, isn't it? But then, that's true for all.
B-tone
48 - Irene W?)agner
Martin: A bunch of unprincipled illiterates they are, too! "I and my friends" [sic] cooked up a plan to make sure Ron Paul NEVER gets elected."
The True Confessions post could of course be pro-Ron Paul counter spammer theory propaganda. One has to anticipate that accusation as well.
Message boards can point to the truth, but you never know the motives behind the message. Any message. That's why paying attention to the spammer phenomenon (have we heard the LAST of it, now Dave Nalle?) is a waste of time.
$14 million dollars doesn't come from illiterate message board wankers.
49 - Dave Nalle
Martin, the page you quote and link to strikes me as a satirical attempt to explain the flood of somewhat braindamaged pro-paul posters. It seems far less likely that it is serious than that it's an attempt to explain away the problem satirically.
Dave
50 - Jacob
"I'm currently watching ABC's "This Week." With 10 minutes left in the program, I've yet to hear mention of Ron Paul and they just moved on to the baseball/drud mess."
-- Baritone
ABC and others in the "independent media" would look like complete fools if they suddenly changed their negative positions of Ron Paul.
BTW, so far Ron Paul's 4th qtr contributions total over $15,800,000.00.
51 - Baritone
Any candidate who garners a true and significant following will get air time on all main stream and most not so main stream media. With all the crap about the MSM that comes generally from both left and right extremes, I've yet to witness any significant bias by any of the evening news programs on ABC, CBS or NBC. Only FOX openly and regularly displays its conservative bias. CNN, and MSNBC have commentators from both sides of the coin. The belief that the major portion of the media shows an anti-conservative agenda, especially on the straight news programs, is unfounded.
B-tone
52 - L.Step
I really don't understand what "conservative" means any more when used in reference to FOX news... does being a conservative mean that one supports the neo-conservative view, i.e., support Bush, the War on Terror, the Patriot Act, budget-busting funding for the Iraq war, etc. I used to think that "conservative" meant, well, being fiscally conservative, low-taxation, a respect for the Constitution, etc. Now, being a conservative means quite the opposite. I'm equally lost by the term "liberal" which now suggests a nation run by empty headed idealists without a clue to the consequences of their views. Sort of like the present "conservatives" -- maybe someone should coin new terms.
53 - Baritone
Typical "conservative" bullshit attacking anything "liberal."
54 - Dave Nalle
Liberal and Conservative are not and never have been opposites on the political spectrum. The Republican party started out as a liberal/conservative party, while the democrats were a statist/progressive party. Clearly some blurring of those lines has gone on.
Even the Neocons, as a group, aren't really even conservative as most of us think of the term. Many of them are quite liberal on social issues, and their foreign policy is basically liberal in nature. It descends directly from Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy and he was and remains a liberal icon. Most of the Neocon leaders grew up as democrats and only converted to the GOP during the 1970s or even later.
Dave
Dave
55 - Clavos
"Typical "conservative" bullshit attacking anything "liberal.""
THERE'S a coin with two identical (but mirrored) sides...
56 - Jacob
Why the country needs Ron Paul...
Washington Post headlines tonight:
“House approves $516 billion measure funding 14 agencies, troops in Afghanistan, but Bush wants Senate to add up to $40 billion more for Iraq war.”
“Senate Democratic leader delays consideration of bill that would increase oversight of surveillance.”
“Federal judge rejects government's argument that record of White House visitors be kept secret.”
Enough said?
57 - Jacob
“Even the Neocons, as a group, aren't really even conservative as most of us think of the term... and their foreign policy is basically liberal in nature. It descends directly from Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy. Most of the Neocon leaders grew up as democrats and only converted to the GOP during the 1970s or even later.”
-- Dave Nalle
What a crock.
The Neocons ‘as a group’ are fruitcakes.
Consider its leaders such as Norman Podhoretz, who prays for the US to attack Iran. What’s ‘liberal in nature‘ about that?
Woodrow Wilson was a pacifist and non-interventionist who was dragged into WWI after avoiding it for three years. The only commonality between Podhoretz and Wilson is that Wilson failed to get other countries to follow his lead for peace, and Podhoretz and his neocons are failing to get other countries to follow their lead for war.
“Most of the Neocon leaders grew up as democrats and only converted to the GOP during the 1970s or even later.”
The neocons were not “converted to the GOP.” The neocons converted the GOP -- which has totally lost its way.
***
Vote for Ron Paul -- the nemesis of the neocons.
58 - Dave Nalle
Jacob, I do agree that the neocons are fruitcakes as you say, but you don't seem to get them much beyond that.
You see, the neocons make war in order to create peace in the world. It's a natural outgrowth of Wilsonianism which led Wilson to invade Mexico and threaten other countries to try to force them to stop being mean to their people.
As for the neocons joining the GOP, we could say that they invaded the GOP just as the religious right former Dixiecrats did.
And sure, they don't believe in basic Republican values, but then I've seen no indication that you do either. I'd like to see them purged from the party. You I'm indifferent on.
Dave
59 - Lumpy
info on the blimp and whether it ever got anywhere important or appeared to any significant number of people is still pretty hard to find. Seems like a sketchy and inefficient form of advertising for a politicak campaign ultimately.
60 - Jacob
“You see, the neocons make war in order to create peace in the world. It's a natural outgrowth of Wilsonianism which led Wilson to invade Mexico and threaten other countries to try to force them to stop being mean to their people.”
-- Dave Nalle
The neocons make war in order to create peace just as the Nazis and Communists made war in order to create peace.
What led Wilson to invade Mexico was the result of the British intercepting and decrypting a telegram sent by Germany to their ambassador in Mexico City. It promised the Mexicans that Germany would help Mexico recover territory lost to the US after the Mexican-American War if Mexico supported Germany in WWI.
Where do you get what you make up? Do you dream it?
61 - Clavos
"The neocons converted the GOP -- which has totally lost its way.
Vote for Ron Paul -- the nemesis of the neocons."
So, Pablito is NOT a Republican, then?
Or he is, and therefore, by your definition is a "neocon" (whatever the hell that is).
In case you don't see it:
"The neocons converted the GOP (aka the Republican Party)
Ron Paul is a Republican.
Therefore, Ron Paul (aka Pablito to us Mexican immigrants) is a......Neocon!!!!
Gasp!!
62 - Dave Nalle
The neocons make war in order to create peace just as the Nazis and Communists made war in order to create peace.
Nothing more peaceful than a mass grave.
What led Wilson to invade Mexico was the result of the British intercepting and decrypting a telegram sent by Germany to their ambassador in Mexico City. It promised the Mexicans that Germany would help Mexico recover territory lost to the US after the Mexican-American War if Mexico supported Germany in WWI.
Wrongo, Jacob. Wilson's intervention in Mexico was from 1914 to 1916 and had nothing to do with WWI, but was connected to the instability of the Mexican Revolution. The Zimmerman telegram wasn't until 1917.
Where do you get what you make up? Do you dream it?
From actual history books. You should check one out sometime.
Dave
63 - Irene Wagner
Clavos: Pablito non es el Neoconservativo!!!
If Ron Paul's a neocon, then I'm Cervantes. :)
64 - Clavos
Irene,
Please go back and re-read my comment.
I didn't say RP was a neocon. I said that the twisted logic (or total lack thereof) of Jacob's comment leads one to the conclusion that he is.
I don't care what he is.
65 - Irene Wagner
So much for emoticons, Clavos. :**( I guess the joke fell flat, but the comment was mainly a vehicle for posting Ron Paul's address to the House of Reps on the origin and modern-day impact of Neoconservatism.
66 - Jacob
The neocons converted the GOP (Grand Old Party) into what Norman Podhoretz wants it to be...
The Grand Old Party (?) wants nothing to do with Ron Paul. That should be obvious. Ron Paul didn’t leave the GOP -- it left him and other REAL Republicans.
Ron Paul is a REAL Republican.
67 - Lumpy
If you're a conservative and are looking for a foreign policy advisor, who are you going to use that isn't some sort of neocon?
You're mistake is in thinking that neocons are evil. They aren't. First off they seem not to want to actually run the country which is more than I can say for a lot of people with political agendas. They just want to advise politicians and promote a pro-american foreign policy. What's so bad about that?
68 - Jacob
"They just want to advise politicians and promote a pro-american foreign policy. What's so bad about that?"
Their policy isn't pro-American.
It doesn't do a bit of good for me or my friends.
How about you and your friends?