Are Republicans internet Luddites?

As we gird ourselves up for tonight's CNN/YouTube Republican debate, it's worth pointing out again that the candidates on show (yes, I know, with the exception of Ron Paul) have proved slow to exploit this medium.

A brief glance at the figures for Facebook and MySpace friends, helpfully listed on the excellent techPresident.com shows the gulf: Obama gets a total of around 360,000 on these two sites and Clinton about 200,000. How about the two leading Republicans? Romney struggles to get past the 50,000 mark and Giuliani barely makes 20,000.

It was Romney who initially balked at appearing in a YouTube debate, saying the “presidency ought to be held at a higher level” than answering a question from an animated snowman - as the Democrats had just done - while Giuliani hesitated because of "scheduling conflicts".

They have, nonetheless, been dragged reluctantly to Florida tonight where among the 50,000 videos submitted, there is inevitably this one from a rather hurt sounding snowman.

Chris Dodd has also tried to get in on the act, with the Democratic candidate asking this question about the US constitution.

Clever though Dodd is, viewers are more likely to recognise the snowman

There has been an awful lot of talk about why the Republicans have proven so inept on the internet. Some suggest it is because they are a "top-down" party, well-versed in delivering a carefuly honed message through attack ads and Talk Radio, but wary of the wilder, uncontrollable territory of online direct democracy. This might explain why McCain's insurgent campaign against the party's establishment in 2000 had some success in raising money on the web  - and the current phenomenon of Ron Paul/ Guy Fawkes movement.

But the Democratic candidates are also too scared to allow their online supporters a stake in the campaign - witness Obama's treatment of the young activist in California who was forced to relinquish control of a MySpace group set up in the candidate's honour.

For Obama and others, the internet is a useful piece of branding, making them look tech-savvy, hip and modern, while also helping him raise mounds of cash and armies of supporters.

For Republicans, the opposite is true. Although this is a terrible generalisation, their activists are more likely to regard the web as a purveyor of porn and terror or, at best, a business tool. And some, I suspect, still yearn for the gentler contours of a pre-internet age. 

Comments

[Brett]

The Republicans are that weak on the internet front? It's a little shocking, but only a little. I think the success of Bush II's funding for the 2004 gave them overconfidence as to how easy it would be.

Moreover, the Democrats had a direct lesson in how effective on-line funding can be, in the form of Howard Dean's fundraising through his on-line network. Here's hoping that they can use their edge in the internet to actually win this campaign.

the most successfull candidate of all parties on the internet is Ron Paul so not all republicans have a hard time with the internet

[Jack Caffey]

The *Republicans* deliver a 'carefully honed message through attack ads and Talk Radio'? That's amusing.

The Democrats are the Queens and Kings of Mean when it comes to attack ads ... both the candidates and Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann. Nasty and snarling.

We Americans are not as stupid as you like to think...

[Keith]

I think the internet is overrated as a way to boost one's campaign. Many people are still used to non-online ways of keeping up with campaigns (TV, debates, newspaper). The internet hasn't given many people a good enough reason to abandon those old methods. Also, as far as sites like myspace are concerned, those mostly attract traffic from the younger crowd who by default vote Democratic anyway.

I think last night's CNN/YouTube joke of a debate is only going to further scare Repubs from using the internet as a base for their operations.

[Mr Tim]

Republicans would rather see the eye of the donor.....

[Chad]

The stats that the author gives do NOT in any sense reflect the use of the Internet by Republicans. Rather, it reflects (perhaps) the amount they use MySpace and FaceBook for carrying on discussions of politics.

But since the overwhelming majority of people (Democrats, Independents, and Republicans) routinely use the Internet, it is simply silly to suggest that one party or the other is weak on the Internet.

[mr scruff]

there is a valid explanation of this - from my understanding of American politics, it appears to me that the Republicans are more grassroots and more face-to-face. They appear to be more interested in pounding the streets, meeting people face to face, and doing face-to-face fundraisers.

As the Howard Dean episode has proven, the internet can only go so far. Nothing beats personal, face-to-face politicing.

[mr scruff]

"There has been an awful lot of talk about why the Republicans have proven so inept on the internet. "

are you even aware of townhall.com? and all the podcasted talk radio shows associated with it?

thanks to that site, even though i'm in the uk , i can regularly listen to the likes of Hewitt, Praeger and Medved - all Republicans.

[Kevin]

Tom,

Perhaps you have over-analyzed the distinction here. It's can probably be explained by demographic differences: democrats are young, republicans are old.

[Mike]

As posted above with the snowman tube, Why should they take it as serious? The simple act of asking a question that concerns one should not be in jest or other! Be real about it, because if the wrong candidates are chosen, our pocket books will wish we had been!

[Erik]

Wow! So the Republicans deliver messages only through attack ads and are apparently scared of the Internet because it's a purveyor of porn and terror. Seriously, what world do you live in? Have you ever met a Republican? Your "attacks" could have come straight from the Clinton handbook.

Your contention that Facebook and Myspace hits is barometer of Internet savvy is baffling. If you've ever visited those sites, then you know its not the most serious marketplace of political ideas. Quite the opposite I would say. Maybe Republican supporters frequent other Internet sites. Did you ever consider that? Anyway, you found something that you thought showed the Democrats in a enlightened way and got a chance to perpetuate some negative stereotypes of Republicans so why not run it, no?

[Kevin Haynes]

CNN/YouTube political debase! God help us all, if this is a sign of the brave new world.

[Jive Dadson - Silicon Valley, California]

Ron Paul's campaign has done little to exploit the internet, other than to voice a message of freedom, prosperity, and peace that the nation is starved to hear. He now has 71,000 volunteers in almost 1000 cities who have organized themselves through meetup.com. (I am one of them.) The meetup groups were started and are organized by independent supporters, not by the campaign committee. A couple of weeks ago, he raised $4.3 million (2.1 million pounds) in one day. The promotion was organized by a supporter, not by the campaign.

When Ron Paul speaks to the ever larger rallies, he often begins with, "Thank you for inviting me to your revolution."

Aside to whoever wrote, "We Americans are not as stupid as you like think." -- It is on us to show some evidence of that. Who re-elected George Bush? Eh?

[richard M]

The Republicans and the Democrats have been slow to exploit the internet because they have complete disdain and contempt for the average voter. Without generalizing, the majority of the candidates are flush with special interest money. Why try to please the populace when you can suck up to a financial fat cat or lobbyist. The people expect loyalty and results, while the financial interests only expect subservience. In Washington, for long term political security, it is wiser to be subservient. Of course, this option probably leads to a future in Hell.

[Warwick Varley]

Unfortunately the Americans are as stupid as we think. If you look at the candidates from both sides, they are all socially inept as well, and none of them are very good liars either, which is imperitive as a politician.

[Phil]

I think the author of this article has no idea of what Ron Paul and his millions of supporters are truly doing.

[Modern pietist]

Ron Paul's success with this newfangled internet thang is no accident.

He's the only GOP candidate who galvanises the young, the mentally adventurous, those who bust loose from the straitjacket of the corporate media and their dreary shibboleths and self-censorship after 9/11.

They've been imbibing real news and out-of-the-box libertarian and conservative opinion for the 21st century on the web for quite a while. Paul is that spirit made flesh-- as much a revival of 1776 as a new millennium's outlook, and despite his own innocence of matters cybernetic.

His campaign is part of the new eclecticism in politics. It rejects the phoney old left/right bipolar disorder- foisted on America while a single warfare/welfare party jerks strings.

[wt katz]

there was an internet debate?

would you buy a used car from Mitt Romney?

to respond to mr caffey, any country that votes in george bush not once but twice is as stupid as you think.

[Ron]

>>We Americans are not as stupid as you like to think...

Posted by: Jack Caffey | 29 November 2007 at 07:44 PM<<

. . . Well, some of us are -- those who believe the premises of the comment I quote from, for example.

For those of you not "lucky" enough to experience the glories of American news media, Olbermann is a target of the right because he is essentially the only one on U.S. television who calls out the Bush administration for its corruption and incompetence. The right-wing attack on Matthews, Rudy Giuliani's lapdog and misogynist Clinton-hater, is incomprehensible.

"The Democrats are the Queens and Kings of Mean when it comes to attack ads ... "
Yes -- the Swift Boat ads, the race-baiting ads against McCain and Dukakis, all produced by Democrats. Oh wait, they were produced by Republicans!? Never mind. But Rush Limbaugh is a Democrat! Well...

Let's find a psychology dictionary, and look up the definition of "Projection."

[steve]

|Ron Paul/ Guy Fawkes"???

Whatever, buddy.

Good god....

[Don Jensen]

Its not the format its allowing the media to decide what is posted.

The whole debate format is bad 30 sec sound bites are useless. I would think the debates should center around a few key subjects and then have candidates flush out their positions with monitors to keep them on subject.

[Zack]

Ron Paul, Republican presidential candidate from Texas, is dominating the internet these days. What is interesting is that unlike Obama, who seeks to tightly control his online presence, Paul encourages his followers to independently support his campaign by whatever means suits them. This resulted in the record-breaking $4.3M Guy Fawkes day haul, organized completely without the involvement of the Paul campaign.

There are dozens (or perhaps hundreds) or spontaneously organized Meetup groups, discussion forums, and blogs, dedicated to supporting Ron Paul. Most of these sites are a benefit to the campaign, such as www.dailypaul.com, www.ronpaulnation.com, and www.ronpaulforums.com. This decentralized approach has also resulted in some less desirable elements publicly organizing support for Paul. What is important though is that even though Paul does not ascribe to some of the beliefs of some of these groups, such a wide variety of people with differing perspectives are rallying behind this candidate and his message of freedom, reform, and hope.

As you might have guessed, I too am a Ron Paul supporter. I made my first political donation ever (to any political candidate) on Guy Fawkes day.

www.ronpaul2008.com

[Scott Frost]

Uh...... The report in this article is not very accurate. Amongst the various U.S. presidential candidates, Ron Paul rules the internet. There is not any doubt about that.

The article states that the campaigns are afraid to let the supporters have too much control. Not so with Ron Paul. In fact, it is the supporters who are leading the campaign in many ways. The campaign does not coordinate very much with supporters. The supporters do things for the campaign -- without even asking first.

Fundraising is the prime example. Ron Paul raised his record $4.3 million in one day online without his campaign being involved at all. It cost him nothing to raise that money.

But there are also many other activities not affiliated or coordinated with the campaign, such as the full page ad taken out in USA Today by a single supporter at a cost of $85,000, the Ron Paul Blimp project, rallies all over the country at football games complete with airplanes pulling Ron Paul banners behind them, people painting their cars with Ron Paul's name, Ron Paul Christmas signs with blinking Christmas lights, "Google Ron Paul" painted on a building's rooftop, the Ron Paul Riders and on and on...

What other campaign has that kind of enthusiasm? None of them do! And THAT is where the real story is!

By the way, the Paul campaign is NOT affiliated with Guy Fawkes in any way. The November 5th fundraising event was tied to Guy Fawkes Day by, literally, a handful of supporters who enjoyed the movie "V for Vendetta." It took off from there because it was a very clever and audacious marketing idea, the likes of which most campaigns would never have dared attempt. The proper interpretation of the Guy Fawkes Day connection is that Paul's supporters are analogous to the citizens of England who march in peaceful civil disobedience at the end of the film "V for Vendetta" to tell their tyrannical government they have had enough.

Remember, the Ron Paul supporters want an END to war and violence. They are the ones calling for U.S. troops to come home. They are libertarians who oppose the initiation of force to achieve social or political goals. They emphasize the word "love" spelled backwards in the word "rEVOLution," as in "Ron Paul Revolution." Hardly Guy Fawkes.

Ron Paul has far more activist, grassroots supporters than Barack Obama does. Check the numbers for MeetUp groups. It isn't even close. Ron Paul has more MeetUp groups and members than any other candidate in any party and far more than all of the other Republicans COMBINED.

Ron Paul wins every online poll (except that ones that don't include him, so that the other candidates have a chance to pretend that they won something.)

Ron Paul has the most (and best) YouTube videos and is making the best use of the internet by far.

The Paul campaign realized, early on, that they needed to run a decentralized, grassroots campaign and they have done so by encouraging social networking online. The other campaigns are starting to attempt to copy the Paul campaign's successful model, but it isn't working very well for them because there just is not very much grassroots support for the other candidates' messages.

Ron Paul's message of peace, prosperity and freedom resonates. End the wars, restore value to our currency, restore our lost liberties, cut government spending, eliminate the income tax...

And Ron Paul's supporters are the most fun, too. :D

Your reporter should cover them more and he would find this out for himself!

[Tom Dixon]

But isn't it also the case that the most web-savvy Democratic "allies", that huge number of surfin'-geeks surrounding Kostas Moulitsas and his "Daily Kos" site are actually doing more harm to the respectability of the party than any good that they may confer in sheer attention.

[Jasmer]

The GOP has simply absorbed the lesson taught by Dean's last campaign too deeply. They'll learn, despite defeat or success, since many people who would support them already prefer the Internet to traditional media. Eventually they'll get their "Vast right-wing conspiracy" automated...

After all, there's just as many right-leaning netziens ("Freepers") as there are left-leaning ("Kossacks"), mythology about lefties being smarter notwithstanding.

[Raleigh Muns]

One of the areas of internet activity in which Republicans are very good at engaging is infiltrating blogs (like this one) and posting carefully crafted messages designed to shape and distort discourse. For example, calling commentators Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews "snarling" is par for the course. Consider that our UK brethren are probably unfamiliar with the vitriolic and politically partisan hate messages of the much higher rated (in audience size) Rush Limbaugh and BIll O'Reilly. Limbaugh and O'Reilly are the most visible characters in an American media dominated by right-wing conservative voices. The exceptions appear to be the Internet, and those comedians who paroady GOP bluster, such as Steven Colbert.

[Leon Allen]

The view from Europe,(particularly from where I sit at the bar of an English country pub ) is overwhelmingly one of amused disdain for the current American political scene. 'A plague on all their houses' would probably be the best summing up of attitudes from deepest East Anglia.
We have watched in horror over the past decade or so, as the only great power western civilisation possesses, decays into impotence while the bad guys in various parts of the planet strut and mock. Where is the glory that was Rome ?

[Griff]

What, are you kidding me? Republicans and small-c conservatives in general dominate the internet as a method of spreading viewpoints and information, mostly because the MSM is too lazy or biased (and sometimes both) to get the full story out. So what if Obama has neigh-on 400 thousand facebook friends? I guarantee you half of them will not contribute cash or volunteer, a large portion are unable to vote, and a similar amount won't even bother voting.

Romney, Guliani et al. might not have a lot of facebook friends but i guarantee you that they'll have wads of cash and committed election volunteers when it comes down to the wire.

[Chad Edward]

I think Republican candidates are a little more practical. Your assertion doesn't address the question, "Does the Internet matter?" In 2004, Howard Dean was the most successful Internet campaigner. What'd it get him? Not even the nomination of his own party. In 2007, it's Ron Paul, who'll suffer the same fate. Hell, Al Gore "invented the Internet" and all he's got has been a Nobel Peace Prize. Eventually the Internet will be a valuable campaign tool. In the current Presidential election, it's not.

[summer]

It's a good thing the average voter does not rely on the mainstream media to get their info about political history.

Many thousands of voters know the first online internet political campaign actually happened several years before Dem Howard Dean - and was for GOP FL Gov Jeb Bush, when he ran for a 2nd term as governor of Florida, in 2001-2002.

You can read Jeb Bush's thank you note for this grassroots, online campaign here, written less than one day after he was re-elected in Nov 2002:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/783970/posts

On the thread you'll find links to essays I wrote, and this was a series lasting all year up to the election. People printed out and distributed these essays to voters, and used them to dispel myths about the governor's record.

I don't recall anyone at that time writing essays like mine, which had links throughout to other information. It was a completely new kind of campaign, this online series I was doing, and Jeb Bush made several online appearances as well in response to my requests.

What the GOP is not good at doing is preserving their online election history, and pointing it out to those in the media who constantly and erroneously claim it was Dem Howard Dean who first used the internet successfully. It wasn't. He and his followers came several years later, after they had read my online grassroots internet political campaign for a GOP candidate.

[WV.Hillbilly]

Republicans not having many friends on Facebook and MySpace doesn't mean squat.
It's not a contest of how many friends you can add.

It just shows that Republicans attract adults.

[Jamey]

I agree with you in that the cnn debate was terrible showing of what the internet has to offer candidates for their platforms. The questions were terrible and did not represent what the mainstream of videos submitted were. I think the internet is great for campaigns, however you can't really harness support on it. It is effective for communication and is run by the people. The reason Ron Paul has such support on the internet is not because he knew how to use it, but the people (like myself) who frequently use internet greatly support the ideas a candidate has to offer. I'm a Ron Paul supporter and I learned of him via internet. This medium, run by the users, responds to issues and stances of the candidates, and depending on how things go with Ron Paul, it can show that the candidates are on par with the public's view on issues. We can only wait and see what happens. The biggest challenge, and the Ron Paul campaign admits to, is turning all of this attention and support into tangible material (votes and cash) so far the cash is flowing but we will see what happens with the votes.

One of the other things I have noticed about the internet is that it actually is of great benefit to the candidate it supports. Howard Deans internet support was largely centralized, as in their campaign paid the meetup groups leaders to start groups and organize. Ron Paul's campaign is complete decentralized where our organizers contribute their own time and money. This will have a great effect on the election process because it is basically free advertising and they pay for campaign materials to distribute at sign waving and other events. This allows the Official campaign to focus their cash and efforts in a more targeted manner and relieves a lot of the money stress you see the others going through. Just my 2 cents though.

[james james]

this is the dumbest 'measure' of internet awareness/intelligence i have ever heard of

if you bragged to me about the number of facebook and myspace friends you have, i would think you are a moron

the most IT intelligent people i know agree it is stupid to put your personal information anywhere on public display via the internet... why would anyone want to when somewhere down the line somebody might use a myspace 'friend' association against them?

i am not defending or criticizing any candidates, just suggesting the author should find a better way to form his opinions

[stephens]

give up rights or liberty in exchange for safety? if one trades ones rights in exchange for safety,one ends up with neither!---i personally refuse to part with either.

[Fred]

Kevin Rudd's victorious campaign in the recent Australian federal election included a significant internet element, especially ads on Youtube. It helped him convince the electorate, many of whom were in the mood for change after 11 years of the Howard goverment, that his party was more modern and attuned to technology.

[SteveR]

Republican voters are family oriented. They are sure of themselves politically and dont need the reinforcement and confirmation of their thinking as much as democrats do. Democrats turn to the web for political bonding. Republicans could not be bothered and use their web time for news gathering and debate.

The best way for republican candidates to engage the voters online would be to participate in open debate with all comers on their web sites.

-Steve

[Left New York]

This column reflects the same attitude that CNN exhibited when selecting the questions. Or, as the Washington Post so famously put it in 1993, fundamentalist Christians are "poor, uneducated and easily led." What if it turned out they were more affluent, better educated, and more capable of dealing with a apologetics argument than Rhodes Scholars like Bill Clinton? Check the facts.

The fact that CNN and Google felt like Biblical inerrancy and gun rights were prominent issues in the Republican camp just shows how far out of touch they are with the Republic half of the country. It hardly seems fair to call Republicans Luddites when the greenies in the Democrat Party seem to be more inclined to destroy modern technologies.

This debate was co-sponsored by Google, but the hosts could not even use Google (much less Nexis) to find out about the background of the questioners. Who can't use the internet?

[Nate]

Ron Paul isn't exploiting the internet. It is the 'informed' public who use the internet as a tool who are embracing Ron Paul.

[Jon]

Where do you get your information from? Mitt Romney has more videos on YouTube. than any other presidential candidate. He was also one of the first candidates (if not the first) to have a page on MySpace and Facebook. The number of "friends" associated is likely an issue of demographics.

YouTube Videos (as of today)
Republicans
Romney - 494
Paul - 72
Giuliani - 291
Huckabee - 96
Hunter - 21
McCain - 92
Tancredo - 164
Thompson - 44

Democrats
Biden - 199
Clinton - 115
Dodd - 217
Edwards - 263
Gravel - 80
Kucinich - 130
Richardson - 212

Seems like you need to do your research.

[John Diaz]

The candidate cannot choose who gets the support of the Internet, the "Internet" chooses the candidate. Unlike the bought and paid for U.S. news media, the people decide who they want to support, blog about, and campaign for.

All day long Fox, CNN, CNBC, and the others tell their viewers "who one", who "will win". It's a sheep watching news style.

On the Internet, the blindfold is taken off, and we can talk about who WE support!

I guess the "news" still doesn't get it!

[patrick]

Ron Paul has had such great internet support(and support in general) not because of some tech savvy intern/it's directly due to Americans belief in Ron Pauls message/Ron Paul resonates with people and this is what it looks like when Americans have a real president elect they can trust.

[Missourimule]

OK, Tom -- let's take a poll of as many leaders-of-countries as you want -- pick the ones you really approve of -- ask them, "how much of your job involves sitting down and surfing the internet"? Ask them, "when you're working on your various challenges with Iraq, Venezuela, Russia, North Korea, the Sudan, etc., do you punch up You Tube and hope the Snowman is there?"

Tom, the YouTube debates were a farce - for the Democrats AND the Republicans. They AND CNN made a mockery out of the political process and rob the voters of time they might be learning about the candidates views on actual, serious issues.

[Tymon W]

"Although this is a terrible generalisation, their activists are more likely to regard the web as a purveyor of porn and terror or, at best, a business tool. And some, I suspect, still yearn for the gentler contours of a pre-internet age. "

No, it's not a terrible generalization, it's a calculated and preposterous one.

The 'pre-internet age' is where the Democrats want desperately to go.

Which party is trying to bring back the Fairness Doctrine?

[mdev]

Lost in Cyber land? And our republican candidates expect to win? I am not so sure.
(May be they will. They had two dyslexic precedents as Presidents.) So,not being net- savvy isn't a handicap.Not being able to play golf may be.
Still I think people should vote with their heads and hearts and vote for a candidate who brings a quick end to the Iraq misadventure.

[rhys]

Candidates do not use the internet. The internet uses candidates. Ron Paul is leveraged by the internet, not because he uses it, but because we use him.

The internet is no-holds-barred information. Only the purest messages survive. Ron Paul will dominate because he has the purest message.

Think of it this way, have you ever played 'telephone' as a kid? You whisper a message to someone who whispers it to someone else who whispers it to someone else etc... At the end the message is garbled and unrecognizable. The more unusual the message the more it is demolished. Only the most clear, recognizable message survives. This is an analogy of the internet. It is the biggest 'telephone' game of all. Paul's message is the clearest and most recognizable of them all because it is the most internally consistent. Thus, the internet rallies around his cause.

Vote consistency. Vote freedom. Vote Ron Paul.

[Mark Amerman]

Kind of ironic since in a sense, republicans created the internet. I was a programmer in the late 70s and 80s and meeting other programmers it sometimes stunned me how heavily rightwing -- I'd say over ninety-five percent -- the innovators were. Also if you looked at the early internet communities, the early adopters, the political asymmetry wasn't as extreme as with the programmers, but it was still enormous.

[Cas]

Ignorance always shows-those who claim Rush is a hate monger clearly have never listened to him- either that or they truly can not face the truth without denoucing it as "hate" in order to put the truth teller in a defensive position.

Thankfully Rush knows this.

Thankfully as well- some of us choose a President by something other than their internet presence. Honestly- what difference does it make?

[Rob Poole]

Despite the anecdotal comments offered by Mark Amerman, I have to disagree. Most of the networking pioneers I met or read about in the 70s, 80s, and 90s were overwhelmingly Libertarian or some flavor of liberal/left wing, not "Republican" in the sense of party affiliation. Let's not forget people like Eric Allman (author of sendmail) and Richard Stallman (who should need no introduction). Yes, many of the rank-and-file people who deployed networks and wrote the glue code came from a wide swath of society, but the Tim Berners-Lees and Stallmans of the world are most certainly not what you'd call "Republicans." Many aren't even Americans (Tim Berners-Lee was born in the UK, and is a is widely seen as a British national treasure). When you factor in the "dirty hippie" contingent who created much of the software that runs the infrastructure of the Internet (e.g., BSD, the TCP/IP networking stack, etc.), I don't see how you can make the claim that the people who were the innovators were overwhelmingly right-wing. They weren't. Please note I don't consider Bill Gates or his cohorts to be innovators in this space -- in point of fact, Microsoft was a latecomer to the Internet, and didn't really see the value in TCP/IP until Windows 95. (Even then, they ultimately used the BSD implementation.)
The libertarian ethic is strong in the IT world, especially right now, but you can't call those people "Republicans" (many are not members of that political party because of disagreements with that party's platform), and calling them right-wing is a stretch because that label doesn't perfectly apply (as many are fiscally conservative but socially progressive or liberal).
I think you'd be hard pressed to peg Vint Cerf as a Republican, though I don't think he's come out and stated his political affiliation (at least, nowhere I was able to find); he even came to Al Gore's defense when Republicans lambasted Gore for supposedly claiming he invented the internet (which meme has been repeatedly debunked, but persists to this day).

[Jon]

I think it's funny that everyone keeps acting like Paul just had this "magic formula" that allowed him to capture the internet. The truth is, the polls are BS, and Paul's followers are a rapid growing majority. It's not that Paul reached us through the internet, it's that he's tapping into a never before touched market: the apathetic intelligent people who had previously given up hope.

Finally, it's not an issue of the "lesser of two evils". The other GOP support is quickly dying off (literally, the old bats), so it's obvious why he has so much support.

And it has nothing to do with "viral" youtube videos.

[Jonathan from Canada]

If Republicans (with the exception of Ron Paul) are indeed net-Luddites, does it matter? This is just another pundit sideshow, filling another page for the sake of filling another page. At best it's a pundit who's trying to convince himself of a small slice of reality, like the New York times editor a few years ago who was shocked the Democrat lost--after all, nobody she knew voted Republican. In 2000, they said Howard Dean had an awesome internet presence. And look who won? It's better to have internet sophistication than not (as a sufficient condition) but it's not a necessary condition.

[Dietrich]

If you're not here, you wouldn't know it from watching our media, but out in the streets, on campus, etc, Ron Paul is one fire. His supporters are the energized, and I think he is the one to watch.

As someone who often criticizes mainstream media, I am yet at a loss for words over what is going on with the virtual blackout Paul is receiving. Something odd here.

[Scott Frost]

The person who stated that Ron Paul only has 72 YouTubes videos must not be counting the ones made by supporters unaffiliated with the official campaign. I personally have over 72 Ron Paul videos saved as favorites and I only favorite a very small fraction of the ones that I see. Ron Paul's YouTube presence is quite large.

Dietrich (above) is correct about the virtual blackout of Ron Paul. It is very odd indeed. I have seen so much distortion and lying by omission from the mainstream media that I no longer trust them. They act as gatekeepers and propagandists rather than journalists whose job it is to inform the public.

The Des Moines Register, for example, is on record as stating that they refuse to cover Ron Paul in their series on the various candidates, because "Ron Paul has not visited Iowa enough." Oh Please. That shouldn't matter. He is a candidate and they had to really get creative to find a way to exclude him. The did a piece on Duncan Hunter but not Ron Paul. The Des Moines Register is utterly worthy of ridicule.

[Kevin]

I was at the Ron Paul headquarters today in New York after Dr. Paul appeared on the view.
CNN came over and conducted an interview with the supporters as we were making Ron Paul signs. The interview appeared later in the afternoon. CNN was very cordial and friendly, the whole Glenn Beck debacle is blowing over and no one at our campaign is holding a grudge. We sat around the rest of the afternoon
waiting for the episode to air watching CNN and sending out posts on Blogs, letters to the editor ect. The big news of course was the CIA and DOD link of the Iran intelligence report. The remarkable insight I saw was how Ron Paul is changing everyone's views in America. I saw the liberal feminists melt after he tackled the Abortion issue headon in the way that only someone who knows women intimately can. He is healing America, even Wolf Blitzer. He will be a profit on his position with the War after today. What are all the Republican hawks going to say. They will never challenge him directly in a debate. They actually like him that is the funny part, every one does who meets him. He is authentic and humble, a living breathing character out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Afterwards we went out eating and drinking and planning the next Ron Paul event. We have several ongoing projects and are linking up with Ron Paul supporters every where. We are all like outlets and plugs, there are very few adaptations necessary. Ron Paul supporters intuitively know we are fighting for the survival of our nation. Most people are Ron Paul supporters, they do not just know it yet. He has already won.