Op/Ed: Ron Paul remains media poison

[Phantasee]

Ron Paul remains media poison
By: Roger Simon
August 15, 2011 03:17 PM EDT

I admit I do not fully understand Ron Paul and his beliefs. But I do understand when a guy gets shafted, and Ron Paul just got shafted.

On Saturday, the Ames Straw Poll was conducted in Iowa amid huge media interest and scrutiny. The results were enough to force one Republican candidate, Tim Pawlenty, out of the race, and catapult another, Michele Bachmann, into the “top tier.”

There are so many “top tier” stories in the media today that I can barely count them, let alone read them all, and Bachmann is in all of them by virtue of her victory at Ames. The rest of the tier is made up of two candidates who skipped Ames, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.

As The Daily Beast put it: “The new top tier of Bachmann, Perry, and Romney — created by Bachmann’s Iowa straw poll win, Perry’s entry into the race and Romney’s lead so far in many national and state polls — has unleashed torrents of talk about the reshaped race.”

Paul’s name was not mentioned in this piece nor in many others. A Wall Street Journal editorial Monday magnanimously granted Paul’s showing in the straw poll a parenthetical dismissal: “(Libertarian Ron Paul, who has no chance to win the nomination, finished a close second.)”

But “close” does not fully describe Paul’s second-place finish. Paul lost to Bachmann by nine-tenths of one percentage point, or 152 votes out of 16,892 cast.

If it had been an election, such a result would almost certainly have triggered a recount. It was not an election, however, and that is my point. Straw polls are supposed to tell us, like a straw tossed into the air, which way the wind is blowing.

And any fair assessment of Ames, therefore, would have said the winds of the Republican Party are blowing toward both Bachmann and Paul.

Nonsense, some would say. Straw polls are just organized bribery, with the campaigns buying the tickets and distributing them to supporters. (And, in fact, this is what I wrote before Ames.)

What they really show, many argue, is not where the philosophical heart of the party is, but the organizational abilities of the candidates.

Fine, I’ll buy that. But why didn’t Paul get the same credit for his organizational abilities as Bachmann did for hers?

I am far from a Libertarian. I believe big government is swell as long as it does big things to help the common good. But after Ames, it was as if Paul had been sentenced to the Phantom Zone.

Bachmann appeared on five Sunday shows following Ames. Paul appeared on none. POLITICO’s Kasie Hunt was one of the few reporters to do a separate story on Paul’s showing at the straw poll, but to most of the media he remained an exotic, unworthy of attention.

And I don’t disagree that some of his beliefs — legalizing heroin, the right of states to secede — are strikingly peculiar (though he has been elected to a congressional district in Texas 12 times). But if Bachmann’s victory at Ames was good enough to gain her enormous publicity and top-tier status, why was Paul’s virtual tie good enough only to relegate him to being ignored?

So I asked Paul Monday if the media blackout disturbed him,

“It did disturb me, but it was not a total surprise,” he replied. “The result at Ames was significant; it might well have propelled us to the top tier. The media cannot change that.”

Though the media can, of course, change that since we get to determine who the top tier is.

“It is hard for them to accept,” Paul said of his showing at Ames. “I had one interview scheduled for this morning, a national program, but they canceled. It is shocking to be told nobody wants you.”

Was this because technically Paul came in second and not first? I don’t think so. Four years ago, Mike Huckabee came in a bad second to Romney, losing by 13.4 percentage points. Huckabee managed to spin that into a victory at Ames and became a media darling.

But Paul almost wins the thing and he remains poison.

“They [the media] believe this guy is dangerous to the status quo,” Paul said, “but that is a reason to be more energized. I am a bit more challenging, but I am not on the wrong track. I don’t think that my ideas are more exotic. They are threatening.”

In his interview with me, Paul stressed his “peace” message — he wants our troops brought home from foreign soil — and believes that and his fiscal conservatism will gain him supporters.

“We are trying to reverse 100 years of history, the change from a republic to an empire, the change to tax and spending, who wants to admit that?” Paul said. “Who wants to admit we don’t have to be policeman of the world?”

Let me say right here that unlike many of Paul’s supporters, I don’t believe there is a left-wing media conspiracy working against him. Ralph Nader, who is about as far as you can get from Paul politically, has the same problem whenever he runs for president.

And, no, media attention is not based solely on polls. The most recent polls, taken before Ames, showed Bachmann with 10.2 percent of the vote and Paul with 9.0 percent. That’s not a huge difference. Though those polls will no doubt change with all the publicity Bachmann is now getting because of her “stunning” victory at Ames.

There was a deliciously intriguing line in The Washington Post’s fine recap of Ames on Sunday. It said had Paul edged out Bachmann, “it would have hurt the credibility and future of the straw poll, a number of Republicans said.”

So don’t blame the media. Here are Republicans, presumably Republican operatives, who said if one candidate wins, the contest is significant, but if another wins the contest is not credible

Amazing. And disturbing.

“Well, yes I can get discouraged and dispirited,” Paul told me. “We came so very close. To come that close to winning, it shows my views are very mainstream. And if we are worth our salt and our message is sound and we tell it honestly, we will do well.”

Though possibly no one will notice.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Well, first, the Iowa straw poll's voters were primarily crazies, as evidenced by the strong showing of Bachmann and Paul, and the fact that the presumptive front-runners mostly avoided it. Michelle Bachmann and Ron Paul represent two different kinds of crazy. Michelle Bachmann represents the sort of crazy that appeals to hardcore GOP primary voters (the Moral Right who believes in a smaller government that cares deeply about what goes on in your bedroom.) Ron Paul espouses the sort of crazy that's so crazy, it's formed its own little party that never manages more than single-digit showings in Presidential contests (the lolbertarians, who believe in a government so tiny, it'd mount no real challenge to the Almighty Market.)

This is why the mainstream press is fawning over Bachmann's narrow victory and completely ignoring Paul's near-tie. Ron Paul simply espouses the wrong kind of crazy. But, make no mistake about it, both he and Bachmann are crazies.

[Simon_Jester]

Paul's kind of crazy stands no credible chance of victory- Libertarian platforms have tried, and failed, to win major Republican primaries too many times before.

Bachmann might conceivably win Republican primaries; if nothing else because no one's ever really tried to win the Republican primary on the Tea Party platform before.

[Darth Wong]

It doesn't matter whether Paul stands a chance of winning; the question is why the media appear to be in some sort of informal collusion to convince the general public that he does not exist.

[erik_t]

Because they're attempting to un-game the polls. Paul currently (and has for several cycles) possesses a uniquely dedicated hardcore fanbase that demonstrably does not translate or extend to a meaningful base of support in the actual primary elections. His support base is extremely deep but extremely narrow, and this is borne out both in media polling (which fuck that) as well as actual elections. One regularly sees some random internet poll showing a massive Ron Paul support base, which is generally (and I think reasonably) explained by these people being such True Believers that they'll flood any and every internet poll. This is similar to the Iowa straw poll, which is (as I recall) something like a $30 actual entry fee, and measures intensity much more so than breadth of support (the total number of voters being something like half a percent of the population). Meaningful (quasi)democratic measurements (like actual primary votes of a quarter or third of the population) uniformly show that the Ron Paul movement is a fringe one.

The media is ignoring him because he's the crazy old uncle that has no chance, and has demonstrated himself to have no chance previously. There's a motive behind it, but it seems to me like a fairly innocuous one.

[Guardsman Bass]

If Ron Paul hadn't run in 2008, and made a dismal showing of it (in spite of some massive fund-raising efforts by his small group of fanatics), the media might be more inclined to pay attention to him. But there's really nothing serious to distinguish this run from his failed run last time, so he's old news. He'll probably get fifth or sixth in the actual Iowa primary when it comes around early next year.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm inclined to agree. I suspect that another piece of it is just that no one in the mainstream media really wants to write articles about how Ron Paul could be a contender this year, because they all expect him to lose.

I would, in their shoes. He's not quite the modern equivalent of Harold Stassen, because he does genuinely speak for a constituency within the Republican Party- just a tiny one. But he's on his way to getting there. The same goes for Nader, but Nader is farther along in the process.

And so while 'generic' Republican candidates (like Romney) get air time, as do new and exciting sorts of far-out Republicans (like Bachmann), Paul just doesn't attract the speculation of the chattering class. He's made his bid, it didn't work, and in 2011 he's repeating the same strategy only with more enthusiasm. That doesn't translate into success, even if it gets him a few flashes in the pan.

[Mr Bean]

It doesn't matter whether Paul stands a chance of winning; the question is why the media appear to be in some sort of informal collusion to convince the general public that he does not exist.

The funny thing is they let him on all the time between campaign seasons and freeze him out during the campaign season itself. Any budget matter on CNN, Fox or even MSNBC will result in at least one of the networks giving him a call to ask him to come on and tell us how evil government is and how good the corporations are any time but campaign season. He's a media darling when it comes to everything except his Presidential aspirations.

I'd love for him to be the Republican nominee not because I think he has a chance in hell of winning (He's going to lose the question is by just four or five million or twenty) but because it's good for the Republican party for their Libertarian wing to have a shot since it makes up a third (roughly) of their base support and where they draw lots of their ideas from in some areas (Government) but are deadly enemy's against in others (Moral issues).

If Ron Paul hadn't run in 2008, and made a dismal showing of it (in spite of some massive fund-raising efforts by his small group of fanatics), the media might be more inclined to pay attention to him. It would be surprising. As is, there's nothing to make his soon-to-be failed effort this time around any different from last time, at least not yet.

Explain Pawlenty then who had no solid base of support, raised less money than Herman Cain managed some quarters and failed to win any polls during his time in the race yet the Media painted him as the great Republican Hope to beat Ronmey to the nomination.


*Edit
When I say the Libertarians make up a third of the Republican base I mean exactly that. Of the forty percent (Again roughly) of Americans who call themselves Republican or think of themselves in that context (That number goes between 30% to as high as 50% depending on the year) or roughly 12-14% of the US population at large considers themselves Libertarian.

[Guardsman Bass]

Explain Pawlenty then who had no solid base of support, raised less money than Herman Cain managed some quarters and failed to win any polls during his time in the race yet the Media painted him as the great Republican Hope to beat Ronmey to the nomination.

Pawlenty was a newcomer, with this being his first presidential attempt. It's easier to hype an unknown quantity than someone who has already tried and completely failed (and is unchanged from last time). It has happened before - just look at Fred Thompson back in 2008.

[Darth Wong]

Because they're attempting to un-game the polls. Paul currently (and has for several cycles) possesses a uniquely dedicated hardcore fanbase that demonstrably does not translate or extend to a meaningful base of support in the actual primary elections. His support base is extremely deep but extremely narrow, and this is borne out both in media polling (which fuck that) as well as actual elections. One regularly sees some random internet poll showing a massive Ron Paul support base, which is generally (and I think reasonably) explained by these people being such True Believers that they'll flood any and every internet poll. This is similar to the Iowa straw poll, which is (as I recall) something like a $30 actual entry fee, and measures intensity much more so than breadth of support (the total number of voters being something like half a percent of the population). Meaningful (quasi)democratic measurements (like actual primary votes of a quarter or third of the population) uniformly show that the Ron Paul movement is a fringe one.

The Sarah Palin movement is a joke too, but the media can't get enough of her. Everyone knows she has no chance of going anywhere, yet the media follows her around and begs for scraps, and she's not even running.

The media is ignoring him because he's the crazy old uncle that has no chance, and has demonstrated himself to have no chance previously. There's a motive behind it, but it seems to me like a fairly innocuous one.

I dunno, I think it's a more a matter of the fact that it's hard to explain what he stands for or what's wrong with it in fifteen words or less. You can do that for the other candidates:

Sarah Palin: "She goes rogue, and doesn't play by Washington's rules" vs "She's an idiot".
Michele Bachmann: "She will restore Biblical values and reduce the government to a kiosk" vs "She's a raving nutjob, and those two goals are contradictory".
Mitt Romney: "He's a businessman and he'll run government like a business" vs "He's a Mormon and a flip-flopper".
Tim Pawlenty: "He parrots the Republican party line to the letter" vs "He's as boring as plain yogurt".

I know, you might point out that you could describe Ron Paul as "small government and kill the fed" full stop, but the problem is that when Americans hear "small government", they actually think "cut social programs but keep farm subsidies, the world's biggest military-industrial complex, an exploding police and prison system, the war on drugs, and massive regulation of abortion and contraception". Worse yet, you can't talk about the fed or the gold standard without even more explanations. So you can't just say "small government and kill the fed" and successfully explain what Ron Paul is about.

[The Kernel]

The Sarah Palin movement is a joke too, but the media can't get enough of her. Everyone knows she has no chance of going anywhere, yet the media follows her around and begs for scraps, and she's not even running.

Didn't you get the memo that ultra-conservative MILFs are in vogue? The media loved Christine O'Donnell too and she is about six hammers short of a Burger King. Seriously that woman made Palin look like an intellectual powerhouse.

I dunno, I think it's a more a matter of the fact that it's hard to explain what he stands for or what's wrong with it in fifteen words or less. You can do that for the other candidates

Yes, the media loves ratings and the American public by and large simply do not have the attention span to listen to Ron Paul wax political about issues on end, no matter how fanatical his fan base may be.

Try listening to Ron Paul speak sometime. He's pretty out there, but the man likes to talk about solutions to complex problems (hell, his biggest talking point is centered around complex monetary policy) and it just doesn't have the drama or sex appeal of wedge issues that tend to wake people up and make them pay attention. In a lot of ways he's like a nutty old professor and there's nothing that Americans find more boring than an academic, even one who is basically a lunatic.

[Celador]

If Ron Paul hadn't run in 2008, and made a dismal showing of it (in spite of some massive fund-raising efforts by his small group of fanatics), the media might be more inclined to pay attention to him. But there's really nothing serious to distinguish this run from his failed run last time, so he's old news. He'll probably get fifth or sixth in the actual Iowa primary when it comes around early next year.

Third or fourth would be my guess, but I agree that his previous campaign creates a perception problem, though that it has more to do with how he stood out from the field during is last campaign. In 2008, Ron Paul seemed like he didn't belong in the Republican Party. Now, the candidates receiving the most media attention (especially Perry and Bachmann) are taking positions that really aren't that different from Paul's.

Listen to any of the Republican debates from 2007-2008. Ron Paul sounds more like a 2012 Republican than any other candidate. Things are totally different now: Pawlenty openly called for the gold standard, Perry is an advocate of states rights who openly opposes the 17th amendment, and the party is de-emphasizing the militarism.

The party isn't with Paul on everything, of course; his views on some issues that Republicans haven't spent a lot of time talking about, like foreign policy and illegal drugs still stand out (though much less than they did four years ago). But if he were running for the first time, and he'd placed a close second at Ames, I think that he would be taken seriously and given more attention.

For the record, I don't think that he'd have placed without the base that he grew in the last election (though I think that he's reached a point at which most of his supporters are actually pretty ordinary Republicans and not fanatics). The 2008 campaign increased Paul's stature in the party - and may even have influenced its direction in an important way.

Another thought: Coverage of Paul only seems light because the media is obsessed with Republican women who say crazy things; otherwise, it'd be all about Romney and Perry. I don't think that Bachmann's campaign will be important at all. I don't even expect her to win in Iowa. Her campaign peaked at the first debate, and she won Ames on momentum that's clearly been dissipating through the summer.

[Thanas]

I find it pretty bad that the media does not cover Paul. After all, the man is one of the few chances for interparty debate in the GOP, something which is becoming more and more necessary considering there is no political debate happening at all currently. And Paul has always been at least steadfast in his convictions, something that a lot of politicians lack as well (*cough* Obama *cough*).

Not covering Paul is bad for the political culture of the USA.

[erik_t]

Steadfast in his convictions? Are you shitting me? The man is a walking contradiction and is profoundly unworthy of any serious conversation.

The Sarah Palin movement is a joke too, but the media can't get enough of her. Everyone knows she has no chance of going anywhere, yet the media follows her around and begs for scraps, and she's not even running.

Is the media still covering Palin heavily? I haven't heard more than a 30 second bit about her in a number of weeks.

[Thanas]

Steadfast in his convictions? Are you shitting me? The man is a walking contradiction and is profoundly unworthy of any serious conversation.

*Shrug* I mostly look at this from a civil liberties and non-imperialistic standpoint. To my knowledge, Paul has done more against both than the vast majority of democrats have.

[Rogue 9]

The Daily Show wins again. Apart from that, Thanas said what I came in here to say.

[Knife]

Meh, it is kind of a crocodile tears situation. While I agree the main stream GOP and media are shunning him, he is fairly crazy and his ideas if implemented would set the country back a couple hundred years, so yeah. He's getting screwed but I'm OK with that.

[erik_t]

Steadfast in his convictions? Are you shitting me? The man is a walking contradiction and is profoundly unworthy of any serious conversation.

*Shrug* I mostly look at this from a civil liberties and non-imperialistic standpoint. To my knowledge, Paul has done more against both than the vast majority of democrats have.

Civil liberties? He's a barely-apologetic racist and badly wants a government so small it would fit in a uterus. His foreign policy beliefs are, at best, an example of a broken clock being right twice a day.

[Cecelia5578]

Steadfast in his convictions? Are you shitting me? The man is a walking contradiction and is profoundly unworthy of any serious conversation.

*Shrug* I mostly look at this from a civil liberties and non-imperialistic standpoint. To my knowledge, Paul has done more against both than the vast majority of democrats have.

Okay, so since you care for civil liberties, what is Ron Paul's position on the Civil Rights Act? Or by "civil liberties" do you mean Bush era wrongs? This, to me, is the danger of focusing on a narrow issue or range of issues.

[Civil War Man]

Steadfast in his convictions? Are you shitting me? The man is a walking contradiction and is profoundly unworthy of any serious conversation.

*Shrug* I mostly look at this from a civil liberties and non-imperialistic standpoint. To my knowledge, Paul has done more against both than the vast majority of democrats have.

Civil liberties? He's a barely-apologetic racist and badly wants a government so small it would fit in a uterus. His foreign policy beliefs are, at best, an example of a broken clock being right twice a day.

How exactly does this make him a contradiction? I may not agree with a vast majority of his beliefs, but pretty much every opinion I've heard him give has been consistent with his belief that a virtually non-existent government is a good thing.

There is a difference between the quality of his ideas and the consistency of them, just like there's a difference between accuracy and precision.

[Phantasee]

The Daily Show wins again. Apart from that, Thanas said what I came in here to say.

The CNN bit was disgusting.

[erik_t]

There is a difference between the quality of his ideas and the consistency of them, just like there's a difference between accuracy and precision.

A consistent small-government libertarian would support laws defining an embryo as a human or defining marriage as man+woman... why?

[Flagg]

Wow, Ron Paul came second in a meaningless rigged straw poll that's purely a fundraising endeavor. Clearly he's on the same level as Perry and Romney! I don't recall people bitching and moaning about Kucinich or Sharpton not getting coverage in '08.

[Knife]

There is a difference between the quality of his ideas and the consistency of them, just like there's a difference between accuracy and precision.

A consistent small-government libertarian would support laws defining an embryo as a human or defining marriage as man+woman... why?

Specifically, I think you mean, it would require an increase in government to be able to regulate abortion (or lack of/enforcement) and living arrangements of who lives with who (to discourage gay marriage or immoral cohabitation) that runs counter to the 'small government' position.

[Phantasee]

Wow, Ron Paul came second in a meaningless rigged straw poll that's purely a fundraising endeavor. Clearly he's on the same level as Perry and Romney! I don't recall people bitching and moaning about Kucinich or Sharpton not getting coverage in '08.

It's more that the media appears to be more interested in putting Bachmann on the same level as Perry and Romney, while completely ignoring Paul, after they basically tie the poll they are using to boost Bachmann.