Ron Paul pointing

Ron Paul

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Updated Sep 10, 2020 at 12:36PM EDT by andcallmeshirley.

Added Jan 04, 2012 at 12:08AM EST by Brad.

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About

Ron Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American physician and legislator who served as the U.S. Representative for Texas from 1976 to 2013 and a nominee for the Republican candidacy in the 2012 U.S. presidential election.

Online History

2008 Presidential Campaign

Ron Paul announced his candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination on March 12th, 2007 after serving ten terms as a Texas congressman. Supported by a grassroots campaign[14], Paul supporters raised $4.3 million dollars online and $200,000 over the phone over the course of one day, November 5th, 2007.[15] Organized via YouTube and ThisNovember5th.com in October 2007, the event came to be referred to as a "money bomb"[16], a fixed period of fundraising intended to greatly inflate a candidate's campaign assets. This record-breaking event was covered by the New York Times[17], ABC News[18] and on-air on CNN.



2012 Presidential Campaign

Following his supporters' "Draft Ron Paul" initiative for the 2012 presidential election, Ron Paul officially declared his candidacy for President of the United States on May 13, 2011 in Exeter, New Hampshire.[19]

In early January, social media research firm Socialbakers[12] found that Ron Paul had the highest overall viral reach with just short of 60,000 people talking about him on Facebook the week of January 2nd. After the Iowa caucus, where Paul took third place, Sociagility[13] published an infographic breaking down each candidate’s social media mentions. The week before the caucus, Paul had the most Twitter mentions as well as the most new YouTube subscribers. On February 22nd, 2012, opponent Rick Santorum aggressively shook Paul's hand during the GOP candidate debate.

Following Super Tuesday on March 6th, Paul had not won any of the 23 nomination contests but managed to accumulate 47 delegates. On March 7th, the Wall Street Journal[25] reported that Paul could still win the nomination if front-runner Romney could not reach the 1,144 delegates needed to secure the nomination by holding a floor fight at the Republican Nation Convention in August. As of March 8, 2012, Ron Paul has 259,213 Twitter[10] followers and 900,187 Facebook[11] fans.


GOP Delegate Count 1144 to win the nomination Associated Press projections 973E Romney 264 Santorum 130Een rich 1041 Newt 104Ron GingrichPaul caigary Quebec shington North Dakota New unswick Montana Minnesot Ottawa Mont Nova Scoti Maine South Dakota Wiscon Toronto Oregon Idaho Wyoming ich Vermont New York New Hampshire lowa Nebraska llinois ennsylvan Ohio Massachusetts Nevada dian Rhode Island Utah Colorado est irgi Missouri Connecticut Californi Kentucky New Jersey North Carolina Los geles Oklahoma Arkansas Tennessee Delaware Arizona Maryland New Mexico South Mi sissi District of Columbia 0 Phoenix roli San Diego abama Texas Georgia ouisian an Housion Ant orid Hawaii AP③ Alaska Gulf of Mexico Goo Map data ©2012 Google, INEGI?MapLink, Tele Atlas-Termsoruse

On May 14th, 2012, Ron Paul announced in a press release via e-mail that his team will cease the funding of campaign operations in the 11 remaining primaries, although he would continue to accumulate delegates for the Republican National Convention that will be held in August. Despite his lackluster performance in the state primaries with 104 out of 1,144 delegates, Ron Paul had been portrayed by his supporters in the news media and online as the underdog candidate, having raised more money than any of his former contenders (with the exception of President Obama and Mitt Romney) through online fundraising campaigns.

Ron Paul Channel

In early June 2013, The Daily Call[37] reported that the retired Texas congressman is preparing to launch an Internet-based subscription-only news service called "Ron Paul Channel" under the motto "Turn Off Your TV, Turn on the Truth." On July 8th, Paul further explained his motivation behind the project during his interview on the Peter Schiff Shows:

“I was at a debate one time, a couple years ago, where I didn’t think I got a fair shake. In a two hour debate, I had 89 seconds. I thought, maybe there’s something wrong with the media. Maybe they’re not covering us fairly. I’m just using it as a pun, but there’s a bit of truth to this. We don’t get a fair shake. The people who believe in liberty and limited government, don’t expect it from the ordinary media.”

On August 12th, The Ron Paul Channel[38] was unveiled as a online streaming service that will provide all original programming hosted by Paul "several times a week" for a monthly subscription fee of $9.95.



Reputation

Ron Paul's record of political beliefs and legislative votes has been subject to much debate. According to Wikipedia's article on Ron Paul's political positions:

Based on his presidential campaigns in 1988, 2008 and 2012, the political positions of Ron Paul have been described as conservative, libertarian and constitutionalist. In economic policies, Paul believes the size of federal government should be reduced significantly and has regularly voted against almost all proposals for new government spending, initiatives, or taxes. According to National Journal's review, Paul's overall economic policies in 2010 have been described as more conservative than 78% of the House and more liberal than 22% of the House (85% and 15%, respectively for 2009). In 2006, as more conservative than 48% of the House and more liberal than 51% of the House. For 2008, his ratings were more conservative than 91% of the House and more liberal than 8% of the House (80% and 20%, respectively for 2007).

Grassroots Support

Ron Paul's presidential candidacy has drawn a notable degree of grassroots support and donations. The decentralized structure of Paul's support base became most evident after his announcement of presidential candidacy in late 2007, when a website was set up to raise $1 million per week by recruiting individuals to pledge the same amount on the same day each week.


008 PaLADELPIRIA AT INDEPENDENCE MALL ICA Get Involved States People Press/Medio Store Donate S&M $12 Million to Win S7M in New Hampshire, lowa, Michigan, South Carolina, and Nevada by December 31st $6M 7,345,796.16 $SM toward freedom! As of 257 PMET $AM Recent Donor Daniel Ballif DONATE TODAY! Mt Vernon, WA

During the last fiscal quarter of 2007, several fund-raising operations unaffiliated with the official campaign managed to raise more than $17 million, boosted by a record-breaking collection of $4.3 million in donations on November 5th alone. Described by the news media as a "money bomb," this day-long campaign marked the largest amount of donation collected in a single day by any Republican candidate and the most successful online fund-raising campaign in a single day in American history.


Daily Donor rate, in ppl/hour 4000 average 3 days ago 3000 2 days ago -yesterday 1000 1 2am 2am 4am 8am 1 0am 1 2pm 2pm 4pm 6pm 8pm 10pm ain http:/lpaulcash.slact.net Generated on Nov 5 2007 at 11:55pm EST

Ron Paul Revolution

In addition to the fund-raising efforts, Paul's supporters often work independently of the official campaign team or the Republican party to promote his public image and mobilize fund-raising campaigns, a phenomenon which has been described as the "Ron Paul Revolution." Since its emergence during Paul's presidential candidacy in 2008, supporters of the Ron Paul Revolution movement have been a staple part of his campaign rallies and identified by placards and t-shirts bearing the slogan or "EVOL," a reversal of "LOVE" to represent peace and hope.


Liberty and Justi BUY MONEY BOMBS-RON PAUL 2008

Ron Paul Festival

In the days leading up to the Republican National Convention on August 27th, 2012, core supporters of Ron Paul and the non-profit organization Liberty Unleashed held a three day-long music and activist-oriented festival known as the "Ron Paul Festival" (Paulefest) at the Florida State Fairgrounds. Although the event's turnout of few thousand attendees was reported as far below the initial expectations put forth by the organizers, the festival drew some media coverage from mainstream news outlets[29][30] as well as political blogs[27][28] for the attendance from a diverse range of political and religious groups, most notably the John Birch Society and members of the Church of Scientology.



Ron [Paul] Swanson

On January 1st, 2012, a single-topic blog titled Ron [Paul] Swanson[1] was created, pairing photos of Ron Paul with quotes from likeable Libertarian Ron Swanson, a character from the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. The site was featured on Uproxx[8] and the Atlantic Wire.[9]


I got my first job when I was 9. Worked at a sheet metal factory. In two weeks, I was running the floor. Child labor laws are ruining this country. OATS _2012_ RESTORE AMERIC CHUNK) RESTO I don't believe in government. l think that all government is a waste of taxpayer money. My dream is to have the park system privatized and run entirely for profit by corporations, like Chuck E. Cheese They have an impeccable business model. I would rather work for Chuck E. Cheese I've eaten a commissary amburger for lunch every day for twelve years. I just wanted to make sure this pointless health crusade won't affect the only part of my job that I like.

Good Guy Ron Paul

A slew of Advice Animal image macros centered around portraits of Ron Paul have surfaced online since his announcement for the 2012 election bid, with strong results on image macro generator sites like Quickmeme and the social media aggregator site Reddit. On both sites, Ron Paul has been portrayed in a generally positive light across the board, reflecting his popularity amongst young conservatives on the web:


DISREGARD GOVERNMENT ACQUIRE LIBERTY SOMETHING THEN DOES IT DOESN'T THINK SMOKING WEED IS A GOOD IDEA THINKS YOU SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO DECIDE FOR YOURSELF

Doom Paul / It's Happening!

Doom Paul is a photoshop image macro series featuring American physician Ron Paul. Originally used to jokingly depict what could happen if Ron Paul was not elected for President during the 2012 elections, the images eventually grew to be used alongside incoming events to jokingly indicate that their arrival will have apocalyptic results. A common catchphrase used in combination with Doom Paul image macros is “It’s Happening!”


IT'S HAPPENING

Google Bombing Campaign

Following in the footsteps of the negative Spreading Santorum and Spread Romney Google bombing campaigns, Paul fans preemptively created "Spreading Ron Paul"[26] which provides a flattering definition of the candidate's name:


Ron Paul (ron-paul) 1. Liberty, Integrity, Consistency,Intellectual Revolution 2. Champion of the Constitution 3. Republican Candidate for President

Ron Paul Coin

RonPaulCoin is an alternative cryptocurrency featuring the face of Ron Paul and based on Litecoin’s SCRYPT-based protocol. In comparison to other leading alternative cryptocurrencies, RonPaulCoin is decisively limited in its scope and circulation volume with a market threshold of up to 2.1 million coins, about one tenth of Bitcoin's 21 million cap.


PAUL RON WE RESIDE 2014

Controversies

White Supremacist Affiliation

On February 2nd, 2012, hacktivist collective Anonymous published the text of e-mail exchanges made between Ron Paul's campaign associates and members of the white supremacist group "American Third Party Position." According to the statement released via Pastebin[20], Anonymous obtained the e-mail correspondence after hacking into the group's e-mail account as part of Operation Blitzkrieg[23], an Anonymous operation targeting a list of white supremacist groups and forums on the web.


OPERATION BLITZKRIEE TER FASTER GET WIT

It further claimed that the hackers were able to obtain evidence of direct contacts and meetings between Paul and members of the group including Jamie Kelso. The accusations against Paul's campaign were rapidly picked up by various news sites including International Business Times[22] as well as political blogs like Daily Beast[21] and Little Green Footballs.[24] When asked by journalists about the accusations, Paul's campaign spokesperson Gary Howard denied the story as "completely false, and a waste of time."


RON RAUL YOU ARE DISAPPOINT

RonPaul.com Domain Dispute

In 2008, a group of Paul supporters launched RonPaul.com[33] to drum up support for the politician. In January 2013, Paul mentioned in an interview on the Alex Jones radio show that he regretted not buying RonPaul.com previously. The owners of the site contacted him[35], asking to keep the domain they had worked on for five years. They also offered him RonPaul.org free of charge so he could maintain his online presence there. If he chose not to accept this, they valued the domain name at $250,000. Instead of responding to their letter, Paul filed a complaint[32][34] with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) asking for control over both RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org with no compensation to the sites' current owners. On May 11th, 2013, the WIPO panel ruled in favor of the grassroots organization, finding Paul guilty of reverse domain name hijacking[31][36], trying to intimidate the domain name owners after refusing their offer to transfer RonPaul.org to the politician for free. A spokesperson for Paul called the ruling "disappointing" but assured Paul would be launching a new site in the coming weeks.


FAN SITE Ron pa Ron Pau aul UTION com Home Who Is Ron Paul?Ron Paul 2016 20122008IssuesVideos » BookSE EventsMusic MiscContact War, and Important Updates Ron Paul on Homeschooling, Banking 2 Responses by RonPaul.com on May 29, 2013 Enter your email address to receive time- sensitive updates and action alerts from RonPaul.com Like 3 people like this. Be the first of your friends. Send Me Email Updates! >> 373. Homeschooling, War, and Banking | Ron Paul く。 Search RonPaul.com

"Cultural Marxism" Gaffe

On July 2nd, 2018, Ron Paul tweeted and posted to Facebook a post attempting to illustrate the dangers of "cultural marxism." Along with the post, he used an image showing Happy Merchant and several other racist stereotype characters punching Uncle Sam with arms colored like the USSR flag (shown below, left). The image is signed by Ben Garrison, but this is likely a photoshopped edit of a very similar political cartoon from 2008 (shown below, right).


Ron Paul @RonPaul Are you stunned by what has become of American culture? Well, it's not an accident. You've probably heard of Cultural Marxism," but do you know what it means? More here: facebook.com/ronpaul/photos... CUTURAL MARXİSM! BEN 7/2/18, 11:10 AM andrea uscategui @andreauscat 1 Follow #1 8Ago El 1ro de Septiembre las calles seran Chavista, los Piti-Yankees no pasaran a la Gran CCs. Translate Tweet EUAA!

Paul quickly deleted the post and replaced it with an image against "political correctness" (shown below).[39]


Ron Paul @RonPal Follow Are you stunned by what has become of American culture? Well, it's not an accident. You've probably heard of "Cultural Marxism," but do you know what it means? More here: facebook.com/ronpaul/photos. CORRECTNESS 12:18 PM-2 Jul 2018

Twitter users caught the original tweet and began spreading it online. Twitter user @PatBlanchfield pointed it out and gained over 1,200 retweets (shown below, left). @jackdwagner did the same and gained over 250 retweets (shown below, right). The gaffe was covered by The Hill[40] and Splinter[41] that day.


Patrick Blanchfield @PatBlanchfield Follow jesus f------ christ main Are you stunned by what has become of American culture? Well, it's not an accident. You've probably heard of "Cultural Marxism," but do you know what it means?... More here: facebook.com/ronpaul/photos... Matron! 12:37 PM-2 Jul 2018 1,189 Retweets 3,675 Likes jack wagner @jackdwagner Follow Replying to @RonPaul why did you delete your first draft? Are you stunned by what has become of American culture? Well, it's not an accident. You've probably heard of Cultural Marxism," but do you know what it means?...More here: facebook.com/ronpaul/photos 12:29 PM-2 Jul 2018

Later that day, Ron Paul signed a tweet attributing the error to a person on his social media staff and said that when he saw the tweet, it was immediately deleted (shown below).


Ron Paul @RonPal Follow Earlier today a staff member inadvertently posted an offensive cartoon on my social media. I do not make my own social media posts and when I discovered the mistake it was immediately deleted Ron Paul 3:18 PM-2 Jul 2018

Search Interest

Search for Ron Paul was on the radar in small doses throughout his early career and hit its first peak in January 2007 when he took second place in the Louisiana caucus, behind John McCain. A smaller peak happened in September 2008, possibly coinciding with the Montana Constitution Party announcing[6] that Ron Paul would be their candidate. He asked to be removed from their ballot[7], but was denied. Search picked up again in May 2011 when he announced his bid for the 2012 Republican candidacy.

External References

[1] Tumblr (via Wayback Machine) – Ron Paul Swanson

[2] Facebook – Joy Paul LeBlanc's photo

[3] RonPaul.com – Ron Paul: I Went

[4] Reddit – Young Ron Paul and son

[5] International Business Times – Ron Paul 2012: ‘And I Went’ Photo Goes Viral

[6] Ballot Access News – Montana Constitution Party Submits Presidential Electors Pledged to Ron Paul and Michael Peroutka

[7] Flathead Bacon – Ron Paul Wants Off Montana Ballot

[8] Uproxx – Ron Paul Swanson Is The Crusty Libertarian Hybrid America Needs Right Now

[9] The Atlantic Wire (via Wayback Machine) – Introducing Ron Paul Swanson

[10] Twitter – @RonPaul

[11] Facebook – Ron Paul

[12] Socialbakers – The Presidential Race on Facebook

[13] Sociagility (via Wayback Machine) – The 'Social Primary'

[14] New York Times – The Web Takes Ron Paul for a Ride

[15] This November 5th (via Wayback Machine) – Home

[16] Wikipedia – Money bomb

[17] New York Times – Guy Fawkes Day Helps Raise Millions for Paul

[18] ABC News – Who are Ron Paul's Donors?

[19] Wikipedia – Draft Ron Paul Movement

[20] Pastebin – Anonymous Ron Paul White supremecist Links (page unavailable)

[21] The Daily Beast – Paul Accused of Ties to White Supremacy

[22] International Business Times – Anonymous Expose Nazi Third Position 'Bridging Tactic' with Ron Paul

[23] MSNBC (via Wayback Machine) – Anonymous attacks American Nazis

[24] Little Green Football – Anonymous Hacks White Supremacist Site, Finds Direct Links to Ron Paul

[25] Wall Street Journal – Paul Sees Convention Fight as Best Bet

[26] Spreading Ron Paul (via Wayback Machine) – Ron Paul

[27] Slate – Scientologists for Ron Paul

[28] BuzzFeed – Scientologists Find Their Place At Ron Paul Festival

[29] Washington Post – Ron Paul’s fans throw a party without guest of honor

[30] Los Angeles Times – Ron Paul gathering in Tampa draws sparse crowd

[31] The Daily Dot – Ron Paul charged with "reverse domain name hijacking"

[32] The Daily Dot – Ron Paul asks the U.N. to take RonPaul.com away from his fans

[33] RonPaul.com – Home

[34] Google Docs – Ron Paul Complaint

[35] RonPaul.com – Ron Paul Calls on United Nations to Confiscate RonPaul.com

[36] Wikipedia – Reverse domain name hijacking

[37] The Daily Caller – Ron Paul to launch new media channel

[38] Ron Paul Channel (via Wayback Machine) – August 12th, 2013

[39] Twitter – Ron Paul

[40] The Hill – Ron Paul tweets racist cartoon, faces backlash

[41] Splinter – Ron Paul Pops Up to Remind Everyone He's Still Very Racist

Recent Videos 21 total

Recent Images 134 total


Top Comments

Allch Chcar
Allch Chcar

He's a great guy, one of the few good ones in politics. But he has a penchant for hiring staff that does things like this when left unattended. He needs to be less laissez faire when it comes to his media staff.

+19

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