There seems to be a massive disconnect between what the mainstream press sees and is reporting, and the apparent support that Paul is getting as gauged from "alternative" outlets. F'rinstance, right now Paul has more people subscribed to his YouTube channel than any other Republican candidate. And as of this writing, "ron paul for president" entered into a Google search yields 162,000 results... compared to 75,400 for mainstream press-projected "frontrunner" Rudolph Giuliani.
And yet, the "traditional" media persists in largely ignoring Ron Paul, because he's not "polling high enough" compared go Guiliani, Romney, and a few others.
There's something horribly, horribly wrong with the mainstream media's perspective...
The only "scientific" polling that is being done by the major news organizations relies on old-school telephone landlines. No cell phones are being called for these polls (it's not allowed by law). A lot of people have migrated entirely to wireless phone sevice. That doesn't necessarily mean that a huge portion of those without landlines will not be supporting the "frontrunners", but it certainly seems that there would be a comparable level of interest in these candidates on the Internet. But right now, there isn't any.
In every way, Ron Paul's candidacy is the one getting the most attention... except the standard media isn't seeing that because it's still locked-in with old-school methodology.
What does this mean? I think it indicates that there are a lot of people who are interested in Paul and his message of less government, that are invisible on the regular media's radar screen. And there really is no currently known way of taking many of those into account with statistical polling as has been understood for the past several decades.
If the mainstream press is to act as responsible journalists, it's going to have to take this into consideration when reporting on candidates from now on, because otherwise they are practicing subjective reporting by omission... which I am compelled to wonder whether or not this might be by design.
I'm going to be interested to see what kind of reaction there will be following this coming week's Republican candidates' debate. A lot of people did not know who Ron Paul was before last week. Since then he's fast become an unavoidable contender. How much higher might his star rise in the weeks and months to come in the lead-up to the only polls that really count: the ballot boxes? And how is the media going to react to something that, for the first time in a very long time, it cannot project with any sense of accuracy?
2 comments:
Ooh, there's another Republican debate coming up? Excellent.
I liked the first from a week or so ago. I thought my two favorites, Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee, handled it pretty well. But, with so many candidates, nobody really got to speak too much. Plus, I still have a hard time telling some of the lower tier candidates apart.
Ron Paul definitely has the internet crowd. Even I friended him on MySpace.
I'm going to have to repeat things that others have said here, but it's my duty as a citizen and a human being.
Ron Paul is the only candidate that has taken a principled stand throughout his career, from either democrat or republican parties. Beyond that, he has decades of experience in politics.
A lot of people are just learning about Ron Paul right now, but the media blackout will continue. We need to educate our friends, relatives (especially those who are still brainwashed by TV about the issues that matter and about Ron Paul.
The president is sworn to protect and defend the constitution of the United States. Reflect upon this, and then please act, and don't stop acting.
Post a Comment