Finally we see Ron Paul garnering attention from the major media outlets. Some Ron Paul supporters were ready to throw in the towel on obtaining any mainstream coverage. So what is the big deal? What has changed?
Well he has preformed well in Iowa taking second in the first straw poll losing by only a few hundred votes. He has always had adamant support and great fund raising capabilities. He is definitely not new, he has been politically active since 1976. Sure sooner or later he had to make some headway in the national headlines but I believe something forced the hand of the media moguls.
The nail in the coffin for the Paul suppressors was the now infamous November 12th CBS debate where the gracious media allowed Paul a pa(u)ltry ninety seconds of airtime in a ninety minute debate! What happened after that was what every network feared but wouldn't recognize. I don't think I am going out on a limb when I say Ron Paul supporters are a majority of the internet political blogging and commenting traffic. The CBS forum servers probably took the biggest beating. There were thousands of comments that directly addressed the bias and along with those some threats mixed in. Several stated that they were not watching CBS anymore (ever) and that they would not support their advertizes.
CBS advertisers Ron Paul forums.
So there was a strong backlash. That I think we can agree on. But what proof is there that Ron Paul supporters have taken the internet by storm? Well any consistent Political Tuber (YouTube) knows that the fastest way to start an argument is to say anything marginally bad about Ron Paul. His supporters are fervent and seemingly everywhere. Another way to quantify the hypothesis is to look at the number of views for Ron Paul videos. Dozens of his videos have multimillion hits and he has several times the streaming videos of any candidate and arguably more than all of them combined. Now we have the infamous likes and dislikes. Any pro Paul video has a like vs dislike ratio that looks like a "light sabre" (Tubers definition of the imbedded like vs dislike bar ______________________________ __ the red part is the sabre handle) sometimes hundreds to one ratios. There is also a top comment (typically two) on each video. They are voted on by fellow viewers one can dislike or like the comment. These are dominated by pro Paul supporters. The following videos demonstrate Ron Paul's You Tube effectiveness.
TYT Nation (Progressive Liberal News Organization)
Ron Paul ad 6.2 million views
Ron Paul Dominates YouTube
So we know the bloggosphere, YouTube, and News Network forums are fully in the control of the "Paulians", which is much better than Paulistas don't you think? But what are the other major sources of internet traffic with respect to political activeness? MySpace? Yeah right, that was so 2007! What about AOL and Yahoo? Well I don't really remember what AOL is but I do remember Yahoo. If your 65 or older you have a home at Yahoo. A very distant fourth behind YouTube, Facebook and lead by of course Google. As far as political prowess goes Yahoo is a non player...period. So yeah we have Facebook left, that's it there is nothing else. Ron Paul is second on Facebook behind Mitt Romney. Since Dec 4th Ron Paul is picking up the most supporters per day by a land slide. He is also the top elected official still currently holding office barring John McCain who is losing thousands of fans per month, and not in the Primaries.
Top U.S. Internet Sites
Facebook Statistics by Canidate
So this is what is really going on when it pertains to the internet no matter what the news want's you to believe. How much of an impact it is going to have on the outcome of the 2012 presidential election is for another blog but suffice it to say, it is going to be important.
