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NPR on Ron Paul May 19, 2007

Posted by Todd Zeigler in Bivings, Media, Politics, Social Networks, Technology, Tools, Web 2.0

The Bivings Group was recently interviewed by NPR’s All Things Considered for a piece about the online success of Republican/Libertarian Presidential candidate Ron Paul. Micah Sifry from the Personal Democracy Forum was also interviewed.

You can listen to the piece here.

In the interview, Robert Smith asked me if I thought all of the Paul-related activity would have a real impact on the election. Can Paul become the next Howard Dean?

I said no. Paul isn’t going to become a viable candidate and I don’t think the online movement being built around Paul’s candidacy will come close to reaching the scale the Dean movement achieved.

Regardless, I think all the noise being created has had the desired effect. It is exposing more people to Ron Paul, which is all his supporters can really hope for. As I told Robert, one of the reasons Paul supporters are turning to Digg and online polls is that they feel they aren’t getting enough attention from the mainstream media. So the fact that NPR and other media outlets are doing stories on Ron Paul’s online success is the ultimate validation of what they are doing online.

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  1. Vote -1 Vote +1Mike - May 20th, 2007 at 12:01 am

    I think part of the problem is that Dr. Paul has his own quirky viewpoints on a lot of things. If he ever hits double-digits in polling, you’ll see a lot of hit pieces on his desire to return to the gold standard — or something even more obscure — as if that were somehow more horrifying than eagerly cheerleading for war against Iran and torture in Guantanamo.

  2. Vote -1 Vote +1Alex Hammer - May 21st, 2007 at 9:45 am

    Covered this post at http://hammer2006.blogspot.com.....cerpt.html

    I believe that when a candidate first gets mainstream coverage, then the public will decide whether they wish to embrace him or her or not. Until that occurs, it is really difficult, I believe, to truly predict in either direction what will or won’t occur.

    Just recently, Mitt Romney was in single digits, and now he is leading many of the GOP polls. But he is a former Governor, of course.

  3. Vote -1 Vote +1David - May 21st, 2007 at 1:21 pm

    Todd, we talked briefly about the Howard Dean comparison at PDF on Friday (in line for the restroom of all places!), and I’ve been mulling it over since. The comparison between the two candidates is apt, though there are obviously some major differences.

    As you recall, the traditional media suddenly began to take Dean seriously in the second quarter of 2003 only after 1) he began to rake in cash from online donors and 2) the meetup.com storyline reached critical mass.

    The competition between the current leading characters may begin to wear thin over the course of the marathon primary season. (Some might say it already has.) But more importantly, as the Dean campaign exemplified, the media loves the upstart/dark-horse narrative. If Ron Paul is able to raise funds online at a greater pace than the rest of the second tier – and the early signs suggest he may have the potential to do just that – the media will up their coverage of his campaign dramatically.

    Unlike Dean, I think Ron Paul ultimately has no chance at winning the primary because his views do not represent the majority of his party. But he does give voice to a significant minority of Republicans who oppose the Iraq war and don’t just talk the talk on scaling back federal government, who are represented disproportionately online. Thus, Paul may yet be able to play a major role in the intra-party debate.

  4. Vote -1 Vote +1Todd Zeigler - May 21st, 2007 at 3:29 pm

    David,

    I think Paul could play a role. I just think it is important to keep in mind that Paul is running as a protest candidate. He is running to talk about his issues. While Dean may have started out that way, at some point he became a viable candidate. Paul is not mainstream enough to get to that point.

    It was great meeting you at PDF. Get in touch when you guys get close to launch. Would love to get a demo.

    TOdd

  5. Vote -1 Vote +1BenFranklinsNephew - July 17th, 2007 at 12:56 am

    RON PAUL IS THE RIGHT MAN, AT THE RIGHT PLACE, AT THE RIGHT TIME IN HISTORY.

    HE WILL BE OUR NEXT PRESIDENT.

  6. Vote -1 Vote +1Omar - July 26th, 2007 at 1:32 pm

    We need someone like Ron Paul as president now more than ever.

    Perhaps America will finally return to its former glory.

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The Bivings Report (TBR) is a source of news, insight, research, analysis and conversation on web-based communications and its increasingly powerful role in the economy, politics and society. TBR content is created, posted and managed by internet strategists, media/communications analysts, web developers, designers and programmers, all of whom are employees of The Bivings Group.

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