Let me start by saying that, before I started doing vague research for this, I knew next to nothing about Ron Paul. I knew that he has two first names. I was aware that he was a Republican, but had no idea what kind. I was not aware of his race, although I could guess (the background color of this page), nor his religious leanings, although I could guess.
But yesterday, while working the polls, I got to have face to face confrontations with some of his rabid (but not real smart) supporters. Electioneering is illegal within 100 feet of the polling place. This includes your buttons, shirts, and flesh-stamps (can I just say “WTF”?). That means, as inspector, if you walk in with any of same, I will ask you politely to remove it, reminding you why. There’s always one in each election who walks in (this year, it was an Obama ’08 shirt) and is completely embarrassed, apologetic, and acquiescent. This year, however, there were an additional 5 who refused, became belligerent, and ended up not being able to vote. All of them were Ron Paul supporters.
As Wired said, “One Candidate Has Mastered Online Campaigning. Too Bad It’s Ron Paul.” He has a couple creepily extensive Wikipedia entries about his positions, and I have seen more home-made signs (on freeways, on tshirts) for him than for any other candidate. But every single person (young, affluent, still-living-with-parents) who attempted to vote for him while wearing shirts yesterday was not registered as a Republican…and therefore, could not vote for him. Which did not improve the situation.
(Incidentally, as I’m writing this, a supporter of his who I work with agreed with my summation of his supporters as some of the most ill-informed about the election process voters I’d met.)
In a time when the only candidate we hear about are the ones the (MSM) media want us to, we need campaigns like Ron Paul’s (yes, even including the Williams of the world). They just also need some down-to-earthiness since this is still the real world.
