Ron Paul

Back to "Super Tuesday," Ron Paul was hardly ever covered by the media. Although he may not have done that well for the primary, he was voted second place in Montana. But the media behaved as he wasn’t even part of this primary; or just interviewing after a great loss. Why has the result of Ron Paul become so different compared to his image via internet? Ron Paul had the most friends and supporters in major social networking sites— MySpace and Facebook— for a Republican.

Including the Democratic candidates, he was in the third place overall. In addition, I have heard that Ron Paul was ranked always in the top 40 viewed in YouTube.
Was this a plan to get the interests of the internet savvy? Or was it a desperate measure taken under the pressure of necessity? The answer would probably be closer to the latter. Two candidates have been ignored by the mainstream media. Not only was Ron Paul trying to be silenced by the mainstream media, but John Edwards from the Democratic Party was in the same situation.

They weren’t ignored because they do not have the power or name value. Looking at the fund raising, Ron Paul was ranked the seventh, raising 42.1 million dollars and John Edwards ranked fifth, raising 44.3 million dollars. The leading fund raiser Hilary Clinton has raised 118.3 million dollars along with Barack Obama, raising 103.8 million dollars. The leading candidate for the Republicans, John McCain raised 42.1 million dollars ranking sixth, which is lower than John Edwards. Having Mitt Romney in the third place with 90.1 million dollars, it is surprising that Mike Huckabee was ranked twelfth with 9 million dollars over all (CNN-Politics-Finances). What the public could understand from this situation is that John Edwards and Ron Paul are both good fund raisers as a politician. Candidates must have good convincing policies and commitments in order to receive reliance and donation from the public.

The possible reason for the two candidates being silenced by the mainstream media is that their policies were inconvenient to the major companies. Ron Paul, a libertarian— believing in a limited government— is the only Republican that was against the war and claiming an immediate evacuation from the Mid East. Even though the leading Democratic candidates have preached the necessity of arms reduction to the Mid East, their commitment wasn’t as strong as Ron Paul’s. Barack Obama has said that depending on the necessity, he would maintain the army in the Mid West for a while. Now if my understanding of corporate coalition is somewhat proper, I believe the media has a strong relation with the powerful corporations. These corporations do not want an instant evacuation in order to make profit for their own company. In addition, Ron Paul has lost his attraction after some media has accused him for his newsletter “Political Report” issued in 1992. Even the Cato Institute— which had a relationship with Ron Paul with publishing his conclusion from the commission couple decades ago— has written an article of Ron Paul that although his policy is considerable, he will not win the presidency.


Gracias