I don’t follow politics very closely, but Jesus H. Christ is it hard to avoid Ron Paul stories on the internet. Here’s one from Wired: Ron Paul Supporters Make History with $6 Million Online Haul. One offhand comment especially struck me:
The record fundraising boost, as well as an associated blimp advertising project, has in addition earned the candidate attention at a time when the media is focusing on newspaper editorial endorsements.
(emphasis added)
I get this image of every traditional news outlet in the country looking at their collective calendars and going, “Hmm, if it’s December, it must be time for newspapers to start making endorsements.” And suddenly I am overwhelmed by a sense of Asimo-vu — a rare but legitimate medical condition whereby the subject has a distinct feeling that he has read something like this before in an Isaac Asimov story. And behold, Wikipedia to the rescue:
The premise of the [Foundation] series is that scientist Hari Seldon spent his life developing a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory, a concept devised by Asimov and Campbell. Using the law of mass action, it can predict the future, but only on a large scale; it is error-prone for anything smaller than a planet or an empire. Using these techniques, Seldon foresees the fall of the Galactic Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a dark age lasting thirty thousand years before a second great empire arises. To shorten the period of barbarism, he creates two Foundations, small secluded havens of art and science, on opposite ends of the galaxy.
… Hari Seldon’s plan is often treated as an inevitable mechanism of society, a vast mindless mob mentality of quadrillions of humans across the galaxy, and many in the series struggle against it only to fail. However, the plan itself is reliant upon cunning individuals like Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow to make wise decisions, and capitalize on the trends. The Mule, a single individual with remarkable powers, topples the Foundation and nearly destroys the Seldon plan with his special, unforeseen abilities.
In the Foundation books, the prerecorded ghost of Hari Seldon appears periodically, to discuss current events and how they fit into his grand plan. I specifically remember the scene shortly after The Mule started wreaking havoc with the Empire, where Seldon appeared and started talking about the grave issues of the day… which, as it happened, were the grave issues that the political leaders had put off dealing with because The Mule had started wreaking havoc. This was their first clear sign that The Mule was not, in fact, part of the Seldon plan, and that they were on their own.
You might think that Ron Paul is The Mule. But he’s not. If I’m right, he’s much, much more than that — he’s A Mule, one of thousands of potential disruptive forces that are just now able to get traction through internet-enabled grassroots volunteerism. I say this in spite of the fact that the phrase “internet-enabled grassroots volunteerism” makes me want to vomit. Whether Ron Paul’s campaign ultimately succeeds or goes the way of the Howard Dean dodo bird, I can not say. But I’m pretty sure that he — and his getting this far — wasn’t part of the plan.
You should really listen to the Bill Moyers journal podcast recently about the Ron Paul campaign. It’s a fairly in depth look, but the part that struck me as brilliant was how the campaign looks at the internet, basically the same way we do.
Paraphrasing, probably badly;
“While other campaigns delegate tasks to it’s internet and grassroots components the Ron Paul campaign delegates power.”
That record breaking fundraising day on the 5th of November was actually run by a single volunteer, who has never met Ron Paul in person and is not employed or directly affiliated with the campaign in any way. He’s just a guy who was never involved in politics and after listening to a speech decided to devote a large portion of his life to getting Ron Paul elected.
I’m actually not a Ron Paul supporter but I’m excited about him none the less because of how much traction a REPUBLICAN is getting through this kind of effort.
Comment by mikeal — Monday, December 17, 2007 @ 9:15 pm
I’m pretty sure that he — and his getting this far — wasn’t part of the plan.
Yeah, but whose plan?
Comment by Adam Rice — Monday, December 17, 2007 @ 9:16 pm
I saw a quote the other day (on digg, no less) that has completely summed it up for me:
“I’ve only been around for a few presidential campaigns but I’m pretty sure THIS is how its supposed to work.”
-nuhrd
Comment by Chris Moore — Monday, December 17, 2007 @ 10:26 pm
I’m pretty much automatically opposed to anything that might keep a Republican administration in charge of the United States and its satellites (not least because I live in one), but I have to admit it’s an impressive development.
Comment by Jake — Monday, December 17, 2007 @ 10:47 pm
If Ron Paul actually gets the nomination, it might be impressive. But it seems to me that, right now, Ron Paul is, at most, a rather less succesful version of George McGovern. I don’t know that doing this via the internet rather than student and youth campaigning is actually that big of a paradigm shift.
Comment by voyou — Monday, December 17, 2007 @ 11:11 pm
McGovern spent a long time building up infrastructure, network, etc. He was fringe-y, but he didn’t come from nowhere. That’s a big difference. Interesting interview with Zephyr Teachout on the Paul campaign (echoing what mikael said about the distribution of power) here.
Comment by Luis — Monday, December 17, 2007 @ 11:16 pm
I hear a lot of stories about Ron Paul & his campaign as well, but most of them are more like this:
http://flickr.com/photos/mezzoblue/2118964236/
I’m just saying, you may be confusing Mules with Jackasses.
Comment by Billy — Monday, December 17, 2007 @ 11:55 pm
Make your own Ron Paul campaign slogan!
Ron Paul: proving that all the digg fraud and grassroots money in the world still can’t move you out of dead last in the polls
Ron Paul: working to repeal the thirteenth amendment as it encroaches upon states’ rights
Comment by Josh — Tuesday, December 18, 2007 @ 2:54 am
Billy: one can be both. Certainly, the big problem with Paul as Mule is that he, uh, isn’t actually having any impact. Raising money != impact.
Tangentially, I’m surprised I can’t find the definitive ‘ron paul is batshit crazy’ site. Because he is, but the documentation for this seems to be very fragmented/scattered.
Comment by Luis — Tuesday, December 18, 2007 @ 10:03 am
I like Ron Paul’s honesty and ideas. Just for that if I could, I would vote him. Having said that, I must say that he should share more details about *how* he would go about delivering on what he promises.
Comment by Alok — Tuesday, December 18, 2007 @ 4:57 pm
Ah, yes, because the problem with the gold standard is how he’d achieve it.
Comment by Luis — Tuesday, December 18, 2007 @ 6:20 pm
I liked the part where Hari Seldon’s pre-recorded video message appears - and there’s no-one there to hear it.
Comment by Chris Hester — Wednesday, December 19, 2007 @ 5:51 am
“It’s just a handful of people that run everything, and that’s provable…. I have this feeling that whoever’s elected president, like Clinton was, no matter what promises you make on the campaign trail - blah, blah, blah - when you win, you go into this smoky room with the twelve industrialist, capitalist scumfucks that got you in there, and this little screen comes down… and it’s a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you’ve never seen before, which looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll…. And then the screen comes up, the lights come on, and they say to the new president, ‘Any questions?’ … [President]: ‘Just what my agenda is.’” - Bill Hicks
good luck, like the crime that is the drug war and the majority of people who are asleep in America, the near porn-like showing of pro-prison and law enforcement shows on every channel, our civil rights being ripped away every day, good luck with getting anyone to change anything for the people, of the people, by the people.
Comment by love — Wednesday, December 19, 2007 @ 1:15 pm
Bush is the Mule. America is a lynch mob waiting to happen.
Comment by Exotic Electron — Sunday, December 23, 2007 @ 7:35 am
Just look at the comments already! Now you’ve done it. Leave needling the Paultards to the thugs like me. You’re too clean and professional to need to wrestle in the sewage with them.
Comment by Penguin Pete — Sunday, December 23, 2007 @ 8:49 am
Ron Paul may be the best thing to happen to America in about 200 years.
Comment by The Presidential Candidates — Sunday, December 23, 2007 @ 11:09 am