Stories of Ron Paul’s wellspring of support sound like the stuff
of urban legend. Politically inactive citizens suddenly become
fervent supporters of Paul after catching a TV segment or Internet
video clip. It’s like love at first sight; they pledge to do
whatever they possibly can to get him elected.
Matthew Buckman’s is one such story. The 25-year-old New
Hampshirite was “not at all” politically active until just over a
month ago. What happened? He was searching YouTube for music videos
from a favorite heavy metal band, when he came across a video of
the Texas Representative turned presidential candidate. The speech
had been posted by the band, so Buckman watched it, and was
instantly hooked.
“As soon as I heard about him,” Buckman told me after a Ron Paul
town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire, “I went right to
the headquarters and started calling people.” He hasn’t stopped,
apparently: “I have called over 2,000 people for him.”
Buckman was attracted, like many Paul supporters, by the
candidate’s opposition to the War on Drugs, his less
interventionist foreign policy, and what you might call the whole
package: the Congressman’s straight-talking, honest demeanor.
If there are many people like Buckman out there, Paul could
shock the political establishment by claiming third place or higher
in the today’s primary. However, there is one hitch. Though the
state is currently convulsed with Paul supporters, many are from
out of state and are thus ineligible to vote.
ON SUNDAY, I ATTENDED the New Hampshire Liberty Forum in Nashua
where Paul was slated to make a speech closing the four-day
conference. The Crowne Plaza Hotel was so packed that I was forced
to park illegally in an adjacent lot.
The room where Paul was to speak contained what I eyeballed to
be over 200 people. They were fired up. Some were waving American
flags while others thrust their fists in the air or hollered. Not
known to be a rousing speaker, Paul still electrified the crowd by
promising them that, if elected, he would bring the troops home
from Iraq immediately and work to abolish the Federal Reserve.
After the speech, I interviewed more than a dozen people. Some
were recent converts to Paul, having never heard of him before his
entry into the Presidential race, while others were more seasoned
libertarians. All of them were willing to do just about anything to
help him win the Republican nomination.
* Michelle Murphy flew to New Hampshire all the way from
Washington state to campaign for Paul. “Politically confused,” but
a registered Republican, Murphy said she was attracted to Paul
because working for a government contractor convinced her that our
current bureaucracy is a mass of red tape, and Paul is the
proverbial giant pair of scissors.
* A former Howard Dean and John Kerry supporter, Brooke Moore
recently learned about Ron Paul from her brother. She became a
supporter of Paul for his “foreign policy stance and his monetary
policy.” Like many others campaigning for Paul, however, she too
was not a resident of the Granite state.
* Aidan Loewer, a recent college grad, switched his party
registration from Libertarian to Republican in order to vote for
Ron Paul. His vote, however, will have to count in Pennsylvania,
where he is a resident.
On it went. Many out of the out-of-staters in New Hampshire to
campaign for Paul are being put up by Operation Live Free or Die,
“an effort,” according to the Concord Monitor, “to bring
1,000 people to New Hampshire before the primary to campaign for
Ron Paul.”
The project, like much of the so-called Ron Paul Revolution, is
run independently of Paul’s campaign. A former Google engineer
organizes the effort and provides a place of residence of the
campaigners.
LATER THAT DAY, I attended a Paul town hall meeting to be televised
on a local TV station. The event was supposed to target independent
voters who have not made up their mind on who to support yet.
While there must have been some such voters there, I couldn’t
find a single one after the event ended. As far as I could tell,
these were all die-hard Paul supporters.
As I exited the television studio and headed to my rental car, I
began to run down the mental checklist. Yes, Ron Paul had fervent
supporters, but weren’t too many of them from out-of-state to make
a difference for Paul in New Hampshire? Could he really place
third?
I ran into a group of Ron Paul campaigners, all from out of
state, and put it to them. I asked whether those campaigning with
them were mainly from New Hampshire or from elsewhere?
One of the Paulites quickly answered that a high percentage —
probably 80 percent — were from in-state. Then, he paused to think
about that for a second and changed his answer. He said that just
about everybody he had met campaigning so far had actually been
from out of state. He added that maybe he had just interacted with
the wrong people.
Maybe so, but it seems odd that both of us would have the same
experience. It’s possible that when the votes are counted tonight,
Ron Paul’s virtual campaign will have failed to take root in New
Hampshire soil.
Jamie Weinstein, a recent Collegiate Network Journalism
Fellow, is a freelance writer covering the 2008 Presidential
Election.
