As anyone who
reads this site certainly knows by now, Ron Paul raised $4.2 million
in 24 hours on Nov. 5th. It was the shocking result of
a "money bomb," organized — as usual with the Paul campaign
— spontaneously, just three weeks earlier, by an individual supporter
unconnected officially with the campaign. And, except for a few
mentions by Dr. Paul after he found out about it, the official campaign
had nothing to do with it.
That one-day
total is about 80% of what Dr. Paul raised in the entire previous
quarter, which itself was very impressive and garnered him a significant
amount of mainstream media coverage — not significant compared to
what they give the anointed front-runners whom they've been shoving
down our throats incessantly for two straight years, but significant
compared to the prior coverage they've given Dr. Paul this year.
The amount
is also a one-day online record for any candidate, and is first-tier
money no matter how one objectively looks at it. It's also more
than McCain raised in all of the previous quarter, about half of
what Thompson raised in the previous quarter, and more than one-third
of what Giuliani and Romney raised in the previous quarter (not
counting the loans Romney made to himself.) And he raised it all
in one day.
Dr. Paul now
has over $7.5 million for the quarter; if donations for the others
are about the same as last quarter (and especially if donations
for the others decline, as they did from Q2 to Q3), even without
any more "money bombs," he's on pace to be in first place
in fundraising among the Republicans for the fourth quarter — both
in terms of gross donations and cash-on-hand. But there are more
"money bombs" scheduled: one
on Nov. 11th for Veterans Day, and another
on Dec. 16th, the anniversary of the 1773 Boston
Tea Party tax protest.
This is getting
really, really exciting.
The Old
Media
Even so, if
you thought the staggering Nov 5th total would finally
win significant coverage and respect from the establishment media,
you were wrong. It's obvious now that nothing short of electoral
success will (very, very begrudgingly) force the mainstream media
to admit that Ron Paul is a serious candidate with a serious chance
to be president. (Yes, higher poll numbers would also help, but
the polls are controlled in various ways by the establishment, such
as with whom gets polled, what types of questions are asked, and
what kinds of options are given; a CBS poll last month still didn't
even list Dr. Paul as an option. But fundraising, as Dr. Paul has
proven, is much harder to control — even with the restrictive campaign
finance laws. And somehow I get the feeling that, if Paul were like
Huckabee and had little money, but were polling around 8–10%, suddenly
money would be a more important criterion than polling.)
The next day's
coverage was limited, compared to the magnitude of the story. And
much of the print coverage was as dismissive and sarcastic as ever,
continuing to use terms like "extreme long-shot" and "fringe
candidate," along with a requisite, out-of-context photo of
Dr. Paul scowling; while much of the TV coverage mentioned the story
in passing, in between such urgent, earth-shattering news as the
current price of gasoline and Britney Spears' custody battle with
Kevin Federline. And in almost every TV interview with Dr. Paul,
the interviewer asked if he plans to run as a third-party candidate
now that he has all of this money. How come they never ask people
like Giuliani or Obama that question?
(However,
in fairness, some of the coverage was decent.)
The overall
sparse and poor coverage is another sign of how irrelevant the mainstream
media have become, how much they deliberately distort reality, and
how the Internet exposes them. Is it any wonder why newspaper circulation
is in such a free-fall that, if today's tends continue, most newspapers
will be bankrupt in a few years (so get ready for the government
to bail some of them out with your money), that almost no one under
40 reads them, and almost no one under 60 watches the evening network
news?
To illustrate
the Old Mediau2018s near-worthlessness, here is a list of what I've
learned this year about the Paul campaign from them. (Some of these
points will be either contradictory or redundant because they came
from different sources, but that's not the point; the point is they're
all lies, distortions and half-truths — or some mix thereof.):
1. Ron Paul
doesn't exist.
As I discussed
in an earlier
column, the "legitimate" contenders for president
were anointed by the Old Media two years ago, after the mid-term
elections; all elections are mostly scams to con average, unsophisticated
people into thinking that they control the government because they're
allowed to choose between interchangeable socialist-fascist candidate
A or B; and the establishment doesn't take kindly to anyone disrupting
that script by telling people that there are other viable candidates.
CNN offered
some of the better coverage of Nov. 5th; in one story,
they admitted that the media has largely ignored Paul all year,
and they cited a study from media-tracking company VMS that showed
that, from Aug. 2006 to Aug. 2007, Ron Paul's name was mentioned
by the media 4,695 times, while John McCain's was mentioned 95,005
times. In other words, for every time Paul was mentioned once, McCain
was mentioned 20 times. (VMS apparently doesn't make their findings
freely available online, but it's safe to assume that the deviation
between Paul and any other anointed front-runner is at least as
bad. In fairness to the media, rumors that Paul might run didn't
leak until Jan., and he didn't start his campaign until Feb. But
I'd wager that the results of a study of Feb. to Sept. of this year
wouldn't be much better.) The media decides who the viable candidates
are based on how much they talk about them, and the support for
the front-runners is almost totally manufactured by the media —
it's a mile wide, but an inch deep.
2. Ron Paul
is a nut / wack-job / fruitcake / 9/11 conspiracy theorist.
Dr. Paul has
stated repeatedly that he does not believe that 9/11 was an inside
job, meaning the government orchestrated the attack. But, no matter
how much he denies it, it won't go away. This charge apparently
comes from his association, as a guest, with some in the media who
espouse such beliefs, as if being a guest makes him responsible
for what they say or that he agrees with everything they believe.
It also comes from distorting his correct assertion that terrorist
attacks like 9/11 are blowback from the United States' foreign policy,
which isn't the same thing as believing that the government orchestrated
and executed the 9/11 attacks.
The establishment
paints Dr. Paul's other ideas, like sound money and abolishing the
Fed, abolishing the income tax, ending U.S. imperialism, ending
the Drug War and ending healthcare distortions like cartelization,
with terms like "nutty" because they profit from the status
quo, so they're trying to stop ideas from catching on that would
decimate their pocketbooks.
3. Ron Paul
can't win.
Despite his
fundraising success this week, many in the Old Media are still saying
he has no shot at the nomination. No honest, objective journalist
could look at Paul's grassroots support — especially considering
that he's the only GOP candidate with any significant grassroots
support or excitement, or at his fundraising, and draw this conclusion.
That is, unless they know something we don't about votes being rigged,
which is doubtful. (It's not that vote fraud never occurs; it's
that it's probably not standard procedure — and, if it were, not
that many people in the media would be aware of it.)
Of course,
if Paul really had no chance to win, they not only wouldn't bother
to inform people of that, but they wouldn't even be covering him
at all. There are dozens of people running for president next year
who really can't win, but the media isn't covering them — and they
certainly aren't informing people that those candidates can't win,
because everyone already knows it. The fact that the Old Media is
hysterically informing people that Paul can't win means that he
can — and they know it.
The indicator
most often cited for this assertion is Paul's standing in supposedly
scientific polls. Aside from the other problems with polls, discussed
at the beginning of this article, poll numbers at this point reflect
only name recognition, and they don't indicate how fervent a candidate's
support is. A recent poll asked people to name anyone running for
president next year. This wasn't a test of whom the respondents
support now; it was just to see if they knew who was running. The
poll found that 48% couldn't name one candidate — not even media
superstars like Rudy or Hillary. If that's even close to accurate,
it shows how irrelevant candidates' poll numbers are now.
It's easy
for political junkies to forget that most people, even if they vote
and consider themselves politically active, have better things to
do than to pay attention to the presidential race at this stage.
And it's understandable; most people are too busy working, raising
their kids, paying their bills, seeing their friends, pursuing their
hobbies, etc. to worry now about a presidential race that's a year
away. Most people won't start paying attention until the primaries
begin. If Ron Paul wins New Hampshire, which even some mainstream
pundits who don't even like him are starting to admit is a strong
possibility, he'll instantly be seen by the average person as credible,
and will likely be polling in double-digits within a matter of days.
4. The Internet
is some kind of alternate, virtual reality universe that has no
bearing on the real world.
This might
have been a reasonable statement 10 years ago, when the Internet
was largely a fringe phenomenon, used only by early adopters. I
remember Harry Browne winning virtually every Internet poll in 2000
with 80–90% of the vote, but that unfortunately had no bearing on
what happened on Election Day.
But when Dr.
Paul is has won 21 of 42 straw polls (you know, where real people
cast real votes in the real, offline world), and has come in second
or third in 13 more; and is outdrawing his opponents by about 5:1
at rallies all over the country; when his supporters show up in
droves at his debate media appearances; and when about 80% of Americans
use the Internet on a daily basis now, this charge is ludicrous.
5. Ron Paul
only has a few supporters who cleverly "spam" non-"scientific"
polls to make their movement look bigger than it is.
Aside from
the fact that it's impossible to vote more than once from the same
cell phone, and very difficult to vote more than once from the same
IP address, if this is true, then how did Paul raise $4.3 million
in one day, and $7.5 million in five weeks? How does he keep winning
so many offline straw polls? How does he draw such large crowds
at his rallies? The answer to all of these questions, of course,
is that the accusation is a lie.
6. Most
Paul supporters only know about his stance on Iraq.
Since Paul's
support has become too large to completely ignore, some in the media
claim that, while he has a fair amount of support — but still not
enough to win the nomination – most of his supporters only
know about his stance on Iraq, and he's having such success because
the war is so unpopular; if those people found out about some of
his other "nutty" positions, like abolishing the income
tax, unconstitutional federal agencies and the Federal Reserve;
ending the Drug War; returning the balance of power back to the
states so that people will again be free to do things like discriminate
and employ children; etc., they'd be horrified and would immediately
withdraw their support.
The most obvious
retort is that, on the Democratic side, Kucinich and Gravel have
come out as strongly as Paul against the Iraq War, plus are statists
on domestic and economic issues; Paul began his campaign this year
with no more money than they had; and Paul received no more attention
from the media than they did, until very recently. So if those candidates
are as strongly against continuing the Iraq debacle as is Paul,
and don't hold his "horrifying" views on economics and
domestic programs, then why aren't voters flocking to them?
Ron Paul has
been totally open about his positions all year; they're all readily
available on his campaign site and elsewhere on the Internet; and
he has been this open about his positions, which have been remarkably
consistent, for over 30 years.
How can any
objective journalist think someone who's against the Iraq War could
hear a politician like Paul speak out against it, and automatically
throw their enthusiastic support behind him just based on that,
without researching anything else about him — especially when information
about him and his other positions is so quickly and easily obtainable
online, and while evidently tuning out everything else Paul said
in the debate/speech/media appearance where they first heard him?
The elite
don't believe — or don't want to believe — that average people could
be for liberty, sound money, peace and constitutional government,
so they pooh-pooh that aspect of Paul's message, despite the fact
that he's been totally open and consistent about his positions on
such issues his whole career.
7. Ron Paul's
supporters don't support him or his ideas as much as they're dissatisfied
with the front-runners.
Much of the
coverage of Nov. 5th claimed it showed "dissatisfaction
with the front-runners." This is an example of how the mainstream
media spins everything into a story about their anointed candidates.
This point
is reminiscent of when Paul won the Nevada Straw Poll last month
with 33%, while Romney came in second with 16%. MSNBC's headline
on their website was "Romney Loses Nevada Straw Poll,"
and the entire story was about Romney; he was mentioned in every
paragraph, while Paul — who not only won, but received twice as
many votes as Romney — was mentioned only once.
The twisted
logic is that the public is dissatisfied with the anointed, statist
candidates due to one triviality or another (Romney's or Giuliani's
flip-flopping over the years on a given issue between statist position
A or B; Thompson's lethargy; etc.) and are clamoring for an equally
statist candidate who doesnu2018t have such drawbacks. But since there's
none to be found, they'll flock to anyone — even Ron Paul.
Sure; that's
it.
So why the
bias?
So why is
the media so biased against candidates like Paul, rather than trying
to objectively report facts and letting people decide for themselves?
I wish I could
offer a brilliant Rothbardian analysis to address the question,
but I'm not sophisticated or well-read enough to figure out all
of the behind-the-scenes machinations. However, I can speculate;
there are a number of possibilities, and probably more than one
is true to some degree.
Harry Browne
used to say that, in his view, there are basically two types of
people in the world: Doers and Reformers. Doers accept the world
as it is, even if they don't like it, and try to make the best of
it for themselves and those they care about. These are the types
of people who tend to go into business. Reformers don't accept the
world as it is and wish to change it. These types of people tend
to go into fields like the media, law, the clergy, and especially
politics. There's nothing inherently wrong with being a Reformer;
the problem is most Reformers don't know of any way to push for
their reforms except through the state, through force rather than
persuasion.
Most people
in the media are Reformers and statists. As an example of their
mentality, I remember Harry Browne appearing in 2000 with Paul Begala
and Oliver North on MSNBC. They were both aghast that Harry wanted
to end the Drug War. They asked him if he felt there was a drug
problem in America, he said "yes," and they asked him
what he'd do about it. Harry gave a brilliant answer that explained
self-ownership, the history of drug prohibition, the similarities
of the Drug War with the disaster of alcohol Prohibition, the economics
of prohibition and black markets, and that most drug problems are
due to their illegality, not to the drugs themselves. They looked
at him blankly, verified that he believed there was a drug problem
in America, then asked again, "Then what would you do
about it?!" It wasn't just that they disagreed with his answer;
it was like any answer that didn't propose more proactive state
intervention didn't even compute in their minds.
This mentality
was also evident in Dr. Paul's media interviews about Nov. 5th,
where some expressed shock and disbelief that the "money bomb"
not only wasn't organized by the official campaign, but that Paul
didn't even know anything about the person who organized it.
The idea that
society can self-organize from the bottom-up, based on individuals
acting in what they believe is their own self-interest, and that
there's nothing that top-down central planning can do to improve
anything, but a great deal it can do to destroy, is incomprehensible
to statists. But that spontaneous, bottom-up method is how the Paul
campaign is succeeding; appropriately, it's a great metaphor for
the market.
However, while
journalists' statist beliefs are likely one part of the answer,
the adage of "follow the money" is always a good place
to look for answers to questions like this. While people in the
media tend to be Reformers who only know how to accomplish their
reforms through the state, the media also spend the bulk of their
time covering government. So a limited, constitutional government
would give them less to talk about and possibly fewer readers or
viewers (and thus fewer advertising dollars), assuming they failed
to keep those readers or viewers by offering something else. But,
more importantly, many media companies are owned by larger corporations
that benefit financially in other ways from the welfare-warfare
state.
The media's
treatment of Dr. Paul is nothing new, and it's to be expected; the
establishment has used the mass media to spread propaganda that
furthers its interests for as long as mass media has existed; for
example, one of the earliest uses of printing presses was to spread
political propaganda pamphlets.
RIP Old
Media
Anyone who's
been paying attention has known for several years that the New Media
of the Internet were going to overtake the old, statist, establishment
media in influence, and emasculate its gatekeepers; the only question
was when, not if.
When a candidate
for office who's been almost entirely ignored by the Old Media can
still raise as much money as candidates who have literally received
20 times — or more — coverage from that same media, it's an unmistakable
sign that the establishment's ability to set the agenda, and control
and manipulate reality, through its media gatekeepers has finally
been gloriously and permanently ruined.
The
tombstone that the Internet started building about 10 years ago
for the Old Media, and the establishment's ability to use that media
to set the agenda, has been ready for awhile; all we needed was
the date of death. Now we finally have it, and it's time to order
the plaque from the engraver. Tell him to put this on it: November
5th, 2007.
Good riddance.
November
10, 2007
Johnny Kramer
[send him mail]
holds a BA in journalism from Wichita State University and is available
for hire as a writer and copyeditor. See his
website. He writes from Wichita, KS.
