The League

A Good Man is Hard to Find Because the Media Ignores Him

by Erik Kain · August 16, 2011

Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

Pat Cahalan says:

August 16, 2011 at 12:38 pm

Hurt myself laughing on that one.Report
The Warning says:

August 16, 2011 at 1:01 pm

When people who completely disagree with Ron Paul’s positions are calling out the fact that he got screwed, something is seriously wrong with the media.

Also, I volunteered for the campaign as a poll watcher for Saturday’s straw poll. It was clear that everyone who voted for Ron knew they were going to vote for him when they arrived that day, and that many of Bachmann’s votes were decided at the last minute.

Which kind of support do you think carries over better in the primaries?Report
- Aaron in reply to The Warning says:
  
  August 17, 2011 at 1:35 pm
  
  What is perhaps most impressive about Ron Paul is how he maintains his profile and support while the conservative media outlets are actively suppressing coverage of his views and campaign. Compare, for example, how Sarah Palin’s support plummeted when Fox stopped covering her, or how Trump’s campaign died the second the camera’s shifted from him to other news.Report
Anderson says:

August 16, 2011 at 1:38 pm

From Salon this morning, a purely political explanation of why Paul isn’t getting hyped up to be a serious contender for the Repub primary: “In his 2008 campaign, he was unable to do this [build on his sizable (but ultimately limited) base of core supporters and develop mass appeal within the Republican Party?]. Think back to the later months of 2007, when Paul stunned the political world by raising more money than any of the other Republican candidates. No one was quite sure what to make of it. Paul was supposed to be a niche candidate with no chance, but he wasn’t raising niche candidate money. Was something revolutionary taking place? The answer came when the primary and caucus season began and Paul performed … like a niche candidate. He grabbed 10 percent in Iowa, good for fifth place, and 8 percent in New Hampshire, another fifth-place showing, and that was pretty much it. The media filed this under lesson learned: Paul’s supporters could make a lot of noise — but it was misleading noise.

This is why his string of straw poll successes in the past few years — including last weekend’s — hasn’t gotten much notice. And this is probably the way it should be, until and unless Paul can demonstrate that these performances are anything but the product of his army mobilizing for relatively low-turnout events and producing deceptively impressive results. So far, there’s not much evidence for this.” (http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/08/16/ron_paul_2012/index.html)

In short: not enough libertarians in the Repub party. He has a dedicated following, but, let’s face it, he can’t make the jump to a mass audience (unless he morphs himself into a more mainstream candidate..but then he would lose his devoted base.) Granted, it’s not like he has a good third party channel he could use either.Report
Anderson says:

August 16, 2011 at 1:39 pm

From Salon this morning, a purely political explanation of why Paul isn’t getting hyped up to be a serious contender for the Repub primary: “In his 2008 campaign, he was unable to do this [build on his sizable (but ultimately limited) base of core supporters and develop mass appeal within the Republican Party?]. Think back to the later months of 2007, when Paul stunned the political world by raising more money than any of the other Republican candidates. No one was quite sure what to make of it. Paul was supposed to be a niche candidate with no chance, but he wasn’t raising niche candidate money. Was something revolutionary taking place? The answer came when the primary and caucus season began and Paul performed … like a niche candidate. He grabbed 10 percent in Iowa, good for fifth place, and 8 percent in New Hampshire, another fifth-place showing, and that was pretty much it. The media filed this under lesson learned: Paul’s supporters could make a lot of noise — but it was misleading noise.

This is why his string of straw poll successes in the past few years — including last weekend’s — hasn’t gotten much notice. And this is probably the way it should be, until and unless Paul can demonstrate that these performances are anything but the product of his army mobilizing for relatively low-turnout events and producing deceptively impressive results. So far, there’s not much evidence for this.”

In short: not enough libertarians in the Repub party. He has a dedicated following, but, let’s face it, he can’t make the jump to a mass audience (unless he morphs himself into a more mainstream candidate..but then he would lose his devoted base.) Granted, it’s not like he has a good third party channel he could use either.Report
- Aaron in reply to Anderson says:
  
  August 17, 2011 at 1:44 pm
  
  If we lived in a world in which media outlets like Fox could be relied upon to provide reasonably objective news coverage, give accurate assessments of candidates’ chances, attempt to objectively compare their proposed policies, and come down like a ton of bricks when they encountered deception and demagoguery, then I would be more apt to say, “They’re objectively looking at his chances of prevailing and are giving him coverage based upon that assessment.” But we live in a world of swift boating and “death panels”, in which those outlets selectively cover issues and policies in order to shape public opinion. If Murdoch and Ailes agreed with Ron Paul, he would be headline news.Report
Mike says:

August 17, 2011 at 12:53 pm

Ever since his followers were caught hacking into computers and rigging online polls, nobody takes Kwazy Unka Ron seriously.Report
DensityDuck says:

August 17, 2011 at 1:23 pm

We saw this story in 2004 with Howard Dean in the leading role.Report