If you have read any political news today, you will have likely read about Ron Paul supporters breaking another donations record for him yesterday. He took in over $6 million. The Revolution is getting bigger. He is likely going to be all over TV today. He'll be on Glenn Beck's TV show tomorrow. And he'll be on Meet the Press on Sunday. This could be a great week for Ron Paul.
But even if all of this still isn't enough to get him the Republican nomination, the grassroots nature of this movement to elect Ron Paul is much bigger than him. Here is an excerpt from this article which sums up what I mean.
Ron Paul celebrated the Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party by raising more than $6.0 million by 8:30 PM pacific time. He has already beaten his own record for the highest fundraising drive of any GOP candidate ever and, at $18 million and counting, he will probably be the best-funded Republican candidate in the 4th quarter. By the stroke of midnight, more veterans, homeowners, businesspeople, and families donated to Ron Paul's campaign than to any other campaign on any single day in history.
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Ron Paul has already won huge. For his entire political career he has stayed fast to a core principle of governance while his colleagues buckled under the fear of party ostracization. So he took this chance to make his case in front of the public and he won, big time. His campaign did not have an infrastructure or an endowment. He sold only an idea when he motivated hundreds of thousands of people to volunteer their time and donate $23 million over the course of his campaign.
His supporters have also freed him. Just as Nelson Mandela had to be liberated in order to liberate, Paul's ideas ideas of conservatism had to be broken from the bondage of a below-average media and Washingtonian groupthink. To do it he didn't need to convince people that he would be a perfect leader, but that they are better fit to lead themselves. (that's right, I compared him to Mandela).
This is a measurable defeat for Ron Paul's opponents. They locked up inside all day, away from the press. Now they will badger their staffs about the internets and try to invigorate their bases by kicking them harder. They will regret every flip-flop, every public equivocation, and every soul-selling vote- If for no other reason, then because they envy Paul's spending power. (Except Romney who donates to himself).
No doubt, they will all misunderstand this victory as well. They will surely strategize to harness the grass roots. They will search for ways to reconcile a new platform of honesty and public empowerment with their own political ambitions, but they wil miss the point: you cannot pick this new demographic, it picks you.
Regardless of whether Ron Paul is the next President, he has taught hundreds of thousands (see the donations) of Americans that they need not tolerate secrecy and incompetence from a government that is prostituted to special interests. These Americans will be the new politicians in the next ten years. They already have vast networks of passionate, educated supporters united under common causes. The state GOP infrastructures will be wise not to stand in their way. Soon this will nudge-out an entire generation of spineless Washington indoctrination. Many of those who will campaign on Paul's political platform will communicate it with even brighter, more articulate, and more compelling zeal than he. They will be his legacy.
Paul's Constitutionalist platform has become the new populism. In this new era of information exchange, people can finally flourish. Today they proved they can circumvent the media cartel to choose their own front-runner. They have mandated that he discipline their government for violating the terms of its license to exist For their authority they need not cite articles, nor sections, nor amendments. They will invoke their power under the first three words of the Constitution.
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