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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

2012 Wait, Wasn't There an Elf in This Campaign, or Am I Thinking of Dennis Kucinich?

Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 4:02 PM

The New York Times did a great pre-post-mortem of what happened—or what didn't happen—with the Ron Paul campaign:

Even Mr. Paul cannot entirely explain why the passion he generated, especially among young people and those his campaign identified as motivated supporters, did not translate into more votes.

“I don’t have a full answer for that,” says Mr. Paul, who says he believes ballot irregularities have chipped into his numbers in some places. He adds, “I think there’s some problem with always making sure this energy is translated into getting to the polls.”

Though the campaign says it still has some tricks up its sleeve, it now faces a hurdle just to place Mr. Paul’s name in contention for the nomination: a Republican convention rule requiring a candidate to have the greatest number of delegates from each of at least five states.

Maybe it's Snakes on a Plane syndrome? Loud excitement on the internet doesn't always translate into real-life excitement. And as to the big crowds of people at Paul rallies around the country: You can find 2,000 people who are really into anything in a big city. If Reddit were to host a pro-Pedobear rally at Westlake Center next week, I bet you'd get more people than Ron Paul drew to Seatac a couple months ago. I anticipate lots of conspiracy theories to spread over the internet in the next few months, but I really don't think it's possible to rig fifty individual primaries. The support just isn't there for Ron Paul. The end.

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It's a complete mystery. How can someone who appeals so much to young people not win primaries in the Old White People Party. Someone should look into that.

Posted by mrbarky on March 28, 2012 at 4:15 PM

Is he going to be back in 2016? How many times are we going to do this before he throws in the towel?

Also, olololol, ballot irregularities are the problem, sure. When terrible game players lose, they always blame the lag.

Posted by Zebes

on March 28, 2012 at 4:16 PM

But but but his broad based support among the unhinged and underinformed!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/patternfilm…

Posted by undead ayn rand on March 28, 2012 at 4:18 PM

Or all the Sovereign Wealth Fund money flowing from other nations to their US subsidiaries into exempt SuperPACs is being used to turn off Oaul voters.

Follow the M3 money supply transfers. Illuminating, isn't it, Serfs?

Posted by Will in Seattle

on March 28, 2012 at 4:22 PM

It's because die-hard Ron Paul supporters don't believe in the Federal Government. Their refusal to vote should be viewed as incredibly flattering.

Posted by evilvolus on March 28, 2012 at 5:10 PM

@2,

I fear 2016 could be the campaign his goofball and goofishly named son takes over the reigns. Perish the thought, eh?

Posted by mikethehammer on March 28, 2012 at 5:21 PM

Can I just interject here to say that pedobear-mania isn't funny? It's funny to use the pedobear image occasionally and appropriately. It's annoying as hell to put a pedobear sticker on the window of your car.

Posted by dwightmoodyforgetsthings

on March 28, 2012 at 6:13 PM

It's The Sock Puppet Effect: No matter how many people you may be online, you only get to vote once.

Posted by thatsnotright on March 28, 2012 at 7:47 PM

There are 300 plus million people in this country, but 10,000 of them yelling loudly is a large and excited crowd.

Obama had many many times the excitement of Ron Paul and still only won by 6 points.

Posted by giffy on March 28, 2012 at 8:58 PM

Pedobear is actually a 4chan construction, rather than Reddit. And he was sighted much earlier on Futaba Channel, the jp-language board 4chan was based on. Of course, the japanese "Kubo" figure wasn't actually a pedo, that was all the english-speakers doing.

He's also got a whole family of seldom-seen friends representing all sorts of fetishes: Scat Rat, Futa Cow, Shota Tiger, Yuri Bunny, Guro Dragon, Vore Snake, S&M Horse, Furry Sheep, Yaoi Cock, Hetero Dog and Watersports Pig.

Posted by Lack Thereof on March 28, 2012 at 10:40 PM

Dude, that sounds like an adult-oriented Pixar movie.

Posted by floater on March 29, 2012 at 1:18 AM

He likes travel and staying in paid for hotel rooms.

Posted by Vince on March 29, 2012 at 8:07 AM

@8: "It's The Sock Puppet Effect: No matter how many people you may be online, you only get to vote once."

Right, king of AOL polls, not so much ones that require identity verification.

Posted by undead ayn rand on March 29, 2012 at 9:42 AM

@6 I just learned the Ron's son is actually named Randall and is just "Rand" for short. Upon reflection, I can't really blame him for the name adoption...

Posted by Big Matt G on April 2, 2012 at 12:15 PM