Ron Paul

Ron Paul, Republican presidential candidate, Ron Paul waves to supporters after speaking at his primary night campaign rally on Jan. 10, 2012 in Manchester, New Hampshire. According to early results, Paul finished second behind Mitt Romney. Republican presidential candidate, Ron Paul waves to supporters after speaking at his primary night campaign rally on Jan. 10, 2012 in Manchester, New Hampshire. According to early results, Paul finished second behind Mitt Romney.
The career of Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), just peaked. The 76-year-old congressman never passed much legislation. He lived for this moment when he would bask in the glory of his maximum popularity. After performing surprising well in the Iowa caucuses, Paul has finished second in New Hampshire with 23 percent of the vote.

But it’s all downhill from here. The campaign will now head on to Southern states, where Republican voters are more hawkish and socially conservative than those in New Hampshire. The media will lose interest in Paul once Mitt Romney, who won both Iowa and New Hampshire, has the nomination presumptively wrapped up. Paul has said he won’t run for re-election to Congress this year, and he’s unlikely to run for president again in 2016. His maximum relevance was yesterday.

You’d never know it, though, from the demeanor of Paul and the majority of his supporters. At Paul’s election night celebration Tuesday night in Manchester, New Hampshire, he addressed a crowd that was younger, longer-haired and noticeably more boisterous than those drawn by his competitors at their recent campaign events. Where other candidates’ supporters have only cheers that reflect their candidate preference-“Mitt, Mitt, Mitt”-Paul’s have cheers for all his major platform planks. Whenever Paul hit the appropriate line in his speech, the crowd would break into a chant: “End the Fed!” “Bring them [our soldiers] home!” and “Ron Paul revolution, we support our Constitution!”

Paul proudly declared “a victory for the cause of liberty tonight,” and promised, “This effort will not go unnoticed.” But it probably will. In 2008 Paul performed surprisingly well in the primaries, but the Republican Party has hardly adopted his platform. Most of his opponents are as hawkish as George W. Bush. The only movement towards Paul’s position on one of his hobbyhorses is the mainstreaming of demonizing the Federal Reserve and fretting about the “soundness” of our money. But that’s only because there’s a Democrat in the White House and the Fed-which incidentally is still run by Bush appointee Ben Bernanke-taking action to boost the economy, could damage a Republican’s chances of winning the presidency. As soon as there is a Republican president, Republicans will rediscover the virtues of goosing the monetary supply when a recession hits.

Ron Paul News

Ron Paul News, Ron Paul may be getting short shrift in the traditional media, but the congressman is head and heels above his fellow GOP hopefuls in the online world. With the Iowa Caucus done and settled, Paul came in third with 21.4% of the vote, behind both Mitt Romney (24.6%) and Rick Santorum (24.5%). Why did massive online popularity not turn into an Iowa win for Paul?

Google’s Politics and Elections Blog looked at which 2012 presidential candidates are leading the field in terms of Google search traffic, and Paul came out well ahead of the rest of the pack across the country and in Iowa and New Hampshire — two important election states.

Google found that “Ron Paul” was one of the most popular News Search queries through the month of December, even beating out terms such as “Christmas.”

Google says:

Back in Iowa, which hosts the nation’s first caucuses, only two News Search terms, [iowa] and [news], are more popular than [ron paul]. And nationwide, the only other 2012 presidential candidate making the list of top News Search terms is [obama], which boasts only half as many queries as [ron paul], which has more than doubled in nationwide volume over the past 30 days.

Of course, there’s a caveat. Search popularity doesn’t differentiate between “positive” and “negative” results. For Paul, many of the queries have to do with his plans for Iowa, how he’s polling and how he’s campaigning. Some of the fastest-rising search queries in the past 30 days have been more negative including [ron paul newsletter] and [ron paul racist].

These terms might reflect interest in a series of controversial newsletters that bore Paul’s name in the ’80s and ’90s.