January 13, 2012
Ron Paul is 76 years old. But he has the energy of a much younger man...and the following. Here’s just one example:
I look at the national Twitter counts of the various Presidential candidates over the last week, the number of tweets mentioning each candidate:
Barack Obama 116,803
Mitt Romney 215,873
Rick Perry 68,638
Jon Huntsman 44,309
Rick Santorum 96,878
Newt Gingrich 65,906
Ron Paul 279,839
Jon Huntsman, who bet it all on New Hampshire, has the fewest Tweets coming out of Granite State; he will be spit out by the Palmetto State.
Newt Gingrich and the two Ricks can’t get out of 5-digit territory.
Barack Obama, that darling charismatic leader of hope and change who so captivated the youth of only 4 years ago, barely passes the 6-figure mark.
Ron Paul more than DOUBLES the number of weekly tweets of the President of the United States. Only Mitt Romney comes close, getting 77% of Ron Paul’s traffic.
Ron Paul, a bit of a grandfatherly crank, the oldest man in the race, a man who was born in 1935 and had an obstetrical degree before there was ultrasound, OWNS the Internet. Go to YouTube. Check out the hits on Paul websites and compare them to those of other candidates. Look at the pro-Paul Internet ads spreading like viruses. This man captures the imaginations of the youth more than anyone could themselves imagine...and more than Barack Obama could hope for, or change.
President Obama inherited a bad situation, the result of a big-spending Republican who frittered away two terms on foreign wars. Barack Obama made things much worse, spending to such an extreme the Bush II regime appears in retrospect humbly frugal, and extending but only barely revising what can now be called the Bush/Obama wars. As Peggy Noonan put it month’s ago, he inherited a bad situation, and he made it worse...much worse.
Barack Obama owns the moment, and has to take responsibility for it.
But Ron Paul owns the future. And as Nick Gillespie of Reason.com often reminds, the future’s so bright we’ll have to wear shades.
