Mugger: Paulitics As Usual
Usually, when we have friends over for dinner, the subject of politics is delicately glossed overespecially after a couple of bottles of winesince it can only lead to trouble. One evening last week, however, as the first snow of the season was falling, which resulted in a cheery mood, seven of us at the dining room table actually had a civil conversation about the presidential campaign. The breakdown of current favorites was all over the maptwo for McCain, two for Clinton, one Obama booster and two for Ron Pauland Im guessing it was the enthusiasm expressed by the pair of high schoolers for Pauls candidacy that transformed the chat from one of partisan bitterness to amiable curiosity.
Paul, of course, is the quasi-libertarian Republican Congressman from Texas whos presently raising millions of dollars on the Internet, cementing his legacy as the first techie/YouTube personality in American politics. (Not that Paul, 72, completely comprehends his sudden emergence on the web; this is a guy who last summer, as Chris Caldwell reported in the Times magazine last summer, didnt know who Jon Stewart was and wasnt familiar with GQ, the glossy monthly that wanted to interview him.) Four years ago, Howard Dean was the first to exploit the riches of the web, but he was a traditional left-leaning Democrat who, once accepted as a legitimate contender, slipped easily into the pack journalism lexicon of the mainstream media.
The unassuming Paul, a doctor who confounds reporters with his idiosyncraticand a little weird, in my opinionviews is far more difficult to pigeonhole. Its not just that hes attracting Americans from the left (Paul advocates immediate withdrawal from Iraq) and right (hed abolish the IRS), since previous grass roots candidates, most recently Ross Perot in 92, have had a large degree of crossover appeal. Paul, who has yet to reach double digits in the vast majority of polls, isnt going to win the Republican nomination, but anyone who dismisses his impact on the early primaries (especially in New Hampshire, where registered independents can determine the outcome) is paying too much attention to Hillarys crumbling inevitability and Mike Huckabees Elmer Gantry routine.
Whats really significant about the Paul campaign is that hes attracting younger voters (and those wholl be eligible to vote in 2012), the first wave of Americans who, regardless of their intelligence, have grown up without the habit of regularly reading print newspapers and magazines. The organization of Pauls effort is spread out among a diverse group of disaffected citizens, of all ages, but its a rough blueprint of how presidential politics will be conducted in the near future, and the role of media pundits who make their living either boosting or skewering politicians will be further diminished. After all, how many people under 25 do you know who never miss Tim Russerts Meet the Press on Sunday mornings or whove even heard of the Times David Brooks?
My older son, 15, is well-informed about current events yet he ignores the home-delivered copies of the Times and Wall Street Journal, and gets all his news on the Internet, which is where he discovered, and then embraced, Pauls improbable quest for the presidency. I asked why, and he replied that the Congressman is the antithesis of the traditional politician. He has integrity, says what he really believes and isnt controlled by consultants or daily tracking polls. Hes firmly against invasion of privacy by the government and wont waste money on unnecessary wars. When I tell him that Paul is anti-abortion and wants to build a fence to keep out illegal immigrants, he paused, and said, Well, Dad, youre for McCain and certainly dont agree with all of his positions. At his fairly liberal high school, he reports, Paul would easily win a straw poll vote.
The youth vote, which has largely been elusive for candidates for at least a generationand is a source of concern for Obama, who fears his celebrity wont necessarily translate into a massive turnout at the ballot boxcould actually become a real factor in future elections if college kids and young adults perceive that the hated politics as usual is dead. Becoming involved in the political process, through the new media, might be more appealing once dinosaurs like Charlie Cook are snuffed out.
The Cook Political Report publisher, who may be the most quoted analyst in newspaper stories, told a reporter of the Washington-based newspaper The Hill last week, My hunch is the votes [Paul] does get dont really come at anyone elses expense, theyre more fringe voters coming in from the sidelines, some driven by war, others by libertarian views I dont think hes going to be a serious factor anywhere.
Maybe, maybe not, but Cooks dismissing Paul as an insurgent like Pat Buchanan or Ralph Nader, who didnt have the fund-raising and communication tools that are now available. Imagine if Naders campaign in 2000 was able to tap into the Internet omnipresence that exists today: given the passion of the Naderites who knows how that election wouldve turned out. Ron Paul is an accidental model for what may become the new politics. As Caldwell reported, the courtly Congressman never travels alone with women and once chastised an aide for referring to a red-light district in front of a female colleague. No matter, hes still raised over $10 million this quarter, a figure that will increase with his websites money bomb on Dec. 16 (the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party).
Anyone who follows politics even casually is bombarded by the complaint of too many reality show debates, too much lobbyist/union money and too many polls and consultants. The Times regularly editorializes, with disgust, about the excess of money in the permanent campaign, and, in fact, 2008 could be the last year that a presidential race is conducted in its current form. Should Ron Paul have even modest success at screwing up the strategies of his opponents, next time aroundand one can only imagine the power of the Internet in four yearswill be a far more interesting, and perhaps less scripted, campaign.