Tom’s Big Picture

In politics, it’s really easy to get carried away in the midst of a campaign. In many ways, it’s more intoxicating than sports. The Sport of Kings is what Huey Long called it.

So I try to be always on guard for fantastical notions of how well my preferred candidate is doing, lest I cloud my model of reality and make poor judgment. Knowing my own vanity, I play an advocate against good news, making my best case. If I can’t make the case, I allow myself to agree with my predispositions and accept the good news as true.

I’m getting to the point where the case against Ron Paul, i.e. the case that he can’t win, is getting increasingly hard to make. I’m starting to not only hope, but to believe. So let me raise my hands and testify, brothers and sisters.

At this point in the campaign we get signals that are representative of real support. Sometimes these are good signals, sometimes they are bad. But Ron Paul’s record-setting $4.2 million dollar day is awfully hard to ignore.

What we’re learning now is how much support the other candidates have as they try and copycat Paul’s strategy. So this week, Barack Hussein Obama’s (that’s his real middle name, I’m not kidding) supporters decided to do a money bomb of their own today:

my.barackobama.com/page/group/BaracksFridayNovthe16th

Go check it out. As of 11 pm Central, they’ve raised $4600 from 69 people. Paul raised $4.2 million from 30,000 donors. What the heck is going on out there?

Many will argue that Paul’s supporters are inherently more computer-oriented Internet types. This might be true if we were comparing Paul to Hillary Clinton (who attracts a lower-class demographic). But Obama is the toast of silly upper middle class liberals from New England to California (try this Google search): a silly, but also wealthy and internet-savvy population.

Make all the adjustments and tweaks you want to normalize the stats, but these numbers scream.

Fred Thompson’s supporters are trying the same thing:

www.fredsgivingday.com/

They have 60 people signed up. Meanwhile, Tea Party ‘07 has over 15,000 people signed up to moneybomb the Paul campaign all over again on December 16th, the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.

Statistically, donors are a subset of voters, and unless we are prepared to believe that Ron Paul’s support is entirely anomalous (i.e. not subject to the 80/20 principle universal in human behavior that the donors represent many more supporters and voters), we must admit that it is real, and it is big. It’s getting harder to believe he can’t win than he can. Even his poll numbers are starting to pick up, at 5% nationwide and 7-8% in the early primaries.

John Kerry was at 4% at this time in 2003.

It could happen, it really could.