Trailhead: A campaign blog.

Who Is Bob Barr?

Former Georgia congressman and Clinton impeacher-in-chief Bob Barr announced today that he will be seeking the presidency as a candidate of the Libertarian Party. The first name that pops to mind is Ralph Nader. Republicans fear a repeat of 2000, with Barr siphoning votes from John McCain (although it’s also possible he’d sabotage Obama). Others wonder how Barr’s candidacy will play with Ron Paul supporters.

The Texas Republican, who has slowed his candidacy to a crawl in recent months—but hasn’t dropped out!—has come under pressure to make a third-party run for the presidency. Barr’s announcement appears to have closed the door on a Paul run, at least on the Libertarian ticket.

So what does Ron Paul think of Barr’s announcement? "Our thoughts are that Bob and Ron are friends and remain friends," said Paul spokesman Jesse Benton. You can see why. Some of Barr’s words today sounded as if they could have come out of Paul’s mouth: He accused both parties of "running a charity called the United States of America" and slammed Hillary Clinton for saying she’d "obliterate Iran" if they attacked Israel.

But whatever their similarities, Benton says Paul has no plans to endorse anyone—including Barr. "Ron Paul is a Republican and he’s going to be a part of the Republican party," he says.

Paul is still campaigning in upcoming primaries, including West Virginia and Kentucky. "He’s not going to be the nominee," Benton says. But the congressman maintains a "strong following" of 6 to 8 percent in most states and plans to continue running, he says.

BREAKING: McCain Wins Pennsylvania

With nearly half of precincts reporting, Trailhead is prepared to cautiously call the Republican primary for John McCain, who currently leads the state with 72 percent of the vote against one man who dropped out 49 days ago and another who rarely tops 6 percent in national polls.   

Former candidate Mike Huckabee, who still appeared on the ballot even though he dropped out after McCain clinched a majority of delegates after the March 4 primaries, is pulling down 12 percent of the vote, while libertarian-minded candidate Ron Paul is drawing about 16 percent. For a few sweet moments, it appeared that Armstrong County would come through for Paul, whose small but ardent base has made him a significant presence on the Internet, if not in the polls. But that light-pink blip on CNN’s county-by-county map quickly evaporated as more results registered.

Candidates like McCain with no mathematical chance of losing the election are naturally less likely to draw hordes of supporters to the ballot booth, while Paul’s supporters are a determined bunch who seem indefatigable. The one in eight people who still showed up to vote for Huckabee are more puzzling and perhaps do not bode well for McCain’s odds in Pennsylvania in the general election. Then again, Pennsylvania, while not overwhelmingly blue, hasn’t elected a Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

Ron Paul's Dream Come True

So this is why he refused to fully commit to a withdrawal. Let the Ron Paul comeback begin!

Stuck in the Middle With You

In a strange seven-and-a-half minute address to supporters worldwide, Ron Paul said it was time to scale back the campaign. He’s not quite quitting, but he’s not quite optimistic, either. He admitted that he can’t achieve “victory in the conventional political sense.” President Bush may want to steal that line for his next speech on Iraq.

Presumably, Paul supporters are taking this semi-withdrawal even harder than the candidate himself. Throughout the campaign, it seemed his netroots thought he could win even more than Paul’s campaign did. We thought it only fitting to give him a Trailhead send-off by tapping into the pulse of our friends over at the Ron Paul Forums. What follows are real comments by real Paul fans. (People are identified by their usernames.)

BillyDkid: All I can think of is that smug ass George Steffenopollis smirking and feeling self satisfied with his "rightness". I am sick and furious about this whole thing.

Actpulsa: Are we through throwing blame yet? Can we stop and remember that this is about liberty yet? Do we want us and our kids to be free? Can any one of us do it alone? Are we on the same side of this war or aren't we? [Note: actpulsa is a frequent commenter on Trailhead’s Fray.]

Pacelli: “Regardless of what we want to read into Ron's message, or don't for that matter, nothing has changed in terms of our duty as Americans in the past few weeks. I, for one, could care less what is released by the campaign. The campaign doesn't speak for me, nor does it need to.”

Nodope0695: I didn't hear the word, "END" or "DROP OUT" anywhere in Ron's video. I heard "WIND DOWN". He clearly stated that the campaign is "SCALING BACK", that this is a NEW PHASE - that we ought to continue to collect votes and delegates.

Dianne: If someone has the ability to contact Ron Paul personally, I would really appreciate you putting this in front of him. I for one am not ready to give up the fight. Paul always said this campaign is about his supporters, not him. In that case, Paul should allow us to make the decision as to whether we are ready to support him as a third party candidate. [I’ll spare you the rest, but Dianne goes on to create a ballot she wants Paul’s campaign to send out to donors]

If you’re feeling Paulstalgia tap into Trailhead’s Ron Paul archive. Some select choices: Our journey inside the Ron Paul blimp and our attempt to understand his fervent fan base.

Paul and Kucinich: Two More Years!

Forget the Hillary-Barack sideshow. Everyone knows the real story is the local races of presidential dreamers Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.

There was some doubt that the two long-shot candidates could win their own districts in Ohio and Texas, respectively. They both faced challengers looking to take advantage of their presidential distractions. (Kucinich foe Joe Cimperman called him “the absentee candidate”—“Show me one person here who's got health-care because of his fundraising with Sean Penn in Hawaii,” he said.) Kucinich dropped out in January to defend his seat. Paul hinted that he might do the same but remains officially in the presidential race.

Both candidates appear to have survived the attacks. Paul won 70 percent of Texas’ 14^th District, overwhelming his opponent, Councilman Chris Peden. The full results of Kucinich’s district in Cleveland haven’t been tabulated, but early results showed him leading two-to-one over Cimperman.

Paul’s strength didn’t carry over to the presidential field, though. He’s trailing in the Texas presidential race at around 5 percent of the vote; same in Ohio. You’d think that might be a sign that he should drop out. Or you might think that McCain’s mathematical clinching of the nomination would deter Paul. But as he has pointed out, it’s not like he’s going to run out of money. Why not stick around for a few more races, rack up a few more delegates, and maybe score a speaking gig at the RNC? His constituents certainly don’t seem to mind.

The GOP Rests

Just because we didn’t live-blog doesn’t mean we didn’t watch the debate. For what it’s worth, we’re adding our belated thoughts to the cacophony of instant reaction. The executive summary: Nobody screwed up, only Romney helped himself.

John McCain: When did John McCain become slightly senile? His prolonged spat with Mitt Romney about Mitt’s non-support of an Iraq timetable made McCain look like a desperate slanderer. Considering he’s the undisputed frontrunner, McCain’s whole strategy was nuts. As my Trailhead colleague Mr. Beam pointed out, he's the senile grandfather you let prattle on because its too sad to tell him to shut up. Another McCain highlight of the night was watching him go out of his way to send some love to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Word leaked that Ahnold is endorsing Johnny Mac tomorrow, so there was no chance McCain was going to disagree with him on fuel-efficiency federalism. If Anderson Cooper had some stones, he would have asked McCain whether the Governator was going to endorse him. 

Mitt Romney: Mitt was sharper than a Mormon steeple tonight. He offered something for all three Reagan-coalition constituencies. The social conservatives got a gay-marriage ban shout-out (an issue that has disappeared from this cycle). The national security conservatives saw Romney mount an effective rebuttal to McCain’s baseless withdrawal claims. In case fiscal conservatives didn’t already know it, Romney knows what’s up when it comes to the economy. When McCain attacked Romney’s record in Massachusetts, Romney yanked stats out of his brain that only an economic cyborg can remember. With Reagan’s Air Force One as your backdrop, pandering to the Reagan coalition is a good idea—no matter how tacky that plane looked.

Mike Huckabee: This was an ugly debate for the Huckster. What makes Huck such an effective debater is his ability to use his quips as a gateway into important policy points. Tonight Huck didn’t do that. His best Huckism was a long-winded stat about sitting in traffic that didn’t fully connect to his policy point: that fixing the nation’s infrastructure would stimulate the economy. Plus, he pulled it off better at a fundraiser earlier in the day. When Romney and McCain started bickering about Iraq timetables, Huckabee might as well have been wearing a cloak of invisibility. When he actually spoke, Huckabee complained about not getting a chance to speak—always a faux pas. 

Ron Paul: Poor Paul. Cooper gave Dr. No the silent treatment all night. At one point Cooper cut Paul off while he was trying to answer two questions in one. Cooper promised Paul would get another chance to speak “coming up in like two minutes or two questions.” To be fair, Cooper honored his word, but then cut him off again later in the evening. At one point Paul recoiled from being cut off, arched an eyebrow, and cocked his head a bit as he stopped himself from staring Cooper down. On a related note, I don’t remember the last time Paul was off-message at a debate. Sure, he’s been reduced to a sideshow (fairly or not), but at least it’s a consistent one.

Debate: Does a Shaky Economy Help Paul?

Everybody seems to think that a faltering economy helps Mitt Romney because of Romney's Bain Capital past. Romney, reason says, made money himself, so he can make the country some money. That's all fine and good, but what about Ron Paul?

Paul, of course, has been trying to be the canary in economic coal mine for months now. When Brian Williams asked him whether the government has a role in stimulating the economy, Paul started his answer with solid conservative logic: Lower taxes, fix the dollar, and deregulate the hell out of everything. It sounded great until he started talking about those pesky foreign-policy views of his. Once Paul started saying the war in Iraq and the fight against terror are reasons for the potential recession, he lost the fiscal conservatives in the audience. While Paul doesn't need to hide his beliefs, he also doesn't need to include all of them in every one of his answers. If he keeps his anti-war, semi-isolationist foreign-policy views separate from his economic talk, his menu looks pretty good: an entree for fiscal conservatives and dessert for anti-war independents. But when he mixes them together, the dish starts to look unappetizing.

Ron Paul's Ceiling

Meanwhile, in Ron Paul land, some supporters are in a tizzy that Fox News didn't show Ron Paul in second or third as the results came in earlier today. They've got a point, but there's a bigger question here about how the race changes if Paul finishes in second. As of now, Paul and John McCain are fighting for second, and CNN's entrance polls show Paul pulling in more votes than McCain.

As we've already discussed, Paul and Romney were the only two candidates campaigning in the state in recent weeks, so Paul should be expected to finish second. But he may not get there. As of now, McCain is widening his lead on Paul for second. The good news is that the three- or four-point bump from Iowa's and New Hampshire's results could confirm that Paul's libertarian message can do better out West than it can in the rest of the country.

But this probably won't matter much for Paul's momentum going forward. Paul already has a ton of money, so he doesn't need any of the added funds a solid finish will bring in. Plus, he's trailing badly in South Carolina and Florida, so any momentum out of Nevada would be lost very quickly.

In many ways, Nevada is an ideal state for Paul, yet his percentage of support still couldn't break into the teens*. This may be the closest look we'll get at Paul's ceiling as a Republican, and it doesn't seem to be all that high.

UPDATE 6:27 p.m.: Paul now leads McCain with nearly all precincts reporting.

*UPDATE Jan. 20, 7:06 p.m.: Paul broke into the teens, netting 13 percent.

Proof That Ron Paul's Campaign is Delusional

From a Ron Paul press release titled, “Ron Paul Campaign Statement on Beating Giuliani and Thompson… Again”:

“After beating Rudy Giuliani in Michigan, and Fred Thompson in New Hampshire, Ron Paul has now bested both ‘national frontrunners’ in Michigan, and in the three races held thus far Paul has received over 30,000 votes more than either of the candidates.” [emphasis added] 

Little did we realize, Paul is Thompson's biggest supporter.

Catching Up With Ron Paul

Ron Paul’s fifth-place showing in the New Hampshire primary disappointed his supporters, who saw the Granite State as his last best chance to penetrate the first tier of GOP candidates.

But Paul doesn’t appear to be slowing down. The $20 million he raised in the fourth quarter should carry him at least through the Feb. 5 states. And the grassroots money fountain shows no signs of drying up. “If I said I needed 50 million dollars, they’d probably do it,” he told me after a speech in Nashua earlier this week.

I asked whether there’s been any tension between the official campaign and what supporters call the “real” campaign of online supporters. “There will always be,” he said, but on the other hand it’s better, since “they don’t have to wait for marching orders.” Paul talks about the campaign as if it’s not really up to him whether or not he stays in the race—and that’s a good thing. “We don’t have any choice but to keep it going,” he said.

Paul also laid to rest (again) any notions of an independent candidacy. “Short of an absolute no, I’ve said the same thing: I have no plans, no intention to run.” Getting on the ballot would be hard enough, he said, let alone negotiating some states’ “sore loser” laws, which prevent candidates who have run in the primary from running again in the general.

But his attitude doesn’t sound like the usual maybe-I-will-maybe-I-won’t coyness. He actually seems open to all possibilities—he just can’t think of any circumstance that would make him want to run as a third party candidate: “I can’t conceive of anything that would change my mind.”

If he got out of the race, I asked, would he throw his weight (and fundraising acumen) behind another candidate? No, he said, because his supporters are non-transferrable: “People have asked me, ‘What’s your technique? Where do you get your lists?’ … They don’t understand this is spontaneous. If I endorsed someone I’d lose all credibility and we wouldn’t get any money anyway.”

Exclusive! Ron Paul Actress Tells All

Blimpin’ Ain’t Easy

THE SKY, Dec. 20—We’re hovering 1,500 feet above Baltimore in a 200-foot blimp with Ron Paul’s name on it, and I’ve lost feeling in my hands. Elijah Lynn, vice president of the Ron Paul Blimp, passes around heat packets, the kind made for skiers. “Shake it,” he says. Over the past week, temperatures in the blimp have dropped to as low as 28 degrees. As the crew has learned, it’s hard out here for a blimp.

The Ron Paul Blimp launched last week in Elizabeth City, N.C,. and has since moved through Columbia, S.C., Richmond, Va., and now Baltimore, taking days off for bad weather. (You can track the blimp’s path via GPS here.) Anyone craning their neck blimpward sees one of two messages: “Who Is Ron Paul?” (an homage to Ayn Rand’s “Who is John Galt?”) or “Ron Paul Revolution,” with the “evol” highlighted as a backwards “love.” The guys behind the blimp now spend every day inside it, giving interviews by phone, taking turns flying (“It’s like driving a boat”), blogging the voyage using the blimp’s wireless connection, and planning the blimp’s schedule.

Of course, the “schedule” is a joke. They had originally planned to head to Iowa for the Jan. 3 caucuses. Now, they’re going south after circling New York City instead. Likewise, our flight was at first supposed to take off at 8 a.m. That time was changed last minute to 12:30 p.m. But when we arrived at the Harford Airport at noon, the airship had already left. We ended up taking the next flight. “You can’t keep to a tight schedule,” said one of the organizers. Daniel Hornal, the official “blimpographer,” agreed: “You’re on blimp time now.”

The blimp springs from the same imaginative well as the Ron Paul “money bombs,” which have raised more than  $10 million and put Paul among the Republicans' top likely fourth-quarter fund-raisers. The project is being paid for through online donations. They’re currently just shy of $280,000, which should keep the blimp aloft through Christmas. (All told, the blimp operation costs about $350,000 a month.) Trevor Lyman, the public face of the Nov. 5 and Dec. 12 money bombs (“That wasn’t my idea,” he says) and the Ron Paul Blimp (“That was”), says he thinks they’ll raise enough money to fly through Super Tuesday.

There’s something perfectly Paulian about the blimp. It’s a stunt, in the best sense of the term—big, memorable, and utterly silly—a lot like Ron Paul’s candidacy itself, at least in the eyes of outsiders. The project isn’t affiliated with the Paul campaign—FEC regulations forbid collaboration—but it does try to preserve the spirit. “We see what they’re doing, and we try to fit their image,” Hornal says.

Some of the guys behind the blimp are relatively recent Paul converts. Hornal says he wasn’t a big Ron Paul fan before getting involved. If anything, he’s for Kucinich.* He figures that libertarianism should apply to some areas—trimming the Education Department, say, or fiscal policy—but not to others, like health care. Lynn is also new to the party: eight weeks ago, he hadn’t even heard of Ron Paul. He calls himself a “political virgin” and says he doesn’t give speeches about Paul: “I just tell people, go watch the videos.”

Some acolytes see Ron Paul as the heir to Howard Dean, tactically if not ideologically. Like Deaniacs, Paulites (or, if you prefer, -tards) organize “meetups,” where they can hang out and chat with like-minded politicos. Dean fans also pledged online. But Paul’s clan has advanced the ball. Ideas like the money bomb and the blimp get floated on various Ron Paul forums, where they’re alternately nurtured, rejected, developed, and finally acted upon. That’s why it’s hard for one person to take all the credit. The clown car is bigger than ever, but no one person is steering.

Another aspect of the movement’s Web-based strategy is documentation. Let me rephrase that: overdocumentation. Today, every moment—every conversation, every quip, every striking vista—is being recorded. Everyone has a camera pointed at everyone else. It’s like the last scene from Reservoir Dogs, but with photographers. After three minutes chatting with the blimpographer about his political views, I realize he’s had his camera pointed at me from his lap the entire time.

After Baltimore, we head back to the airfield in Harford. Washington, D.C. is out of the question. Post-9/11, FAA regulations restrict unauthorized aircraft from flying within 15 miles from the White House. They might try to get special permission for the blimp, but so far no luck. I ask Hornal if Ron Paul would abolish airspace restrictions. “Probably in his second year,” he says.

Check back next week for a blimp video on Slate V.

* Clarification: This article overstated Hornal's support for Dennis Kucinich. Hornal wrote in to clear this up: "I have not decided to support Kucinich's run for president. ... I am, however, philosophically close to Kucinich on some issues, like the war and health care."

UPDATE 2:00 p.m., Dec. 26: Photo by Christopher Beam.

The Ron Paul Effect

If Mike Huckabee wins the Republican nomination, he may have 19-year-old twins from Oregon to thank. First, Brett and Alex Harris led Chuck Norris to endorse Mike Huckabee. Now, they're trying to raise him a million dollars.

The Harris brothers started hucksarmy.com in October after realizing Huckabee supporters didn't have a digital water cooler to congregate around. (Unclear if Jesus juice is the drink of choice.) In many ways, it was an attempt to build a community for Huckabee similar to Ron Paul's. 

Taking another page out of Ron Paul's shadow campaign, the Harris brothers are now organizing a moneybomb for Dec. 27. The fund-raising goal is relatively modest: $1 million from 10,000 donors. That pales in comparison to the $10-plus million Paul brought in during his two moneybombs this quarter. Some Paul fans weren't pleased, even though Huck's effort wouldn't threaten Paul's record total.

So, as has happened before, some in the Ron Paul community dug through their digi-saboteur tool kit to unleash the deadliest weapon of all: spam. Brett Harris told me that in the first hour the site was live, people pledged $200,000--except they didn't. Ron Paul spammers did. Harris said the e-mail addresses attached to the pledges denigrated Huckabee, exalted Paul, and had plenty of naughty words. (UPDATE 5:19 p.m.: Yes, in the past it wasn't Ron Paul supporters who spammed. Harris thinks it was this time.)

The twins, in response, took action. They weeded out the fake pledges and posted two harshly worded letters on the moneybomb Web site that took aim at the "rotten apples" in Paul's base. In one letter Brett writes, "You [speaking to the spammers] may liken yourselves to American revolutionaries, but your behavior is more reminiscent of Nazi tactics -- sending in hooligans to break into and disrupt political rallies for their opposition." This, needless to say, did not make many Paul supporters happy. 

Animosity for Huckabee has been brewing for quite some time amongst Paulies. In the Tale of Two Dark Horses, Huckabee has far surpassed Paul nationally. Moneywise, though, Paul's ad-hoc organization has drubbed Huckabee time and again. Now the two big story lines of this campaign cycle are at war with one another. In the battle of Huck's army versus the Paul technocrats, what does victory look like? Last time we checked it's judged by votes, not dollar bills.

As is our occasional custom with Ron Paul stories, here are some handy links: Talk back in our discussion board, The Fray, or drop by my inbox.

Blimp Alert!

Attention Washington, D.C., residents! The Ron Paul Blimp will be passing by the district between 3:30 and 4 p.m. today. It's hard to say where you'll be able to see it, though, since the blimp can't legally fly within 15 miles of the White House. From the blimpsters' press release:

We would like to assure the public that the blimp is not a threat to national security, only to other republican presidential candidates.

The blimp will be spending tonight in Harford, MD, just north of Baltimore, after which it will probably be heading up toward New York City, according to blimp spokesman Bryce Henderson. Donations to the blimp are currently around $260,000, which should be enough to keep the zeppelin aloft through Christmas. They've scuttled plans to visit the Iowa caucus—the blimp is "very sensitive to weather," Henderson says—so it will likely be heading south to Florida and Atlanta in the coming weeks.

You can track the blimp's whereabouts via GPS here.

But Wait! There’s More!

Armed with charts, big ears, and a voodoo stick, Ross Perot found a way to persuade 16.5 million people in 1992 to watch his 30-minute infomercials that warned the economy was in danger of collapsing.

Armed with a giant name plate, bushy eyebrows, and 18 million fourth-quarter dollars, Ron Paul is trying to persuade a few thousand extra Iowans to watch his own 30-minute infomercials over the Christmas break.

The symmetry is too ripe to ignore. Perot's infomercials helped build his brand while also generating buzz around his campaign. Paul already found a way to do that without the help of must-see TV, and now he's trying to make progress among early state voters.

None of Paul's half-hour spots (see Part 1; Part 2) is new to ardent Paul supporters. It covers the normal Paul points: The dollar is falling, immigration is ruining the economy, and the government is an obese bureaucracy that needs some liposuction. But it may make Paul seem more approachable for the uninitiated—a base that the Paul campaign desperately needs if it wants to start generating traction in the polls again.

But what if Paul can't convince voters by Feb. 6? By then the majority of states will have voted, but there will still be nine months until the general election. After Paul's record-setting fund-raising haul yesterday, even the political elite can't help but admit that he's tapped into a rich vein of the Republican Party. And there's more money where those donations came from—the 63,000 people who have given to Paul this week donated an average of about $100 each. So why not run as a third-party candidate to keep mining those resources past the primary?

Paul has all of the ingredients of a tasty third-party run: pounds of money, a dash of organization, and a well-stocked cabinet of supporters. Now the main issue is finding enough time to let those ingredients bake in the political oven.

Nine months is a lot of extra time for Paul to talk with voters and convince them that his platform is demonstrably different than the mainstream parties'. If the economy tanks, Iraq gets worse, and the Republican nominee isn't a hawk on immigration (e.g. Huckabee or McCain), then Paul's platform could resonate with voters nationwide. Plus, a general election helps Paul circumvent stalled momentum in the early primary states.

Paul has said he won't run as a third-party candidate. But Perot already made some of the inroads for him back in 1992. And not just on TV.

The Blimp Who Stole Christmas

Ron Paul supporters, sometimes referred to as Paulites or, less endearingly, Paultards, are known for their prolific blog comments. (Conservative blog RedState practically ignited the aPaulcalypse by banning them from its boards.) Here’s one comment about the Ron Paul blimp spotted on the Daily Paul:

I pledged... we are SO close.... WE (grassroots) make IMPOSSIBLE things happen.... talk about bypassing the media blackout!!!!!

I'm in for the Teaparty as well.

I explained to my family..... that THIS Christmas is NOT about presents under the tree (well maybe a few!).

This Christmas ............is about taking back our Country and watching/laughing at the media trying to ignore the elephant in the room! [Emphasis added]

So this person gave to the Ron Paul blimp instead of his own children. First they want to abolish the postal service ... now Christmas???

Hillary Is Getting Desperate

Ron Paul Blimp, meet the Hill-a-copter.

Hillary Clinton announced she'll be stumping through Iowa via helicopter for five days next week. Is it just us or do Democratic frontrunners usually not mimic Republican dark horses?

Photo Illustration by Andy Bouve.

Blimp Me Up

Some presidential candidates make stickers. Those are fun. Some make posters. I guess those work, too. But some—or rather, one—have giant freaking blimps flying around with their names on them.

If you haven’t seen the Ron Paul blimp passing overhead lately, that’s because the launch was delayed. The blimp was supposed to take off today, but the banners that get stuck to the side of the blimp haven’t arrived yet, according to blimp coordinator Bryce Henderson. “[A] blimp with no message on it simply does not have the same effect,” Henderson wrote in an e-mail.

The blimp tour is organized by an ad-hoc group calling itself, well, Ron Paul Blimp, and it’s financed by contributions on its Web site. The more money donated, the longer the blimp stays aloft. They’re up to about $234,000 as of Wednesday, which should keep the blimp airborne through Dec. 24, according to Henderson. But there’s no definite end date—if people keep giving, the blimp keeps going. Henderson says the blimp will probably fly over Iowa during the Jan. 3 caucuses, and there’s a tentative schedule to keep it floating through the Feb. 5 primaries, cash willing.

The blimp project is a lot like Ron Paul’s October “money bomb” in that it’s organized entirely by supporters. But as a fund-raising gimmick, it’s fairly useless. Campaign finance laws prevent Ron Paul Blimp from coordinating with the campaign, so the money they collect can’t go toward ground organization. Instead, donors are paying for pure, unalloyed publicity: The value a thousand heads turning upward and saying, “Holy crap, it’s a Ron Paul blimp.” And unlike the October “money bomb,” there’s something in it for donors. Anyone who gives $5,000 to the blimp gets to ride in it. (About a dozen people have so far.)

The genius of the stunt—other than the potential for exposure—is its utter silliness. “A blimp?” you say. “Who does that?” But it works because no one takes Ron Paul all that seriously in the first place. Somehow a Hillary Blimp or a John Edwards Blimp wouldn’t quite work. But a Ron Paul Blimp—now that just makes sense.

Don't Go Changin'

Last time we checked, Ron Paul was a Republican dark horse who let his grassroots supporters run his campaign for him. But now Paul is starting to act more and more like a traditional candidate. A timeline of the past week: 

• Tuesday, December 4 - Word gets out that Ron Paul blitzed South Carolina with a direct mailing that doesn't mention his anti-Iraq stance.
• Wednesday, December 5 - Paul's campaign sends a news release that says religion shouldn't be an issue that dogs Mitt Romney's candidacy. "Gov. Romney should be judged fairly, on his record and his character, not on the church he attends."
• Friday, December 7 - Another release goes around, this time taking gentle aim at Hillary Clinton for her stance at ending the foreclosure crisis. "Only Dr. Paul has the expertise to explain why we must reject further political intervention into the housing market, such as that advocated by Hillary Clinton."

What does next week hold in store? An attack ad on Mike Huckabee? Pandering to the religious right?

Ah, who am I kidding? The existence of a Ron Paul blimp totally disproves my thesis.

Even When It's Not About Ron Paul, It Is

Our favorite part of this image has to be the "JosephLied.com" poster.

Of course, everyone knows most grunts in Ron Paul's army have nothing to do with the campaign—they're freelance crazies. In fact, Paul himself issued a statement early this morning supporting Romney: "The recent attacks and insinuations, both direct and subtle, that Gov. Romney may be less fit to serve as president of our United States because of his faith fly in the face of everything America stands for. Gov. Romney should be judged fairly, on his record and his character, not on the church he attends.”

Likewise, let Paul be judged for his policies, not the conduct of his fans.

UPDATE 2:00 p.m., Dec. 26: Photo by Christopher Beam.