Media Elites Struggle to Keep Ron Paul Under Wraps

Remember three years ago when the major press organs of the country were all atwitter over the rocketing presidential fortunes of Howard Dean? Dean and his supporters had "mastered the Internet."

Their phenomenal work is now a case study on how political candidates can harness the power of the on-line world. (Only Dean's famous "scream," blasted way out of proportion by the establishment media, terminated his upward trajectory of support. For kicks, go back and compare the coverage between the candidacy ending Dean Scream to the McCain "bomb Iran" non-event. Yes, I know, after 9/11 everything changed, but humor yourself.)

Now in 2007, Ron Paul comes along last week and gives by most accounts of honest grassroots Americans the best performance in the first televised debate between GOP presidential contenders. Exclusively broadcast by MSNBC, Ron Paul led MSNBC's post election poll from start to finish with nearly a double digit margin over his nearest challenger Mitt Romney.

An even more crushing defeat of the rest of the pack occurred in an ABC News poll which at first had been posted on-line with only nine names on it — Ron Paul's being the one missing. Irate Paul supporters who complained in the poll's comment section at first saw many of their posts ominously deleted — some no doubt for language, others for editorial discretion bordering on the c word. After someone posted in the comment' thread the cell phone number of a Senior VP at ABC News, the Paul name was added to the poll.

With the silent treatment of Ron Paul becoming deafening, ABC News has now taken the "nothing to see here, move along" tact. Here is how they summed it up in their whitewash of the last few days:

Yes, the scientific off-line polls of a few thousand people that we control and tell you about are correct. The on-line polls they can't be trusted.

There is one glaring fallacy of logic in the current ABC argument. There were almost 80,000 votes cast in the MSNBC poll just BEFORE the first televised debate. In that polling, the results came out just as the MSM media told us they should. McCain, Romney and Gulliani the leaders, Paul, Tancredo, Hunter and others just blips.

What ABC is trying to say now, however, is that those who cast these 80,000 votes suddenly evaporated and were mysteriously replaced by those coaxed on by a handful of Paul supporters and Internet savvy bloggers. (It is no shock that with this kind of reasoning a Digg post two days ago on the ABC news story already has 4,000 "diggs.")

Let me offer a totally different made-up explanation for ABC that could have sold better. Most McCain, Romney and Giuliani supporters don't pay attention to MSNBC and ABC. They are all over at Fox News being marketed information they already agree with. The MSNBC and ABC polls were driven by Democratic and unaffiliated voting types who simply discovered that Paul was the GOP candidate most like them. And, it certainly didn't hurt that the questions and commentary in the MSNBC debate were moderated by a "liberal."

It should also be noted that on-line winner Ron Paul was the only one of the ten GOP candidates to clearly state that he has been against the Iraq War from before it was started by the Bush Administration. He said our soldiers should be allowed to march out of Iraq as quickly as they marched in. That a growing majority of ignored Americans have been taking a similar stand is another likely reason Paul scored so well in the after debate polling. Of course, if you go by the MSNBC report the next morning, this is the subtitle you quickly see next to a photo of three candidates including Ron Paul:

In first debate, 2008 hopefuls say conflict mismanaged, but worthwhile

MSNBC "reporter" Alex Johnson and his editors then opened their article with this (boldface added):

Republican presidential candidates gave a qualified endorsement Thursday night to President Bush’s strategy in the war in Iraq, criticizing the administration for mismanaging the war but insisting that U.S. troops should not be withdrawn.

So, while technically we can imagine Ron Paul for some reason might not be considered a "hopeful" and MSNBC did not write "ALL Republican presidential candidates..." you would think that a real news outfit might want to point out that the apparent winner of the debate was the only candidate to come out decidedly against both going into and staying in Iraq.

Folks, this is how bad the corporate media really is. They can not even report accurately on an event they produced themselves. Let's join Eric Blair in not being surprised.

The next GOP debate is in Columbia, South Carolina this coming Tuesday, May 15th. The "fair and balanced" Fox News is hosting this one. Watch carefully how they place Ron Paul on stage and how Britt Hume directs questions and comments to him.

Sidebar: We will actually be in Columbia on the 15th lobbying mainstream media journalists and debate fans to take a cue from Lou Dobbs and start reporting on plans to merge the US with Canada and Mexico. We think this question rises at least to a level of importance on par with whether or not a presidential candidate would keep Carl Rove on their staff. Interested parties can contact me here.