Paul's Supporters Clash With Media

AMY SCHATZ
WSJ
Saturday November 24, 2007

Early Halloween morning, "Taco John" posted a message-board call to arms: "Baltimore Sun Hit Piece...TAKE ACTION NOW!"

The paper's political blog had an item marveling at how Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul had raised more money than "better-known Mike Huckabee, who is taken more seriously." Taco John took to an Internet forum frequented by Paul supporters, providing a link to the offending item, as well as phone and email information for the newspaper's public editor and advertising department. "They're trying to pigeonhole us," he wrote. "If we don't fight back, they'll keep doing it."

Taco John, the online moniker of Isaac Lopez, a 32-year-old technology marketer in Vancouver, Wash., is one of many cyber-soldiers for Dr. Paul, the Texas congressman, gynecologist and vociferous opponent of the Iraq war. The Paul brigade has largely drawn attention for its fund-raising prowess, raising a record $4.2 million online in a single day in November and leaving the 72-year-old politician with more cash on hand than several rivals and a $1 million TV ad budget for New Hampshire. But some Paul supporters are displaying an aggressive side that seems to spill beyond advocacy into harassment of those who disagree or fail to show Dr. Paul sufficient respect.

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Taco John, for example, posted contact information for a university professor who called Dr. Paul "unqualified to be president." He also provided information on how to reach several reporters with whom he quibbled, as well as the Iowa Republican Party after it helped set rules for a debate -- later canceled -- that could have excluded the low-polling Dr. Paul.

Taco John -- the handle comes from Mr. Lopez's appreciation of former Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway and tacos -- is a neophyte activist, who says he was inspired by Dr. Paul's libertarian platform.

Some blogs have booted Paul supporters for leaving incendiary comments. They have also been frozen out of Internet surveys and accused of electronic ballot stuffing; Dr. Paul rarely loses online straw polls even though he barely registers in national telephone polls. His supporters argue that they win online polls because there are more Paul supporters and they're better organized.

Many of Dr. Paul's supporters say they're simply fighting a media and political establishment that won't give him a fair shake. The big Nov. 5 "moneybomb" fund raiser was timed to coincide with Guy Fawkes Day and inspired by the 1980s comic-book series "V for Vendetta," in which a vigilante in a Guy Fawkes mask wages war against a totalitarian British state.

The Paul campaign has also drawn support from antigovernment fringe groups and 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Since mid-September, a large "Ron Paul for President" banner has flashed at the bottom of white-supremacist Internet forum Stormfront.org. "Really, we haven't seen a candidate like Ron Paul in some time. The closest would have been Pat Buchanan" in 2000, says Don Black of West Palm Beach, Fla., the group's founder and a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, who donated $500 to Mr. Paul's campaign.

Full article here.

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