Social Media Aids GOP Candidate Ron Paul

Posted on July 10, 2007

The Washington Post ran an article last month about how GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul has become a big name on the web thanks to social media sites like Digg and video sharing websites like YouTube. These sites were news to Paul. He has not heard of them but wisely relies on his clever team to find them.

Paul told the Post, "To tell you the truth, I hadn't heard about this YouTube and all the other Internet sites until supporters started gathering in them. I tell you I've never raised money as efficiently as that, in all my years in Congress, and all I'm doing is speaking my mind."

A month later it looks like all that web popularity has turned into cash for web star Ron Paul. Ron Paul raised $2.4 million in the second quarter. That doesn't make him a top contender but it does keep him in the race and it is shows that web popularity means something. CNN reports that Ron Paul now has more cash on hand than John McCain.

Ron Paul has been popular because his ideas on the Iraq War and foreign policy differ greatly from the views held by Bush administration and the other GOP candidates. One of the most popular Ron Paul YouTube videos is where he talks about a policy of non-intervention and takes on better known GOP candidate Rudy Giuliani. YouTube returns 26,400 videos for a Ron Paul search. He is also a popular topic on Digg, Reddit and other social networks.