Posted by
Tonewah on Monday, November 05, 2007 6:25:00 AM
I awoke, this morning, to a plethora of messages from my Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Constitution and Independent friends. They all pointed me to a website,
www.thisNovember5th.com. I'm already aware of this site, but the volume of traffic indicated something was really up. I knew it was supposed to be a big day for Ron Paul fundraising, but I didn't know it would be this quick.
I've been watching all the candidates' fundraising. It's important to know who's contributing and how much they give. This tells more about a candidate's future actions than his platform, in most cases. Yesterday, I looked at Ron Paul's money thermometer, and it was close to $3 million. I checked it this morning, and the total was almost $4 million. $1 million dollars in around 6 hours is something to note.
That's a lot of money. So, who's giving it?
Before writing my previous entry on Paul's money, I did some research. The majority of Paul's contributions come from individuals in quantities of less than $200, many of those contributions are less than $100. From the occupations the contributors list, they're ready for a change in government. Occupations like "Tax Slave" and "America's Future" are not uncommon on contributions.
Ron Paul's campaign is also drawing more contributions from the military than any other candidate. That may surprise some who have stated they oppose Ron Paul because of his long-time opposition to the military presence in Iraq. As a Congressman, Paul voted to send troops to Afghanistan, but not to Iraq. Further research shows that Ron Paul is running on a national defense platform very similar to the one George W. Bush ran on in 2000, and his run was sparked, in part, by Paul's dismay with the Bush administration's failure to keep it's campaign promises and Bush's reversal of what many view as traditional Republican ideals. This seems to have struck a chord with the military.
The other candidates have a lot of money coming from questionable sources and overseas interests. That worries many americans. Perhaps this is why they've decided to support Ron Paul financially.
Whether you support Ron Paul or not, it should be encouraging to see so many Americans getting involved with the process. Voter apathy has been a mounting issue in previous elections, with voter turnout well less than 50% in the 2004 primaries, in some states, less than 10%. A flaw with modern American politics is that elections are, in effect, bought. If Ron Paul is victorious, this election will be bought by the American public.
*blogger's note: As of 10:20 PM Central, Ron Paul's tote reads $6.9+ million, and is about to roll over to $7 million.
**bloggers note: CNN has reported the gain saying there was no way to confirm the numbers. This is untrue. The campaign has a feed to thousands of .swf 'widgets' around the web. This includes name, city, and the amount added to the tote. This shouldn't be very hard to confirm, at all. Paul's campaign has raised a record amount; they broke the one-day online fundraising record, without even organizing the event. This should be newsworthy, and a news network of the size of CNN should be thorough enough to check the facts. CNN is either too lazy to do the slight research to confirm, or they are completely inept. They also incorrectly reported the gain as $2 million.