Did Putin Astroturf the Libertarian Ron Paul Revolution?

[Celerity]

Ron Paul’s campaign manager was recently convicted of funneling Russian money to Trump. Russia has long had an interest in Paul’s political movement.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/louis-anslow-asks-did-russia-putin-and-jesse-benton-astroturf-the-libertarian-ron-paul-revolution



On March 12, 2007, an obscure congressman from Texas announced his run for the Presidency of the United States. He was a fringe candidate running on the Republican ticket with little hope of winning a primary, let alone the nomination. Then—suddenly—Ron Paul was everywhere. Within a few months, Paul landed a spot on Real Time with Bill Maher, thanks to unprecedented online momentum that would capture the attention of the mainstream press.

Wired magazine detailed how Paul was taking over the web. The Washington Post ran the numbers, noting he was more popular on Facebook than his GOP primary rival John McCain, had more friends on MySpace than Mitt Romney, and garnered almost as many views on YouTube as Barack Obama (while also noting Paul’s low polling numbers.) Other outlets also highlighted the mismatch between real world and online popularity—such as the NBC News story, “An also-ran in GOP polls, Paul is huge on Web.”



When it came to online polls, however, Paul would win consistently and by a large margin—something that came to be known as the “Ron Paul Effect.” CNN’s Jack Cafferty observed Paul’s followers “at any given moment can almost overpower the internet,” something that had a Pavlovian effect on editors, who’d try to include his name wherever possible because it guaranteed a flood of traffic. The momentum continued through 2007, driving record online fundraising and eventually leading to Time magazine giving him the moniker “Candidate 2.0.”

The narrative that grew around Paul’s candidacy was that he was the product of the internet and Web 2.0—a presidential hopeful free from the clutches of establishment media gatekeepers. Some, however, had doubts about the authenticity of Paul’s momentum. Users of Reddit and Digg complained that bot activity was pushing Ron Paul stories to the front page, while downvoting anti-Paul comments and submissions (such as reports on his racist newsletters).

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