The first role of the corporate press in an election cycle is to weed out candidates who they deem nonviable. This usually means choosing not to cover candidates whose ideas that fall outside the Beltway conventional wisdom (e.g., Dennis Kucinich), or those who reporters decide have no real chance of winning the nomination.
The speculation that reality TV star/mogul Donald Trump might run in 2012 flips the narrative around—and demonstrates the fact that the media can change the “rules” whenever they want. Trump is extremely unlikely to actually run, and his “ideas” mostly revolve around a long-debunked conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born where he was born. So by any normal standard he would get no coverage. But he’s perhaps the dominant feature of the early campaign coverage, making a string of television appearances that a supposedly marginal candidate would never enjoy.
What gives? Some reporters have tried to find ways to explain why this is so, or at least justify the attention. Take Dan Balz in the Washington Post (4/24/11):
The New York businessman has grabbed headlines with his provocative remarks on President Obama’s birthplace. He continues to question whether the president was born in Hawaii, despite ample evidence that he was. But what he has had to say about real issues deserves as much attention as his “birther” comments.
I wish he were saying that since Trump’s birtherism deserves no coverage, his thoughts about “real issues” deserve the same.
But Balz seems to be arguing that since Trump’s nutty conspiracy-mongering makes news, his other ideas deserve to make news too. All this coming from a guy no one seems to think has any intention of actually mounting a serious campaign. This is an extremely odd justification, at odds with the normal rules of Beltway journalism.
Amidst this backdrop, Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas will apparently announce his intention today to run in 2012. He was a candidate in 2008 that media mostly left out of their campaign coverage, despite the fact that he had a core of dedicated volunteers and an impressive ability to raise money (one of the things that media normally treat as very important).
Ron Paul is, in other words, was an actual candidate, and is likely to be one again. But will he enjoy even a tiny fraction of the coverage given to Donald Trump? Don’t bet on it.
Can you imagine MRC or Newsbusters going to bat for Dennis Kucinich or Bernie Sanders? I think we all know the answer.
Kudos to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting for going outside their comfort zone to show principled support for a candidate that their editorial board probably doesn’t agree with on many things (and yes, I am aware they defended Paul during the ’08 primary, and that was also excellent).
Donald Trump has proven himself to be a joke. If Ron Paul doesn’t get more media coverage this time around, it will be a shame. He has been making many more appearances recently though, and I think he will be a bigger force during next election. He has certainly gained my support between last election cycle and this one.
I can’t imagine voting for anyone other than Ron Paul.
Ron Paul has already won my mind.
He has brought the federal reserve into light, the beast has shown it’s true form, and it’s time to bring it down.
Listen to this, you can skip to about 7 minutes 30 seconds in:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18881616
This was when I decided it was time to quit working for the media. It would be nice if Ron Paul got coverage proportional to the money he raised, for one thing. Maybe now that the media see they’ve put in another war president they’ll give him a real chance this time. Personally I look forward to the time that the alphabet media and the NYT are considered barely relevant dinosaurs, the way most of them have steadily been heading.
After Ron Paul gave up the 2008 run- he became a media darling and go to person for explanations on how he was right about the economy-
Even Hanity acted a little more respectful this latest time having Ron Paul on his show-
Ron enjoyed having more face time on news networks than any current speculated runner— except those that were given their own show or put on the payroll of Rupert Murdock !
Ron even gained the respect of some of the most liberal media channels who had him on as an economy pundit time and time again—
I believe Ron will serve a very important role in this election cycle— as his creditability has expanded exponentially and the liberal media will attempt to push a candidate they think would be a slam dunk for Obama to beat–
Funny thing is— RP could actually turn the tables being so popular with independents and libertarians that he could actually take Obama on in a very strong position to win—
I’m not crazy— I actually think proper strategies could take Ron Paul all the way if he get serious about putting a real campaign together this time— instead of letting inexperienced others do all the work for him—
If only he could organize his mass of supporters-
Peace
This is apparently another lame stream media hit piece. A good way to get hits by putting Pon Paul in the content.
I’ll be doing a lot more for Ron Paul this time then just voting for him. Everyone in my neighborhood will be getting literature and my yard sign is going up now. Get back to the local meetings etc. MSM ignored him and he did pretty good so with him in the media a lot more let’s hope he wins this time. Maybe we can return the country back to what the founding fathers envisioned. Get government out of my life and STOP spending my money!!
Ron Paul 2012!!
Lots of people have been discussing the subject of the layers found within President Obama’s Long Form Birth Certificate. What I haven’t really heard discussed yet is the easiliest seen and most damning problem with the document. It contains mixed pixel sizes, clearly visable to anyone by merely zooming in on the PDF in Adobe Reader. First off, let’s download the document from the White House.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf
Once you have downloaded the PDF, follow my instructions for examining it. Some of you may choose to close your eyes to this and not try… But all who do will be in for a shock… You can come to your own conclusions but the truth is unavoidable once you see what I have found.
First off, left click on the PDF to see the full Birth Certificate form as provided by the White House.
Find the part in the upper right hand side, where it says DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH and has the numbers 61 10641 written underneath…
Using the Adobe PDF reader, click on the 1600% magnification and look a the numbers 10641…
Check out the number one on the right hand side… notice how pixelated it is? Notice also that it is made up of a bunch of different colors!!! Now get a good feeling for the size of the individual pixels that make up this number…
Now take a look at any of the numbers to the left of the one, notice they are all one color only? More importantly than that, there are numerous places on all the other numbers where you can clearly see how large the size of a single pixel is. The pixals in all the other numbers are only one quarter the size of the pixels in the one on the right hand side.
If you scan a document, the whole document will be made up of identical sized pixels… If this document was real, it would be made up of identical sized pixals…
BUT IT’S NOT!!!
Okay, now zoom the PDF out to where the whole Birth Certificate is visable. Now, left click once on the image and it will go blue… right click and select Copy Image… Now open up Microsoft Paint, Corel Paint Shop or whatever other imaging program you use and paste the image in the program… The basic background of the form is there but almost all of the written data is gone…. What the heck??? Where did all the writing go? There is just white shadowing where the words were.
When you copied the document, the layer with the smaller pixels was NOT coped… That’s why you don’t see it when you paste the document in an imager… Also notice that the number one on the right hand side did appear in the pasted form. That’s because it was the same pixel size as the background form of the document. Now finally, Why is there a white shadow left where the missing text and numbers used to be? Because it was an intentional forgery, they took the time to alter the background of the text and numbers, so that the characters would look realistic… but they screwed up on matching the pixel size of the overlaying text!!!
Finally, remember… I didn’t make this PDF… You just downloaded it from the White House!!! GAME… SET… MATCH!!!
Nice article. Ron Paul will help the sheeple discover the “red pill” of Liberty and Austrian economics! WAKE UP!
Ron Paul 2012!!
Harry Lime: If you scan a document, the whole document will be made up of identical sized pixelsâ┚¬Ã‚¦ If this document was real, it would be made up of identical sized pixals…
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Oh, you must be THE Harry Lime, world-renowned scanning software and forgery expert. I wouldn’t expect your busy schedule permitted much free time to be commenting here. Welcome aboard.
[sigh.] Word of advice, Harry: just let it go before you make a real imbecile of yourself.
My neighborhood is full of Harry Limes who believe Obama couldn’t possibly be American. The majority of them will vote for anyone as long as it is not Obama, and they will dance on the heads of a thousand pins to explain it. Funny thing, all of it adds up to one word for me…racism. Their explanations are so absurd, how can I come to any other conclusion? Our paper ran a poll asking who would you vote for if the election were held today….result: 65% Trump 35% Obama. Yes I live in Tea Party country. No I did not believe they were the majority countrywide, yet look at what happened in the 2010 elections.
Ron Paul is another who seems to believe that government itself is “bad”, like the baggers do. I disagree, government can be and is misused, but so can capitalism especially if it is given free reign which is a libertarian dream. We misuse all our human institutions but we don’t eliminate them to solve the problem. Now can we reform government simply by downsizing it? Funny thing here in Florida after making it plain they wanted government out of their lives, we now have new waves of anger coming from people saying well maybe not this thing here or that thing there. No, no we can’t touch this and of course we can’t touch that! Gosh darn, maybe government does some necessary things after all. Who would of “thunk” it!
Oh Mr. Paul is getting the coverage :)
The Constitution has all America’s answers. Please read Mr. Paul’s issues. He simply believes in the principles that made America thrive and subsequently are for personal liberty.
Constitutionally, legislatively, and morally, Ron Paul has no equal. His 22 year voting record speaks for itself. The World is watching. Ron Paul for President in 2012.
Thank you
q: How do you know you are in a room with a Ron Paul supporter? a: He’ll Tell you.