February 14, 2008
Kaimin wrong to underestimate Ron Paul
As organizer of the Missoula for Ron Paul Meet-Up Group and a graduate student at UM, I appreciate your apology last week for your failure to cover the Ron Paul campaign and his popularity here in Montana. You are only student reporters, after all. But I must say: I am confused as to why your editor felt the need to be an apologist for a bunch of corporate-controlled media outlets.
Sean wrote: “For some national media outlets, not including Paul might have made sense.”
No, it didn’t make sense. Ron Paul raised more money in Q4 2007 than any other Republican candidate. He raised $20 million more than “mainstream candidate” Huckabee. Ron Paul beat “mainstream candidate” Rudy Giuliani in early primaries in Iowa, South Carolina, and Michigan. He beat “mainstream candidate” Fred Thomson in New Hampshire. He won the Independent vote in Iowa, and came in second in Nevada and Louisiana. All this despite a media blackout, despite being given about 6.8 seconds of total speaking time in every debate, and despite being outright banned from the Fox News debate before the crucial New Hampshire primary. Any way you slice it, Ron Paul’s success has been the single biggest phenomenon of the 2007 campaign season.
Sean, you wrote: “In covering political attitudes across the entire country, honing in on a low-population state that supports a non-mainstream candidate might require more resources than they are willing or able to commit. Covering candidates with more broad support makes sense at that level.”
Horse manure! First of all, since when did Rupert Murdoch have resource shortages?
And if you want to talk about political attitudes around the country, let’s look at what’s happened to the GOP as of late. John A. Boehner (R–OH), House Minority Leader, has said pointblank that fundraising for the Republican Party “sucks.”
“Now the money sucks for two reasons,” Boehner said in a Politico interview. “People are mad at the president; they are mad at the party. And then [there is] this whole immigration fight. People just turned off the spigot.”
So the GOP is practically broke and Ron Paul is raking in $20 million in three months. This is exactly why it does make sense to pay attention to a “nonmainstream” candidate: Obviously, people are not happy with the mainstream! Another political attitude across the country: 70% of Americans want out of Iraq. Ron Paul is the only candidate who wants to get us out of Iraq…like now. He is the only peace ticket in this election.
And this argument that it “makes sense” to cover only those candidates with “broad support”: why? Candidates who have “broad support” from the get-go are just rich people like Romney who can afford to pay their own way into a Presidential campaign or career politicians like Giuliani and McCain who have instant name recognition. Wouldn’t it make sense to give candidates with less support and money more coverage, to give those candidates some decent exposure, even out the playing field, and allow Americans the chance to better understand their options? Maybe the media’s preference for covering only those with “broad support” (when the Presidential election is still a year away) is the very reason we never end up with any real options and always feel like we’re in a position of choosing the “lesser of two evils.”
Montanans contributed $88,887 to Ron Paul’s campaign in 2007, more than they gave to Romney, McCain, and Huckabee combined. Paul raised twice as much as
Mitt Romney and three times as much as McCain. There is no excuse for the way local and national media treated him.
In summary, the Kaimin should not take its cues from the national media, America’s Ministry of Propaganda. As future journalists, you must learn to think independently and critically and provide real information. We’re counting on you.
But Sean was right about one thing: Ron Paul is out of step with his party. The GOP is made up of big-government authoritarians with an imperial agenda. The Democrats have more in common with his party than he does. In this sense, I guess you could say he is an oddball; and yes, that is exactly why we like him.
Ellen Finnigan
UM grad student, creative writing
This story has been viewed 297 times.
Comments
Dear Editor Sean Breslin,
I’m another of the Dr. Ron Paul “oddballs”. Although I’m a Harvard graduate and served in the USMC from Recruit to Captain, graduate student Ellen Finnigan summarized this situation in her letter to you way better than I could have.
Ignoring Ms. Finnigan’s message, your KAIMIN reporters are STILL missing the story SCOOP of 2008; some lamestream/mainstream media, from which you admit you take your cues, falsely ( fraudulently in the case of the NY Daily News & others!) reported the Montana GOP Caucus results, Journalism.org showed how lopsided national “news” reporting was the week before supermegatuesday, and SWORN COMPLAINTS are accordingly being filed with United States Attorneys in NE, MT, CA and other States.
Further, Dr. Ron Paul’s message includes simple solutions for most of America’s serious problems, he’s staying in the presidential race to its conclusion, and grassroots reporters are not investigating many of the problems/issues or his suggested ways of solving them.
Therefore, in the making, is the “American Freedom Fusion Assembly” where the millions of disappointed Demopublicans and millions of alienated Republicrats may fuse with the millions of Constitutiionalists, Libertarians, Populists, Greens , and Independents and may have to pull off “ THE MOTHER OF ALL WRITE-IN ELECTIONS” on 11/4/08, followed by “THE MOTHER OF ALL STRIKES” .
My suggestion is that you and your talented reporters, like Mark Page, google “Velvet Revolution” and “ The Singing Revolution “ ( Czechoslovakia and Estonia in 1989); consider that Ghandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela were successful; recall how Lech Walechsa led Polish shipyard workers from Gdansk; and google “Pierre Wack” and study up on “TINA” ( There Is No Alternative ). The elitists controlling many lamestream media corporations deliberately miss-use this management technique, and We The People will need to return to Pierre Wack’s original intent, searching out ALL the ALTERNATIVES and picking the best of the WIN-WIN-WIN solutions - even tho’ you word wizards may label us “wackos” for advocating doing it.
This time, being forced to vote for the lesser of two evils in a “business as usual” context isn’t going to be acceptable. Another “October Surprise” , or “September 11th” false flag attack, followed by imposition of martial law and suspension of Constitutionally-protected Rights ( including suspension of the November general election) won’t be acceptable either.
The actual conspiracy theorists who meet secretly in the “Bildergerger” clandestine meetings are probably out of rabbits feet. Some of them claim they are Americans, yet they attended those cultist confabs in violation of the Logan Act and contemplate giving away the rest of American Sovereignty with the remaining manufacturing jobs, while encouraging more illegal immigration, all in breach of their Oaths of Office.
But hey, guys, will you finally cover some real stories instead of taking your cues ffrom the lamestream corporate media? Or , are you short on resources too, like Rupert Murdoch and his sons ?
Posted by Tony Ostheimer on 02/28/2008 at 5:21 pm
Second paragraph from the end, it’s spelled “Bilderberger” with a “b” , as in “Baker” and “Bravo”. If you google it, don’t give up with “their” miss-leading and not very informative website. Go to others’ websites and read the allegations! Then ask yourself, “ If it is such a good cult , with such fine ideas, why must their Bilderberg meetings filled with conspiracy theorists be held in such clandestine and secret settings?”
Posted by Tony Ostheimer on 02/28/2008 at 5:39 pm
Dear Editor,
I was not sure who to address this too, hence the
generic “dear Editor”.
I would like to take this time to comment on an
article I read, it seems the Mainstream
Media is intent to once again decide for the American
people just who we should be considering as serious
contenders for the 2008 presidential election.
Unfortunately the Mainstream Media is shoving down the
throats of the American people the candidates that
they believe will deliver to them and their stock
holders the candidates with the most money to spend on
advertising.
The American people are waking up to this very UN
AMERICAN process, and to put it bluntly, “we are quite
angry”. I, and everyone who is politically active in
my small town of New Bedford population(110,000) have
a distinct feeling of betrayal. Our media has, for
many years been deceiving us, all in the name of
profit and influence.
It may have taken ten plus years of internet access to
unfettered truth to gain enough momentum for the
people to discern the difference between reality and
Corporate controlled media fantasy, but were here now.
If your news outlet wants to be on the forefront for
change, and actually benefit society as a whole,
Journalistic integrity has no equal!
I don’t want, nor do I desire, sugar coated, spun,
embellishments that pass for truth. I don’t want to be
in the “fox spin zone” or any of the corporate
controlled media’s contrived outlets of greedy rating
and advertising whore’s influence. I leave that to the
lazy people who base their opinions by proxy, and who
adopt a pundits opinion as their own based upon a 30
second sound bite.
In times of great social turmoil, speaking the truth
is among the highest respected patriotic acts a person
can perform!
Weather you realize it or not, this small article
about another truth speaker Dr. Ron Paul, is adding to
the to transformation of an entire generation of A
WELL INFORMED POPULACE. To this I must commend your
decision to run this outstanding piece!
Thank you so very much for not betraying me and the
rest of your fellow Americans with propaganda, but
instead giving us a true accounting of what you see
and reporting back to us so that we may formulate our
own opinions.
With great sincerity,
Stephen Dupont
New Bedford, Massachusetts
Posted by Stephen Dupont on 02/29/2008 at 8:58 pm
