Ames: The Ron Paul Question
by Ryan Sager
Sat, 11 Aug 2007 at 1:29 PM
updated Sat, 11 Aug 2007 at 1:32 PM
Well, I think I answered my Ron Paul question after battling the sun for about an hour... Out of staters, overwhelmingly. I went to talk to the five Ron Paul folks holding a big poster outside the entrance. 0-5. Not one from Iowa. They'd driven in from Kansas City, Missouri. One woman was from New Jersey.
I asked another guy holding a sign on the way in: Huntsville, Alabama.
I asked three more RP folks: Out of town.
I asked two more: Out of town.
I asked four more: Out of town.
I'd been told some Iowa Ron Paul supporters were holed up at his tent, so I headed over...
I asked three folks sitting and eating Ron Paul's food: Nope.
I approached another man: Finally, a guy from Iowa!
Oops... I ask him why he's supporting Ron Paul: "I don't know anything about him."
Oh well, maybe he was about to be converted.
Now, let me be clear: None of this means there are no Iowans supporting Ron Paul at the Straw Poll today. We'll know the exact number of them around 7:00 p.m. And, obviously, other candidates have lots of supporters in from out of state. But unless he places in the top four, there's a huge gap between the national activist showing and the ability to deliver votes in a geographically contained area — once again proving that the Ron Paul phenomenon is a small group of people posting a lot of blog comments and swarming online polls.
All that said, while it may not sound like it, I really don't mean to pick a fight with the Paul folks. I stopped and talked to the folks outside the gate for a while (the ones in the picture).
A college student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Jason Bennett, 27 (he took a few years off), told me his chief motivation for voting for Mr. Paul (though, again, he's ineligible for the Straw Poll) is "the Constitution." "It's not Ron Paul," he said, "It's the message. ... We've been waiting for a candidate like this since Goldwater." Mr. Bennett also expressed concern about the weak dollar — Mr. Paul wants to go back the gold standard — and what a joke the No Child Left Behind Act is (can't say I disagree).
A college student from Detroit, Chadd Elliott, chimed in when I asked about the Bush administration's policies in Iraq and the Middle East in general. On Israel, he said that Israel "doesn't need our money. ... they're rich." He also said the Iraq war was counterproductive. "The war is a paradox. We're creating more terrorists by the second."
At least on the war, these aren't sentiments that are terribly popular in today's Republican Party. Nonetheless, the Paul folks assure me people have been polite. Inter-campaign rivalry has been quite friendly, generally.
 Out front of the Ames Straw Poll |
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Related Topics: GOP Primary
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