2) He is the only candidate using user-created video well. He’s sort of the only candidate encouraging user-created video at all. Compare this past week for the candidates.

I take it that you are not aware that the video shown in the CNN/YouTube debate by the Ron Paul campaign was user created and won the competition sponsored by the campaign for the honor?

http://ronpaul2008.typepad.com/ron_paul_2008/2007/11/cnn-airs-ron-pa.htm...

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=43282

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ur8F_c5PQg

Tex--see the headline. Ron Paul wins and his supporters have been very creative on this front. This is only about the battle for second best.

Thanks for the links, though!

Z

Zephyr, I found it interesting that you felt compelled to adjust your initial analysis.

First, this is really not an online competition and it's ironic that Ron Paul supporters see it that way. These two campaigns are not competing for the same space online. Yes they are both running for President, but other than that they aren't even close. They apeal to a vastly different base.

Sure Ron Paul may have more support online for now, but look at where it's coming from, anywhere and everywhere. You put a gun rights/anti-IRS supporter together in a room with a legalize drug/pro-choice supporter and they would never agree on an issue. Yet both will support Ron Paul. Mike Huckabee's convictions turn people off before they give him a chance.

Has anyone noticed the difference in Ron Paul supporter videos versus Mike Huckabee supporter videos? You almost never see Ron Paul in supporter videos, yet Mike Huckabee is in just about every supporter video.

My point is Ron Paul supporters are for an ideal, not a candidate. Mike Huckabee supporters are just as passionate, but for a candidate and his leadership abilities. I'm pretty sure I learned in grade school that the President is supposed to be a leader and not an object of desire.

Second and final point, your initial comments discussed the effectiveness of Huckabee's web campaign to reach out to supporters. I had the opportunity to speak briefly with Governor Huckabee after the debate on Wednesday, and I think you'd be surprised to learn that he feels the most important aspect of the web site is the engagement of blogging and bloggers. The ability to openly communicate with supporters is the key to his success both on the web and in the polls. He actually writes his blogs and reads comments.

Huckabee himself knows what's going on both in the polls and online. That shows effective campaigning.

Ron Paul himself said at the debate that he doesn't know what's going on, he's just along for the Revolution.

I don't want you to change your "Best Web Campaign" award, I'm glad Ron Paul has it, but I did want to acknowledge your initial instinct and share my thoughts on why I agreed that Huckabee has the most effective web campaign.

Thanks for your thoughts, homestar.

You're right;its not a competition. It is an opportunity to examine what really works, and what I confess I find most interesting, right now, is how Huckabee's campaign has actively CHOSEN to engage in a more distributed, open mode than many other campaigns, and the ways in which that is communicated not by tools but by tone and content.

Paul also made a choice, but its a different kind, as you point out.

I think that's where some other campaigns have missed something in their investments; they've focused on distributed tools and contests, not on the fact of actually depending upon supporters.

Paul is sui generis, though he may not be in the future; Huckabee's attitude is one that other campaigns could plausibly adopt.

I would agree with you homestar, that Ron Paul's candidacy is about the message. Dr. Paul even says so himself (it's not like it's changed in 30 years).

You are also right about Huckabee as well, he's witty, he's likeable, and good in debates. But to me, he has a little too much of the nanny tendencies going on. Come on Huckabee, I want to smoke my cigars and eat my porterhouse steaks! I don't want you telling me what to eat, OR taking my paycheck so you can subsidize farmers, oil companies, other countries. I also don't like the idea of central plannning saying what a "marriage" is.

My blog is mostly chicks doing yoga, Ron Paul, and puppies. www.theroguenation.blogspot.com

Celebrate the sovereign individual
We don't need no stinkin leadership! We need to be left alone to follow our own star. Examples: 1. Spend our money our way, not be robbed of most of it by taxation. 2. Choose which money we use instead of being forced by the "legal tender law" to use federal reserve notes(fiat money). 3. Choose our educators instead of being victims of compulsory state institutions because:
"Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery."
---Benjamin Disraeli, 1874
Ron Paul is the ONLY candidate that understands and believes in freedom.