By Jennifer Litz
Editor
December 20, 2007

Of the recently Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul, pundits from CNN to Fox News have been asking, “Who the hell is in charge?” They want to unveil the Wiley Wonk Force behind the $6 million-plus fundraising record set last weekend on the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party (and the $4 million one-day record that had preceded it by about a month). Such a widespread—and well-organized—display of disenchantment with the Establishment and their taxes, much like our forefathers had displayed 234 years ago!

Austin staged a Tea Party on Barton Lake, overthrowing boxes labeled “IRS,” “Waterboarding,” and “Open Borders”; Las Vegas participants staged their tea party commemoration in front of the local IRS building. In Boston, participants braved a blizzard to participate in the event at Faneuil Hall, rallied by honored speaker Rand Paul, son of Ron. Most of these events have been at least partially immortalized in myriad YouTube videos.

And then there’s the Ron Paul Blimp, that beautiful strike of marketing genius that is neither political action committee nor sponsored by the official Ron Paul campaign of 2008. But it can still accept donations in excess of $5,000 for Paul fans wanting to sponsor the blimps “pre-selected” political message. Those donors get to ride the blimp, too!

How is this happening? And with Ron Paul not even listed in some polls?

Are people quitting their day jobs to prosthelize for Paul; middle classers throwing their money at a cause for which they’re actually not jaded?

They really are. And they’re doing it in Texas.

It’s Not Me, It’s You: Ron Paul to his Grassroots Supporters

Whether he wins the nomination or not, Ron Paul’s grassroots supporters have been the driving force behind the media coverage—and certainly the fundraising—for his presidential stint. They’re organized largely via local “Meetup” groups (found on Meetup.com) that stay connected with others across the nation via the Internet. Web forums are also a popular gathering place for Paul fans, who hatch and plan events, and discuss issues, media coverage, and strategies in these virtual war rooms.

This following, for a candidate who recently admitted to Fox News not having used the Internet much before his current stab at the Oval Office.

In response to Sunday’s “Tea Party ‘07” reenactments across the country—and subsequent record-breaking online donations—Dr. Paul released a thank you letter to his supporters. In many ways, it marveled at his decentralized support almost as much as the mainstream media has.

“On just one day, in honor of the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, the new American revolutionaries brought in $6.04 million, another one-day record,” Paul wrote. “The average donation was $102; we had 58,407 individual contributors, of whom an astounding 24,915 were first-time donors. And it was an entirely voluntary, self-organized, decentralized, independent effort on the internet. Must be the ‘spammers’ I keep hearing about!”

Here is the first hint of how Ron racks up monetary support that hasn’t transferred over to the polls: Many of his followers are young (so they might only have a cell line, which pollers don’t call); previously politically inexperienced (so they may not even be registered to vote or pollable at this point); and web savvy. This certainly characterizes Trevor Lyman, who set up the main Web site to accept donations and disseminate information for the Tea Party reenactments (his background as an Internet entrepreneur helped with that). Lyman also helped cultivate the idea for the blimp on Ronpaulforums.com. Lyman is 37. He has never voted in his life.

The Los Angeles Times and other media have tried to peg Lyman as the grassroots campaign linchpin. But a majority of idea hatching and bridge building is happening within and between the myriad Meetup groups in cities across the nation. Austin just happens to have the largest Ron Paul Meetup in the nation, with 1,182 members (UT members included). Smaller Texas cities also have active Meetups: T. Wood III heards a small but active group in Brownwood; San Angelo’s Meetup group is almost 30 strong. Even College Station’s Meetup group has about 400 members.

But what can organizers in a state left out of the early primaries do at this point? Plenty.

--Like gathering campaign donations, of course. “Our primary objective right now is to raise funds,” says James Robinson, San Angelo Ron Paul Meetup group organizer. “[Paul] can apply funds in the early primaries; we’re trying to raise funds to get to him long before Texas votes. If he does get the vote, we’ll start voter education here.”

The “rEVOLution” is Connected

Robinson’s Meetup has tried to raise Paul’s local profile by participating in San Angelo’s recent Christmas light parade; Robinson adorned his Labrador with Ron Paul signs for the occasion. The San Angelo Meetup group has had fundraising yard sales and paid the shipping charges to donate signs to New Hampshire. The signs were purchased by the Brownwood group.

Robinson says Meetup groups have a great infrastructure for connecting members nationwide. He was onto the blimp tour—which he says the Meetup group in Connecticut provided the original $350,000 for —weeks before it launched.

T. Woods III, organizer and very active member of the Brownwood Meetup group, keeps tabs on Ron Paul happenings across the nation as well, deploying email blasts when Paul is on one of the major news outlets (but defiantly titling one post, “Faux News: Unfair and Unbalanced” for the obvious outlet . . . Ron Paul supporters tend to see his coverage as marginalized); sharing pictures from events; etc. He follows Ron Paul propaganda like a storm chaser: When the Dallas Meetup group hosted a $5,000 Ron Paul booth at a Nascar event recently, Woods was there. (They were the only political group at the event.)

Paul’s grassroots followers are connected, both to the Internet and each other. But some pieces of the puzzle like to rise up and do something larger.

The rEVOLution Has Organically Grown Leaders

Right before Thanksgiving, somebody took out a full-page ad in USA Today for Ron Paul. This person was not part of the official campaign. He or she just figured that people would be stuck in airports, forced to read the paper in the interim. Anson Chi cites this story to illustrate how individuals in the campaign forge forward in the name of the message, not personal credit. Others might take something away from the example: the movement’s spontaneous leadership.

“I’m involved with delegate process, the Ron Paul grassroots web, and the Austin group; but everyone else has their own side projects,” says Chi, who moved from a lucrative engineering job in Dallas to the more politically charged Austin after he heard that Ron Paul was running. Chi had never donated to a candidate before Paul. By now, he’s maxed out his $2,300 contribution ceiling. Chi currently lives off his savings.

“We don’t even coordinate,” Chi says. “We just come up with ideas, and push it out there.”

One of the big pushes on the horizon is recruiting Ron Paul supporters to be delegates. “As delegates, we'll be voting to pick the GOP nominee just like the electors in the electoral college vote to pick the President,” Chi’s informational website reads. “Delegates determine and decide who the GOP nominee is—it's that critical!”

“You won’t hear about it in the news,” Chi says of his Web site. “It’s now the No. 1 delegate site in world. And I get thousands of hits. Any time you [type in a search engine], ‘become a delegate,’ it’s the No. 1 link. Word is getting out in chat rooms, social networking sites, blogs. It’s more like an underground kind of thing.”

There are plenty of people living in this underground. As Chi points out, “there’s no ‘I’ in teamwork.”

But there is in “Ron Paul Revolution.”

More:

Austin Tea Party coverage:

Fox coverage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8LsnbN7d-8
KXAN coverage before the Tea Party: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ3kxO_cMiE
Walking parade: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvGS12EoZUE

National Post-Tea Party coverage

Paul on Morning Joe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alxjl4IjZ9k
CNN Interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdSxLH1NfY0
Fox News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CHb8CWw-Q4

Ron Paul songs on MySpace:

www.MySpace.Com/JakeKellenBand

http://www.myspace.com/aimeeallen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVrszyW9dPE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeFDValQhpg

www.MySpace.Com/solomonstemple

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKZ5qhXBnIA