I think the media has a HUGE roll in determining how people vote, and frankly it is troubling to me that the best candidate can be marginalized by media projections. It starts at the very baseline issue of ‘which candidates do you even get to know’? I know when I used to vote the lesser of two evils (culminating with my second vote for George Bush), I wouldn’t even have researched a candidate ‘everyone knew’ couldn’t win. So how do we determine who ‘can’t win?’ Generally, by what the media says, unfortunately.

Congratulations to Lawson.

In NH we know it was due to massive voter fraud, which is a real problem here.

Apparently they don’t bother to ‘fix’ local elections…?

The Ron Paul supporters in Durham county couldn’t get about 3,500 people to vote for Paul, but these people did vote for Lawson. That tells me that they liked Ron Paul’s message but not the messenger.

Watch out, REAL change is coming.

Based on Faux News - the definition of a true Republican is one who spends his grandkids money on a war killing Arabs who did us no harm .

That definition won’t elect any Republicans this year - thank goodness.

A lot of things today seem very Orwellian in nature. Indeed, the country is drifting into a sad state of affairs. But there is hope! A Revolution is building!

Is that so hard to believe? The Texas Republican primary was a meaningless charade given that John McCain already had the nomination locked up. Anybody who cared about influencing the election crossed party lines and voted in the Democratic primary. Only the die-hard Ron Paul supporters (like me!) bothered to show up and cast their votes for him.

In the case of the country as a whole, Ron Paul’s message was not put forth properly by the major media, so the majority of Americans did not hear the message in its purity.

The mainstream media pays no attention to creatures of virtue like Ron Paul because the mainstream media is nothing more than a glorified tabloid, and news about someone behaving with good intentions is not “quality television.” Remember as well that mainstream media companies have an agenda of their own.

Can you please give us your version of Ron Paul’s message minus any opinion of the message? I’m curious to see if the message reached you properly.

William, this is really the most pertinent question. People I have spoken to that claim to not like Ron Paul’s message repeat it back to me as supporting drug-use, prostitution and “surrender.” Even though none of these are even remotely in his platform.

Can you believe who view it as “surrender?” That is laughable!
Didn’t we win when we destroyed Saddam’s regime?
Wouldn’t withdrawal after a victory be a more accurate term?
Ron Paul’s exit strategy is:
“Declare victory and come home. Leave no occupying forces.”

If we, the American people, are to pay the taxes to support occupying forces, what makes sense is to nationalize industry of that occupied nation. Occupation brings the eventual nationalization of industry. However, instead of nationalizing the industry, corporations with “pull” have privatized the Iraqi industry in a blatant act of piracy and given the act a label of benevolence — “creating stability in the region.”

My guess is that Mr. Lawson will get chewed up in the fall, again by a similar group of uneducated voters who see the names “BJ Lawson - Republican” and “David Price - Democrat” and vote for the party they like the best (or hate the least) - and who use the names as a tie-breaker.

Dr. Ron Paul

Also, don’t forget that BJ distributed 10,000 copies of the Constitution. A brilliant marketing move, in my book. That’s a gift almost no one can turn down—regardless of party affiliation. Plus it creates an automatic brand for him. You hear “Lawson,” you think “Constitution.” Not a bad association.

That’s pretty freakin’ ingenious right there.

Your argument assumes that if they supported Ron Paul they would have voted for him in an election he has been widely advertised as ‘unable to win’ when their vote might have more impact used elsewhere, in their minds.

I no longer vote for the lesser of two evils, but did so as recently as the last Presidential election. I am very familiar with the thought process of ‘not wanting to throw your vote away.’ I have over and over again heard people who want Ron Paul to win say they won’t vote that way because they want [fill in the blank: to stop the Dems/to stop McCain].

Even after McCain was annointed presumed nominee, Ron Paul is getting significant numbers of votes, and the Ron Paul Republicans are doing very well.

I think that is the point, myself.

Your argument assumes that if they supported Ron Paul they would have voted for him in an election he has been widely advertised as ‘unable to win’ when their vote might have more impact used elsewhere, in their minds.

spinnikerca, this is also really important. I can’t tell you the number of people in my life who said they would vote for Paul “if he could win.” People said this months before the first primary! Every time I heard it, I wanted to smash a brick into my head. This isn’t Vegas! We aren’t placing bets on the winner - we’re supposed to vote for who we like the best.

The 4th district was drawn by the NC legislature while David Price looked over their shoulders to make sure he liked the voters being put in his district. Price will win re-election handily.

*Shock!*

You mean the lawmakers abused their monopoly on making laws, and rigged the system? I thought this was impossible!

I agree that his Ron Paul supporters and the money that came with it has a lot to do with his success though. I expect that there are many republicans who voted for him just because he was a republican and was the assumed front runner because they recognized his name from all the road signs that have been all over the place for the last few weeks. I saw only a tenth or less as many signs for Cho. And they didn’t start showing up till only 2 weeks ago. If I was an ignorant partisan voter (like many are) I would have voted for Lawson just because from the fact he was a republican and I had seen his name all over town. If I hadn’t been following this race, I probably wouldn’t even have known who Cho was.