Support gathers for Ron Paul

Ron Paul, as we predicted, is overtaking the rest of the GOP candidates. After months of ignoring his sensible, level headed policies, the media are forced to take note and in the last two weeks there has been a plethora or pieces written on him. In mid-December, Katharine Q. Seelye in the New York Times noted "After Mr. Cain suspended his campaign on Dec. 3, many non-Romney, non-Paul voters coalesced around Mr. Gingrich....A November poll by the Des Moines Register placed him second in Iowa behind  Mr. Gingrich, with the support of 18 percent of likely caucusgoers."
Note the words "behind Mr Gingrich." Then fast forward a week to Christmas day when the same reporter, talking about Gingrich's failure to even get on the ballot in Virginia, has this to say of Newt: "The misstep is bad news for Mr. Gingrich on several levels. Virginia is his adopted home state. Failing to gather enough signatures in one's backyard creates an image problem, at the very least." The state is one of 10 that vote on 6 March, known as Super Tuesday.
Some of the reporting on Paul was negative, as the press scramble to give its readers some idea of who he was, they turned to some old newsletters and found some articles that he had not written that they used to put him in a bad light - Jim Rutenberg and Richard A. Oppel Jr., on the 20th of December published an article titled "New Focus On Bias In Articles Paul Printed." Then it all disappeared as quickly as it came. Someone else tried to imply he was anti-Israel, conveniently forgetting that he was the only GOP congressman to defend Israel in 1981. Paul may be said to be neutral in Israel and more concerned with US interests than what other countries are doing. Aliyah Shahid  of the New York Daily News on Christmas Eve weighed in with a distraction to all this when he talked about the Donald dumping the GOP - as if that made any difference to anyone.
That same day, in the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal, David Yepsen, a longtime political correspondent  for the Des Moines  Register, noted that the one candidate attracting hordes of new people is Ron Paul. He follows with criticism of the GOP for their stance on immigration, which is alienating people of Latino ancestry and driving them into the Democratic Party. Prescient this was as Romney was to take a hard line stance on immigration during the holiday season, which saw most GOP candidates busy as beavers in Iowa. The NYT on the 27th went into detail about all of this, their poor reporters forced to spend their holidays far from 8th Avenue; some went even further and ventured yet further, going far afield of the main activitiy in Des Moines, where they noted that Ron Paul was operating in small towns like Maquoketa, a three-hour drive from the Iowa capital.
Wherever the canvassing was taking place, the fight was getting rough, and the NYT reported on the 30th that a wealthy Republican called up two servicemen to fly his private jet around Iowa and attack Ron Paul for his foreign policy. This never happened, and in the same article (by Richard A. Oppel Jr.) it is reported that "Mr Paul's national security positions drew raves from many veterans, students and others..." Quoting Ret USArmy Sgt 1st Class Tony Snook, the article showed strong support for Paul from the service. Snook noted: "He would get us out of our difficulties overseas. You should choose your fights wisely." Snook, it mentioned, was wounded in Iraq in 2007. Oppel went on to note that active-duty and retired service members overwhelmingly lean to Mr. Paul, who received almost double the amount of contributions that all the other GOP candidates together received in September. He is certainly gaining strength, and his opponents senseless attacks are not working. What is working is his common sense; Bill Watson, a former GOP central committeeman, summed it up for the article: "If you listen to him long enough, he makes more sense."
And people are now listening long enough, not being dissuaded by wealthy GOP members with private jets or ignorant journalists.
One person listening is Kelly Clarkson, the first ever "American Idol" winner, whose popularity shot up just after she tweeted her support for Paul; her new song, "Stronger", shot up on Amazon from #38 to #2 and is on Apple's iTunes charts at #10.
That's all for now folks, I am going out to buy a copy of "Stronger" and hope you will too...and of course, vote for Ron Paul - so this nation can be stronger.