Web buzz surprises long shot
The Technorati list of the most popular search terms in the blog world last week included "Ron Paul." The presence of the Republican representative from Texas on a list that includes "Sopranos " and "Paris Hilton" is a sign of the online buzz building around the long-shot presidential hopeful.
Paul is more popular on Facebook than Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. He's got more friends on MySpace than former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. His MeetUp groups, with 11,924 members in 279 cities, are the biggest in the GOP field. And his official YouTube videos have been viewed nearly 1.1 million times -- more than those of any other presidential candidate except Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois.
No one is more surprised at this robust Web presence than Paul himself, a self-described "pen-and-paper guy" who is serving his 10th term in the House and was the Libertarian Party's nominee for president in 1988. "To tell you the truth, I hadn't heard about this YouTube and all the other Internet sites until supporters started gathering in them," conceded Paul, 71, who said he raised about $100,000 after each of the three debates in which he has taken part.
"I've never raised money as efficiently as that, in all my years in Congress, and all I'm doing is speaking my mind," he said. (
Emma Nemecek, the southeastern Iowa field director for Brownback's presidential campaign and a former candidate for state representative, violated campaign policy when she forwarded the June 6 e-mail from an interest group raising the questions, the Brownback campaign said yesterday.
The e-mail requested help in checking facts in a series of statements about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Among the statements: "Theologically, the only thing Christianity and the LDS church has in common is the name of Jesus Christ, and the LDS Jesus is not the same Jesus of the Christian faith," and "The LDS church has never been accepted by the Christian Council of Churches."
"Senator Brownback completely disavows himself of this and any personal attacks on religion," said Brian Hart, a spokesman for the Kansas senator. Hart said the campaign apologized to Romney . (AP)
Ask those who served with him in the Illinois Senate whether Barack Obama is ready to be president, and they will tell you he is a dogged consensus-builder known for his empathy, intellect, and unbounded ambition.
They also will call him cautious, calculating, a liberal lawmaker, and conservative poker player. But they will not quite say he is ready to be president. "Well, it's a big leap from here to there," said Democratic state Senator Donne Trotter, standing outside the Senate chamber, where Obama served for eight years. "I couldn't say he wouldn't be up to the task."
If you roam the Illinois Capitol in Springfield, you will find many admirers of Obama from both parties -- as well as uncertainty about whether a man less than three years removed from this sleepy capital is ready for the White House. "Obama has a great intellect and the leadership characteristics of our great American presidents," said state Senator Kirk Dillard, a Republican. "But the unknown is the administrative and foreign policy experience." (AP)
