The Ron Paul Money Machine

After taking a severe beating at the hands of the millions and millions of absolutely brilliant Ron Paul fans, I found some interesting information. In case you are wondering, I received a good amount of attention in response to an article I wrote the other day about the conspiracy nuts who support Ron Paul and how they try to make it appear that he is the most popular candidate and that he receives low poll numbers because of the corporate run government that controls the media, blah, blah, blah. Not only did I get a good number of comments here in my blog, but the article was also posted at a forum called libertypost and was linked at a site called Ron Paul Rocker Report. The libertypost site has 77 mixed responses and my blog had about 20 from Ron Paul supporters. This isn’t much in the grand scheme, but this is a fairly new blog so if I receive as many as 5 comments, I think that I have created a masterpiece. The article was put at these two sites by people who found it here on my blog. I had never heard of libertyblog but it appears to post various articles and news from multiple sources so people can argue and scream at each other.

One of the comments in defense of Ron Paul was the amount of money his campaign has raised. I have seen a few other posts on places like digg.com that are similar. Ron Paul is the most popular candidate and this can be proven because of the amount of money he has raised. Just weeks ago, there were some reports that he had raised more cash than John McCain.

Perspective is a wonderful thing, so why don’t we give that a shot. Opensecrets.org follows the campaign cash of the candidates. According to their charting, the billions and billions of Ron Paul fans all over the world have managed to put just over 3 million bucks into his campaign. And if you are wondering, yes, it went from millions and millions to billions and billions in the past few minutes, he’s that popular. This $3mm is out of a combined $265mm raised by all of the candidates, just about 1 percent which would be impressive if there were 200 active candidates. Not only has Paul not raised more than McCain, he has not raised as much as Sam Brownback. Brownback, who is not really considered a contender, has raised $3.3mm, just a tad more than Paul. McCain has raised over $25mm, which is also just a tad more than Paul if by a tad I mean 22 million dollars. And let’s be honest, $22mm is just a tad if you are doing things like the counting the amount of cash spent by the federal government over the past few decades.

Ron Paul has raised about one quarter of Chris Dodd’s $12mm. For those who are wondering who Chris Dodd might be, don’t ask me because I don’t know either.

And before the Ron Paul clan states the blatantly obvious, I know that Ron Paul’s campaign has no debt. The nice little chart at the same exact website shows all of this. So let’s go to Cash On Hand. Paul has about $2.3mm in cash, which is more than Sam Brownback, but still less than Dodd. It’s also less than Joe Biden who has as much a shot at becoming the next President as Chris Dodd. Now Ron Paul does get closer to John McCain in this category because McCain only has $3.2mm left after spending all that cash for his StraightTalkExpress bus (stupid $70 oil). Of course, with $3.2mm in cash, many are wondering when McCain will pull the plug and admit defeat. With less cash, Ron Paul supporters are already claiming victory in next year’s election.

I understand that some candidates will go out of their way to make it appear that they have more support than what is real. I understand that the candidates’ supporters will do the same. Mitt Romney’s team is trying to claim that he is the real front runner and Romney also loaned his campaign his own cash. But at least Romney can honestly claim that he has a shot and he didn’t hide the facts about the loan.

Perspective is a wonderful thing. Long live the conspiracy.

Oh yeah, on a side note, Mike Gravel has raised about $238k and spent $207k. I had no idea that a marketing campaign consisting entirely of a handheld digital camera and 5 minute silent films on youtube could cost so much. Seriously, go to youtube and search for Gravel. Comedy gold this guy.