Nutroots, Redefined

» The Hill: Ron Paul's Email Army (Byron York)

Funniest read of the day here. Ron Paul may be as irellevent to the body politic as he ever was, but thank goodness for cult compounds, unlimited internet, and (I'm guessing) nonstop nachos for the faithful to imbibe on. York's ending point is, by far, the best he's made to date.

Now, America has a lot of interests in the world. We have to defend them. Sometimes that makes people mad. And sometimes people attack us for their own reasons — say, because they’re religious maniacs determined to bomb us back to the 7th century — not because we’ve done anything wrong.

That seems reasonable to me. But when I wrote a story in National Review Online criticizing Paul’s position, I heard from Paul’s supporters.

They love their man. They’re very agitated. And they’re sitting at their computers, voting in Internet “polls” and writing e-mails telling off anyone who criticizes Ron Paul.

Many of them point out that Paul scored very high in the counts in which Fox News and MSNBC invited viewers to register who they thought won the Republican debates in South Carolina and, earlier, in California.

What does that show? It shows Paul’s fans are more energetic than others in clicking his name. In the real polls, however, he is nowhere to be found.

For example, in a recent Gallup survey, taken just after the first Republican debate in early May, Paul’s support was somewhere below one percent — not large enough to measure.

That’s not exactly a groundswell. But I cannot deny that I received a groundswell of e-mails after criticizing Paul. Some examples:

“You’re a shill. Get some f–ing integrity.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Are you a fascist?”

“Are you blind?”

“What are you smoking?”

“Idiotic crap like you write here is the reason I no longer am a conservative …”

Paul may not have a lot of supporters out there, but the ones he has are intense.

After the debate, one adviser to a rival Republican campaign said of Paul, “I haven’t heard anything like that this side of Rosie O’Donnell.”

It’s true. But remember, Rosie had fans, too.