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Ron Paul is a hero on the Internet. In the mainstream media, not so much.
Paul has rabidly vocal supporters. The video has drawn over 4,500 comments on YouTube. Like most politicians, Paul’s campaign uses social media for outreach. He has 450,000 likes on Facebook, far more than his more scrutinized competitors like Michelle Bachman (15,000) and Jon Huntsman (13,000). (GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney trounces the field, boasting over 1 million likes.)
Paul’s ad mimics a movie trailer with everything from a green screen with the words: “The following preview has been approved for all audiences” to an overly serious narrator. The titles look like they can be in “Battlestar Galactica.”
The ad recalls Tim Pawlenty’s ad from earlier this year, which also used a fake movie-trailer theme. Pawlenty, of course, dropped out the race after coming in third, behind Ron Paul, in the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa earlier this month.
Ron Paul’s treatment by the media is close to meme status at this point. The campaign even plays it up on his website. Parlaying that into winning the nomination remains a long shot.
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