But I'm sure I had nothing to do with it

Some non-mainstream media seem to be coming around and including Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) in their coverage of 2008 GOP presidential candidates:

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In his Feb. 27 piece "Why do evangelicals ignore Ron Paul?", Pastor Chuck Baldwin noted that the March issue of Rev. Jerry Falwell's National Liberty Journal named 10 men as actual or possible Republican candidates — while Ron Paul, who had already formed a presidential exploratory committee in mid-January, was notably absent from the list. (To add insult to injury, the NLJ article actually named 11 men — including the joke campaign being floated by talk-radio gadfly Michael Savage. Picture Pat Paulsen with a lousy attitude.)

Baldwin's piece inspired me to e-mail the NLJ that same day:

In the article "Campaign 2008: Identifying the Republican Presidential Candidates," NLJ left out one very important candidate: Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.

May I ask, how did this happen? Was it merely an oversight, or was Rep. Paul left out intentionally?

In my opinion, Ron Paul is a politician of tremendous integrity. I hope NLJ will have the integrity to give your readers the pertinent info on all the GOP candidates. Perhaps you can include a "Ron Paul addendum" to the article in your next issue.

In fairness to NLJ, I should point out that it has since occurred to me that their March issue may have already gone to press by the time Rep. Paul formed his exploratory committee.

Nevertheless, I was quite pleased to receive the following response Mar. 20:

Thank you for writing to us. We have included a Ron Paul addendum in our April 2007 edition of the National Liberty Journal. You will find the article on page 14.

The addendum — which includes two other candidates as well (Jim Gilmore, former Virginia governor; and Tommy Thompson, former health and human services secretary and governor of Wisconsin) — is very favorable to Rep. Paul. It didn't even mention the "L" word, which I find interesting, given that 1) Paul actually ran for president as a Libertarian in 1988, and 2) many Christian conservatives are not especially fond of libertarianism, considering it to be the political philosophy of godless pro-choicers and lawless pot smokers.

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Then, while perusing the LewRockwell.com blog the other day, I read that PajamasMedia.com also seems to have resigned themselves to the reality of Ron Paul's candidacy.

Paul was originally listed in the PM Straw poll, but they dropped him after a few weeks — I don't know why. Vox Day thinks it was simply because they didn't like seeing iconoclastic constitutionalist kicking butt. PM said they'd detected some hackers "stuffing" their straw poll's ballot boxes with Paul votes, so maybe this was their way of kicking Paul supporters off the field. But some have surmised that, even after deducting those illicit votes, Ron Paul was apparently still out front.

Maybe in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. It is, after all, an utterly unscientific on-line straw poll. It's probably better to drop your man a check every few weeks than to tick his box and click the "VOTE NOW!" button. But while this whole online-alternative-media things is still quite new, it just may be the people's way to work around the established (read "moneyed") Media-Political Complex.

So I'm going to go drop Dr. Paul's campaign a check, and then vote for him in the PajamasMedia poll — their eleventh week just started today.

(By the way: If you don't know what Ron Paul stands for, read a few of his articles and congressional speeches. And if you do like what he stands for ... tell a friend!)