A splendid little tea party

In which Ron Paul's supporters come up big:

Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul's supporters raised over $6 million Sunday to boost the 10-term Texas congressman's campaign for the White House.

Called a "Money Bomb," the goal was to raise as much money as possible on the Internet in one day. The campaign's previous fundraiser brought in $4.2 million.

The important thing isn't the amount of money; don't get me wrong, 6 million is extremely significant for a campaign that was attempting to raise 12 million dollars for the entire quarter. The really important thing is that this money bomb was even bigger than the last one.

In political campaigns, if you're not moving forward, you're dying. None of the four so-called major Republican candidates--Giuliani, Thompson, McCain, and Romney--are moving forward. Only Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee are picking up momentum.

Oh, and the average donation amount was fifty dollars. This means that a lot of people are committed to the Paul campaign, committed enough to fork over their hard-earned money so as try to get him elected. I'm not going to say no "special interest groups" aren't fond of Dr. Paul; but this isn't just a matter of a couple of rich corporate types financing a campaign. His support is widespread.

So far as I know, Huckabee hasn't raised much cash. Of course, when you've been endorsed by Chuck Norris, you don't exactly need money, and it helps that the media is less opposed to running stories about you than they are concerning Dr. Paul. But in general, while the Huckabee supporters are glad to have someone besides Rudy McRomneyson, the Paul supporters are generally fired up about their man. To put it another way, if you're the kind of person who is going to give money to a politician, you're the same kind of person who is going to talk about that politician, and make YouTube videos about that politician, and write endless columns and blog posts about that politician.

I may be wrong in this, but once you've experienced what Vox Day calls the Ron Paul epiphany, you're not going back. I'm not saying you won't eventually succumb to voting for the lesser evil if Paul is ends up being snubbed by his party; but you would do it very reluctantly. The Paul supporters are still relatively few in number, but we're growing, and no one is leaving this bandwagon. Despite Troutsky's insistence to the contrary, Ron Paul is unique; his allegiance to the Constitution, unprecedented in decades, is giving rise to a very unique following:

Paul's online popularity, to the surprise (and envy) of other Republican campaigns, proves to be one of the most fascinating fundraising stories of the year. He's the only candidate, Republican or Democrat, to increase his fundraising haul with every quarter, raising $640,000 in the first quarter, $2.4 million in the second, $5.1 million in the third.

Long live the Ron Paul Revolution!