Ron Paul’s “Fake Online Campaign”

Over the last several weeks during my daily pursuit of Ron Paul news and coverage, I’ve started noticing an increase of people submitting posts from this “pro-Fred Thompson” forum. My first few visits were nothing more than a quick glance at a few posts before I realized how ridiculous those people who posted on those forums are and moved on. They would slam Ron Paul and the other candidates. I thought to myself, ‘why do these people seem so crazy, they make us Ron Paul fans look like saints.’

Recently, this group submitted a phony news story titled ‘Senator in ‘fake online campaign’, in reference to Ron Paul and his campaign. And no, I’m not accidentally confusing Senator with Congressman. It was submitted that way.

The main points cited from the story are:

Ron Paul’s online campaign may be fake
Receiving thousands of hits
Suspected of being an astroturfing campaign

The person on the Fred Thompson forum, who goes by I LOVE HANNITY, is the person who claims he submitted the story and goes on to explain the meaning of ‘astroturing’. “Astroturfing is the term used to describe a fake grassroots campaign, in which members of an organization create the illusion that “ordinary people” are behind the movement.”

At first I was angry, as many other people who are on the various social and Ron Paul sites were. Ron Paul struggles to get a lot of main stream media attention (though it’s up since his Q3 funding numbers are large) and I felt that this will only hurt him. I started to think about it more and thought ‘maybe the intent was to promote Ron Paul instead of trying to smear him.’ At the end of the news story they embedded a video which is probably one of the best Ron Paul videos available on YouTube.

If you are still on the fence with Ron Paul, please watch this video.

If these people were looking to smear Ron Paul they would not have attached this type of video to it. I got more curious and looked more into those forums.

Here is a signature of a member of the forums:

WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR FRED THOMPSON.
Fred Supports the Draft
Fred supports, and has voted for, more gun control.
Fred voted for the Patriot Act.
Fred will increase Torture of terrorists!
Fred will NUKE the iranian scum off the planet.
Fred will send all Muslims to GITMO
Fred has a 22 year old hot wife
FRED SUPPORTS THE NORTH AMERICAN UNION

They have members who go by the names of Ted Kaczynski, Woodrow Wilson, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, Karl Rove.. you get the idea. They talk to each other as if they actually were those people.

I know I won’t be hailed as a genius for cracking this “mystery”. I believe what they are doing is genius and I enjoy watching the people who haven’t caught on yet getting all up in arms over what they are saying and claiming.

Bravo http://fredthompsonforum.com, bravo.