Monday, December 17, 2007
6 million dollar men (and women)
I knew as I went to bed last night that someone would use the 6 million dollar man analogy on yesterday's teaparty fundraiser for Ron Paul this morning, although I thought the press would apply it to Trevor Lyman rather than Paul."Ron Paul, constitutionalist, a man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him, we have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first Internet man. Ron Paul will be that man. Better than he was before. Better. Stronger. Faster."
In the meme war, I have seen a marked shift in the language used to describe Paul's campaign in the last 3 weeks, in particular "fervent followers" was used today instead of various other terms in common use. Nice alliteration for the 6 million dollar men and women that contributed yesterday...
At least 3 sources in the MSM I've read or seen today misstated Ron Paul's median donation of 50 dollars as his average donation. I don't know when statistics get taught nowadays, if ever. I remember knowing the difference between mean and median in 6th grade.
Ahh, the MSM. The same medium that believes its own polls are scientific, and that people must choose from what is on the MSM menu.
The Washington Times got it right, but then again they were largely quoting from a press release.
Some of the best writing came from Reason.
For the record:
Total raised online: 6,043,022.96
Total online donors: 59,170
Median donor: 50 bucks
Average donor: 103 bucks
New donors: 24940
The Nation, of all places actually sat up and took notice at the core statistic I'm tracking - "24,940 new donors to the campaign in a single day". That has got to be some kind of record, too, most campaigns are funded via the old boy network, and via PACs and other flags of corporate intent.
Lots and lots and and lots of coverage nationwide....
Labels: election 2008, msm, Ron Paul
¶ 10:51 AM
