ron paul

I've been reading several stories about Ron Paul following the the successes he's had in the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire Primary with young voters. Many of these stories speculate that this somehow speaks to the "message" of the Paul campaign or that Paul's issues are the issues of young voters this election. While some of these assumptions are partly valid, they're leaving out a majority of the information about young voters and the source of their support in the Ron Paul Revolution.

To begin, Paul has consistently received support from young people. But this isn't the first election that we're seeing him as a candidate. Other than former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Paul is the only candidate in the race who has the benefit of having done this just 4 years ago. And like many candidates, his campaign didn't end after McCain was declared the nominee in 2008. Instead, the "revolution" continued it's efforts in PAC form and has continued to message and mobilize it's supporters around the issues Paul pushes. Most pundits are underestimating this impact. Many campaign experts have commented over the last year that Obama's lack of "campaigning" after the election was over was the reason his policies weren't "sold" to American voters. Hell he even said it at a speech at the University of Maryland. Many of the GOP candidates and campaigns that turned into PACs or Super PACs and never stopped pushing their issues and their brand to their supporters and Ron Paul is one of them.

If you look at the raw numbers of Iowa and New Hampshire for Paul you get a different picture of 2008 vs. 2012. In 2008 there was a youth turnout of 13% over 65,000 young people vs. 2012 when it was 4% over 18,000 young voters (via CIRCLE). In 2008 of the 65,230 young voters 52,580 of the caucused for Democratic candidates. Of those youth who voted in 2008 in the GOP caucus, they supported Huckabee - so the electorate has a track record of supporting a more conservative candidate. In the final ballot in 2008 Paul got 11,841. I wish I had a demographic break down for first ballots by candidate... but I don't.....

For New Hampshire over 72,000 young voters turned out for the primaries in 2008 with nearly 44,000 of those going for Democratic candidates. Ron Paul received 18,308 votes out of 234,851 in New Hampshire in 2008 for 7.8% of the GOP vote share. In 2012 Paul got 56,872 out of 248,293 voters a vote share of 23% - that's actually about 25,000 less than what Mitt Romney got in 2008 as a second place finisher to John McCain in 2008.... Like in Iowa, New Hampshire saw a pretty big drop in youth turnout too. Four years ago young voters participated to the tune of over 84,000 voters. This year... more like just under 30,000.

I wish I had demographic break downs by candidate for 2008 but CIRCLE doesn't have that data and CNN's super helpful data visualizations they've had FOR YEARS are now... gone...

For both 2008 and 2012 Paul excelled when it comes to mobilization, at least as it pertains to young voters. Many candidates dismiss young voters as fickle with less likelihood of turning out than seniors, so they don't do the work. Obama won Iowa in 2008 because he had to win with "unlikely" voters, he had to bring new voters into the equation which meant young people, which is why the Iowa Caucus youth vote tripled. Of the GOP campaigns I've watched over the years, Paul is the only one who seems to mobilize his supporters regardless of age. Perhaps, this is because, like Obama, Paul must garner his support from "unlikely" voters because he knows the establishment voters won't support him. While I'm sure message and issues and the bump coming out of Iowa factor into this equation, underestimating the power of GOTV, especially in a primary or caucus is a mistake.

Like GOTV, Paul speaks TO young voters. His campaign embraces their enthusiasm and highlights it, online especially, and if you attended the 2008 GOP "Un-Convention" you saw a whole heck of a lot of young faces. More traditional establishment campaigns don't do this. It makes a difference in the tone and appearance of a campaign when young voters look around and see more people like them instead of a bunch of old white dudes.

Not being treated as a real candidate matters too. Typically in a campaign you have contrasting negative ads that hit the opposition. Many view Romney as the frontrunner, so they attack him in millions of dollars in advertising. The same is true for Perry and Gingrich. Ron Paul is never really considered a threat - some don't even view him as a viable candidate. He's like the crazy old uncle of the GOP. He'll never win. So no one spends millions of dollars attacking him. Thus... his negatives aren't that high.

Finally, yes, message and issues do matter, but it's hardly the only factor even the driving factor. There's an authenticity with Paul that you don't see with Romney. Paul knows he's not going to win - and I'm not sure he cares if he does or not. He seems to be in the race to raise ideas and create a dialogue about those issues. Some of those ideas (crazy or not) made their way to legislation in the last 4 years and his campaign can count the enthusiasm and support of his voters for continuing to hammer home those issues with their elected officials.

Second about message, young people tend to be independent in their ideology, specifically when it comes to their thoughts about government intrusion in things like marriage and drug policy. I think if many of these young voters knew that Paul wasn't all that libertarian when it comes to equality, marriage, and women's rights their opinion might evolve, but no one considers Paul a threat... so these issues are never brought up, discussed, and he's never questioned or held accountable.

Finally about message, many of the anti-war, pro-drug, anti-Wall Street messages are the ones that indeed hit home with young people. It's the same reason you're seeing other anti-Wall Street candidates do well right now (see Elizabeth Warren... Suzanne Bonamici... etc). In a 30 second pitch these ideas are ones that do speak to young voters and contrast considerably with candidates who want to do ads on "family" and "faith" and whatever other pandering to the GOP electorate they want. This is where that authenticity comes back in. Fold in the lack of accountability, a big GOTV list, and you've got a recipe for success.

There are a lot of factors that are being ignored when it comes to Ron Paul and the youth vote. Never underestimate the power of a GOTV campaign or a non-stop issues campaign that's gone on for the last 4+ years. These are the things that can make a candidate successful, especially in low turnout years when the rest of the field is a joke.

Tuesday's New Hampshire Primary might have given Ron Paul only a second place finish, but he cleaned up with young voters.

Participation among young voters plummeted in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, when compared to the state’s 2008 primary, but nearly half of eligible voters under 30 years old who did show up to the polls threw their support behind Ron Paul."

According to CIRCLE data

"Although young voters did not turn out at a particularly high rate this year, they did have an impact by concentrating their votes for Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), helping him come in second behind former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA)," said CIRCLE Director Peter Levine. "Dr. Paul’s 47% support from 18- to 29-year-olds was the strongest level of support for any candidate by any age group."

Of those eligible voters 18-30, 15 percent voted in yesterday's NH Primary. By contrast 4 percent of eligible voters under 30 participated in the Iowa Caucus, and similarly Ron Paul received a majority of the support from those young voters (48 percent), according to CIRCLE.

"According to CIRCLE’s estimate, approximately 8,800 young people turned out for Ron Paul in last night’s caucus. In comparison, at least 30,000 young people turned out for Barack Obama in the 2008 Iowa Caucuses, contributing to his victory there. Almost twice as many young voters supported Obama in 2008 as supported all the 2012 Republican candidates combined. The 48% support for Rep. Paul was the highest level of support for any candidate among any age group in yesterday’s Caucuses. (Mitt Romney won 33% of the votes of ages 65 and older, the second strongest concentration of support.) Youth represented a typical proportion of all the Iowa Caucus-goers in 2012 at 15%.

"For the second election in a row, youth played an important role in the Iowa Caucuses,” said CIRCLE Director Peter Levine. “In 2008, they turned out strong and gave their support to both parties’ Iowa Caucus winners, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee. In 2012, they turned out at a more typical rate but threw such a high proportion of their votes to Ron Paul that he finished close. It is statistically unlikely that the young Paul supporters of 2012 had caucused for Obama in 2008. It is more likely that a different group was mobilized in each year."

Paul contrasts significantly with other Republican candidates by speaking directly to issues that matter to many young republicans. While Paul talks about pulling out of all of the wars and legalization of pot, Santorum gets in trouble by going to colleges and speaking about his opposition to equality. Paul's ground game also targets young people and asks them to participate - which contrasts with candidates like Newt Gingrich who supports making it harder for young people to vote. Clearly, working with young voters instead of against them garners results - at least in Ron Paul's case.

According to some young voters issues like unemployment and the cost of higher education were issues that mattered most to them during this election.

Here's what's going on in the world for young people

• Lindsey Lohan made a commentary on her twitter account yesterday about the US Dollar saying that it will be worthless if the Fed keeps printing money. It turns out Lindsey's tweet was out of character for a reason... she was paid to tweet it - though no one seems to know who paid her to tweet - maybe Ted Nugent... She later clarified that even though she was paid to tweet that she really does care about gas and food prices.
• FM friend Cryn Johannsen posts her response to Ted Nugent on Spark Action
  

  "When it comes to their take on abortion and other social issues, Tea Party folks generally have more conservative views. That does not tend to be true for Millennials, however. For example, a recent study suggests why Millennials do not identify with the values of the Tea Party:

  Overall, they have a more progressive view on politics.

  They are also quite diverse. That diversity lends itself to more progressive politics.

  Those Millennials who are white are even more progressive than their minority counterparts.

• Economic Outlook on young people who have mental health illness. "Recent research shows that people who experience a mental health illness in early adulthood could face a range of negative economic outcomes by the age of 30."
• Protests follow Walker to the Empire State; Bloombergville connects with Walkerville. Young Americans stepping up for cheeseheads everywhere!
• This blogger runs some numbers asking if America's Young people put Ron Paul in the White House As much as I wish this were true - that American youth could have that great an impact - American youth aren't registered to vote as Republicans as much as Democrats or Independents. I don't think the sheer volume numbers are there for Rep. Paul, but his youth outreach should never go unnoticed or ignored.
• Unless you were living under a rock yesterday, you heard about the meeting of the new think tank Google is running called Google Ideas. They brought together ex-extremists from various walks of life including Muslim extremists, Mexican gang members, Northern Ireland folks, etc... and talked about the impact on extremism in the world. Many of these folks got involved in extremist behavior when they were young and a blogger implores the world to Teach young people about other religions or risk extremism.
• Here is an interesting post. There's an upcoming training session in Hanoi to teach young people how to deal with climate change. People are obviously embracing that climate change exists across the world and are beginning to prepare young people for how to manage what's coming. Maybe the time for negotiating the science is over and our generation should just start preparing for the floods.
• We need to make sure young people know the true facts of higher education. And what do those true facts entail? Well it comes out of the UK but the reality is that college is expensive no matter where you go. This writer implores us (emphasis mine)
  

  "All too often in the recent past, politicians and others have given greater priority to attacking the government, rather than advancing the interests of young people and students. Politicians of all parties, student leaders, trade unionists and all others with a public platform and who are listened to on these issues must now make sure that they know the facts and do everything to make sure young people and their parents also understand the facts and are not misled."

• 6 young illegal immigrants arrested in Georgia protest rally for DREAM Act
• Is Jon Stewart tearing young people from newspapers? First of all... what's a newspaper? Kidding. If you saw Stephen Colbert's video where he picked up our Ted Nugent hit - then you've heard the joke before about it being funny that the Washington Examiner thinks Millennials even know what the Washington Examiner is... But when the Post asked what is getting youth away from papers one Twitter respondent honestly said
  "@demisdouble: 20somethings lost 10% of their ability to read."
  What a jackass....
• After the reports of the average age of farmers and ranchers growing older and older there has been a call resound[ing] for more young people in agriculture
• Good piece to compare and contrast. College tuition in America and Abroad. This actually also references a piece about 8 ways to cut costs when going to college. But here are the shockers from this piece
  1. The tuition in Finland is covered by the State through the Ministry of Education.
  2. Norway offers free tuition as well, but the cost of living there can add up quickly.
  3. If you have a working knowledge of German, then this country is a great and affordable option. Germany has offered free tuition for quite some time and in most cases still does.

  Lucky foreigners....

• The Company you Keep - yet another article on how job prospects are harmed by facebook photos. Interestingly I got questions from my mother after sharing religious beliefs on my facebook page which she said would probably hurt me in job searches. Which may be true - like it or not. The likelihood of me working for someone that would take issue with my ability to have thoughts on religion however ... not very likely. Maybe Bill Maher should give me a job and I can enlighten him about young people....
• Lawyers say unpaid internships exploit workers - which they do. And if you are offering unpaid internships make sure you're doing so legally. Interesting - in the UK they say that charities are the worst at exploiting unpaid interns. Though that doesn't surprise me. They seem to be the same here in the US. Everyone's trying to save a buck....

Tuesday was the day of the Ron Paul Revolution transition into the new Campaign for Liberty headed by former Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul from Texas. Over 12,000 people attended the rally some from as far away as Georgia and New York who all drove to Minneapolis, Minnesota just to take part in the finally of the campaign.

Many young people were in attendance who expressed their disenchantment with the two party system, the war in Iraq, health care, and more.

The Convention was designed as a counter convention to the Republican National Convention across the Mississippi in St. Paul, Minnesota where they say their Revolution Continues. A major component the Campaign for Liberty lists is to gain a "foothold in political life at every level of government by expanding our precinct leader program."

Below is a quick video compilation of some interviews I did and what it was like in the event on Tuesday night. It was filled with a lot of great energy and enthusiasm as you'll see.

Crossposted from Rock the Trail

CIRCLE has finally released their fact sheet summary of youth turnout in the presidential primary contests. The numbers are much the same as what we reported last week. Here's what you need to know:

• In the states for which data is available, 6.5 million young voters (17 - 29) participated in either the Democratic or Republican Presidential primaries.
• Overall turnout rose from 9% (recorded in 2000, the last comparable cycle), to 17%.
• This is the third consecutive cycle in which youth turnout increased.
• This is the first time youth turnout has increased three cycles in a row since 18 - 20 year olds were first granted the right to vote in 1971.
• In the 17 states for which comparable exit polling is available from 2000, all but one state (New York) saw an increase in youth turnout.
• Of those 17 states, 10 saw at least a 10 point jump in youth turnout (NH, MA, GA, MO, TX, TN, IA, MS, OH, OK).
• Obama captured the Democratic youth vote 60 - 38%.

Also remember from the Rock the Vote's fact sheet and last week's post mortem that young voter's share of the electorate rose from 9.4% in 2004 to 14.3% in 2008, and young voters participated in the Democratic primary over the GOP primary at a rate of 2 - 1.

The most interesting piece of new data in the CIRCLE report is the candidate breakdown in the GOP contest. More young Republicans voted against John McCain than voted for him, and he barely inched out Mike Huckabee to capture a plurality of youth votes among the top 4 candidates. As for Ron Paul - the so-called GOP youth candidate, he only received 10% of the youth vote. Can we finally put to rest the fiction that Ron Paul is the conservative youth candidate? At best he had a highly tech savvy core of youth supporters that amounted to very little at the polls.

It was reported yesterday that Congressman Paul is holding his own "shadow convention" this year. It will be interesting to see who shows up.

Campaigns and Elections Magazine is about as wonky as you get outside of polling data, and aside from it being fairly establishment they do tend to talk about some outside the box ideas. I think I've seen them acknowledge young voters three times in my 2 year subscription I bought. Last month's issue headlined their picture of what looked like a Millennial in a South Park t-shirt, listening to an iPod, and whistling as he walked down the street carrying a copy of The Fountainhead.

The piece looks at what they say is a growing political group that they have lovingly deemed Cultural Libertarians.

I was shocked as a devoted South Park fan who owns an iPod and (only rarely) admits in certain circles that I have read Atlas Shrugged more than once. I was suddenly fearful that perhaps I had indeed mislabeled myself a loyal progressive democrat.

(I would link you to the article but Campaigns and Elections has yet to figure out how to use the internet. Only the existing magazines pieces are available not back issues, and the search function only takes you to a page which amusingly enough reads "search.") While its tempting to write a blog about not letting bad websites happen to you... I'll soldier onward.

".... recognizing that politics is a lagging indicator of American society, which has been moving with broadband-like speed into an era of Do It Yourself culture and not-so-rugged individualism. Think of what Americans have come to expect and insist upon in their social and economic lives: increasingly individualized service, culture and consumer products at every level ("You want soy with that decaf mocha frappuccino?"); more and more control over education, healthcare, and retirement; and a nearly full throttled embrace of lifestyle tolerance and pluralism that was unimaginable in a pre-Netflix, pre-"Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," pre-iPod America."

I put down my half-caf latte and clicked off the iTunes and muted CNN. What could possibly be so bad about a world where everyone has healthcare and a quality education? Holy opportunity, Batman

The piece goes on to name the internet as the culprit for causing a world of "geometrically increased consumer choice[s] and placed a premium on personalization." They claim that the only candidate able to tap into the Internet Generation while "leveraging the traditional American values of decentralization and choice" was Rep. Ron Paul.

Acknowledging his campaign was a complete and total failure what it did succeed in was capturing a solid number of young white men. In California for example Ron Paul was 3rd only to McCain and Romney among 25-29 year olds surpassing Giuliani and Mike Huckabee (who had Chuck Norris you remember).

According to the NYTimes piece on Paul

"If his campaign had taken place in the pre-Internet era, it might have gone the way of his 1988 Libertarian campaign for president, as a footnote to history. But because of the Internet’s low-cost ability to connect grass-roots supporters with one another — in this case, largely iconoclastic white men — Mr. Paul’s once-solo quest has taken on a life of its own. It is evolving from a figment of cyberspace into a traditional campaign, with yard signs, direct mail and old-fashioned rallies, like one here on Saturday attended by a few thousand people under cold, gray skies. Mr. Paul said it was his biggest rally so far. He said it proved his campaign was more than “a few spammers” and called it a “gigantic opportunity” to establish credibility."

C&E goes on to say

"Much of this activity will be explicity libertarian, since the decentralization of control and individual empowerment is so deeply embedded in Internet technology and culture. Observers as varied as the liberal Michael Kinsley (who sighed in Time magazine that libertarians "are going to be an increasingly powerful force in politcs") and the conservative Washington Times (which reluctantly dubbed libertarians the "new 'It' faction" in American politics) agree that such folks are a growing foce to be reckoned with."

A sidebar says the 7 Ways to Win Our Vote (speaking of these new cultural libertarians) are:

1. Legalize online gambling.
2. Make the Internet tax morium permanent.
3. Ban the use of eminent domain for private gain.
4. Bring the troops home, already.
5. Grant amnesty -- er, citizenship -- to illegal immigrants.
6. Let patients smoke dope.
7. Decouple health insurance from employment.

Its freaking me out that I agree with more than half of these. My question is about the extent to which this is reflective of a generation not necessarily a specific sect of political ideology. If you ask GOP registered young people and Democratically registered young people how they feel on these issues, I wonder if they would agree with many or any of them.

The two party system is here to stay (at least for now) but the ideas of 3rd parties seem to be embedded within Millennial culture enough to earn a seat at the table. I don't know if that deserves to have itself be a specific faction but I do think that future politicians should take note that there is a community out there untapped currently because they ignore the 2 party system. Is the internet the link we need or is more required?

It's another day on airplanes for me (I'm on a plane now flying from San Fran to NYC as I write this, I'll upload when I land), and I only had time this morning to read through about half the items in my RSS Reader. Here's some of the stuff I found interesting. Tomorrow I'll have some thoughts on the McCain candidacy and the youth vote, and on Friday I'm hoping to complete a review of the book UnChristian: What a New Generation Thinks of Christianity . . . And Why It Matters.

I've finally had a chance to read Obama's speech on race in America. Like most people, I was blown away. I'm still digesting but it really was like nothing we've heard on race in our political discourse at least during my life. In all the post-delivery reporting I've read, I'm finding Glen Greenwald seems to have one of the more interesting takes on whether or not Obama will succeed in his goal of elevating the level of the conversation on race in America, and Press Think offers a play by play on how the media - particularly CNN and Wolf Blitzer - immediately failed to rise to the occasion.

Another news item I missed at Take Back America was the announcement that a number of progressive leaning institutions (and non-partisan groups that most do progressive stuff) will be dumping up to $425 million into the 2008 election cycle. This will be similar to what America Coming Together did in 2004, but hopefully will have learned some new tricks/lessons along the way. Included in those efforts and budget will be Rock the Vote. Ben Smith at the Politico provides an estimated break down on that money:

AFL-CIO: $53.4 million
AFL-CIO affiliates: $200 million
Change to Win affiliates: $100 million-plus
MoveOn: $30 million
Acorn: $35 million
Rock the Vote: $5 million-plus
La Raza: $4 million-$6 million

Two thoughts. First, that is a shitload of money from the unions. I wonder what sort of outreach that the unions will do to young voters and young members. Second, of the remaining $75 million another good chunk will likely find its way to youth vote registration and GOTV. Rock the Vote is the only youth-only org on the list, but MoveOn, Acorn, and La Raza are all likely to spend resources on reaching young voters as well. MoveOn did some youth organizing in 2004, Acorn has been known to do youth work in communities of color,and I'm sure La Raza will likewise look to reach young Latinos, who are a fast growing (and increasingly Democratic) constituency.

There are no reports yet on how this money will be spent. Knowing what we know about reaching young people - and in organizing generally - what I'm most interested in finding out is how much of this money will go to media vs. field work. It's too early to start arm-chair quarterbacking these institutions, but it's something to watch.

Having trouble understanding wtf is up with the credit crunch, the subprime mortgage fiasco, and the recent bank failures? The New York Times tries to boil it all down for you and does a decent job of it. It's times like these when I wish I took less Lit classes in college and added on a course or two in economics.

Finally, I loved Tim Fernholz's take-down of the Ron Paul "movement" over at Campus Progress. Fernholz is talking generally about all Ron Paul supporters, but one thing I would add to his piece is the total evaporation of Paul's youth support. Some of you may remember that Ron Paul was touted as the Republican "youth candidate," and his savvy online supporters helped him come out on top in the final MTV/MySpace candidate dialogue, but that support never materialized at the polls, where he failed to capture the youth vote (18 - 29) in a single contest, often finishing 10 points or more behind John McCain or Mike Huckabee.

Karl-Thomas Musselman has a great diary over at the Burnt Orange Report asking "wtf happened to all those Ron Paul youth supporters?"

As a basis for his diary, Karl points to a Ron Paul rally held on a University of Texas campus recently. The rally had 4,000 attendees, but produced only 54 votes for Dr. Paul in early voting on campus.

I've noted in the past that Ron Paul has repeatedly come in 2nd, 3rd, and even 4th place among 18 - 29 year olds in the Republican primaries, and I don't think he's ever broken 20% among conservative youth in a given primary or caucus. Why is that so?

It would be hugely interesting to see a post-mortem analysis comparing the Obama and Ron Paul youth field campaigns . . . or even some decent polling asking why conservative youth cast their ballots for a specific candidate.

Last night, four Presidential candidates participated in the final MTV/MySpace Candidate Dialogue. Dubbed "Closing Arguments," the event, which ran almost two hours, was a final chance for the candidates to make their arguments to young voters, who have played an influential role in the nominating process thus far.

The event was not very interesting in what it told us about the candidates - most viewers in the live audience had already decided which candidate would receive their ballot, and the candidates themselves said nothing new. Last night's event was interesting in that it revealed a new battleground for online organizing that will surely come into play during the general election.

When I arrived at the event at MTV studios in Times Square, a rally in support of Sen. Obama was already in progress. The Obama camp placed attendance somewhere around 300. Supporters were also there for Hillary and Ron Paul, though their numbers were much more modest. This wasn't all that unexpected. Obama has the most youth support by far, and he's been able to organize his supporters quite effectively on the ground.

The surprises came during the online polling when Ron Paul took his turn (all online polling results below):

I've long noted that the candidate dialogues were the most interactive events on the campaign trail, and I've been excited about the possibility that MTV and MySpace could create a feedback loop between the candidates and the online audience that would keep the candidates more honest in their answers and cut down on speculation among the punditry by providing a real-time glimpse into what young voters were thinking about the campaigns.

This didn't happen in previous Dialogues, where young voters overwhelmingly agreed with the answers provided by Senators Obama, Edwards, and McCain. My hope was that this feedback loop would emerge during last night's Q&A with one of the Republican candidates, who generally have views that contrast greatly with those of young voters.

Instead of that feedback loop, what I saw was a tactical assault by Ron Paul supporters to "win" the debate for their candidate. In question after question, Ron Paul scored much higher than I would have expected, and the Democratic candidates scored far lower than I thought possible.

For example, Darfur has long been a high priority with young voters, who are also multilateralists, and questions about the genocide have come up in almost all of the previous dialogues. When asked a question about Darfur, Dr. Paul laid out a non-interventionist plan for handling the crisis in which he equated direct involvement in solving the Darfur crisis to our intervention in Iraq. I expected Paul's answer to invoke a backlash in the online voting. Instead, he garnered a startling 61 percent support.

This level of support continued. 76 percent supported his views on how the country should have responded to 9/11. 78 percent supported his views on energy independence. 81 percent supported his foreign policy ideas, and fully half declared their intention to vote for Rep. Paul on Tuesday. To be sure, Ron Paul has some youth support, but this was above and beyond any support he's received thus far. Even in the Republican contests Huckabee, Romney and McCain have repeatedly done better among young conservative voters than Ron Paul.

These results were startling, but perhaps not unexpected. Ron Paul's support has mostly manifested itself on the internet, where he dominates social news websites like Digg and Reddit. This tech savvy was on display once again last night, and the Paulites were not content to limit their activity to boosting their candidate. They also worked to drag down his opponents.

This was confirmed when the Democrats - Obama and Clinton - had their turn. Sen. Obama scored just above or below 50 percent support on almost every question asked of him. This was far different from his first appearance on MTV, when he typically scored upwards of 75% support. Chris Cilliza of the Washington Post, the moderator in charge of the online component of the debate tried to explain Obama's low-marks as a manifestation of young voters desire for "experience" over the Senator's message of "change," but polling for Clinton not ten minutes later put the lie to that analysis. Sen. Clinton rarely scored higher than 25 or 30 percent support, despite the fact that younger people are participating in the Democratic primaries in far greater numbers than the GOP contests.

Last night, Obama's supporters showed their strength outside the venue with as they rallied for their candidate, but Ron Paul's supporters were the real winners last night. Yet again they were the first to break new ground in another online venue. Unlike the other campaigns, Paul's supporters figured out that the interactivity of the MySpace/MTV dialogues was a two way street; it could keep candidates accountable, but it could also be used by supporters to influence the kinds of questions their candidate received and how his performance was reported. Pauls supporters made last night's event another battleground for their online campaign, and gave their long-shot candidate another feather in his cap (even if they probably didn't improve his chances of winning the nomination).

This has implications beyond Super Tuesday. Due to the success of these events, MTV and MySpace will likely engage the eventually nominees for both parties next fall. Whoever those nominees are, if they are smart, they will learn last night's lesson and organizer their supporters accordingly.

I just got an email from some of the press people organizing the final MTV/MySpace candidate dialogue. As I reported earlier this week, both Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee are confirmed to participate in the "closing arguments"/Super Dialogue. Now Barack Obama and Ron Paul are also confirmed for the event, which will take place this Saturday at 6pm at MTV's New York studio.

That means that Mitt Romney will be the only major Presidential candidate to not participate at least once in these forums. I wonder what the 5 brothers think of that?