Ce-web-rities

In his 2008 election campaign, Ron Paul mastered the art of viral marketing and created a momentum online for his presidential bid. A group of his supporters—who believed that his popularity would soar if only voters knew who this guy was—took to the Web, blogging, polling, creating Facebook fan groups, and whipping up a virtual frenzy that then translated into campaign rallies and other events (“Google Ron Paul” was one of the faithful’s mantras). However, the divide between cyberspace and real life still matters, as the results ultimately showed: even his hoard of subscribers on YouTube and “friends” on MySpace did not translate into support in the voting booth. Paul saw his popularity drop as the campaign neared its end, but he recently came in first by a mile at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s straw poll of potential 2012 presidential nominees.
Where he’d be without the Web: Relegated to late-night cable-news shows