Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul made history Sunday by raising $6 million in online contributions in 24 hours, breaking the record for the most money raised by a national candidate in a single day, and potentially putting Paul on track to surpass the fourth quarter fund raising of all of his competitors in both parties. The $6 million number beats the 2004 record set by Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry... "What he has done is establish himself as a major candidate, and he's no longer a fringe voice," says Corrado. "One of the most important things Ron Paul does, which I think is a service to all of us, is to bring back on the table a lot of ideas that the MSM and most candidates treat as off the table," says Zephyr Teachout, a visiting assistant law professor at Duke University who directed internet organizing for Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign.
This datapoint is simply further evidence that Ron Paul is this season's Howard Dean. As we get further into the primary season there will be a concerted effort by the establishment to shut this down. If he makes it into March he'll be in uncharted waters. His candidacy, as Dean's before it, represents the power of grass roots media to make opinions, but in the early days of broadcast media in the 1930's an inexperienced culture created a cult of personality around politicians like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. I fear that this case is similar. His campaign's success is a combination of anti-immigration xenophobia and nationalistic fevor (painted with imagry of the founding fathers and the overuse of the word freedom without real meaning). Mother Jones published an excellent ven diagram which illustrates the difference between Ron Paul's positions and Libertarian thought. Ironically they drew their diagram such that Ron Paul's name appears exactly where libertarians put Hilter in their own political diagrams. Now, I'm not saying that Ron Paul is going to start overfunding the military and running death camps, but if you don't beleive in the doctrine of incorporation, you're sure as hell not a libertarian. Ron Paul Supporters Make History with $6 Million Online Haul -- Updated | Threat Level from Wired.com | 
