The Paradox of Ron Paul Support

Recently I took a trip through the northern regions of New England. Besides the ubiquity of trees, scarcity of cars and remnants of hurricane Irene's destruction, I saw another inexplicable thing: Ron Paul banners.

From Vermont to New Hampshire to Worcester, Massachusetts, Ron Paul dominates the landscape. Sure there's the occasionally graying "Vote for Newt if You Give a Hoot" sign or the Romney 2012 flag proudly waving from a 1%'s front porch, but Ron Paul is as popular across the New England landscape as a winding road. But why, if this man is projected to earn less than 5% of the vote, are there so many signs of support?

Remember how no media outlet covered the story about how Ron Paul is ignored in the media? Well, clearly they did so for good reason. Ron Paul doesn't fit into the pigeonholed description and routine comprehension of American politics. He's a Republicrat, an Isolationist Libertarian with liberal leanings on conservative issues and conservative leanings on liberal issues. In essence, he's an anomaly. And a glitch in the American "Matrix" doesn't fit well with the status quo; in fact, it forces the populous to examine individual issues as opposed to a candidate and then the way the issues will be dealt with by that particular party. Could it really be that Ron Paul is too complicated to be accepted?

I'm not trying to make New England sound elitist. They have an extremely good educational system and a very high percentage of adults with college degrees and advanced degrees, but it doesn't mean that they're the smartest or the best able to deconstruct the enigma of Ron Paul (in fact many would argue it just makes New England typical "educated liberals"). But what it does show is that Ron Paul supporters want to spread the word and work harder than the candidate himself to spread the word. NOT to win the election per say, but to change the American mindset.

What's the use of coming in 3rd and spending millions if nothing changes? There's no point to it. Ask Newt Gingrich, who came in 3rd in the Republican Party primary with nearly $5 million in campaign debt. What did he accomplish? Absolutely nothing. But Ron Paul, whose campaign has copious amounts of additional funding it hasn't used, isn't aiming for the white house; he's aiming for change. In this metonymous analogy, Paul isn't trying to "lead the free world" as a symbol, he's trying to lead the free world by example; changing perspectives and comprehension through a simplistic viewpoint that, in its essence, wants to prove that an individual can have an individual opinion and doesn't have to adhere to the strict doctrine of their party.

This all brings me to my thesis: Does Ron Paul actually only have a smidgen of support, or is he slowly molding the minds of the American public--evolving our electoral and political thought? The ubiquity of his signs versus the actual amount of votes argues that his influence is below the surface, something percolating and waiting to rise, and that his true aim is to educate rather than to become a personified beacon or symbol, someone who speaks but ultimately has no singular influence or power?

Ron Paul has a dream, and he's trying, through inception obviously, to share it with the us. And while the dream makes sense, it requires effort and thought, two things that many Americans seem averse to attempting in this era or iPads and reality television. So Paul's dream will have to wait, but his influence will remain. He'll never see the presidency, but his thought process and true independence will resonate with an alienated American public in the future; a populous that one day will acknowledge it has been marginalized and trivialized, swindled and condescended to. Remember, Langston Hughes once proposed and then answered a question which overflows the brim of race relations: What happens to a dream deferred? Does it shrivel up and die...maybe it just sags like a heavy load...Or does it explode?