Congressman Ron paul becomes the latest to join the Google series. Found at TechPresident.

From ZDNet Russell Shaw writes “Attention you politics-hating coders, geeks: Ron Paul is NOT a friend of the Internet”:

I think we are seeing just a bit of the reflexive legacy libertarian techie streak here. Just want to code and innovate. government and politics is clunky, bureaucratic, process-driven. I know that many of you feel you don’t live in that political world.

And of those of you who do, Internet traffic patterns document a sentiment toward Rep. Paul far out of proportion to the poll numbers he has been pulling.

I interpret this view of Rep. Paul as a widespread meme that “I hate politics, and it doesn’t have anything to do with my world, but if I have to care, might as well back the Libertarian.”

But let me tell you about Libertarians.

Because they reflexively disdain regulations, they aren’t going to be on the side of legislation restoring fair royalty scales for Internet Webcasters.

Because they reflexively disdain regulations, they aren’t going to be on the side of net neutrality legislation.

And it is not even that Ron Paul knows anything about tech. He’s a self-professed “pen and paper” guy.

I linked earlier to the story about how John McCain now has less cash on hand than long-shot Ron Paul. This has been taken up by some bloggers/campaign watchers as some kind of triumph for Paul. Lets not get ahead of ourselves.

Frankly the fact is this has less to do with Paul as a great campaigner and more to do with John McCain being a horrible one. The McCain camp burned through the money they received and had a series of gaffes and missteps. NOT TO MENTION the fact that he positioned himself as a key supporter of a president with the longest sustained/lowest approval ratings in history, co-authored an immigration bill that was rejected by, well, pretty much everyone and became the public face of a troop surge in Iraq that most people are beginning to see as a failure.

Ron Paul on the other hand has a bunch of people sitting in their parents basements putting his name on Digg.com 24/7. He basically is the Vote for Sanjaya of the 2008 campaign.

Long-shit candidate Ron Paul has more cash on hand than the veteran Senator and at one time frontrunner for the Republican nomination John McCain. From ABC News:

ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos Reports: Though often regarded as a longshot candidate for president, Republican Ron Paul tells ABC News that he has an impressive $2.4 million in cash on hand after raising an equal amount during the second quarter, putting him ahead of one-time Republican frontrunner John McCain, who reported this week he has only $2 million in the bank.

In an exclusive interview taped Friday and airing Sunday on “This Week,” Paul said his campaign is on a better trajectory than McCain’s.

“I think some of the candidates are on the down-slope, and we’re on the up-slope,” said Paul.

Paul’s cash on hand puts him in third place in the Republican field in that important metric, although he is well behind leader Rudy Giuliani, who has $18 million in the bank, and Mitt Romney, with $12 million.

Normally one might observe that it doesn’t matter as McCain, the more likely candidate, would be able to raise more money and make up in the next quarter. I highly doubt it though, McCain worked his rear end off for the money he has and has been plowing through cash like a drunken sailor. McCain needs help and he needs it fast!

From Capitol Hill Blue Reality bites the Ron Paul campaign Fundraising projections more hype than truth points out a little something I have had in my mind. After the debates those close to Paul claimed huge fundraising was underway. The campaign says it did manage to raise about $1.5 million, which is still a nice drop in the hat for a national primary, but those $5 million figures being thrown around for awhile there were wildly off base.