Ron Paul Races to $20 Million for Fourth Quarter

At approximately 12:15 EST on New Year's Eve, GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul saw his total donations for the fourth quarter rise to over $19 million dollars. As part of a New Year's Eve money bomb before the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, large numbers of Ron Paul
supporters are donating before New Year's Day. Known for his popularity on the Internet where he has received most of his donations, Ron Paul has received little confidence in his candidacy from the mainstream media, where he is constantly referred to as a "long shot."

This is in contrast to former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee, who fell short of his fourth quarter goal after earning just under $5 million. Nevertheless, Huckabee continues to receive unparalleled media enthusiasm and is supposedly surging in news polls, as well. This is not so evident in the amount of donations to his campaign, however.

Unlike his political opponents on both the right and the left, Ron Paul is determined to eradicate the IRS and Patriot Act, deeming the income tax as unconstitutional and the Patriot Act as a violation of personal privacy and constitutional rights. He is the only Republican candidate who advocates immediate withdrawal out of Iraq, as well as shutting down the Guantanamo Prison. Republican candidate Mitt Romney, on the other hand, wants to "double Guantanamo," while Mike Huckabee thinks Guantanamo is "nice" and thinks U.S. prisoners would want to be in a facility more like the notorious detention camp.

And unlike other candidates, such as Hillary Clinton, who readily accept donations from Rupert Murdoch's empire, News Corp, Ron Paul does not accept money from big business. This is, perhaps, one of the reasons the revolutionary candidate has been largely ignored or criticized by mainstream media. It is precisely because mainstream media groups such as Viacom, NBC, and News Corp cannot influence him.

Recently, Fox News denied Ron Paul a seat at the forum sponsored by the New Hampshire Republican Party on January 6 in which Chris Wallace of Fox News will be holding a question and answer session with the candidates. The New York Times also came out recently apologizing for a post last week in the The Medium, a New York Times blog, after the author, Virginia Heffernan, mistakenly reported that Ron Paul had received donations from the white-supremacist organization Stormfront, even alleging that Paul had met regularly with the members. Many Ron Paul supporters believe these types of media shenanigans are part of a deliberate campaign to paint their candidate as an extremist. However, in reality, Dr. Paul has stated that he draws more support from African American voters than any of the other GOP candidates.

One might question why Ron Paul does not accept money from big business, and the reason he cites is his belief that it's the people who are supposed to influence politics, not the corporations. That's why this New Year's Eve, supporters intend to show the corporations who's really in charge of politics by donating to the Ron Paul campaign. The campaign recently called for at least $23 million dollars in additional donations in order to run an adequate marketing campaign for the later primaries, and supporters continue to enlarge Paul's war chest at a remarkable pace. Be a part in raising Ron Paul's fourth quarter total from $19 million to at least $20 million. Click here to contribute, and make sure to donate before midnight!