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Adroit online, Ron Paul backers hit the streets of N.H.

'Paulites' see the first primary state as fertile ground for their candidate's iconoclastic political views.

By Ari Pinkus | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the December 4, 2007 edition

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Manchester, N.H. - They're coming from Miami and Seattle, from the "big sky" state of Montana, and from close to home here in New Hampshire. They're coming to help political iconoclast Ron Paul get elected president – many as campaign first-timers who, characteristically independent, may not even feel obliged to tell the Paul camp what exactly they're planning to do on the candidate's behalf.

The Paulites' push for old-style, on-the-ground politicking in New Hampshire, coming just five weeks before the primary, marks a change for a support network that has always relied on websites and online fundraising. They're here now because they see the Granite State – with its reputation as antitax, anti-big government, and pro-individual freedom – as especially fertile ground for a libertarian-leaning Republican candidate like Mr. Paul.

"New Hampshire is really important because it's the first primary and it sends a message to other states about who's viable and who the leading candidates are. There was all this Internet enthusiasm, but we didn't have enough boots on the ground," says Vijay Boyapati, a Google engineer who recently left the Seattle firm to work on Paul's campaign.

Mr. Boyapati arrived Saturday in Manchester, N.H., to head up a project of his own invention: Operation Live Free or Die, named after the state motto. His aim is to bring 1,000 volunteers to New Hampshire to canvass for Paul. He calculates that if each volunteer, working seven to eight hours a day, meets 100 people daily, then the project can reach out personally to almost all 100,000 residents of Manchester before the Jan. 8 primary.

Then there's Linda Lagana of Merrimack, N.H. Using her graphic-design talent and a small print shop, she has been creating Paul-for-president ads and fliers for months on the cheap. Her materials have ended up in the hands of voters across the state – and are even preferred to official campaign literature. Her highest-profile project so far: designing an advertisement published in USA Today the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Trevor Lyman, an online music promoter, already helped raise $4.2 million for Paul in a one-day Internet event Nov. 5. Two weeks ago he moved from Miami to Manchester, where he lives in a "frat house" with seven bedrooms, he says. He spends his days and nights working on other "money bomb" campaigns for the GOP candidate. At 37, Mr. Lyman plans to cast his first vote ever – for Paul on Jan. 8.

Once politically apathetic, these Paul supporters join many others who have become turbocharged almost overnight.

Now they've launched Five for Freedom, a campaign to get people to contribute $5 each to help those who want to live and volunteer in New Hampshire. So far, the cause has received more than 1,200 pledges.

Another money campaign is Lyman's bid to raise $10 million online on Dec. 16, the anniversary of the 1773 Boston Tea Party protest of taxation without representation. Nearly 24,000 people have pledged to donate $100. Lyman's fundraiser highlights an "inflation tax." The donation website, teaparty07.com, links to a YouTube video in which Paul, during a TV appearance, explains the toll on citizens as the cost of living rises and the dollar declines in value.

Paul's bricks-and-mortar campaign, for its part, is not involved in these "day to donate" efforts and uses more traditional methods, such as phone banking and literature drops, to court Granite State voters. It bought $1.1 million in local TV ad time and has nine people on staff in New Hampshire, up from five a few months ago, according to the campaign.

There are signs that Paul is beginning to make a dent here, after months of registering in the low single digits in polls of likely GOP voters. In several polls he is running fourth or fifth, with 8 percent. But the American Research Group, which released the latest survey Friday, shows Paul at 2 percent among that GOP group. He's at 7 percent among independents.

Paul draws support from those who are disaffected with both the Republican and Democratic parties, says Andrew Smith, who directs the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. "He has a cap of about 10 to 15 percent of the electorate and hasn't reached it yet," he says.

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