There is no anti-libertarian conspiracy of journalists

Immediately following the blockquoted portion from my last post, John Derbyshire wrote:

Expect things to get much worse if Paul polls well in Nevada, which looks possible.

This is possibly true, but trivially so; contrary to Derbyshire's implication, it is not evidence of anti-libertarian sentiment.  Rather, it's simply that negative information about people who aren't already famous, important, or already in the news is not newsworthy -- and that if Paul becomes more newsworthy, so will negative information about him.  Here's an instructive example you can try at home:  call a few local reporters and announce that you are holding a press conference to reveal embarrassing moments from your past.  Now, the sheer novelty of a random person doing this may actually prompt one of them to come out and write you up as a Local Man Being Weird, but this report will not make any front pages.  Why?  Well, not that many people care about you.

Ron Paul has not proven particularly newsworthy throughout the campaign: he shows no sign of being able to get 10% in even one state, let alone to win the nomination.  Is this because Paul could not get earned press coverage -- and was that a result of anti-libertarian sentiment among journalists?  In short, no.  Journalists have and have had good reasons to be skeptical of the Paul campaign's prospects for success.  I'll list just three huge ones:

 1.  Paul is and was only a Congressman, who faced Senators and Governors and former Senators and former Governors.  Paul has never won a statewide race.  Paul received similar levels of coverage in the early goings of the campaign as fellow Congressmen Hunter, Tancredo, and Kucinich.  (Paul has received far, far more coverage than those candidates over the course of the campaign, and probably even received as much or more coverage than Senators Dodd and Biden.)  James Garfield was the last Congressman to be elevated directly to the Presidency, i.e., it hasn't happened in over 125 years.

2.  Paul was vastly outraised and outorganized in the early going of the campaign, which were and are and always will be reasonably accurate measures of support.  Why are Paul supporters trumpeting his fundraising now that they have money?  Why were they decrying the importance of money when they didn't have much?  (Hint:  Sometimes the obvious answer is the right one.)

3.  Paul was and is attempting to become the nominee of a pro-war party during a year when the Iraq war has been among the very most important issues.

So journalists had very strong reasons to be skeptical of a Paul candidacy -- and journalists must be skeptical of the unproven and the hypothetically important, as everyone is always begging them for the spotlight, which can only go to a very few places at any given time.

Now, let's fast-forward to the last couple weeks and apply a bit of Shiny Object Theory.  (Recall the Theory tenet that there is competition for media attention.)  Paul currently isn't getting routine coverage like stronger candidates; however, he is drawing 5-8% in these early primaries.  Jamie Kirchick has published his investigative piece on the racist and homophobic material in Paul-published newsletters.  To what extent has the piece been given attention by others?  Some -- that 5-8% of votes is worth something to somebody, and those people are undoubtedly trying to push the story -- but outside some notice on prominent blogs and a chat with Wolf Blitzer, not that much.  (For example, "Giuliani Florida strategy" and "Hillary tears" get far more results than "Paul newsletters" when searching Google News.)  National journalists continue to pay little attention to Paul -- about as much as they are paying to the similarly uncompetitive Fred Thompson -- because he is no threat to win.  And as the media is paying little attention to the story, there has been no obvious effect on Paul's polling figures or vote totals.

Libertarian bloggers, on the other hand, are going libertarian-blogocrazy over the story.  ("Paul newsletters" trounces "Giuliani Florida strategy" and is roughly even with "Hillary tears" in number of results on Google Blog Search.) Why?  I can't help but wonder if it's not this:  They are trying to blow it up into the latest excuse for libertarians' failures to make significant impact on American politics.  They are laying the groundwork today so that, a year from now, they can gaze peacefully back through the haze of time and recall that Ron Paul nobly fought for their noble cause, only to have his campaign subverted by a single malicious attack.  And, guys, what was the content of that attack?  Anyone remember?  Oh yeah, it was the leftists accusing us of violating political correctness!  Of course - what else would it have been?  How could we have forgotten?!  So, we tried, but, as usual, they immorally lied...and probably physically coerced us too somewhere in there.  Bummer about this recession and war on Iran, but don't blame us: we didn't vote, but if somehow we would have known that we would be decisive, we would have voted for Ron Paul, and he certainly would have prevented the war...