Rep. Ron Paul - one of the 2008 Presidential Elections leaders?

The presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-Texas) is the King of the Internet, despite other candidates' attempts to create an e-buzz.

Rep. Ron Paul - one of the 2008 Presidential Elections leaders? Ron Paul is the presidential candidate who took the Internet by storm. According to Technorati, "Ron Paul" is one of the web's most searched terms. Paul's YouTube channel has been viewed over one million times, surpassing the numbers of competitors like John McCain and Rudy Giuliani.

Every political figure these days is on the Internet band-wagon. Hillary Clinton organized online voting for her campaign song, Barack Obama has the famous "Obama girl", everyone has a YouTube channel, etc.

But many perceive Ron Paul as "one of the people". Paul has no big campaign budged, no corporations pouring money into his campaign, he is against big government, the war, and pretty much anything that costs taxpayers money.

And check this - Ron Paul was against the Internet gambling bill which forbids the U.S. banks and financial institutions to send money to offshore betting websites. Rep. Ron Paul commented on that bill: "Prohibition as a general principle is a bad principle, because it doesn't work." After this statement, we can forgive Rep. Paul that he was the only one who voted "No" to impose fines on spammers for each piece of unsolicited junk email they send. His explanation, "I don't believe Congress has the authority to get involved in this," sound good to me.

Many political blogs post monthly surveys to find out which candidate has the most support for the 2008 Elections, and Ron Paul usually tops them all. To the point that many bloggers do not include his name on the list. And quite a few accuse the supporters of the presidential candidate of tampering with the results. According to Matt Margolis, who runs GOP Straw Polls, Paul fans are visiting numerous blogs hosting the polls and voting repeatedly while encouraging others to do the same.

Jesse Benton, Ron Paul's campaign communication director, disagrees: "If we have 20,000 passionate supporters who go and vote in an online poll and Rudy Giuliani can only get 1,000, we're not going to apologize for that."

Ron Paul sure is the "Internet Politician", but does he have what it takes to win the offline elections? Well, betting on the Presidential Elections isn't new. And who else to keep a cool head, but the bookmakers?

Although it's little early for the actual elections, there are a few online betting websites which already take bets on the future president. Sportsbook.com is one of them and the gambling website has already upgraded the once-underdog Ron Paul to the amazing odds of 15 to 1 on wining the 2008 Presidential Elections! Hilary Clinton is still the favorite with 2/1, followed by Rudy Giuliani 3/1, but odds of 15/1 on Ron Paul is a great "achievement" by someone you've never heard of a few months back.

Should you read too much into it? Not really, on the same betting props we found names such as George W Bush (odds 200/1) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (250/1), although both would need a big legislative change to even enter the contest. But it's a fact that whatever Ron Paul is doing (or not doing), it works. And if his Internet celebrity-like status continues to grow, we may see a lot of betting props with his name on them.

Oh, wait, according to Bodog Sports, Ron Paul has the odds of 6/1 to be the first Presidential candidate photographed with an Apple iPhone...

Ron Paul blogs and forums you may want to check out: Daily Paul | Ron Paul Forums

Published on 06/27/2007