I first heard this news on the Phil Hendrie show, but I have been seeing other reports confirming it. For instance, here is a Washington Post story:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030703061. html

Hendrie has been saying that Paul's supporters should feel gypped because the Paul campaign raised a substantial amount of money, but it did not spend a lot on television advertising.

Why do grassroots type campaigns not work in the modern era? Why can't the supporters be the machine that drives the campaign instead of the media and the people behind the campaign staff?

In many ways Barack Obama's campaign has been grassroots but he gets the media exposure and has people who have credentials working for his campaign.

What gives. Is grassroots type campaigns just a myth, or just not feasible in the modern era?

SOME grassroots campaigns have fared well. Take Ross Perot in 1992.

In Paul's case, I don't think the message was the issue with the masses, it was the messenger. He appealed to a small but significant group of people, on both the right AND left ... that relate with the libertarian philosophies. Many are affluent and aren't afraid to shell out a LOT of money for their guy, to make their voice heard.

What hurts in this case, IMHO, is that we have very credible candidates on both the Republican and Democratic tickets, whether it's Hillary or Obama. In 1992, Bill Clinton was a newcomer, George Bush ran an awful campaign resting on his laurels, the economy was a mess, and here came this fast-talking Texas businessman who said "we need to run the government like a business". People listened, even though Perot was a squirrel. In 2000, we had an idiot (Dubya) running against someone highly intellectual but with the personality of cardboard (Gore) and in slips Nader to steal enough votes to possibly (probably) change the outcome of the election.

Ron Paul reminds me a lot of Perot, in his looks, his philosophies, his mannerism, his speaking. He doesn't have the luxury of a George Bush Sr. or a Al Gore or Dubya to detract attention from, to garner interest.

Shyguy, I think grass roots stuff is actually beginning to really become effective.

IMHO, it's a combination of the right message. Gotta have that, grass roots or not. And from there building an effective support and advocacy organization.

Last year, lots of offices were flipped to new comers to the scene, largely because of Internet organized grass roots efforts.

One notable one was the Lieberman / Lamont deal in CA. Lieberman won, but he almost didn't! Big message to the established interests. That, combined with the high number of freshmen now in Congress woke some people up.

IMHO, primary politics is very much in play and growing stronger as people begin to see it happen. This cycle will see some unseats too, and they will depend on heavy grass roots support to make happen.

The problem with Paul, and I like Paul, was having not the right message. He did a really great job talking about the war in rational terms, for example. Best of the bunch, IMHO.

Combine that with some fairly radical ideas on how government needs to change and it's not so pretty of a picture. Maybe he was right about that stuff, but right or not, it was too much too early.

The amount of support he got, for the length of time he had it, and the dollars invested overall is notable to me as a pretty good example of grass roots kicking some ass.

Tom Potter did it here to run for Mayor. Limited his contributions to $25 or something. He got after it personally, knocking on a lot of doors to win. That win was against well funded, "in the pocket" competition.

Look at the differences between Obama and Clinton. Clinton is running an older school, leverage the establishment, focus on key victories, take the grass roots where she can get it, but don't count on it kind of campaign.

McCain is doing a similar thing.

Now, look at Obama and how his game is being played. He's got heavy grass roots efforts running everywhere --even the states that are not such a big prize! That's really had an impact on his success as he's capturing a huge percentage of the rural areas and forgotten areas.

His individual doner list is impressive too. Million plus and growing! That's probably 2X what the others have, if not more.

Now it's still not possible to win it without spending the big bucks. Gotta do TV, fly around, get those endorsements, etc... So he's doing that as well as the others are.

Factor everything out and the grass roots is making it happen for Obama.