Probably Uncalled For...  

It's been fun watching the Ron Paul juggernaut run amok in the hunt for the GOP presidential nomination. Kind of telling when a long-time Republican congressman (and former Libertarian Party candidate for President) is gaining some kind of momentum (not to mention great press coverage) in a crowded hot mess of candidates. Of course, the statement could be made that Paul's Libertarian past may be catching up with him, as he has been excluded from a FOX News forum on January 6, just two days from the New Hampshire primary. As a former third-party candidate, I'm sure Paul is used to watching the debates rather than engaging in them, but you gotta love how this work. Even Alan Keyes' crazy a** made it on a stage for a debate. Ron Paul has considerable attention from the mainstream media, but Alan Keyes is allowed into a debate, and Paul isn't? Admit it, your first thought when you saw Alan Keyes in Des Moines was "crap, who let him chew through the restraints again?," wasn't it?

It's hard to argue that Ron Paul doesn't have support in New Hampshire, which makes FOX's decision puzzling. Not overly surprising, but puzzling nonetheless.

While I doubt this will lead to widespread mobilization of Ron Paul supporters, around the same time, a much funnier rallying call was trumpeted out. On New Year's Day, a rally of Ron Paul supporters on World of Warcraft will be held at 8:30 pm Eastern.

This is good stuff, don't care who you ask. I know politicians are becoming more keenly aware of the influential aspects of social networking, but this may be one of the last great comedy goldmines - politics merging with aspects of the virtual world. Do you think Ron Paul will earn the endorsements of William Shatner, Shaman or Mr. T, Nightelf Mohawk? I remember back to some of my previous market research projects, where I was joining the rest of the phone monkeys, endlessly tormenting those who stayed on the phone longer than fifteen seconds as to how they were planning on voting, throwing out a couple of helpful reminders for the candidate we were schilling.

One time, it was "reminding" people of a rally in Central Park for Barack Obama. As odd as it was to rattle off the intersection where the rally was being organized, since I hadn't been to New York since 1976, when I was all of eleven months old, how weird it would be, I thought, to try and direct people from Ironforge to Stormwind.

I'm Dr. Thomas Keister, Renaissance Telemarketer, and I could give two s**ts and a f**k what your game is. If you are gonna get political, get outside and f**king do something. If you just want to stay the f**k inside and whomp some ass with a battle axe, so be it. Just try to figure out if you are reading Editorial page of the newspaper or another RPG manual before you leave the house. In the real world, showing up for a political rally with a battle axe could get you tased, and God knows we do NOT need a medieval take on "don't tase me, bro!" running loose upon the Internet.

Gotta go. Thinking about declaring my candidacy for the presidency in 2012. Thinking about courting the XBox live vote...