December 10, 2007
Big Blimpin': Ron Paul Blimp Coming to Boston
Republican presidential candidate and Internet sensation Ron Paul doesn't need Oprah. He doesn't need connections to the hot-shot politicians. He just needs a blimp.
Ron Paul's supporters are sending up a blimp for an East Coast tour from North Carolina, through DC and New York, to Boston. According to the flight plan on the Ron Paul Blimp site, the balloon will launch Wednesday in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and then travels north, flying over Boston, Worcester, and New Hampshire on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, December 16, the website for the Ron Paul Blimp Tour organizers says the blimp will dump tea into the harbor at 7:00 pm.
This information gave Bostonist pause. The Ron Paul Blimp organizers would be asking for trouble if they dumped tea into the harbor. Boston doesn't take kindly to any sort of threat to its city. If the city brass doesn't like Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Star Simpson's light-up sweatshirt, they will not be pleased with tea in the harbor.
However, Bryce Henderson, media contact for the Ron Paul Blimp team reassured Bostonist that the tea-dumping was only symbolic and related to what other groups are doing on the ground to commemorate the Boston Tea Party. Phew. That would have been ugly.
Speaking of celebrating the Boston Tea Party, the Ron Paul-related Tea Party Rally will take place on Sunday, December 16. The rally will happen at 1:00 pm at the State House and will then move to Faneuil Hall. The rally will eventually coincide with the yearly tea-party re-enactment at the Old State House at 5:30 pm.
Bostonist contacted Joseph Ureneck, the Ron Paul Meetup coordinator for Boston. He clarified that the group putting up the blimp and the group organizing the rally have coordinated their schedules, but that those participating in the rally will not be dumping tea or anything else into the harbor. For more information on the Ron Paul Tea Party '07, head to their website for a full schedule of tea-party-related events.
Image courtesy of Liberty Political Advertising. Previously on DCist.
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Highly creative and talented people are getting involved in Dr. Ron Paul's campaign. Much of it is independent of his official campaign structure. The Ron Paul blimp is just one aspect. Someone thought of the idea, made the website ronpaulblimp.com, and people started contributing. There is a site with large numbers of sophisticated graphs about Ron Paul's campaign: ronpaulgraphs.com. Major chat sites at ronpaulforum.com, ronpaulnation.com, dailypaul.com, many more. You tube videos are another aspect - many of which look almost professionally created, for example 'Ron Paul Second Fox GOP Debate - Going the Distance!':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDtLv3I_UaY
Then there's the money bomb days, the next being TeaParty07.com, which will be December 16th, the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. Another group is sponsoring canvassing for Ron Paul that is occurring in New Hampshire: http://www.fiveforfreedom.com/. Huge spontaneous rallies for Dr Paul occur about the country through meetup groups. Additional Ron Paul rallies are done when other candidates come to town. And the official campaign structure doesn't try to interfere with anything. That $4.3 million raised in one day was done completely independent of Dr Paul's staffers. The other candidates have nothing like this. It is because Dr Paul is genuine, not a flip flopper, he has integrity and cares about the Constitution and the American people. That is the nature of this campaign: Freedom! Independence! Liberty! RonPaul2008!
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I don't think the Ron Paul Blimp will cause any problems. They're not throwing tea in the Harbor, they're throwing crates with lines attached so they can pull the crates back up into the blimp.
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I will be under the blimp in a rowboat trying to catch all that tea.