MTV Knows What the Kids Like, Ron Paul and Slam Poetry

MTV, no longer exactly on the cutting edge of cool (we have Kurt Loder now, thank you very much!) still managed to notice that kids today kind of dig that Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) fellow, the one who is currently a tortoise amongst many surging hares in the race for the Republican primary.

Notes MTV.com, poetry also appeals to some of these youthful freedom-lovers:

It was the site of the "Slam Free or Die" political poetry open mic that drew a number of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's supporters. And while the sentiment onstage was often dripping with elegantly worded sarcasm, the boots on the ground had plenty of sobering thoughts on the suddenly surging candidate who refuses to play by his party's staid rules.

Nearly a week after the Iowa caucus, Congressman Paul's rivals continue to take digs at one another in an attempt to win over traditional GOP voting blocs and prove their family values bona fides. Libertarian Paul's pull with younger voters, meanwhile, was inspiring the kind of enthusiasm that motivated his followers to drive in from as far as Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., to attend the slam and volunteer in the Granite State in the lead-up to Tuesday's primary.

A common theme among the Paul faithful who spoke to MTV News for the channel's ongoing Power of 12 series was a disappointment with the Obama administration and a feeling that the promises of change touted four years ago have not come to fruition as they expected.

There's a Students for Liberty board member sighting!

"I think there were a lot of disillusioned voters in '08 who thought Obama would be a good solution to the problems presented by Bush," said Pericles Niarchos, 26, who, like the several tables of Paul-ites in the bar, was firmly focused on the poetry rather than the nail-biting Steelers-Broncos NFL playoff game being shown on the bar's flat-screen TVs….

"Dr. Paul's message seems to be more about sincerity and that you should be free to determine your own future," said Niarchos. "A lot of young people today feel like they're growing up in a world where they're no longer free to determine their own future. They're living in a set amount of circumstances that are being defined by older generations who don't really understand what we're going through. What our perspective is on the world is, what we want and what our values are … in my whole lifetime I don't think the U.S. has been at peace for more than four years, and it's really refreshing to see someone who advocates that so thoroughly."

The rest, as well as a video clip and interview with Niarchos and others, here.

Reason on Ron Paul, including the latest from Brian Doherty, Garrett Quinn, and Michael Tracey, who are all reporting from the campaign trail.