Ron Paul Roundup: Campaign in Maine, Praise By Palin; Winning the Younger (Jack) Welchs and Blackedout Again

*The Bangor, Maine Daily News on Paul dealing with his bad polls in Florida by campaigning in Maine:

Declaring the "freedom movement alive and well," Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul kicked off a two-day statewide tour in Bangor on Friday with the hope of convincing enough delegates to support him at Maine's caucuses, which begin next weekend.

Paul, the 76-year-old Congressman from Texas, is the only current GOP candidate who has yet to win a state's primary or caucus, but he has been racking up delegates in many states and hopes to continue that trend in Maine.

"We came where the action is, in Maine," he said to raucous applause from about 300 people packed inside the Union Street Brick Church in downtown Bangor. "We came to get delegates and that's the name of the game. That's how you win elections.

"We deal in ideas and very important ideas, but I've also discovered that the best way to promote ideas is to win elections, too."

During a 30-minute speech, Paul touched on a number of his campaign themes including personal freedoms, limited government and ending U.S. involvement in foreign wars…..

He stressed his preference to repeal the Patriot Act and his opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act.

"The Internet is the weapon of liberty as far as I'm concerned," he said.

He also said he thinks airport security scanners are a government overreach in the wake of Sept. 11.

"These are illegal, unconstitutional searches of our bodies where it doesn't make us any safer whatsoever," he said. "That we need to change."…..

Paul is the only candidate to visit Maine so far in 2012…

*Former GE CEO Jack Welch and wife Suzy are getting into the weeds of GOP power plays by calling on Ron Paul to drop out, while also noting the GOP must be sure he doesn't go away mad because of the power of his fans and ideas–and admit all their kids are Ron Paul people.

*Sarah Palin tells John Stossel that Ron Paul "is the only one who has been so adamantly passionate about doing something about the suffocating debt, about doing something about reining in government growth and actually slashing budgets—$1 trillion a year, he's been specific about until we get our hands around this—I respect that."

*John Hudson at The Atlantic notices a mainstream media Paul blackout back in effect:

After a brief spike in interest, the mainstream media coverage of GOP candidate Ron Paul is back to nearly nothing, according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. This week, less than 5 percent of all campaign stories focused on Paul, the lowest point since Dec. 11. when strong performances in Iowa and New Hampshire helped stoke some interest. Over the same period, Paul's performance in the polls has only improved, going from the single digits to 12.7 percent, putting him nearly even with Rick Santorum, in the current RealClearPolitics average.

But in Pew's weekly study, Paul has been heading in the opposite direction. Pew tracks a list of 52 mainstream news outlets across broadcast television, cable news, newspapers, radio and the 12 most popular news sites to measure exposure. As you can see from the graph below, the downward trajectory of coverage volume has been steep for Paul, as the star of New Gingrich rose following his decisivevictory in South Carolina and strong polling in Florida.   

Ron Paul's (pretty uniformly great) debate performance last night, mostly just the Ron Paul parts (and some of the others riffing off of Ron):

 

My forthcoming book, Ron Paul's Revolution.