On Tuesday night I updated you on the latest results in the pitched battle between Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani in the Michigan primary. As you know, Paul ended up getting twice the votes Rudy got in Michigan and now also has twice as many delegates as Rudy has — 2 to 1. The small number overall admittedly made it a cinch for me to come up with the percentage difference.
But until last night I thought the Rudy v. Paul fringe candidate cage match was just a figment of my political imagination. That was when we heard from TPM Reader EM down in Columbia, South Carolina who’d just gotten what we at first thought was an anti-Rudy robocall from Ron Paul’s campaign. On closer inspection it seems that it was actually a live caller, reading an attack script.
It seemed odd given Paul’s devotion to Austrian economics that he would embrace the palpable inefficiencies associated with manually calling gazillions of South Carolinians with actual phone calls rather than automating the process. But then it was pointed out to me that the Paul campaign, judged as an economic actor likely has excess capacity when it comes to hyped-up anti-Fed gun rights supporters with too much time on their hands and willing to work the phone banks. After all, how else can you explain the decision to dedicate such resources to spamming youtube? So it may actually make sense. In any case, check out the latest from the Paul/Rudy mano a mano …
