Texas Congressman and GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul learned Monday what it's like to be the focus of media attention.
The Hill reported Monday that a campaign stop at a New Hampshire restaurant turned into a circus as Paul found himself surrounded by what the Hill described as "media scrum."
A campaign stop at a New Hampshire eatery mutated into a circus on Monday when the media scrum chasing Ron Paul apparently became too much for the 76-year-old Texas congressman to handle.
Paul had been planning to make the rounds through Moe Joe’s restaurant before settling down to eat breakfast with his wife, Carol — who said he enjoys apple pancakes — at a table in the corner.
“Ron Paul: We have you surrounded. We are the media,” sounded the voice from a megaphone as Paul staffers ushered him into a waiting SUV, just minutes after he arrived at the restaurant.
Holding the megaphone was a man dressed roughly as a wizard, with shaggy hair and tousled beard, wearing a massive black boot upside down on his head.One woman, dressed all in red with a colonial-style blue hat, waited for Paul while carrying a 4-by-3-foot sign showing Paul — an obstetrician — wearing green scrubs and holding a baby wrapped in an American flag.
Shoving her way through the hoard of reporters, Karen Hiller found her way to Paul’s SUV and demanded he come back to the restaurant and meet the voters he would be facing at the ballot box on Tuesday.
“It’s the people of New Hampshire he’s supposed to meet,” she exclaimed.
“I agree,” said one of Paul’s aides. “That’s why we did it for a full year.”
Hiller expressed disappointment as Paul's SUV departed. Her 90-year-old mother had hoped to meet the Texas Congressman, but was unable to.
“She really wanted to meet him. She was really waiting to meet him,” Hiller said. “I think he lost some votes.”
“Mrs. Paul herself, attempting to campaign alongside her husband, was shoved aside by one reporter and told to ‘get out of the way,’” campaign manager Jesse Benton said.
Predictably, some of Paul's supporters are calling the reporting a "smear" against Paul.
A post at the Daily Paul, for example, cites an article at Prison Planet:
The level of smear attacks against Ron Paul are getting so transparently agenda-driven that the press is now blaming Paul for spectacles they directly create, such as today’s media swarm in a New Hampshire eatery that forced Paul to abandon a planned meet and greet with voters.
Planning to talk to supporters at Moe Joe’s restaurant this morning, the event turned into a “media scrum” with Paul barely being able to move as he was chased around the restaurant by swarms of photographers.
The Washington Post wrote Monday that Paul's relationship with the media has become quite strained lately.
For months, Texas Rep. Ron Paul and his supporters complained about being ignored by the mainstream media despite his strong poll numbers in Iowa and New Hampshire. Now that the press is all over him, the iconoclastic candidate appears to be struggling with the onslaught of attention.
According to the Post, after his visit to Moe Joe's restaurant, Paul cut off an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash while Benton shouted at the journalist.
More on Ron Paul at Examiner.com can be found here.
-----------------------------------------------------------
If you like this article, you can follow Joe on Twitter @jnewby1956, visit his Facebook page, or click the Subscribe button to receive email updates when a new article is published.
Comments