Ron Paul Spambots Run Amok

Ron Paul spam is reaching epidemic proportions. A number of spam-monitoring services are starting to notice that the amount of unsolicited email mention Ron Paul's campaign for President is increasing. Ron Paul is a virtual unknown offline, but it's a far different story online. If you visited many forums or social networking websites, you become convinced that Paul is indeed leading the pack of Republican candidates. Now the word is spreading to inboxes everywhere.

Nobody thinks that the official campaign is behind the spam, but there comes a time when people will become suspicious. In fact, a continuation of the spam will at some point probably hurt the candidates chances with the online crowd.

"We've seen many previous e-mails reported as spam from other campaigns or parties, but when we've investigated them, they all were sent from the legitimate parties," department director Gary Warner said in a statement. In contrast, the Ron Paul messages clearly came from a number of other parties attempting to spoof where they came from. Paul's campaign may run afoul of the authorities as a result of these e-mails. Warner believes that the messages may violate the CAN-SPAM Act due to their deceptive sending practices.

Ron Paul supporters online tend to be aggressive in promoting their candidates. Many of them seem highly dogmatic and will attack detractors as being unpatriotic. If you engage an online Ron Paul supporter, expect to have both your patriotism and your mental health questioned. Most supporters, aka Paulistinians, tend towards extremism in their views and will insinuate that only Ron Paul can "save" an America that is dancing on the brink of disaster.

Ron Paul is near dead last in most official polls

Despite Paul's success with the young and hip tech crowd, he's still massively trailing the other candidates online. This sheds doubt on the efficacy of the current online campaign. Any time people repeat a message to a group of strangers, they run into several problems. First, the people may get sick of hearing it. And secondly, these days they may even turn your in for spamming. The campaign, although not apparently behind the spam, will have to deal with any fallout the unsolicited message cause.

Ron Paul spam is about as exciting as the kind you get for Viagra

Just sample some of the headlines from the Ron Paul spam hitting servers.

• Ron Paul Wins GOP Debate!
• Ron Paul Eliminates the IRS!
• Ron Paul Stops Iraq War!
• Vote Ron Paul 2008!
• Iraq Scam Exposed, Ron Paul
• Government Wasteful Spending Eliminated By Ron Paul

No matter who wins the upcoming election, I think it would be best for everyone if spam tactics were not used for promotion. Hopefully the Paul campaign will do what they can to curb this type of marketing.

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