Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

This is the Ron Paul installment of a series of 11 posts I am presenting today here at ElephantBiz.com surveying the social-media aspects of the websites of the 11 Republicans currently running for President. (See: "Grading the Candidates' Blogs.")

Ron Paul's campaign website, RonPaul2008.com, is new-media heavy, with loads of online video, and links to official campaign pages on seven social networking sites - YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Eventful Digg, Flickr, and MeetUp. That's more than any other Republican presidential campaign. Paul's website also features his blog prominently on the home page.

Ah, but it's a rather pedestrian blog - no "Bloggers for Ron Paul" blogroll, no allowing reader comments, no reaching out to conservative and libertarian bloggers to interact with the blog in any way other than to read it and get the RSS feed.

The campaign claims his Internet strategy is working, but it looks to me like Paul is leaving a lot of potential untapped. Ron Paul is hot right now in some quarters of the Republican blogosphere, yet neither his website nor his blog fully use all the available tools to tap into that energy and enthusiasm. The site redeems itself somewhat with the "Get Involved" page, which offers downloadable brochures, issues statements and Ron Paul signage, and has a link to a CafePress store selling campaign merchandise. But even that offering is lacking - there's no web widgets for bloggers to install Ron Paul banners or donations boxes on their sites.

I give Ron Paul's website a C+ for its use of social-media. For a candidate trying to energize a grassroots insurgency against the entrenched party, he's not using the grassroots media tools well at all.

Update: For reviews of social media efforts of the other 10 Republican presidential candidates, see the list below: