Revolution redux.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Follow-Up - Ron Paul

My February 2008 story on Ron Paul ("Scenes From the Ron Paul Revolution") didn't just survey a presidential campaign that failed to win. It surveyed a revolution still in motion. "Even if Ron Paul doesn't get that many votes," I concluded, "his voters may end up running for office themselves. It would be a fitting legacy for a very do-it-yourself political movement." Sure enough, in our July 2008 issue ("Permanent rEVOLution"), David Weigel reported that "by the end of the 2008 elections, as many as 40 self-proclaimed Ron Paul Republicans will have run for national office."

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Paul's biggest triumphs came after my article went to press. In the fourth quarter of 2007 he outraised all his GOP opponents, pulling in $19.7 million. Using the "money bomb" technique--coordinating all his Internet fans to give on the same day--he raised $6.3 million on December 16, the largest single day of campaign giving in American history. Since the campaign, Paul has written three New York Times bestsellers. His pet issue of curbing the Federal Reserve has achieved national prominence. Paul worked his perennial "audit the Fed" legislation into a bill that passed the House (though it did not become law) and won chairmanship of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy.

Paul has topped the straw polls at the Conservative...