Opinion: Ron Paulites dole out on Guy Fawkes Day

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Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul set his party’s one-day fundraising record on a day more traditionally left to celebrating the foiling of a terrorist plot. Thirty-seven thousand donors ponied up over $4 million. Reactions from around The Interwebs....

• The Times UK follows its accusatory headline (saying Paul raised the dough ‘on the back of notorious terrorist’) with an acknowledgement that Paul’s camp says picking Nov. 5 for the fundraising drive was a simple gimmick. Paul’s campaign did, however, use footage from ‘V for Vendetta’ in a promotion, slipping images of a revolutionary (or terrorist, some might say) fighter who sought to overthrow a fascist future England.
• Andrew Leonard at Salon talks to donors and makes the Ron Paul-Howard Dean connection (predicting a post-net-hype Dean-scream sort of flameout).
• Ross Douthat at the Atlantic Online says Paul’s haul is a win for extremists of every stripe, and that Paul should run as a Libertarian.
• Jose Antonio Vargas of the Washington Post also tries to see what makes ‘Paulites’ tick, and offers a Paul primer for curious bystanders.
• His colleague Chris Cillizza highlights Paul’s ‘amateurish’ TV ads (but at least he’s got em) and says it’s too early for Paul hysteria.
• The National Review’s Jim Geraghty also rains on the Paul parade.
• Reason’s David Weigel has his own round-up.