Opinion: Ticket Replay: Nearly naked hotties pose for Ron Paul
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For the next couple of weeks, from time to time, The Ticket is republishing some of our favorite items from this amazing 2007-08 political season. Here’s one from Feb. 18 on the stark devotion of some Ron Paul supporters, who really had a good time and raised a lot money for their fully clothed guy. But be aware it concerns the 2008 calendar:
(UPDATE: An update to this item appears at the end.)
You better hurry because the last batch of Ron Paul pinup calendars is going quickly.
Which pleases Juliet Annerino no end because she sank a sizable chunk of her own change into printing up hundreds of these calendars to help fund the campaign of her favorite politician.
You’ve already missed Miss January, Lisa Kelly, a lifelong Democrat and mother of two who never dreamed she’d be posing in a slip to help a 72-year-old, 10-term Republican congressman in his hopeless run for the White House. Actually, that’s her as Miss Liberty down below.
Ron Paul’s Libertarian-like candidacy hasn’t interested millions of Americans in recent months, in large part, his followers believe, because of a media blackout, including Fox News, barring him from a debate and several debate moderators, including Anderson Cooper and Brian Williams, limiting his questions.
Still, Paul beat Rudy Giuliani in Iowa, Fred Thompson in New Hampshire, both of them in Michigan and came in second to Mitt Romney in a couple of places. He gained some attention for his successful fundraising, at $20 million the largest gathering of dough by any GOP candidate in the fourth quarter of 2007.
The money came in small but steady packets from thousands of small donors -- disaffected Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and, like Annerino, the once politically apathetic. Until they saw the former OB/GYN and heard his message of smaller government, less foreign involvement and strict constitutionalism.
One of the least-noticed and most interesting stories of this political season was the mobilization of thousands of these earnest folks into 1,400 meet-up groups across the country in which they concocted all kinds of imaginative and bizarre fundraising schemes to help ‘the good doctor.’ One day in December, they raised $6 million online and about $6 million more so far this quarter.
The idea of Annerino (she’s second from the right under the flag above and Miss July) was to do a pinup calendar of female Ron Paul supporters and donate much of the money to the campaign. She learned Photoshop and did all the writing. Instead of describing their love of volleyball, puppies, sun-bathing al fresco and long walks on the beach, each woman has something profoundly hot to say about the Paul campaign and a favorite Paul quote.
For instance, Miss February, Krista Allee DiPaola of Detroit, wears a low-cut top and kicks up her heels while uttering the irresistible come-on: ‘The current challenge to our civil liberties, combined with a never-ending welfare state, will serve to weaken the constitutional framework laid by our founding fathers.’
Annerino sold the calendars for $15 online here, but has a special sale price now while they last. And she’ll autograph bulk orders.
‘It was a lot of work,’ says the part-time musician, who lives in Silver Lake and saw Dr. Paul on TV last summer despite the media blackout. She read a lot about him online. She belongs to two L.A.-area Paul groups, painted signs to wave at street corners, wrote letters to Iowa voters, staged music benefits and daily scoured the Internet to leave messages of support and correct misstatements about Dr. Paul.
They also manned phone lines to answer questions about....
...the Texas congressman, who faces a well-funded House primary back home on March 4 that has curbed his presidential campaigning a while. Annerino especially enjoyed the camaraderie of her fellow Paulunteers.
‘We’re all ages, all walks of life, ‘ says Annerino, who’s barely old enough to vote. (All right, that’s a political lie.) ‘They’re a great bunch of people. I never thought I’d get involved politically like this, but our country is in such a mess I had to do something. And Dr. Paul’s message moved me.’
In her July photograph, Annerino is shown, head up in a defiant, Libertarian-kind of way, lips slightly parted, wearing an ammo belt and holding a rifle. She said she was going for a Revolutionary War look, although Betsy Ross didn’t sew long leather coats and short black hot pants.
Nor did she wear her blouse open all the way down to Yorktown.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Bonus calendar coverage below:
‘We must all stand up and vote for the one man with real solutions to these most pressing issues, the good doctor and congressman, Ron Paul.’ -- Miss February.
‘True patriotism is more closely linked to dissent than it is to conformity and a blind desire for safety and security.’ -- Rep. Ron Paul (shown above fully clothed)
(UPDATE to the UPDATE: March 1 -- Miss July informs The Ticket that she has returned to the printers for a limited resupply of these calendars. Copies are $15 plus shipping and can be reserved via e-mail at: [email protected] )
(Another item on a new Ron Paul campaign music video appears here.)
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