It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Wait a minute — that, my friends, is a Ron Paul blimp.
That’s the reaction some of the presidential candidate’s biggest supporters are hoping for if they can raise enough funds to fly a dirigible over the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. Back in 2008, Paul’s supporters raised $600,000 to fly the first Ron Paul blimp for six weeks over parts of Maryland and then down the coast to Florida. For Ron Paul Blimp 2.0, longtime Paul activist Trevor Lyman is gauging interest to make a scene simply at Tampa.
“Why did I want to do the blimp again?” he mused. “You know, I do think the symbolism of it is strong, I think that’s one of the main reasons — to show that we are undeterred.” Lyman also noted that he had received a number of emails saying bring back the blimp.
A day into the effort, only about 500 people had pledged to donate money, but Lyman wasn’t frustrated. “I think people may need some time to think about it and we’ll see how close we get,” he told Yeas & Nays. “[If] we don’t have enough we may come up with some other secondary project that’s somewhat similar, possibly a hot air balloon, possibly a whole bunch of those mini-blimps.”
