Ron Paul, the Future President of Azeroth

I am, by my own admission, the worst journalist in gaming. Before I begin writing about the World of Warcraft Ron Paul rally, it’s important that you understand this. I’m sure that my professional incompetence stems from the fact that, when required to cover nearly any story, I gravitate (usually without any hesitation) to the funniest thing I can find in the vicinity. This habit has a long history of taking me way off track, missing the story I am supposed to be covering, and of pissing off the editors I have worked for.

Thank heaven for WanderingGoblin.com, as they are the only ones who can appreciate my unique genius.

Now back to our story: I’d heard about the in-game rally for presidential candidate Ron Paul, and thought it would be a good story to cover for WG. A political rally in WoW is bound to have a few funny moments, right? Dwarves and gnomes all chanting for their favorite presidential hopeful? That is not only a good MMO news story, but it was sure recipe for comedy gold.

I did a little research (as much as my booze addled brain would allow, anyway) and found that the rally would be taking place on the Whisperwind server, New Year’s Day, at 8:30 PM EST. My significant other and I had an event with friends that afternoon, to which we showed up late. Not that that’s important to you, the reader, but let me assure you that it was extremely important to my significant other. We had a ?discussion? about our lateness to these kinds of events. Anyway, we ate, we drank, we socialized, and we left in time for me to attend the in-game presidential rally.

I logged into WoW, and created a nice ugly dwarf. I can’t play handsome or good-looking characters, it’s just not in me. Fortunately, the creators of WoW had the foresight to put a dwarven face in the game that was not only ugly, it was positively psychopathic. I combined that with a gigantic handlebar mustache and skin the color of dirty snow. In a moment of pure inspiration, I named my new avatar WndrgGoblin.

The rally was scheduled to start in Ironforge. I realized the moment I logged in that I had never played an Alliance character before, and had absolutely no idea where Ironforge was. I did know one thing: it wasn’t where my psychotic little dwarf was spawned, that was for sure. I looked at the clock and realized that it was 8:15, which meant I had fifteen minutes to find Ironforge. I found a road, and looked like it might go to Ironforge. For all I knew, it might also go to the Bronx, but I had to get moving, so off I went.

I ran through a tunnel full of level 4 troggs. As I level 1 paladin, I learned (much to my surprise) that these guys were cake. I killed a few, sneaked past a couple others, and made it to the other side.

“Yes, I’m the mighty WndrgGoblin, slayer of troggs!”

I soon found some other dwarves. I figured they’d know where Ironforge was. Being NPCs, they weren’t all that helpful. They ignored me and began firing off a mortar and saying funny things.

Although these dwarves were funny and really enjoyed artillery, they weren’t exactly the most helpful guys in the world.

I stuck to the road. Shortly thereafter I came upon a wandering Ironforge Mountaineer. I figured since he had the word ?Ironforge? in his name, I must be getting close. I continued onward, and found a road that seemed to be going up a mountain. Dwarf cities are built into mountains, right? This must be the right way.

Sure enough, I was within sight of my goal: Ironforge. The entrance to Ironforge, I discovered, had a statue of the biggest dwarf I’ve ever seen. Seriously, he’s like a giant dwarf, at least 40 feet tall. I snapped a photo of myself in front of the giant dwarf, and went inside, ready to meet all the Ron Paul supporters that were no doubt already gathering in there.

Is it ok to describe this guy as a “giant dwarf”? Do those words even go together?

There didn’t seem to be a big crowd of Ron Paul supporters anywhere in sight. I did notice, however, that there was a big setup to meet Santa Claus Greatfather Winter. It was all arranged just like the mall, with Santa ready to have all the little kiddies wait on line and sit on his lap. Why can’t the Horde have good things like this?

Who the heck is this Santa Dwarf guy anyway? And why does he have a goblin helping him out, instead of an elf? This whole operation seems shady to me…

I checked the time. It was 8:35. It looked like everyone was late except me. What the heck kind of political rally starts late? I did a quick /who, trying to find the rally organizers. You know, Lettucebfree, Paulrevered, Whoisronpaul, Johnadams, and Deadtosin. Not one of them was on.

Wait a minute. Something was mighty fishy in Ironforge.

For a moment I thought I had logged into the wrong server, but that wasn’t the problem. I put a shout out to find out where everyone was. I was contacted by a guy who put me in contact with another guy who put me in contact with the Ron Paul guys. They invited me to join the Ron Paul guild, which was called RP Revolution. In guild chat, I asked about the rally. My new guild buddies tole me, ?Dude, it’s over.? I checked the time again, and it was 8:40. ?Wait,? I said. ?Isn’t it supposed to be starting now??

?No, it started at 8:30.?

?That was ten minutes ago,? I said. ?That must have been the shortest rally in history.?

The same player responded, ?It lasted a good two hours. Maybe longer.?

?Yeah,? another player chimed in. ?We rallied in Ironforge for a while, then we took the subway to Stormwind, then we went to Goldshire and eventually Booty Bay, Ratchet, The Crossroads, and then Orgrimmar.?

?There was even a long swim involved, which was really funny,? another player said. ?Considering there was 240 people all swimming at the same time.?

I was confused. What the heck was going on? ?Dudes, it’s 8:45 right now. The rally was supposed to start at 8:30, wasn’t it??

?It did. 8:30 EST, just like the website said.?

And that’s when I realized my mistake. I live in California. The rally started at 8:30 EST, which is 5:30 my time. I missed it by a solid three hours.

Brilliant, aren’t I?

Allow me to explain something about gaming journalism: when you show up three hours late to an in-game event, there isn’t much of a story left to cover. Even my editors, who generally consider my faux pas to be the very height of comedy, would raise their eyebrows at this one. Time to pull this puppy out of the jaws of defeat, and get something that looked like a story out of this mess.

I interviewed a couple of my new guildmates. They were quite helpful. A few facts:

The rally went a bit better than expected. The number of Ron Paul followers that appeared were appreciable.

The rally actually caused a queue on Whisperwind of more than 300 players waiting to log in.

They filled five raids with Ron Paul supporters. At 40 per raid, that was more than 200 people.

Various guildmates threw out different figures. One said that 200+ people had shown up. Another said the number was 240, another said 250 or more.

The march ended in Orgrimmar, with (presumably) the mass slaughter of the marchers at the hands of their Horde enemies. No word on how Ron Paul felt about this horrific tragedy.

The RP Supporters guild also hooked me up with some nice screengrabs of the march and rally. It looked to be a very well-attended event.

This is the conga line of Ron Paul supporters. Impressive!

The Ron Paul party boat got a wee bit overcrowded.

A hardy few reached Orgrimmar, where they danced, celebrated, and were slaughtered by the Horde guards.

Overall, it really appeared that the rally went quite well. Certainly, the Ron Paul people were happy about the whole extravaganza, since the numbers were good and they accomplished their goals. There’s a video of the event which (despite having the worst imaginable soundtrack) shows the event off nicely and has a number of amusing moments. You can catch this video in our own Theatre of Doom.

Will this help get Ron Paul elected? Quite frankly, that remains to be seen. The RP Revolution guild is planning additional rallies in WoW in support of Ron Paul, and there are rumors of events in other virtual worlds (Second Life? LOTRO? ). The Ron Paul campaign is an unconventional one, to be sure, so the overall effect on his success or failure in his presidential bid isn’t yet known. You can find more about this event, as well as other Ron Paul grass roots efforts, at this site.

We’ll continue to cover this story for you, attending other Ron Paul in-game events and rallies as they arise. And this time, we’ll try to be there on time.

Copyright 2008 by WanderingGoblin.com.

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