Many people are under the impression that “unelectable” means “insufficiently popular with the electorate. That clearly isn’t true:
[I]n that campaign discussion on Twitter, one candidate has fared better than anyone else. Congressman Ron Paul has enjoyed the most favorable tone on Twitter of all candidates examined. From May through November, fully 55% of the assertions about the Texas Republican on Twitter have been positive-the highest of any candidate-while 15% have been negative-the lowest percentage of any candidate. That is a differential for Paul of 40 points on the positive side.
Paul is also the most favorably discussed candidate in blogs. While he trails significantly in the polls, and has received less coverage than every Republican candidate except Rick Santorum from news outlets, Paul seems to have struck a chord with some cohort in social media.
This treatment of Paul stands in contrast to that of most of the GOP field, for whom Twitter has been a tough neighborhood. Five of Paul’s seven GOP rivals have had negative opinions on Twitter outstrip positive ones by roughly 2-1 or more.
What “unelectable” actually means is “insufficiently popular with the mainstream media”. Or more precisely, “insufficiently subservient to the banking industry”.