Ron Paul Donations Reveal Your State’s Freedom IQ

Ron Paul has pledged to bring unprecedented transparency to government when he is elected President, and he's already bringing unprecedented transparency to his campaign. Fourth quarter online donations have been posted at the campaign website as they come in, allowing everyone to see where his support is coming from.

RonPaulGraphs.com has taken that data and converted it into a fascinating array of graphs and maps, including one showing which states have the most Ron Paul donors per capita. I downloaded some of their geographical data on over 50,000 unique donors, first computing the average donors per million residents per state, then the standard deviation per state, then converting it into a "Freedom IQ" for each state by multiplying the number of standard deviations from the mean for that state by 15, and adding it to a base of 100. (A person of average intelligence has an IQ of 100. Someone with an IQ of 115 is one standard deviation above the mean.) The results:

Ron Paul Freedom IQ per State

	New Hampshire	152
	Alaska	137
	Montana	137
	Nevada	129
	Idaho	122
	Washington	121
	Utah	121
	Arizona	118
	Wyoming	117
	Oregon	117
	Colorado	116
	District of Columbia	115
	Virginia	109
	Texas	108
	Hawaii	107
	Vermont	104
	California	103
	Florida	102
	Maine	101
	Minnesota	100
	Iowa	100
	Tennessee	100
	New Mexico	100
	Maryland	100
	Kansas	98
	Missouri	98
	Pennsylvania	97
	Michigan	96
	North Carolina	96
	Connecticut	96
	North Dakota	95
	South Carolina	95
	Georgia	95
	Massachusetts	94
	Oklahoma	94
	Indiana	94
	New Jersey	94
	Illinois	93
	Wisconsin	93
	Nebraska	93
	Ohio	91
	Alabama	90
	South Dakota	90
	Rhode Island	89
	New York	89
	Arkansas	89
	Louisiana	88
	Delaware	88
	Kentucky	86
	West Virginia	81
	Mississippi	81

What do the results tell us? In IQ terms, New Hampshire, Alaska, and Montana are at genius levels in their financial support of Ron Paul, and Nevada isn't far behind. Tennessee, New Mexico, and Maryland are right at the national average. Ignoring other factors for the moment, Ron Paul should have an easier time winning primaries in states with high Freedom IQ rankings.

Some of the numbers look promising in that regard. States with early nominating events such as New Hampshire, Nevada, Wyoming, Florida, Maine, and Iowa have above average rankings, while Michigan and South Carolina aren't too far below them.

But don't despair if your state is "freedom challenged" according to this scale -- it only means you'll have to work that much harder for Ron Paul to succeed, but you can still make it happen. In West Virginia, which comes in at the bottom of these rankings, the local news media reports that Ron Paul is in the top four in delegates, thanks to hard work by Ron Paul supporters there:

Fish says four Republican Presidential candidates seem to have the most support from the delegates. They are Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee.

"The people who are the top four candidates are also the people who are working hardest in West Virginia, working to find West Virginians who agree with them and who would sign on to be their delegates," says Fish.

Recent unofficial tallies by Ron Paul volunteers put him in second place, just behind Mitt Romney, although many delegates are still uncommitted.

[Edited on 12/27/07 to correct the IQ scale.]