SIGNING UP FOR A REVOLUTION

Beneath old pine trees that stood tall and still against a perfect blue sky, two men and a woman gathered near the apartment garage that held their weapons and talked quietly about the need to continue to break the law to further the revolution.

Fighter jets from nearby Nellis Air Force Base soared overhead, their white vapor trails providing a halo effect behind the head of Pete Atkins, a 36-year-old, 6-foot, 5-inch, 250-pound professional poker player who said he would be willing to pay a price to restore freedom to the United States.

"Freedom isn't free," he said.

It was shortly after 8 a.m. Wednesday as Atkins, nurse Mike Gray, 27, and music education student Sarah Kulkin, 23, stood in the parking lot of the Eastgate Apartments off Nellis Boulevard and looked at the weaponry they had made the night before -- signs and banners bearing the words "Ron Paul REVOLUTION," with the letters "EVOL" written backwards and in red: love.

In Henderson, in another garage, a different band of men and women who favor Paul's long-shot Republican bid for president has carried out a similar action.

Like thousands of other zealous Paul supporters around the country, they also continue to organize more support by using the Internet's MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and Meetup sites at a level beyond anything seen for other Republican presidential candidates.

It was through the Internet that they first learned to make the Ron Paul signs.

"Sometimes civil disobedience is necessary in the name of freedom," Atkins said. "We have to get word out about the revolution, even if there are rules or laws against our hanging banners from overpasses. We're turning out hundreds of signs every week."

On major thoroughfares throughout Las Vegas, the Paul signs have been hung for a couple months now. They appear on Friday evenings and generally disappear on Monday.

For the foreseeable future, Las Vegas motorists may continue to wonder about them.

What is particularly difficult, Atkins concedes, is that few people know who Ron Paul is -- the Gallup Poll has consistently shown his support to be around 3 percent among the nation's Republicans -- or what the "revolution" is about: cutting taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, less government, keeping the country out of wars.

"We're hoping when people see these strange signs that they'll go to the Internet and try to find out who Paul is," Atkins said. "It's important that they get a chance to understand his message."

Bob McKenzie, a spokesman for the Nevada Department of Transportation, isn't concerned about the message. He is concerned about the medium.

"We've got state and county employees taking them down as fast as we can," McKenzie said. "It's becoming a real concern. If we let this go on and not do anything about it, it could cause sign chaos on the highways and people could get distracted."

Atkins said Paul supporters -- he stresses that they are not part of the candidate's official campaign -- put up the signs on Friday night because they know government employees generally don't work on weekends.

"We got an extra day of sign traffic on Labor Day weekend," he said.

Meg Mincolla, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Department, said no one with her agency can remember anyone receiving the fine of up to $250 that can be levied for putting up an illegal sign. "Generally, the people realize they made a mistake and we just take the sign down," she said. "Obviously, that can change if people continue to do it purposefully."

At first blush, it would appear that some fines could be handed down.

"What we're doing is important," said Kulkin, who is organizing students for Paul at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "People need to see these signs. I put up one by the sheriff's department in Pahrump, and it was up for a long time."

While many registered voters are either unaware of Paul, or don't like the message the physician/congressman is carrying in his bid for the presidency, there's no question that the connective power of the Internet has spawned thousands, if not millions, of Paul supporters.

They share a fanaticism for their physician leader not unlike that shown by followers of Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara, who also was a physician.

Meetup, an online social networking Web site that facilitates meetings in cities worldwide, has been the major engine behind the Paul movement that has no official support from the 71-year-old, 10-term Texas congressman.

Paul supporters far outdistance not only Republicans, but even those supporting Meetup's top Democrat candidate for president, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. Paul has 860 Meetup groups in 698 cities with 36,682 supporters. Obama, with the second highest number of Meetup groups, has 66 groups in 55 cities with 4,169 supporters.

"This is all fascinating and encouraging to me," Paul said in a telephone interview as he campaigned last week in New Hampshire. "This is something that has sprung up spontaneously and helps us organize around the country. It's amazing.

"I can't say all the attention I've gotten is positive. Every once in a while, we'll get a call from someone about a sign being in the wrong place. But that isn't part of the campaign. It's a homemade sign with no disclaimer. We apologize, of course, but that's pretty rare."

The Ron Paul REVOLUTION signs were the brainchild of Ernie Hancock, a Phoenix talk show host and publisher of Freedomsphoenix.com, a political news Web site.

A longtime admirer of Paul and supporter of his 1988 bid for president as the Libertarian nominee, Hancock said he came across the REVOLUTION logo on the Internet.

"As soon as I learned Paul was going to run for president, I decided to use it," he said. "I knew he would take off because of his stand against the war, abolishing the IRS and because he's been so consistent on issues like taxes and big government. To so many people today, it's revolutionary to find someone who actually stands for something. The signs were a way to bypass the mainstream media who would largely ignore him."

The signs, begun last February in Phoenix, quickly had the desired effect.

"We got a lot of press here in Phoenix and the message got out over the Internet," Hancock said. "People learned how unique Paul was."

Tutorials were placed on the Internet that allowed people to make signs for about $1 each by using uniform designs and used vinyl that billboard companies are more than happy to give away rather than pay to dispose of it.

Paul supporters are obviously at home on the Web, often telling others to put up signs in their cities.

"The signs have just exploded around the country," Hancock said.

On Facebook, Paul supporters number about 6,000 more than the nearest Republican, Mitt Romney. Paul's MySpace friends number nearly 20,000 more than Sen. John McCain's, his nearest challenger on the site. And on YouTube, there are nearly 1.7 million more views of what Paul has to say than his closest competitor on the portal, Mitt Romney.

Paul supporters also use text messages, a mainstay of young cell phone users.

During last week's Republican presidential debate, Paul won the text message poll, garnering 33 percent of the vote to Mike Huckabee's 18 percent. Rudy Giuliani received 15 percent; John McCain, 14 percent; and Mitt Romney, 12 percent.

Paul supporters weren't happy that commentator Sean Hannity joked Paul had gotten all 3 percent of his supporters to send text messages.

"FOX thinks the results are fair when people text-message in votes for 'American Idol' but not for a political debate," said Las Vegas Paul supporter Arden Osborne. "It makes me sick."

David Damore, an associate professor of political science at UNLV, isn't sure the energy that has resulted in signage and Web activity for Paul will necessarily translate into votes.

"His support is so diffuse," Damore said. "It's nice you can get like-minded people together on the Internet. But can it be mobilized in Iowa and New Hampshire when they need it?"

Damore noted that Paul appears to get much support from disaffected Democrats and independents who may not be able to vote in Republican primaries.

Julie Germany, deputy director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management, agrees that the challenge is whether Paul can channel "online activity into offline support." Democrat Howard Dean was unable to make that happen in his bid for president, she said.

"Paul is getting more stories done on him, but at the end of the day that's not enough. It remains to be seen if that turns into votes."

It also remains to be seen if it will turn into increased fundraising. Records show Paul has raised $3 million for his campaign so far, compared to Romney's $44 million.

Gray, the nurse, seems sure people will want to vote for Paul.

"I watched 10 hours of YouTube videos on him I was so impressed," he said. "He really believes in liberty."

Pretty soon, Atkins said, the signs about Ron Paul will have to change.

"We've been trying to get people to know him," he said. "I think it won't be long before we start telling people in signs that he's running for president."