Rep. Ron Paul, a Texas Republican running for president, has something that his rivals in the Iowa caucus don't have: a positive image on social media.

While Paul gets less mainstream media coverage than nearly any other candidate, he gets far more positive mentions on Twitter and blogs than any of his GOP rivals, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

That's saying something, as the study found that political commentary on the microblogging service, based in San Francisco, is harsher and generally more negative than on other media platforms.

But how much does Twitter love matter? It can marginally help a candidate's general message, analysts said, but the jury is out as to whether tweets lead to votes. During the 2008 presidential race, campaigns were just starting to figure out how to use its 140-character format. Now, there is a 24/7 conversation about every campaign twitch.

The Iowa caucuses on Tuesday will be the first national test of how the tone of conversation on Twitter can affect a campaign. Paul is running a strong second behind Mitt Romney leading up to that contest, with 22 percent of the vote to 25 percent for Romney, according to a CNN/Time/ORC International poll released Wednesday.

"Just because you tweet about Ron Paul does not necessarily mean you will go caucus for him," said Nick Judd, managing editor of TechPresident.com, a nonpartisan online hub that analyzes the intersection of the online world and politics.

Majority positive

If online support does equal votes, Paul should order his Oval Office drapes.

The Pew study of 20 million political tweets sent between May and November found that 55 percent of what was written about the libertarian-leaning congressman was positive. Many of the pro-Paul tweets, according to the study's authors, "offered the simple message: 'Vote for Ron Paul.' "

On blogs, the commentary about Paul was 47 percent positive, 15 percent negative and 38 percent neutral.

Not only are none of the other Republicans close in terms of positive image, but the Twitter chatter for some candidates, including Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., is twice as negative as it is positive. Same goes for Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman also received a higher proportion of positive than negative Twitter messages, but like his poll numbers, the volume of positive posts was infinitely smaller than the other candidates.

The study found that no candidate's Twitter perception was as volatile as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, "whose negative coverage ranged from 19 percent one week to 70 percent another."

In the week after late-night comedian Conan O'Brien unflatteringly tweeted that Gingrich "is the #1 candidate in the 'Could be Related to Bilbo Baggins' category," Gingrich's negative opinions spiked to 59 percent of his total.

The study found that Twitter "comments were sometimes very personal and pungent and even profane in nature, using language and leveling allegations that would be off limits in more traditional news coverage and considerably less likely to show up in the blogosphere."

Part of the reason is that the political conversation on Twitter and blogs is largely among campaign insiders. Only 13 percent of adult Internet users tweet, and 14 percent blog, according to the study.

2008 campaign

Along with Barack Obama, Paul had one of the strongest online presences during the last presidential campaign. His libertarian and small-government positions have long attracted a fiercely loyal following, both online and on the trail. But little of that translated into votes during Paul's campaign four years ago.

One reason for Paul's positive social media profile may be that he gets so little mainstream media coverage, said Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. Only former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum receives less traditional media coverage.

"The mainstream media doesn't deem them to be as viable candidates, so they don't get as intense of a vetting process as the others," Jurkowitz said.

The less vetting they receive from the mainstream press, the fewer negative things there are to tweet and blog about them, Jurkowitz said.

Scrutiny increasing

That may be changing. As Paul has risen in the Iowa polls, he is again being asked about his role in the publication of a monthly newsletter in the 1980s and 1990s called the Ron Paul Freedom Report, the Ron Paul Political Report and other names. Paul and his wife served as officers of the company that owned the publications, which earned almost $1 million in 1993, according to the libertarian magazine Reason.

The newsletters are littered with racially insensitive commentary by anonymous writers with unsubstantiated theories.

In the June 1992 "Special Issue on Racial Terrorism" after the Los Angeles riots, a commentary in a supplement to the Ron Paul Political Report said, "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks."

According to the conservative magazine the Weekly Standard, another of the newsletters warned that people infected with the AIDS virus should be banned from eating in restaurants because "AIDS can be transmitted by saliva."