Lyman, a 37-year-old musician and Internet entrepreneur, didn't finish college. He was living in balmy Florida -- running a website called musicsubmit.com that enables artists to bypass major record labels and market their songs -- when he caught the Ron Paul bug.
He recently relocated to snowy Manchester and shares a house with several other Paul devotees.
Vijay Boyapati, 29, is an Australian native who made a fortune at Google. Now a U.S. citizen, he has set up a political committee called Operation Live Free or Die, and is renting houses throughout New Hampshire to shelter what he hopes will be 1,000 Paul volunteers.
"In this one household, we can change the course of the election," Boyapati said.
Lyman and his housemates have never met Paul, although the candidate has called Lyman to thank him for his efforts. On CBS' "Face the Nation," Paul pronounced his name "Clymon."
"We don't know a whole heck of a lot about him," Paul communications director Jesse Benton said of Lyman. "But he has been doing a tremendous job of organizing the grass roots."
Paul has used the money raised by volunteers to hire staff and buy television airtime. Although he could obtain millions more in matching funds from the Federal Election Commission, Benton said, "Ron rejects matching funds on principle. Ron is not the kind of guy who compromises."
Lyman spends much of his time generating attention for his candidate by answering e-mails from media outlets -- XM Satellite Radio, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, CNN. One is from a particularly attractive producer. Perhaps, Lyman muses, he can find a little romance, though he notes he has gained a bit of weight lately.
Like many Paul backers, Lyman is a political novice. He's never even bothered to vote. But he had to act, he said, when the new Democratic majority in Congress didn't pull the troops out of Iraq. Lyman was drawn to Paul because of his promise to end the war immediately.
"I know my tax dollars are being used to kill people," Lyman said. "It makes me feel horrible."
Lyman knows that Paul's views make him an outsider. But he sees the flood of Paul donations as representing "the will of the people." The Internet, he said, made it possible.
"I love that," Lyman said. "I can have 300 friends, and get in touch with them all by sending one e-mail. . . . You can't stop it."
dan.morain@latimes.com
