Ross ponders what Ron Paul should do with all the money he's raising. His answer: pour the money into New Hampshire, hoping to break 7%. My answer: why not pour the money into something useful, like raising awareness about eminent domain abuses?
Ron Paul is not going to win. Ron Paul is the ultimate refutation of the notion that money is what determines races. Like fellow Texan Ross Perot, Paul appeals to people who are fed up with the political process, including a lot of libertarians. But many of his positions are deeply unpopular, and he can't triangulate because his precise appeal to his supporters is the image of standing rock-steady in the face of politics-as-usual. Nor has he, as far as I can tell, injected his own politics into the race by forcing other candidates to kowtow to him. Since he can't win, and isn't forcing other candidates to react, why not use the platform he has to push a single issue? Not the Iraq war, upon which no one seems open to much persuasion, but something where he might conceivably actually change America a little? Wasting it on actually trying to get elected seems extravagent.
And there's a reason Paul has no chance to win: he's a crank. He wants to withdraw from NATO and return to the gold standard. Have you seen him in Congress trying to grill Fed Chairmen? He makes a fool of himself every time.
I am myself more a libertarian than anything else (and one especially fond of certain Austrian economists), but any good idea can be taken to unreasonable extremes. Ron Paul never fails to go to unreasonable extremes.
Maybe you could just step back from the horse race a bit, stop worrying about who is "triangulating" or "kowtowing" or what percentage he got in some poll or how many dollars he raised in this or that quarter and just enjoy a decent, honest man being straightforward about the many problems facing this country. I'm not saying agree with him (I sure don't on many things). Just bask in the rarity of a good man trying to do what he thinks is best for the country.
While I understand the reality of needing to select an electable candidate, I accept it with distaste. Ron Paul is nuts on certain things but dead-right on others. And he's honest. And clear and starightforward. I respect that. I wish more politicians were like that.
Unfortunately, any such politicians end up losing to the smooth-talking demagogue.
EI
Like Michael Moore, I'm afraid Paul's crankishness has a fairly high probability of hurting any cause he tries to help. In particular, it's a real drag that a gold bug and conspiracy nut is becoming the public face of libertarianism. Of course Libertarian Party nominees tend to just as crankish, but they never get the money or attention that Paul has.
If Paul were going to push one issue, I'd like it to be an end to the war on drugs, but I'm afraid his endorsement of that would only serve to make it seem like a more crazy, extreme position than it already does to most Americans. Sigh.
How much of Ron Paul's popularity (and therefore money) is due to his being the only anti-Iraq war Republican running? If he isn't seen to be against the Iraq war, and isn't seen as trying to win, won't his money dry up? Of course, his money will probably dry up regardless, fairly early, but is it time to switch gears now?
Also, I don't agree about views on the Iraq war not changing. Posters on blogs probably have views too strong to be swayed at this point, and pundits and experts, too. Polls though, do seem to reflect views that change back and forth depending on the news environment. While it may just be the framing of the polls themselves that result in this, I suspect there are real people with conflicting passions about the war who can be swayed. If Paul can make ending the war a respectable Republican position, the eventual Republican nominee can more safely switch his position after the convention. This is not without precedent. Humphrey switched his position on Vietnam after the 1968 Democratic convention, and it nearly won him the election.
MM wrote: Wasting it on actually trying to get elected seems extravagent.
The whole process is extravagant and produces a lot of wasted resources, even for the mainstream candidates. If Ron Paul wants to ride around the country playing Ghost of Perot Past, then that's his business, and it is presumably WHY his supporters gave him money. If his supporters had specifically wanted to, say, fight Kelo, there are far more efficient ways to do it than dump money on Ron Paul.
I say, just sit back and enjoy the circus. It only comes to town every four years (and then stays for 21 months...)
I'm a little confused with how many people seem to contrast "honest, straightforward person who says what he thinks," or a "good man trying to do what he thinks is best for the country," with "smooth-talking demagogue." Why are those distinct? Contra Mencken, I don't believe that demagogues have to know that their doctrines are untrue to be playing on the passions and biases of the public. Ron Paul appeals to anti-foreign bias far too often; it's one reason why I can't consider him a real libertarian, or at least one I'd like to associate myself with. He's anti-immigration, anti-free trade, and associates himself with people pushing wild conspiracy theories; in that way I consider him a demagogue as well, just as in different ways I do Huckabee, though I also believe that Huckabee is sincere. (Paul's certainly not smooth-talking, though, while Huckabee is.)
I disagree, Maegan and rwe,
Yes, Paul is a bit eccentric but I think the message is great. Would the libertarian cause be better represented by a more photogenic and cosmopolitan candidate who polished the message and picked to stress a slightly different focus? Yes.
But you can't actually sit there and pretend that we're better off from a libertarian perspective with someone else in the WH. Paul's more extreme and strange positions are at times overblown by the press and of no consequence in the real world (like the NAU) or made to seem more extreme and crankish than they really are (like the Gold Standard). His position on the Gold Standard is actually a little more nuanced than a simple Gold Standard and involves competition with reserve notes and backed money. Don't ask me to explain because I'm no economist and I really can't.
HOWEVER, that said, I think journalists and other who choose to come out with strong opinions about his positions should take the time to convey them accurately and avoid joining a chorus of bumper stickers and half-truths.
Slocum,
"it's a real drag that a gold bug and conspiracy nut is becoming the public face of libertarianism."
see the end of previous comment about accuracy and the avoidance of sweeping half-truths and bumper stickers. In this case, the whole "conspiracy nut" thing is a pure media fabrication that comes about from rumors becoming facts through a "whisper down the lane" effect.
I'm not sure why people so readily assume Ron Paul's constituency is libertarian. I'd guess most of it is disgruntled Republicans such as myself. I find some of his positions pretty radical and impractical (abolishing the Federal Reserve and IRS, immediate withdrawal from Iraq and overseas bases), but his appeal is that of being a genuine outsider. He is not part of the cozy interventionist, big-spending D.C. consensus.
Of course, the likelihood of Paul capturing the GOP nomination is near zero, but so what? The whole point of anti-establishment candidates such as Paul, Buchanan, and Perot has been to draw attention to concerns that have been ignored by the mainstream politicians. As Njorl noted earlier, Ron Paul is quietly making it acceptable for Republicans to deviate from the administration's line on Iraq. And that, more than anything, is a breath of fresh air.
I tend to believe that most people really want a politician willing to publicly agree with them and disagree with the majority on certain issues. This tends to be called "honesty" and "independence," and probably is correlated with such because espousing opinions counter to the majority is an admission against interest-- unless you're successfully appealing to interest groups who feel strongly about one issue that the majority disagrees weakly with and arranging some sort of Pareto optimal trade for at least a majority. (Although note that even, e.g., farm subsidies are viewed favorably by a majority even though small minorities benefit.) I rarely saw various comments about how "refreshing" John Hagelin of the Natural Law Party was, and I have no particular reason to doubt his honesty either.
So I guess I concede that politicians willing to make unpopular statements are more likely to be voicing their true opinions, but that doesn't mean that I agree with them more. There are still likely to be plenty of successful politicians who are good people trying to do their best for the country, but who happen to have more majority-friendly views. After all, it does seem reasonably likely that more common views would have a decent number of politicians who honestly agree with agree with them as well, even if some people merely mouth approval to get elected.
It doesn't much matter to me whether a successful politician really believes in the Drug War or not; since a majority favors it, any successful politician will espouse approval. Under the circumstances, in many cases I'd rather have someone who at least knows that it's flawed and can work in small ways to mitigate it. The same is true about immigration; I'm sure that Tancredo and Paul are honest there.
Hookers and blow.
Is the guy a libertarian or just a poser?
Shouldn't everyone below #3 in the polls drop out then?
Megan, you brought up an interesting difference between Ross Perot and Ron Paul (so far) - Perot had quite an effect on policies. It took a while for some of it to take hold (part was brought in by Newt Gingrich in 1994), but he changed the debate for both sides.
Are such candidates good in office? I lived in Minnesota when Jesse ("The Body") Ventura was first elected governor. Jesse won because there was a whole series of radio debates in which he was included. People (including myself) listened to the two politicians saying weaselly politician type things and then heard Jesse saying straight-forward, common sense things, and liked what they heard from the outsider. But I'm not sure that Ventura was all that effective in office, though, except that he got the luxury car tax reduced (one of his personal pet peeves).
"Ron Paul appeals to anti-foreign bias far too often; it's one reason why I can't consider him a real libertarian, or at least one I'd like to associate myself with. He's anti-immigration, anti-free trade, and associates himself with people pushing wild conspiracy theories;"
Posted by John Thacker | December 19, 2007 12:43 PM
John,
I'm not sure I understand your point, how is he 'anti-' immigration/ 'free-trade' ? and, which 'conspiracy threories' are you referring to?
@John Thacker
As far as I know, Ron Paul supports free trade. But yes, his position on immigration does not seem libertarian to me.
His position on the Gold Standard is actually a little more nuanced than a simple Gold Standard and involves competition with reserve notes and backed money.-John V
John, I think you're right about that, actually. He had seemed to me to be advocating a return to the gold standard during several "Humphrey Hawkins" episodes, but I believe his actual position is closer to what you have described above (and reminds me of Hayek's opinions about currencies).
Still, gold bug or not, I wish Paul would get out of the race. I too want less government control over the economy but, as someone suggested above, his extremism and general cookiness makes him a less than ideal standard bearer for the cause (if only we could bring Ronald Reagan back to life...).
Moreover, I think he does the country a disservice by seeming to justify the terrorist attacks as "blowback." It's no wonder Giuliani chose to scold him for it. We are facing a serious terrorist threat from fanatics who want to destroy us. Unfortunately, Congressman Paul seems more concerned about the imagined depredations of Ben Bernanke than about the very real depredations of Osama bin Laden.
Megan and rwe (and others if you are so inclined),
I just wrote a very a propos piece on all this with regard to a David Frum piece on Paul.
Ron Paul is neither a crank, a nut, a kook or any other derogatory and meaningless terms you like to throw at hime.
When he grills Bernanke, Bernanke looks like a fool and doesn't have really much to say except Congress told him to run the federal reserve so he does it.
Withdrawing from NATO is not a cranky idea. It is very close minded not to discuss these issues and just call people names instead.
Anything that one disagrees with can be called extreme. Extreme is a relative term, so it may be extreme to you but not extreme to me.
He is also not a conspiracy nut. If you see his interview with Glen Beck, he denies any of the conspiracy nuttiness.
Ron Paul is not anti-free trade. Just because he disagrees with NAFTA which has thousands of pages of red tape doesn't mean he is against free trade.
Please, if you are going to disagree with Ron Paul on an issue, please indicate what it is and what your reasons are, not just call him names. You are of course entitled to do so, but your opinions are then without merit.
It is a disservice to Ron Paul to indicate that he is justifying the attacks on 911. He condemned the attacks and authorized the use of force to bring to justice, those that attacked us.
But to deny that our policies have no consequences whatsoever and that what we do overseas makes no difference in how people perceive us is naive.
He doesn't deny that these people are fanatics, but he is simply trying to help us understand that fanaticism doesn't come from nothing nor is it that they hate our freedoms. We have had our freedoms for a long time yet we only faced terrorist attacks recently.
Please check out his actual positions and statement before rushing to rash conclusions.
To use the money for any other purpose than running for the office in question would be a kind of fraud. Now, if he wishes to spend the campaign money focusing in on one singular issue, that is up to him. If I had to choose the topic, I, too, would select the abolition of our drug laws.
Excuse me but all the others are now emulating him....no IRS, Bush's failed war policy, etc etc.
They all got the conservative 'religion' once Paul was heard.
Anyone who thinks 'open borders' is libertarian is a fool. We have a country and a right to organize under the Constitution. We have a right to admit those who are willing to pledge to uphold that Constitution, and keep out others who won't.
Gimme a break! Libertarians who want open borders are just shills for the one world government.
I think you're underestimating the effect of his positions on the debate. I've noticed since he came in that other Republicans are ready to use federalism as an answer to abortion, and Huckabee is scrambling to copy the "get rid of the IRS" soundbyte.
Ron Paul's positions aren't crazy at all. More conservative than libertarian on some issues? Sure. Just because he's the most libertarian in the race doesn't mean he's a pure 100% undiluted ideological libertine.
Gold standard? Nothing wrong with competition. Market-based interest rates? Only crazy if you trust the government more than the people. Fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here? We've been fighting them there for 50 years and its only because of that fact that we end up fighting them here.
The only thing crazy about Ron Paul is that he's willing to examine the real issues beyond the superficial slogans presented by the media (including crank, nut, fool, unelectable and some of the other essentially meaningless tags that are used to discredit him without debating policy issues)
Megan, I really don't understand how anyone who self-describes as a libertarian can support any candidate but Ron Paul. Are you really closer to McCain, Romney, or Guiliani as far as policy positions? Because if you are, then I think you should reconsider your use of that label. Certainly Dr. Paul is not doctrinaire libertarian either, but he's a damn sight closer than anyone else in the race.
So far I have yet to read any substantive criticism of Ron Paul by anyone on the Right (I don't bother looking at Lefty criticisms). Most of it is, as other commenters have said, based on misrepresentations of his opinions and record, or equating the views of his many varied supporters with his views.
As to why none of the other candidates are addressing the issues he raises, well that's a simple matter of them hoping that he seems more crankish to uninformed voters, by simply refusing to even talk about what he says, as if it's beneath the level of discourse for the campaign. And it looks like it's been pretty effective, based on the poor reactions he's been getting across the right-leaning blogosphere. "Ron Paul thinks that the NAU is the first step on the road to another super-national bureaucracy, as openly championed by globalists" becomes "Ron Paul believes there is a secret international conspiracy to destroy American sovereignty."
Ron Paul was convinced to run by his supporters. He never thought he'd get this kind of support, but as long as it's happening, why not ride the wave? For my part, I will vote for Ron Paul in the general election, regardless of what happens in the primaries. I'll just write him in. As far as I'm concerned, if the GOP loses the election because of people like me voting for Dr. Paul, then they will be reaping what they have sown.
Doctor Paul Man, Doctor Paul Man
Doing the things a Doctor Paul Can!
What's he like? It's not important
Doctor Paul Man...
(etc.)
It's been said before, and it's worth repeating: it's kind of creepy when Paul's supporters begin affixing the "Dr." prefix every time they reference the man. "Doctor" is a professional title, not an honorarium of Knighthood. It should only come up in situations where he would otherwise be introduced as "Mr." or when specifically relevant to the context (in this case, he's angling for the Office of the President, not Surgeon General) and leans cultish when used universally.
As far as I'm concerned, if the GOP loses the election because of people like me voting for Dr. Paul, then they will be reaping what they have sown.
I completely agree.
I just use Dr. because it's shorter than Rep. and Congressman. Plus he is an MD. I would agree that it would be annoying if he was a PhD and everyone called him Dr.
I hate this "he's not going to win" crap. Both the talking heads and the weblog circuit say this over and over like a mantra. Be serious. You don't have a crystal ball, so stop it. What I don't think people understand is that it's a completely open race. ANYONE can win.
You know what Megan? I really don't care if you can't see the agenda he is pushing. You're so busy looking for issues you've forgotten the biggest one of all, it's that little piece of paper called the constitution. Remember that? Good. Because Ron Paul does, and by his determined effort to talk about what the role of government should or should not be, he's forced the other republican parties to at least pay lip service to the constitution.
Maybe that's not good enough for you, maybe simply don't notice the change in the language at the debates, but I have. And maybe... just maybe. the next president won't be quite so quick to expand the government as much as the last president. Who knows, maybe even *gasp* shrink it.
I hate snarking on you like this, but you really can't see the forest for the trees on this one. Stop quibbling about details and look at what he's trying to do; reduce the role of federal government.
If he's not going to win, why waste your time writing this and, even worse, our time that we spend reading this?
Your opinion is obviously based on nothing other than mainstream media reports. If it was based on an objective interpretation of facts, you did not even hint at the factual information that backs up your opinion.
And to this day, I have not met one libertarian that supported Ross Perot. If you go to any Ron Paul meetup or event and ask around, you'll see that your opinion is so far off (wrong) that I have to assume you're just repeating something you heard elsewhere. At least Marc appears to do some sort of reasoning in his posts. Can't you pretend for your readers sake?
Lost causes? A saint of them? Yes he is Megan. And we love it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWyEc7FAMTg
I love it! Once it was "Ron Paul doesn't stand a chance! He has no support, or money!" Now we're at the point where the talking points have to be reinvented; "Yeah, he's got a lot of money, but he still won't win!"
Never mind the double standard that Mitt Romney has put in tens of millions of dollars and still trails in the lower teens in the national polls, and still loses Iowa to Huckabee, with next to nothing in cash. Why don't we criticize Romney on the "All the money in the world can't buy votes" motif?
BTW, $400K in radio ads has quintupled Ron Paul's support there from 2% to 11%.
If Ron Paul does not win it will be because of the complacency of people like you who are happy with politics as usual.
Oh, Ron Paul and his talk of abiding by the Constitution scares me!
That sort of talk, by which a politician actually abides by his oath, is so frightening!
You mean, he will expect that Americans take responsibility for themselves and quit whining!
Lions, and Tigers, and Bears! Oh My!
Snivelers! Nothing but snivelers.
The problem with America is not a single issue, it is many issues. If Ron Paul's causes of liberty and law are lost causes then America is lost. He is our last chance to save our federal government before the framework of a police state built up by Bush is fleshed out by Hilary.
If you pick the lesser of two evils - you pick evil.
Me? I'm picking good and hoping it catches on quick. www.RonPaul2008.com
um, bite me you delusional, bullshit indignant, FiveBuscks Latte poseur, ignorant bitch. why don't you try studying history, then the man's actual records instead of mouthing off your yrs of brainwashed logic?
U of PA my ass, wasted $250,000, if you ask me. an expensive piece of paper paid for by mommy and daddy and 4 yrs of binge partying apparently failed to teach you that you can't buy critical thinking, or seeking priorities, of viewing the world in larger context.
you know yrs ago, I would have never resorted to ad hominem name calling, as I deemed it beneath me. but you know what? after 7yrs of the simian, life is too short for smart people who can connect the dots and see the larger pattern in the world, to have to lower themselves to deal with morons like you. it's about damn time, smart people treat idiots, crpto-neocons and neocrats, like yourself for what you are, an idiot.
At this point, I have as much faith in the Atlantic's hiring practices as I have in CBS hiring another delusional douche like Kevin Drum. Apparently, no amount of high powered wasted 4 yrs of "education" taught either one of you about anything. Then again, the simian did attend Yale. Look how that worked out for him. If you wanted a moron whom you wouldn't hire to mop your floor, unless his daddy had beneficial business contacts, well I guess you fared well.
But Megan, you don't own Halliburton, or a shareholder in a private military industrial complex equity firm like Carlyle, are you? Are you? really, dear, you don't get anything out of being a sycophant. and they're not gonna come running and escort you off in glass slippers.
Ohh.. I'm sure they're always looking for useless hacks who can read a teleprompter or talking points memo. your generation seems to be full of them.
-stop the madness!
I'm with the last guy. Fuck you Megan. Get a clue and look at some Google trend charts. RON PAUL *IS* WINNING!
All you Op-Ed fools are in harsh denial.
Look at the trends for the last month! Ron Paul is WAY more winning then any other forgot-their-name candidate.
Haha, Rudy is in the hospital for all the stress of running. People can't even spell his last name and no one cares to. They just chant Ron Paul where ever he goes! Republicans have only one choice if they want to beat Hillary.
PRESIDENT RON PAUL! 2008-2012
Ron Paul is absolutely focusing on the right issue, and that issue is foreign policy (not just the Iraq War). And Ron Paul most certainly has a chance to win. Nobody is running away with this thing, and I believe the polls grossly underestimate Ron Paul's support.
And anybody who is against sound money rather than the Federal Reserve's system of inflation most likely does not understand the issue. At first the gold standard sounded very archaic to me, and I didn't see the point of it.
But now I understand that the purpose of the Fed is to allow Congress to spend money it doesn't have. And in doing so it decreases the buying power of the dollars we have worked so hard to save. Inflation is not rising prices. Inflation is the creation of new money. Prices should go down when technology makes processes more efficient. They did in the 1800s when we had a gold standard.
Instead our prices go up because of the Fed, and prices go up faster than our wages do. Who benefits from inflation created by the Fed? Wall Street, politicians, and other rich people who lobby Congress for corporate welfare. The Fed facilitates a transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the elite rich.
"Ron Paul is not going to win."
Thank you prophet, can you get some lottery numbers or something useful next time please?
"Nor has he, as far as I can tell, injected his own politics into the race by forcing other candidates to kowtow to him."
If you really believe this you haven't been paying much attention. Rudy has been saying "rule of law" almost as much as 9-11, candidates have started actually mentioning the constitution in debates, and Huckabee is holding an online "Freedom Day" fund raiser.
"Wasting it on actually trying to get elected seems extravagent."
The people who sent Ron Paul their money didn't do it so he could push a single issue. They did it to give this country a chance at real change. If the country decides it doesn't want it, then fine, but Ron Paul using all of his raised money to push an issue would violate the purpose for which it was given.
I guess if he were really smart he'd drop out of the race and start a blog where he could criticize people trying to make a difference in the world. It's waaay easier than actually doing something anyway.
By the way, when the little red line pops up under a word that means it's misspelled and you should fix it. I doubt anyone is going to take offered up career advice from someone who can't spell extravagant correctly.
I wrote this to Andrew Sullivan earlier in the week. It appears to be germane here as well:
Do you support ron paul? Congratulations. So does a voluminous list of nazis and White supremacists, including (but not limited to) david duke, hal turner, don black, jamie kelso, hutton gibson (Mel's looney-tune holocaust denying father) and those wonderful folks at www.stormfront.org, whose home page provides you with a convenient link to donate to the paul campaign.
ron paul has never disavowed one penny from stormfront.org or said he would refuse it. Are you comfortable with this? Is this the candidate you would support?
Did you know that, last year, paul voted against re-authorizing the 1965 voting rights act? Did you know that he also voted against the house resolution condemning hezbollah?
Did you know that, at one time, paul published a newsletter which contained overtly racist material which, among other things,called 95% of all Blacks in Washington DC criminals and advocated trying 13 year old Black children as adults?
Years later, paul claimed he wasn't the writer of that material, someone else wrote it. But that doesn't wash; the newsletter was all of 8 pages long and went out under his own name. Even if he didn't write the words themselves he allowed them to be published under his name.
You know better than to think ron paul wasn't aware of the content of an 8 page document he'd be responsible for. Personally, I assume he wrote the racist garbage himself.
paul also had columns published in "American Free Press" which is put out by willis carto. Do yourself a favor; google the name "willis carto" and see who he is. If you have any decency at all, you'll be sick to your stomach. While it can be argued that carto was able to publish ron paul's material without his ok, it is also true that paul could have publicly disavowed its presence in "American Free Press". To my knowledge, he has never done so.
Bottom line: There are good reasons for nazis and White supremacists to flock to ron paul. When you support him you are also support them and their reasons. That's how they'll position it, and they have a point.
If all this is ok with you, congratulations again. If not, I suggest you think harder about ron paul.
Ron will win regardless of the lies perpetrated by the hired pinheads of the left and right wing.
Ron Paul is genuine not a stooge for the corporations.
Why do you think he has raise all his money from the educated massess.
Right Ron!!!!
"Are you comfortable with this? Is this the candidate you would support?"
Yep. The people donating to a campaign may not have all the same opinions I do, but that doesn't mean Paul follows theirs. I listen to the candidate himself, and so far the only evidence anyone has brought of Paul's "racism" is a 30 year old newsletter he didn't write.
The nice thing about Paul is that if his governmental policies went through it wouldn't matter if we did later elect a racist or an atheist or name any other detestable belief here. By limiting government's involvement in EVERYONE's lives he makes the effect of people in office much smaller. The smallest minority of all is the individual and Paul is definitely on his side.
The alleged debt of our country was created out of thin air by congress using Federal Reserve Notes as a means to issue the Thin Air Debt. The thin air debt is purchased by the Fed with thin air money and now interest is due on the money created out of nothing.
That nothing is not costing over Half a Trillion in interest each year. Do you even know what a Trillion is?
If congress would issue "US Notes and wipe out the alleged debt there would be no more interest payments and in one decade the entire debt could be paid.
Algthough the last presidents that issued Legal tender outside of the Phony natinal banks was?
Answer:
Lincoln
Kennedy
This is no conspiracy is fact.
Guess what happan to these presidents.
What tripe. Do you think the people who donated did so so that he could talk about "eminent domain abuses"? No, we donated so that he would be elected. He wins voters by not "triangulating"-- which is newspeak for lying about your positions. He's made Republicans out of many Democrats.
"Not the Iraq war, upon which no one seems open to much persuasion..." Actually, I've encountered some Ron Paul supporters who used to be for the war and changed their mind when Ron Paul convinced them that we just can't afford it. He's just about the only one who can change minds on it, that I've seen.
If you think he's not above 7% in New Hampshire, you're crazier than this post indicates. 42% of NH voters are independent and don't show up in those polls of Republicans. He's at least twice that 7% number, plus he's tied with Giuliani in Iowa and 2% down from 3rd place in South Carolina in the traditional polls.
If you think he can't win, I'd like to challenge you to put your money where your mouth is-- I've got $100 that Ron Paul will win the Republican nomination. Are you in or are you out?
"Nor has he, as far as I can tell, injected his own politics into the race by forcing other candidates to kowtow to him."
You obviously haven't been paying attention. Ever since about a month and a half ago, the other Republicans have mentioned the Constitution and the IRS in every debate. Giuliani actually gave an answer once that he "simply wasn't authorized to do that by the Constitution," a restriction which certainly had never bothered or stopped him before. A question about abortion was asked, and usually the Repubs would have been jumping to say that a federal restriction should be put in place. Ron Paul answered first and said it should be handled by the states, and then they ALL fell in line and said the same thing. Yes, Mitt Romney all of a sudden got all enthused about federalism on abortion, when it got applause from the audience.
Megan, am I to understand that somebody actually pays you to write such nonsense?
If so, you really fooled somebody then, didn't you?
I mean, of course, when that somebody thought you could actually think critically for yourself - and you deigned it within your ability to be up to the challenge of contributing something meaningful to an intelligent political discussion.
Ron Paul and his candidacy for President - on a major Party ticket - is the best thing to happen to thinking Americans in the last 50 years. What his campaign supporters have deemed a revolution will be ongoing - with or without him as their standard-bearer.
But you, dear lady, need to study-up on history, economics, political philosophy, sociology... and perhaps, human behavior and media communication... before you indulge yourself again... with what clearly amounts to pure sophistry.
If you're really getting paid - and this drivel is representative of similar work product you've produced for your paymaster - then please, have him/her contact me immediately.
Somebody's getting gypped!
So, the man who raises all time record amounts of cash, without lifting a finger and the man who inspires more people to action than any politician in our lifetimes, cannot win.
Hahaa
I am deeply ashamed of the people who would choose one of the common, lobbyist loving thieves, over the one chance we have been given, to save our Country.
Ron Paul: the patron saint of lost causes.
So what are you trying to tell us? That America is a lost cause?
I would like not to belive this, I will tell this to everyone who will listen.
There are many secrets kept from the American people. We are led to belive that the Federal Government and its politics are sound.
It is time Americans wake up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and seek the truth.
Here's a reality check. America is in 9 TRILLION DOLLARS OF NATIONAL DEBT.
IF YOU ARE NOT CONCERNED OR DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW THIS SYSTEM WORKS IT IS TIME TO EDUCATE YOURSELF.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?
docid=3286459385978771924
THE PROBLEM WITH THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANKING SYSTEM IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBURG. I COULD GO ON AND ON BUT THERE IS NOT ENOUGH TIME IN THE DAY FOR ME TO SPELL IT ALL OUT FOR EVERYONE.
SO IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH, KNOW THE FACTS, MAKE YOUR OWN DESICIONS.
HELP RESTORE OUR FREEDOMS THAT THIS COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED ON.