Champion of prostitutes, drug dealers, white supremacists and anti-war activists like MoveOn.org, Code Pink, libertarian Lew Rockwell and girl friend Cindy Sheehan, Ron Paul is raising money from outside of the Republican Party and counting on one day party-jumpers to secure the Republican nomination.
In terms of fund-raising, Paul really is setting campaign records. He has also set new records for working outside of a political party to upset the party he claims his rightful home and is well on his way to setting a new low standard for foolhardy fear-mongering.
His campaign supporters fear their fellow Americans more than Bin Laden. They hate the Bush administration more than Marxists across the aisle. They fear all forms of interaction with the world and believe that the spread of democracy around the globe is not only some form of torture against foreign peoples, but also some new fangled fascism at home.
A Revolution of Americas most Angry
The Ron Paul campaign seems to have harnessed the anger among many Americans. In many cases, the anger itself is quite justified, and shared by many real conservatives.
Republicans in Washington have indeed forgotten that they represent the majority of Americans who are certainly far more conservative than any newsroom anchor would ever let on. They have spent tax-payer funds like a drunken Kennedy at a Martha’s Vineyard lawn party. They have increased the social spending that is bankrupting the Nanny State at a pace that makes Bill Clinton (but not Hillary) look like a fiscal conservative.
They have bought into the open society - open borders nonsense of the liberal left and sit silent as Democrats demand civil rights for terrorists and social aid for illegal aliens, all while the judicial branch steadily legislates away individual liberty and private property rights. Americans have plenty to be angry about.
But is Ron Paul the solution?
Appearing on Tim Russert’s Meet the Press on December 23rd, Ron Paul looked like a deer in headlights as Russert backed Paul into a corner on issue after issue, policy statement after policy statement, until by the end, Ron Paul had publicly denounced almost every policy statement he has ever made.
Paul supporters claim to believe that Paul will shrink the size of the federal government by ending trillions in military, intelligence and foreign aid spending, the day he’s elected. Yet when questioned by Russert about the specifics of such a bold plan, Paul had no specifics about how such a plan could ever actually be implemented. He didn’t even know how many troops would have to be recalled from around the world. Russert had to tell him.
He has repeatedly stated that he wants to abolish the Department of Education, the FBI, the IRS and the Income Tax, as well as countless other federal agencies and programs. Not a bad idea. Yet again when questioned by Russert about the specifics, he either had no specifics, was wrong on his specifics, or accused Russert of being “confused” and denied that he ever made such statements.
Russert even cornered Dr. No on the very real fact that he has “ear-marked” millions for his own Texas district over the years, while railing against ear-marks and stating that the fed shouldn’t even provide disaster relief to American victims of inescapable natural catastrophes.
In short, Ron Paul is far better at rhetoric than reality. Watch Paul make a fool of himself on
Meet the Press… (4 separate video segments, watch them all)
The most UN-popular candidate in America
In the most recent
Rasmussen Poll taken after the Iowa debates, Ron Paul was the most unpopular declared candidate in America today.
Only 10 percent of likely voters (regardless of party affiliation) stated that they would “definitely consider voting for Ron Paul.” 48 percent said that they “definitely would NEVER consider voting for Ron Paul.”
Even Hillary Clinton, the most disliked and distrusted female in America, polled better with 30 percent FOR and 47 percent AGAINST.
McCain, Thompson and Huckabee are the most universally popular Republican candidates, statistically tied at about 21 percent FOR and 34 percent AGAINST. Only Barack Obama scored better.
Romney and Giuliani both have more than 42 percent definitely AGAINST.
Clearly, Americans are not happy with any of their choices. Barack Obama scored best, but even he had only 29 percent FOR with 36 percent AGAINST.
Paul’s Foolhardy Fear-Mongering
The entire Paul campaign is built upon making voters fear our own government more than outside threats around the globe. Paul has stated that 9/11 was Americas fault on many occasions and that Bush has wrongly used that event to grow the size and reach of government. Something had to happen if the next 9/11 was going to be averted.
Paul’s doom and gloom message resonates with some of Americas best known cowards, anti-Semites, isolationists and anarchists. But it doesn’t seem to resonate with anyone else.
Republican voters are rejecting Paul in mass. Many of the Independents and Democrats that the Paul campaign is begging to “become a Republican for a day” in order to hijack the RNC nomination with voters usually at odds with all Republican ideals, are also rejecting Paul’s fear and smear campaign.
A few anti-war activists are on-board the Paul campaign for obvious reasons. MoveOn.org is scheduling member “meet-ups” at Ron Paul stops and has apparently funded and produced some Paul campaign ads. Even socialist Democrat Dennis Kucinich is looking at endorsing Ron Paul.
But when I went to see how this campaign strategy was playing out on known Democrat blogs, Paul supporters were once again resorting to calling Paul opponents “Nazis” for not lining up behind the man who has some sort of Jim Jones grip on his supporters.
The Money behind the Man
Paul is gladly accepting campaign support from white supremacist groups like Storm Front, brothels in Nevada, anti-war Democrats and anarchists. He will likely outpace all other candidates in 4th quarter fund raising. But where is that money coming from and can it ever translate into votes within the Republican primary process?
Paul supporters believe that their man will win the party nomination against all odds and all polling data. But Paul, who had been denying any thought of running on a third party ticket, refused to rule out that possibility with Russert. A third party runs becomes more possible as the money comes in, but fails to translate into primary votes.
The problem with their strategy
Even new media Paul minion Lew Rockwell writes to Democrats - “I'm a Ron Paul supporter, and I contend that even if you are a devoted adherent of the Democratic Party, your best strategy is to vote for Ron Paul in the primary. - You can still vote for Obama come fall, and rest assured that the Republican machine will be supporting the Democratic candidate, since they dislike Ron Paul much more than any Democrat.” Is this not an outright effort to elect a Democrat rather than a Republican?
The campaign is supported by a very small fragmented base, spread all across the ideological electoral map, people usually working against each other in elections. They are united only by Paul’s anti-war rhetoric. However, getting Nanny State lefties to vote for Paul on the basis of his anti-war rhetoric, while he also promises to wipe out all Nanny State programs is more than unlikely. It’s all but impossible…
Time for Paul to leave the RNC Race
If he runs third party where he really belongs, I believe he will take more votes from the pro-war Democrats than he will ever get from mainstream Republicans. Since he is fully at odds with most Republicans, openly attacking everyone from Lincoln to Reagan and doing so on money raised from liberals, he has no business running for the Republican nomination. It’s time for him to go!
If he lacks the moral courage to leave on his own, the Republican Party should help him leave.
Right to be Angry – Wrong to be Paul
True conservatives should be angry that too many Republicans have lost touch with their conservative values and conservative voters. They should reject RINO candidates and seek a true conservative to unite behind. They should be doing something to change reality and they are - they drafted their own candidate and it isn’t Ron Paul.
But the few who think Ron Paul is more conservative than Lincoln or Reagan are fooling themselves. Thankfully, they don’t seem to be fooling anyone else!
I’m not a Russert fan, but this time, he really did expose the Paul campaign as nothing more than rhetoric. Paul panders to a certain type of individual using fear wrapped in the flag. One can hope that his supporters will begin to look beyond the rhetoric. We’d like to have their energy behind a real conservative candidate.
