Ron Paul is running for president. This is exciting. There is no American who would make a better president than Ron Paul. In a nutshell, he stands for the Constitution (Here's his campaign video). Ron Paul is affable, intelligent, and courageous. His delivery of thousands of babies gives him an interesting backstory that juxtaposes nicely against the career politician background of so many of his opponents. Unlike so many politicians, Dr. Paul has the courage of his convictions. If 434 of his colleagues vote one way, Paul won't vote with the crowd if the crowd is wrong. Can anyone make such a claim about, say, frontrunner Rudy Giuliani, whose positions on abortion, gun control, and immigration are determined by whether he's running for mayor in New York or campaigning for president in South Carolina?
Can Ron Paul win? That's not the right question, but it's the question potential supporters will ask. Paul's non-interventionist position on Iraq is certainly more in line with the American public's than his competitors' positions, and his Constitutionalist, pro-life, anti-amnesty, pro-Second Amendment views are certainly more in line with GOP primary voters than the ever-shifting postures of Rudy McRomney. Rudy McRomney will split the moderate to liberal vote in the GOP primaries. If a credible conservative runs and points out Romney and Giuliani's past support for gay rights, abortion, and gun control, and McCain's support for open borders, then that conservative can win.
The problem for conservative voters in 2008 will not be the lack of a conservative standard bearer. Ron Paul is the most articulate exponent of conservative ideas currently holding elective office. The problem will be the timidity of those conservative voters. Increasingly, they cast the votes for the candidate the media tells them is the most electable--whether or not those candidates embrace similar positions on the issues salient to those voters. Unsurprisingly, the media-annointed Republicans are the three most liberal Republicans in the race. This house of cards can't stand for long.
Ron Paul could win the New Hampshire primary. And if he does that, his candidacy gets elevated to the Rudy McRomney level. Think about it. GOP voters in a state that boasts "Live Free or Die" will find the libertarian-minded Paul simpatico. Remember, in 1996, Pat Buchanan, a man who has never held elective office, won this state. He won it despite having other credible conservative candidates eating into his pool of potential voters. Paul will not have that problem. The leading candidates in this race are party liberals (Romney and Giuliani), and a moderate conservative (McCain) whose popularity within the liberal media, and whose shabby treatment of party conservatives, makes him even less popular among conservatives than his more liberal foes. Rudy McRomney will split votes. Ron Paul, or whoever emerges as the conservative candidate, will not only have a larger table of votes to feast on, but will feast on them solo. Do the math. Three moderates don't equal one conservative in a GOP primary. Texan Paul is the candidate--Democrat or Republican--who stands furthest away from Texan George W. Bush. In a year when Republicans will have to forge an identity separate from Bush, this matters. Paul stood against the Iraq invasion when nearly everyone else in his party, and Hillary, Edwards, and Kerry in the other party, gave Bush a blank check. There's also the factor of the debates. The other candidates will be dwarfs next to a giant. Giuliani is very likable. Romney looks good in a suit. McCain is a genuine war hero. But what, of substance, do they offer? We know they want to be president badly. Why do they want to be president so badly? Ron Paul discussing ideas next to candidates who want to say nothing lest they offend will make an impression. He will stand out from the other candidates just as he already stands out from the other congressmen.
Whether Paul can win, of course, shouldn't be the primary consideration of conservative primary voters. A more important question than who can win is who should win. When conservatives, no tiny voting bloc, mark their ballots for who they think should win rather than who they think can win, then the candidate who should win can win.
Conservatives need to stop being defeatist if they ever want to really win. Conceding that people with ideas that mirror your own can't win a national election underestimates the American people. This albatross ensures liberal victories. You see, winning in November with a big-government, pro-choice, open-borders Republican isn't really winning. It's losing. Sure, the Democrats will have lost. But the raison d'etre of the conservative movement isn't to defeat Democrats and elect Republicans. It's to make conservative ideas governing ideas. Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and John McCain won't do that. President Ron Paul will.
Great post. I'm a big Paul supporter. Switching my voter registration from Libertarian to Independent so that I will be able to vote for him in the primaries.
To find out more about Dr. Ron Paul, his campaign website is here:
Thanks,
Wiseburn
Didn't Pat Buchanan win NH once? I don't think it elevated his campaign and it probably will not elevate Paul's either. That being said, he has my vote.
I hope Ron Paul does win. I'm not sure he can win a national election but as Dan correctly points this business of voting for the candidate who we can win as opposed to the candidate who should win has come around to bite us more times than I can count. I hope Ron Paul wins. I like the sound of "President Ron Paul."
I'm going to vote for Edwards because I want him to enlighten us on how you own a 28,000 square foot house and pay only $300 a month for electricity.
wow flynn... you are slowly coming to your senses and standing up for a true Constitutionalist; unlike your current administration who are anything but. It is a crime that they call themselves republicans and/or conservatives.
Investigate 9-11
Messenger -- read FlynnFiles often?
When did Dan support "his" current administration?
Bush lied and he planned 9-11, don't you know.
I understand problems with Romney and Giuliani as conservatives...but this is kind of odd:
There's also the factor of the debates. The other candidates will be dwarfs next to a giant. Giuliani is very likable. Romney looks good in a suit. McCain is a genuine war hero. But what, of substance, do they offer?
Romney and Giuliani...dwarfs?
C'mon Dan, you can wish that they were more conservative, but you can't honestly scoff at the serious credentials both those guys bring to the table.
Romney is a business wizard (see: Bain and the Olympics turn-around), and a anti-stem cell, anti-gay marriage governor. Sure he "looks nice", but he is for real.
As for Giuliani, he was a big-time prosecutor going after organized crime, who then ran for mayor. George Will is obviously reaching when he says that Giuliani's tenure was the "most successful episode of conservative governance in this country in the last 50 years." (so, what about Reagan??) But Rudy did kick some serious butt turning America's biggest city around.
Ron Paul is an interesting candidate and I think that his (prominent?) presence in the primaries could help steer the GOP rightward. But such out-of-hand dismissal of the "front-runners" (whatever that even means 10 months before the first primary) does neither Paul nor the GOP any good.
Ron is 3% is latest poll.
http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08rep.htm
Giulani Rocks!! Read this article:
http://www.infowars.com/articles/sept11/victims_remains_used_to_fill_potholes.htm
http://www.infowars.com/articles/sept11/gov_misconduct_not_911_truthers_most_insulting_to_911_heroes.htm
http://www.infowars.com/articles/sept11/911_lie_in_critical_condition.htm
Actually asdf, GWB is a minion of of the globalists. Research it sir
And what does "the globalists" mean?
Figure it out
That is if the soluable FLUORIDE in your drinking water hasn't affected your neurological development to the point of impairing true critical thinking yet. Google that one too. I'm serious, they are intangible at first, but you must digg around. Turn off the MM news networks and save this damn country
The vague and undefined terms in which you speak reveal that your ideas are equally so.
General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
I'm voting for Ron Paul. I'm glad to see the growing momentum. It has been embarassing to watch run-away government spending and new entitlement programs occur when the GOP controlled the White house and both houses of congress. Even if he fails to win the nomination an important protest vote will say a lot about the heart and sould of the party.
Fluoride has no affect on the dental caries via systemic administration. Works slightly locally... hence toothpaste. However, it stains the teath, a condition called Fluorosis. Putting it in public drinking systems has zero beneficial properties for an individual. Fluoride is a known, documented carcinogen and neuro-toxin. Once inside the body, It substitutes as an enzyme in hundreds of biochemical reactions. It lowers I.Q. and shortens lifespan. Does anybody know where it is derived from??? You people would be appauled. Research it. Nazis loved the stuff. Also research why Europe doesn't fluoridate their water, with the exception of Switzerland, which tried it out for population control in the 70's.
Speak up, stand up for your god-given organic human rights, reinstate the constitution!
http://fluoridealert.org
Get this book for your wife:
http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN1583225269&id=q3v_JgjZ6fsC&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&ots=N29sjDrhFT&dq=fluoride+deception&sig=qF-usWAyKqmA4wAL2ReEgWO6Usw#PPP1,M1
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/blueprints.html
Great post Dan!
Tom Woods wrote a nice piece on Ron Paul as well here:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods63.html
He makes this comment, which if not a total exaggeration, really makes Ron Paul a refreshing candidate:
"Lobbyists don’t even bother going to his office. If their scheme doesn’t fall among the federal government’s enumerated powers under the Constitution, they know perfectly well that there is no chance Ron Paul will support it."
Btw, feel free to delete crazy trolls who sidetrack discussions. None of us regulars would squawk about it.
Is it warped, or what, that the press and the political establishment in generel are judging a candidate's strength and validity by how much money they can raise? Has this become the worth of our government?
