Unless the Republican Party decides to have a collective nervous breakdown of extraordinary proportions, the recent rise of Ron Paul in Iowa now being reported in some polls should be good news indeed for Mitt Romney.
Paul’s extreme foreign policy views – a strange brew of isolationism, paranoia (bordering on “trutherism”) and not-so-hidden bigotry – should strike alarm bells with the majority of the Republican electorate. Lovable old Ron with his doctrinaire libertarianism so attractive to those who think life’s solutions are simple is no longer a sideshow. He is on the edge of a destroying a political party and reelecting one of the worst presidents in American history.
If this trend is accurate, it’s easy to envision that Republican majority flocking quickly to a safe haven and coalescing around Romney. The only hope for Perry, Bachmann and Santorum to remain in the game will be to take giant aim at Paul in the remaining days before the Iowa caucus, taking him down a peg or two. To do this, Bachmann especially will have to shift focus from Gingrich to Paul. Right now Newt is not her problem. Paul is. Hers and everybody’s. Perry also will have to point his cannons at Paul. Santorum already has, but he has to redouble efforts.
None of this will be simple. Time is fleeting and there are no more debates. Still this election is fast-moving. No one except Nostradamus can predict what will happen. And history tells us even Nostradamus was wrong most of the time.
Mark Steyn just completely shredded Newt at NRO today.
He touched on Ron Paul, as do most national folks…waving him off as a crank.
But Ron Paul is a dangerous sideshow freak. He attaches to the Republican Party an ugly wart. It needs removal.
The Republican Party prior to these debates had so much to look forward to in defining its brand. Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, John Thune, Nikki Haley, Mitch Daniels, Kristi Noem, ….bright, articulate, solid, …there was so much substance and the standards had risen fabulously.
What a freak show this primary season has been. Petty, ugly, divisive, cheap, tawdry, …a spectacle worthy of the Coliseum.
I want a do over. The worst President in history is being handed the reins of his desired Revolution. The DOJ is a despicable political shell and the leftists are maneuvering to make the Bureau of Labor Statistics a propaganda front for the Revolution.
And here we are…with Iowans about to humiliate the nation with an insane vote. What is wrong with this picture?
Everything.
Very well said. Thank you.
cf, go read Bill Kristol’s latest take on the possibility of a brokered convention.
He gives a prescription for these problems. If we can keep support from coalescing around Mitt for a couple of ballots, there is a possibility that we could have a ‘deliberative’ convention rather than a rubber stamp from the Establishment. The problem here is that the Establishment R’s will not have a conservative nominee, they have been comfortably subsidized for years by their own crony capitalism. They will use justifiable attacks on Ron Paul to rally us to them and their guy. We are in the midst of a struggle for the nature of the Republican party. These folks will not let go their control of the water hole any easier than the Leftists.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/deliberative-convention_613476.html
Keep buggering on.
I read Bill’s piece…he’s a little late.
Someone on this very board has been praying and pleading for a brokered convention long before Bill wrote that.
Hopefully his words gain traction…the ones written by that guy here didn’t seem to muster much support.
The people I know who support Paul have ZERO idea how our government works. They believe if Paul actually became president he’d just magically enact all his extreme ideas with the wave of his wand. Apparently they learned zip from the Obama fiasco.
We elect a president in a shared power government, NOT a dictator.
Agreed: “If this trend is accurate, it’s easy to envision that Republican majority flocking quickly to a safe haven and coalescing around Romney.”
Nothing quite says “time to circle the wagons” like the imminent threat of a truly looney fringebot.
The only people I know who like Paul and claim they’d vote for him enjoy his “quirkiness” and “plain speaking.” They also like Dennis Kucinich. Pretty much says it all.
So,we have all the fruits in the basket vying for the Republican nomination for President Of The United States..We are screwed..Is this the best we can do? We have some nut jobs and a few socialist that will lead us down the same Progressive road to nowhere..(know your enemy)
Good analysis, Roger. It rings true.
Ron Paul may actually be more dangerous than Obama, not an easy task.
Cutting spending to 2008 levels would be supported by many, and tolerated by most, but Paul has no interest in framing it in a way that makes it sound palatable to people who don’t follow politics on a daily basis. His rhetoric makes it sound horrific, not logical, and there is little question it would arouse the fiercest opposition in the left if he was ever elected. “Fierce” as in violent.
Couple that with his racist tendancies and it is such a compustable mixture that violnce would be inevitable. Probably not the kind of violence that can be swatted down easily either.
That doesn’t even touch on his foreign affairs lunacy, which would receive an equivalent reaction from the right, although the right has never been violent in a measurable way like the left is at the drop of a hat.
So if Ron Paul somehow got elected, he would be assailed by maximium opposition as soon as he attempted to implement his agenda. And there is nothing in his persona or rhetoric that suggests he would be willing to compromise in any way. It would be as ugly as it can get.
He almost certainly knows this, so it’s hard to understand what he is doing. He isn’t a politician like others in this country, who want to get elected. Obama is in the 1% fringe. Paul is in the 1/100th of 1% fringe. There’s something totally crazy about the guy. He doesn’t make any effort at all to win supporters by adjusting his positions to appeal to anybody. He just keeps pounding the table. Either you succomb or you remain an enemy. It reminds me of European and Russian politicians between the first two world wars in that he has carved out a poliical space that makes him a death-grip enemy of almost all the other factions in the country. And the Paulbots all seem like they are chomping at the bit to begin the enforcement regime.
As a long time “Paleo-Libertarian” (we like limited government and conservative social values) it is dismaying to observe the dread of Ron Paul by so-called conservatives. As one wise commenter wrote, Paul will not accomplish all he wants. The most important issue we face is the prospect of a long decline of our economy. With a dead economy we can forget about expanding the military, or ultimately even maintaining a credible defense force. Social Security and Medicare will have to be cut to the bone. Large percentages of the population will live in poverty. Reflect on Great Britain after World War I and II.
Paul is the only candidate, from either party, who actually wants to shrink the government. The others don’t even pretend but rather propose novel taxing schemes. Romney will use his hostile takeover skills to somehow make the economy grow while maintaining the outsized state. Take that promise to the bank and try to cash it. Politicians do not create jobs. Will Paul be able to cut the budget by one trillion the first year? Not a chance. Will he veto every spending increase? You bet he will. He has a consistent character and voting record. In these qualities he is unique. With smaller governments the economy will grow.
Will he gut the military? No, but he might manage to cut back a little. In hindsight, Paul is correct that Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan have been tragedies for the United States. Those who hate Iran will have a hard time rejoicing on the current status of Iraq. It will be a Shiite state, and ally of Iran, as they burn American flags. This end could have been anticipated. We are the greatest nation the world has seen but we are not infinitely powerful. George Washington would be alarmed to witness our hundreds of bases throughout the world. It costs $400 per gallon to deliver fuel to our troops in Afghanistan. We are running a 1.3 trillion deficit, and that doesn’t count the off-budget spending!
Obama is awful but he has a way to go to surpass George W. Bush as the worst American leader. Our enemies could not have done better than to put Bush in the presidency. Jimmy Carter was–relatively–a conservative.
It is pathetic to hurl the “racism” smear at Paul. He’s not perfect. Just much better than the rest. Paul would be a genuine alternative to Obama. He knows how to speak and write the English language even if he lacks charisma. That’s an improvement over Bush/Obama. Democrats and Republicans are nearly identical. Maybe it is time to ditch this party.
Oh it’s definitely Paul vs Romney in my opinion. It was my first opinion before the roller-coaster of candidates began. Back where we started, it was a fun ride while it lasted.
Anyway… GOP is going to need some damn miracles without the Paul supporters on-board. I started as a more Gary Johnson kinda guy, and I’m hopeful I will have the opportunity to vote for RP or GJ as a independent or 3rd party.
I mean sure… I enjoyed getting involved in politics; phonebanking, collecting signatures, and soon to be in Des Moines Iowa over New Years.
Once the GOP successfully forces out the Paul faction, political life will return to normal for this independent. At least I had some fun for once instead of just begrudgingly checking the “None Of The Above” option every 4 years.
Here we have the Paul supporters – Arguably even more enthusiastic and influential than the 2008 Obama supporters. As easy as flipping a switch, the GOP could harness this energy and turn it against Obama. Obama would not stand a chance against Paul supporters.
Think about it – Everything PJMedia contributors despise: foreign policy, drug legalization, freedom of marriage, etc; these are ALL issues that Obama WON on! Judging by the fact the Paul supporters have pushed 20% support in Iowa, the race against Obama could be the biggest landslide in recent history against Obama.
Look at these maps. LOOK AT THEM!
http://thedailyviz.com/post/11539284430/mapping-where-gop-candidates-raise-their-campaign
Paul asks his supporters for money and within 24hours he has 2.5Million, within 72hours, he has 4Million. From 100,000+ donors – No other candidate can touch this.
Paul’s success points out that there is demand for unvarnished Libertarianism in the debate. In the Bay Area, I see more bumper stickers for Paul than all the other Republicans combined. Perhaps Paul’s domestic policy agenda based on true freedom could be a bridge to those on the left who are looking for an honoroble way out. His foreign policy, on the other hand, is 100% nuts.
Shame on GOP for allowing a crackpot on the stage
“6. Magua” Do any of you people notice the relative eloquence of those who, while not agreeing with Paul 100%, can do more than just mindlessly spout the latest Establishment Republican talking point PJM is getting paid to spread?
Mark Steyn should take a hard look in the mirror and realize that Paul’s rise is a symptom of all those wars he was so enthusiastic about, not the cause of his own rise. Unfortunately, neocons are not big on self-reflection, observing the actual as opposed to theoretical consequences of their actions (namely, an Iraq allied with Iran and possibly to ‘Islamist’ Turkey to the point of persecuting its Kurdish VP), etc etc etc. But they’ll always tell you that whatever has gone wrong in Iraq is Obama’s fault. They remind me of the Democrats that blame Bush for everything too.
And yes, Magua also makes another excellent point. It isn’t as if the Military Industrial Complex (which that notorious soft on Communism pinko Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about) is just going to go poof in the extremely unlikely event Paul gets elected and the banksters at that point don’t try to engineer a coup or something worse. Could we, like Rand Paul, at least settle for being LESS interventionist if not non-interventionist? Could America survive with military bases in just ten countries as opposed to the current 120? Could we at least settle for spending two times as much as Russia and China combined (which would put defense spending at about 40% of today’s level or the late 1990s average) rather than more than Russia, China and the whole world’s defense spending combined?
I already see the specter of ‘Anonymous’ being used as an excuse to suggest if Paul actually wins any GOP primaries that ‘it didn’t count’ because the result was ‘hacked’. Why don’t you people just expose your true colors and come out and say that if Paul wins ANY primary you think the results should be scrapped and the GOP should just nominate Romney in a smoke-filled room?
And quit bitching and moaning that Democrats and independents crossing over to gasp! actually vote in a Republican primary is cheating or spreading idiotic stories that Randal Paul is actually named for Ayn Rand or that there are massive hordes of hippies being relocated to Iowa by the Paulites to vote there. Evidence please? Democrats didn’t whine when AFL-CIO member registered Dems crossed over to vote for Reagan over Mondale in 84′, did they?
I’ll take Ike the war hero who got us out of a hot war in Korea and built the Interstate Highway System over the bloviating Rush any day of the week.
You people wouldn’t be so terrified of an open debate within the GOP about whether endless war and money printing is conservative if you weren’t afraid you’d lose.
Yes Paul is so racist LOL that he’s attracting more support from blacks and Hispanics in CNN polls than any other GOP candidate.
He’s so unappealing to young people that a flustered fill in female host for Mark Levin the other night told a military caller that Paul’s charisma among young, poorly informed people explains why he’s drawn more contributions from the military than any other candidate.
Not only was it an insult to the 18 and 19 year olds who actually get shot at and blown up by IEDs executing the ‘muscular’ foreign policy Levin is so impressed with, there’s not even hard evidence that all the mil contributors are particularly young.
“What a freak show this primary season has been. Petty, ugly, divisive, cheap, tawdry, …a spectacle worthy of the Coliseum.” cfbleachers you have no one to blame but your paymasters who tried and failed to come up with a composite conservative anti-Romney candidate. The Establishment GOP is losing its grip and I’m laughing at them because they deserve it. Go back to spraying more spray on tan on John Boehner.
New Year’s resolution — I’m done with PJM. You guys sold out to Newt. Half your RINO hack writers are going to end up on the street when this Depression gets worse. You have people like Bryan Preston writing for you who used to rub elbows with Ron Paul while he worked for the Texas GOP and now he’s saying Ron Paul is an extremist for stuff he wrote twenty years ago? Why wasn’t he saying that ten years ago when he was getting a paycheck from the Texas GOP? Hypocrite Newt-bot.