Ron Paul Won’t Win. Get Over It.http://bcfeed.com/2011/ron-paul-wont-win/Posted by BC on Tuesday,
August 30, 2011 Even when I considered myself a “libertarian with a little ‘L’”,
I wondered what made Ron Paul’s supporters tick. What drives that intense passion to declare, without a hint of irony, that anyone who doesn’t vote for this man is a “blind follower”? I don’t think I’ll ever know.Ron Paul is a fascinating figure in American politics, no doubt. Like Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Senator who openly calls himself a “Democratic Socialist”,
Ron Paul is the Libertarian who simply hangs out with a party because he doesn’t have a Congressional clique. He is both honest and consistent with his personal views. When asked about legalizing hard drugs while standing next to a bunch of “true conservatives”, he’ll flat-out say “of course I’m for legalization of heroin, why wouldn’t I be?” Props for the consistency, I suppose.
"Did you see how well I just did? 8% in New Hampshire, I almost won a delegate!"
More fascinating than Paul himself, though, are his supporters. If Aesop were writing fables today, they’d be about Paul supporters instead of the fox and social services instead of grapes. The concept of cognitive dissonance might have been around before Ron Paul, but he took it mainstream.
Take, for example, Paul’s constituents in the Texas District 14. Paul has said since 1988, when he ran for President as a Libertarian: “We must recognize the government led space program is dead and the corpse must be buried as soon as possible.” Many of Paul’s constituents work at NASA, and I guarantee you they would not want to see the organization closed or sold to the highest bidder. They hate the idea, but they reëlect Paul every two years. He has an “R” next to his name, after all.
Let’s consider one of Paul’s biggest groups of supporters (well, most vocal anyway), college students. Is there any doubt that Paul would, given the chance, end any funding for our universities and eliminate the Pell Grant program? I’ve always said that being a Libertarian while attending a public university is like being a PETA activist working in a meat-packing plant. I have no idea how they rationalize this kind of stuff in their minds.Now that Paul is running again, these vociferous supporters are beginning to announce that everything we thought about the economy is actually wrong all over again.
I remember reading these same pieces, perhaps word for word, during the ’08 primaries. Here are a few sentences you’ll see in the average Ron Paul letter/post/comment:
“I’m not a Republican or a Democrat, just an American who believes in the Constitution.”
Here we go. The Paul supporter establishes that unlike everybody else who associates with a political party, his view is actually valid and he really does believe in the Constitution. I’m convinced already.
“Our country has strayed from its Constitutional roots, the limited government which our Founding Fathers believed in.”
Like clockwork, the Founding Fathers come in. Everybody uses this tactic, but certain facts seem to elude our Libertarian friend. For example, he (it’s almost always a he) doesn’t seem to remember the Articles of Confederation the Constitution replaced. Go read that document, then read any Libertarian manifesto and see if it includes most of the stuff we ditched to create the Constitution. Yeah, there’s a reason we ditched that stuff and started over. Even the Confederate States of America’s Constitution had a stronger federal government. “Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman once said…”
Hey, do you want to know what every other Nobel Prize-winning economist says?
“You may not know about him because the mainstream media refuses to respect his campaign.”
This will come up every time, without fail. No argument is more stale (or more effective at generating more coverage) than “the media hates us so we don’t get covered” routine.
“But he’s actually the most respected candidate in the field. He won a random straw poll in Iowa and any time there has been online voting, he has won that poll too.”
If the Republican primary were an American Idol contest, Ron Paul would definitely win, but he’d be the Taylor Hicks of the Presidency, the “oh, that was all kind of silly, wasn’t it?” winner who couldn’t fade into awkward obscurity fast enough for us. Now that I think about it, that describes the majority of American Idol winners, but you get my point. “Even the liberal John Stewart admitted that the media had ignored his campaign.”
Ah yes, the “even that scumbag had something indirectly positive about Ron Paul, which means he has everybody’s respect” clause. Yes, Stewart did point out on his show, as studies have shown, that Paul doesn’t receive as much coverage as the other candidates.They’re probably right in their conclusion, but those other candidates generally aren’t referred to as “the Al Sharpton of the Republican party” and they actually poll well in legitimate polls from Gallup and the like.
Paul currently sits at 11% of the ballot support, just two points of Rudy Giuliani. So yeah, it has nothing to do with media coverage. When was the last time Rudy even spoke in public?Plus, we went through this joke in the ‘08 primaries. He was the underdog, the guy who would surprise at the polls, etc. Then he won a whopping 8% in the New Hampshire primary, the most libertarian state in the country, finishing fifth behind Rudy Giuliani.Yes, Ron Paul, who, if you don’t count Rick Santorum or Jon Huntsman or a host of other candidates, is the most “ignored” candidate. Well, unless you count all the coverage he’s received for not receiving coverage, which is probably more news stories than he’ll receive votes in all the primaries combined.
So let’s not go through this farce again, please. Anyone has the right to express their opinion in whatever fashion they so choose, but let’s not get wrapped up in this stuff through another campaign season. At least Al Sharpton had the dignity to become a TV host.
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