The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
Better late than never, I just listed to last week's free podcast, which included a fair amount of spitballing and prognosticating about the 2012 GOP Presidential primary. I know we all wonder if there's a worthwhile candidate in the bushel. Someone, perhaps, who:
1) Can attract Tea Party support without alienating independents.
2) Is experienced in public policy.
3) Has proven he or she can build a national election infrastructure.
4) Knows how to raise bucketloads of cash.
5) Is in tune with the economics issues around which the 2012 presidential election will center.
6) Is a strong, consistent Constitutionalist.
Well, there is such a candidate. But even though this race is as wide open as as the sky in Nebraska, his candidacy is summarily rejected out of hand on a podcast filled with personalities who's opinions I otherwise rank so highly.
Why do you all think Ron Paul's candidacy is rejected so summarily? Please, I am not necessarily inviting a debate regarding his merits as a candidate or his positions.
My question is different: Why, given all of the above points, is his candidacy treated with such casual contempt while, simultaneously, the candidacy of Mitch Daniels is considered to be so obviously with merit? What has Daniels done outside of Indiana? What is his name recognition? What money has he raised? Do the grassroots activists give one hoot about him at all?
Don't get me wrong. I understand what Daniels brings to the table. I also understand Paul's political faults. But, for now, Ron Paul polls just as well as anyone else in an open field, and has a great infrastructure. Why isn't Ron Paul even invited to the same dinner as a complete non-entity as, say, Hunstman?
- Comment (76)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (7)
Comments:
Dec '10
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
Hi Karl. Thank you for the great post.
The day I first became aware of Ron Paul, was early in the mid 2000's. Unfortunately, I became aware of Rep. Paul through one of his more..zealous..supporters. In my humble opinion, I feel that the rabid nature of some of his supporters is a turn off.
Judging from what you've mentioned, my previously held idea of Rep. Paul as an open borders guy is slightly off. This is good news.
I've found myself being drawn more and more to Rep. Paul recently. I still wouldn't call myself a supporter, but I'm leaning that way. The foreign policy issue is the deciding factor here. Socially, I picture him leaving most matters to the states.
Karl, if you would, can you give me an idea of what US foreign policy would look like under a Paul Presidency?
Edited on May 18, 2011 at 3:52pmOct '10
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
May '10
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
Everyone's hit on most of the key points with Paul. However, one other thing that bothered me about his candidacy the last time around was the weird personality cult that surrounded him. I can understand his core supporters, but there were lots of people, particularly college students, who pursued a weird obsession about him despite seemingly none of them understanding his economic policy (his most laudable position). Most of these people then turned around and voted for Obama in the general.
Case in point:
skipsul: My in-laws are socialists,
They would never vote for any Republican candidate out there now...
Except Ron Paul.
These aren't people I necessarily feel comfortable associating with, and have to wonder about the degree to which Paul's campaign deliberately encouraged their support.
That said, at least Paul's collection of...ahem...free spirits, was better than the brainless, Leninist personality cult that Obama surrounded himself with.
Edited on May 18, 2011 at 4:51pmDec '10
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
Mark Belling Fan
Ron Paul wanted us to consult Pakistan before hand. His criticism is that we went in there unannounced and without permission. I am not aware that John Yoo has made similar criticisms....
What does "active support" [from the men and women in the military] mean?
Using words like "adventurist"...to describe American foreign policy is not a way to convince people to come to your side.
Re. Yoo, I was referring to Paul's assertion that we should have treated OBL like the Nazis at Nuremberg. More broadly, Paul has always been in favor of capturing OBL, and because of that was, in fact, tentatively in favor of military intervention in Afghanistan. Specifically to capture and punish OBL. Pakistan is a little trickier, but the policy he is advocating is pretty much the same as that of the Bush administration.
Did not mean for 'adventurist' to sound smug. Shows I have my own issues of tone! But Paul is not an isolationist. He is a non-interventionist, when possible. The language to describe this position does not have agreed-upon parameters.
Re. support within military, see:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/military-donors.html
Jun '10
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
Kofola: The cult people you are talking about are Libertarians (party, that is) and Ayn Randians (he named his son Rand don't forget). This should clue you in as to what's going on here.
We must never forget that this particular brand of intellectual would drop anyone immediately as soon as they got elected and made his first or second decision. 50% would drop away with the first decision and the remainder very quickly after that.
A lot of them would drop away as soon as he won the nomination and selected his VP running mate.
We've all thought about the hilarity of "herding cats" -- well, this is what it would be like for Paul in dealing with his "base".
May '10
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
The main reason Senator Obama won the election is that he had a strong stylistic advantage that masked his substantive faults. Rep. Paul has the opposite problem--his stylistic faults are so bad they mask what substantive strengths he does have.
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
Wrong. He named his son Randall. Randall's wife began calling him Rand and the name ended up sticking.
Jun '10
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
Wrong. He named his son Randall. Randall's wife began calling him Rand and the name ended up sticking. · May 18 at 8:16am
Oops -- sorry. But, I assume you agree with the rest of my trenchant analysis of these kooks.
Apr '11
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
Paul can't get the nomination because, for good or ill, we have a two-party system and he doesn't fit within that system. He will always appeal to some Democrats because of his Libertarianism on social issues and his dovishness on foreign policy, but he'll scare a large majority of them away with his desire to dismantle the federal government as we know it. He will always appeal to some Republicans because of the latter but scare a large majority of them away with the two former. Only if the Republican-Democratic system was destroyed and we had a pre-Civil-War-like reshuffling of political parties, with Libertarians emerging as one of the two major parties, would he stand any chance. And I don't see that happening. Nor would I want it to. I'll far sooner vote for Romney or one of the other currently-despised candidates on the right than for Paul. Let's stick with the three-legged stool that's made us strong in the past. The problem is finding the candidate who is really, genuinely committed to all three.
Mar '11
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
I agree with Kofola. Paul's followers remind me a little too much of Obama's followers in 2008. But, I would add that I do think younger Paul followers are brainless. They talk a lot about the Constitution but you'll labor to find one who has read it.
Ron Paul is nothing but a career politician. He's been a congressman since the 90's and first held office in the 70's. It seems funny to me that a bunch of people who dislike most of what the Fed Gov does, keep voting for a guy who has desired to be in it since the 70's, especially since he has not changed the direction of the Fed Gov. His ideas have not rubbed off on to any of the other Senators and Reps in all that time. Isn't it time for someone else to be in that district? Isn't it time for someone else to take the head libertarian position in this country? Or, just possibly, could it be Ron Paul likes all the attention just a little too much? I think so. And those kinds of politicians, no matter their ideology, bother me.
Mar '11
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
Case in point:
skipsul: My in-laws are socialists,
They would never vote for any Republican candidate out there now...
Except Ron Paul.
These aren't people I necessarily feel comfortable associating with, and have to wonder about the degree to which Paul's campaign deliberately encouraged their support.
Edited on May 18 at 07:51 am
I gotta admit too that their support for Paul is makes me wonder...
Their own attraction to him is his isolationism and his anti-corporativist rhetoric (which they take to mean anti-capitalism). We all agree he'd at least take a whack at dealing with the errant Fed.
I always check for flying bacon products when I agree with my inlaws on anything political, hence my skepticism for Ron Paul.
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
Larry Koler
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
Wrong. He named his son Randall. Randall's wife began calling him Rand and the name ended up sticking. · May 18 at 8:16am
Oops -- sorry. But, I assume you agree with the rest of my trenchant analysis of these kooks. · May 18 at 8:22am
Well, I'm one of those people that finds most political fanatics annoying. Paul's fans are no exception ...
May '10
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
Kenneth
He's not taken seriously because most people do not understand libertarianism. Understanding true libertarianism is beyond the intellectual capacity of most Americans - even the pundit class. So instead of understanding, they parody: Oh, he's an isolationist; he wants to legalize drugs; he's a gold bug.
He's not taken seriously because he is an isolationist.
And no matter what we may feel like here, unless someone is ready to launch an extra-constitutional coup, we still have to win elections in the US to run the government, that requires winning votes, and that particularly means the votes in the middle.
I agree that Anthony Kennedy is often a less-than-principled goofball, and that it would be great if Roberts didn't have to tailor opinions to win his often capricious vote. I agree that many aspects of the economy would be better if libertarians were given the opportunity to excise the nanny state.
But unless the Republicans nominate an "impure" candidate, we will lose the necessary and winnable 10% of the electorate right in the middle. Ron Paul can't even win the 10% of the middle of the Republican party.
Edited on May 18, 2011 at 5:56pmAug '10
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
I consider his foreign policy views to be naive and unrealistic.
Aug '10
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
Here is the simple reason why: Americans, Democrat or Republican, have no real interest in liberty. What Paul advocates is a Jeffersonian Republican view that at its heart requires self-lessness, self-control, and self-denial. Quite frankly, I don't see much of that in the American psyche any more.
Dec '10
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
I am NOT saying anyone here is necessarily saying this, but I find the foreign policy views of people that think we can create liberal western democratic allies out of medieval religious fanatics to be naive and unrealistic. Potato, po-tah-to, I guess.
Dec '10
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
Captain! We've just detected a Ronulan vessel crossing into the neutral zone!
Just about the only thing I agree with Ron Paul on is his extreme dislike of the Fed and their monetary policies.
On everything else, he's pretty useless, IMO.
I am a big fan of Ayn Rand, and I have serious problems with Ron Paul and the big L Libertarians.
The three groups are NOT interchangeable. Ronulans != Libertarians != Objectivists
Membership in any of the above groups does not automatically mean you're a kook either, but if you swallow any of those philosophies whole and without question or quibble, you are.
Objectivists, Libertarians, and even the Ronulans have something useful to bring to the table, you just have to sort it out from the noise.
How seriously I take these groups is directly proportional to their individual signal to noise ratios.
May '10
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
Straw man extremism, Karl. You are better than that.
There was also a whole large set of Cold War choices in between Robert Taft and Curtis LeMay.
Dec '10
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
I just realized, btw, that I did not take my own advice about sticking to my real question, which is why Ron Paul, specifically, is deemed beyond the pale by so many mainstream thinker. Mea culpa. Seriously.
CoolHand:
The three groups are NOT interchangeable. Ronulans != Libertarians != Objectivists.
But, sir, Ron Paul is running in the Republican primary. He is, therefore, a Republican.
And, for the record, I am not an objectivist. Nor am I a Libertarian. But I am taking a serious look at Ron Paul in this primary. So are lots of other regular old Republicans.
You have just done, see, exactly what I'm asking about. Your answer to why he is rejected out of hand is "Because I name him thusly, and hence reject him out of hand." And if you peruse his policy statements I guarantee you will find things on which you agree beyond his position on the Fed.
Apr '11
Re: The Candidate Who Shall Not Be Named On Ricochet
perhaps because he is a kook....he wants to legalize heroin,believes in essence we should withdraw from the world,abolish the federal reserve...doesnt think we should have killed bin laden and has a legion of followers who are blatantly anti-semitic....pass thanks!