Lots of people seem baffled by Ron Paul’s fundraising prowess. The answer seems obvious to me: an imploding GOP has assembled the most bizarre slate of presidential candidates in history, and Paul is the chief financial beneficiary. And he isn’t only drawing from disaffected Republicans: his base includes aggravated Republican-leaning independents, Libertarians and Larouchites, the exaggerated but nevertheless real pool of “a pox on both their houses” voters, and Democrats willing to overlook his extreme conservatism in favor of an anti-Iraq occupation message more strident than some of their own candidates can muster. Those constituencies don’t have much clout in the polls, but they can assemble some serious scratch when they’re all pulling for the same guy. Obviously.
The starting point for his success is the contrast between him and the GOP national frontrunners, who include the transparently corrupt Rudy Giuliani, historically an abortion-loving, gun-hating, gay-friendly cross dresser, and Mitt Romney, whose recent and vocal conversion to social conservatism is also belied by his record. John McCain, beloved of the press, has the opposite problem from those two: he almost invariably votes the doctrinaire Republican line but loudly opposes himself, and hence the Republican center, as he does so. Fred Thompson is clearly resentful at having to audition for a role he thinks should have been offered to him outright.
The most currently enthusiastic GOP candidate, Mike Huckabee, has the urban sophisticate wing of his party in an absolute panic. Their motto where right-wing Christians are concerned is “pander, but don’t empower.” They’re appalled by his policy naïveté and his ignorance on matters of science, qualities that they admire in GOP voters but prefer their candidates, if they possess them, to tone down. They’re afraid he’ll use the wrong fork or ask them to hold hands during the pre-meal Grace at a White House dinner for a Muslim head of state.
Paul, though, is viewed by nearly everyone as completely sincere, an impression that being the lone anti-occupation candidate among Republicans can’t help but reinforce. He’s seen by most Americans and a small but stable minority of Republicans as being right on the issue, Iraq, that Republicans use to marginalize him. And he’s clearly smarter than Huckabee.
The other Republican fringe candidates include single-issue guys such as Tom Tancredo, who, unlike Paul on Iraq, can’t really distinguish himself from the crowd. They’re all tough on illegal immigration; Tancredo is just more so. For the most part, again unlike Paul, they’ve cheerfully participated in the drunken sailor Republican spending spree of the past several years, making their claims of fiscal responsibility ring hollow.
So there’s no real mystery whence Paul’s success springs, or why it hasn’t translated into support in the polls. The more interesting question, only now beginning to pop up in the press, is what he’ll do with all that cash once the primaries are over. His campaign says he plans to stay in until the end, and they’re busy hiring new staff and buying more air time, but he won’t be burning through $20 million in the next six or eight weeks and he’ll be sitting on a pretty big pile when he finally pulls the plug.
Any thoughts? Will he attempt a third-party run, or use the money to influence the GOP platform? What do you think?
I believe that people such as Monty donot understand that we supporters are actually not cultish towards the man, Ron Paul, but are very passionate about the message that Ron Paul stands for. Monty maynot understand that his government is too controlling over the american citizens when in fact the american citizens should rightly control our government.
My greatest fear is that the actual votes will be rigged. Still not enough attention is being paid to those Diebold voting machines (friends and contributers to the Bush dy-nasty). I hope some of Ron Paul’s supporters will take it upon themselves to start looking into the problem early. Whining about it afterwards just sounds like sore losers. The two-party party is ruthless. They WILL cheat if they can.
LPM writes of “Hayek, Rothbard, and Friedman”.
It’s Hayek, Rothbard, and von Mises.
Friedman wasn’t opposed to the Fed system of counterfeiting, he just had a big opinion about how the speed of the presses should be regulated. He does not deserve to be grouped with Rothbard. They both wrote books about the Great Depression. It is fascinating to read and compare the two.
Darren, Montfort lives here–he’s a not-frequent-enough contributor to the site, which can’t be described as a Ron Paul blog even though it might seem that way at the moment. So it’s not as though he rushed here to troll, more like he walked into his living room and found a bunch of strangers rhaposodizing about someone else who doesn’t live here, and you can probably see how that would be startling. All of our work gets picked up by Google News, and hardly any of it provokes this level of response.
Kate, I can assure you absolutely that Monty understands full well the degree to which the U.S. government operates outside the consent of the governed, but he and I both differ sharply from Paul and his supporters on what the ideal would look like. Hayek, for instance, appears to us as something fairly close to the root of all current evil.
That said, I see no mystery in why people who do support a libertarian/limited government philosophy, and others who may not but are attracted to sincerity in a politician, would rally around Paul. He’s smart, he obviously is sincere, and his competition lacks credibility on a variety of fronts that in theory should be important to Republicans and other conservatives.
If one doesn’t agree with those core positions, though, supporting him makes little sense since his success would result in a government that one would also have to oppose, although for different reasons, as heartily as the current one.
As I said, though, I think it’s great that so many people have found someone they can support so enthusiastically, and I wish there were a candidate in my philosophical neck of the woods that I could wax lyrical about.
You know folks, for decades the people of this country have been at the mercy of the establishment wings of both the Republican and Democratic Parties. Each party has taken their respective turns at the leadership role of this country and yet, both parties have done little to ensure the prosperity and happiness of the people of this once-great land. They present their respective candidates who are acceptable to their agendas and they spew out the same old empty promises they always make, promises that they either can’t keep or have no intention of keeping, but it gets them votes.
For years we have allowed these entrenchment politicians to embed themselves into the flesh of this nation like parasitic ticks, sucking the life blood from this country and its people. Every four years we go through the same process and usually we are given the same old choices which are no real choices at all, this time it is different and we have the chance to make a real decisive difference in the direction this country is being led. We have the chance to elect Ron Paul in 2008.
Ron Paul is one of the most knowledgeable and level headed men I have ever met. I am constantly amazed as I read his writings listen to his speeches and watch him on interviews; he is the definition of common sense and common sense is exactly what this country needs. His knowledge of economics, of history, of the Constitution, of foreign affairs is absolutely astounding and I have yet to see another candidate even come close to his abilities or his logic. All the other candidates spout out the same ole dribble, the same recycled tripe that they have spit out for years; they act as though their party is more important than the country and their party line more important than the Law of the Land: the Constitution. It is time to put America First, to put Americans First and Defend this Land, its Sovereignty, its Law and it’s Future.
VOTE RON PAUL!!!
Senator Robert Taft of Ohio who was edged out of the GOP nomination in 1952 by Ike, was until now the last standard bearer of the Old Right, the non-interventionist, constitutionalist wing of the Republican Party that was the biggest if unremarked political casualty of the McCarthy Era and the Cold War excesses.
Congressman Paul is the 21st Century incarnation of “Mr. Republican” Bob Taft and as such inherits all the plusses and minuses of Taft’s mantle, updated for the internet age. Of course the “World Policeman” quasi-syndicalist 2007 GOP establishment leadership hates him. They hated him when he was the only Republican to vote against Reagan’s budget buster first budget — Paul said that if we Republicans were right when for forty years in the minority we opposed deficit spending on principle, the principle does not change now that we are in the driver’s seat — and the GOP leadership sent in their biggest guns to defeat and silence him after his principled stand.
His appeal extends across traditional party lines. He won re-election by a percentage in the high 60′s last time, and the time before that the Texas Democrats couldn’t even find a sacrificial lamb willing to run against him. And this from a man who DOES NOT return pork to his district.
It’s so difficult to credibly oppose an honest individual who’s not in it for power or personal gain unless you are another honest person similarly situated. I look around the GOP and Democratic candidate folds, and to their cats’-paws and see nobody similarly situated. Do you?
If RP sees he’s not winning a large enough slice of the primaries to get the nomination (and I think that’s far from certain – turnout is as important as percentage) then he will probably see the remaining time as a way to spread his ideas. He won’t quit, he’ll just finish up the hopeless run as something like a speaking-tour.
This is probably the best blog I’ve read ever. Such good input.
I liked Ron Paul before he announced his candidacy, so I was happy to see him run. Even if he doesn’t win the nomination – and he just might – he has energized an historically disenfranchised consituency, and he has turned the national conversation towards the relationship between the citizenry and its government.
It is so heartening to see the political diaspora crystalize so spontaneously … not for the man, but for the message. Bless you Ron Paul for being the face of a beautiful revolution.
Let it be said , from this time and place, Ron Paul will, may I repeat, WILL win. We have no hope if he doesn’t.
It all comes down to turn-out.
Especially if the early primaries just further muddy the waters.
It is hard to just “support” Ron Paul. To support him is to know his policy, and it is contagious like a fever.
I think he’ll get top 3 in IA/NH/SC and then bring hom ethe bacon on super-tuesday. Once we are out of the early states the rEVOLution is unstoppable.
I have the Ron Paul fever. I’m a civics cynic who hates government overreach and politics. I’m 36 and I’ve never voted in a primary and never even considered contributing to a political campaign.
Ron Paul is the one who’s getting me to do both. My main issue is war. Our invasion of random countries and murdering of innocent people is insanity, pure and simple. Beyond that, I think many people in government are stupid and can’t figure out how to fix a problem any more than I can, so I’d prefer lower taxes and being left to fend for myself.
“The Official Media Guide to Attacking Ron Paul”
http://www.libertymaven.com/2007/12/19/the-official-media-guide-to-attacking-ron-paul/
[...] « GOP freak show fuels Ron Paul fundraising blitz 20 [...]
I’m thinking he won’t “pull the plug”.
And that he’ll win the Republican nomination.
And then the presidency.
If the media wasn’t trying so hard to ignore him he would be higher than any of the current “leading” candidates in the polls. Go Ron Paul!
It will be freezing cold when it’s time for the Primaries and Super Tuesday, I know that all Ron Paul’s supporters will be the only group that won’t mind freezing to death on this day, as long as they get to vote for Ron Paul.
Scott, Paul seems to be getting plenty of press and not much poll movement. You could fairly have made that criticism for much of the campaign, but not for the past month or so.
Mitchell, not to be a wet blanket, but it’s always cold in Iowa and New Hampshire and many of the Super Tuesday states, and yet each election quite a few people go out and vote anyway. The other campaigns have get-out-the-vote operations, and some of them have plenty of money to spend on vans and buses to drive their supporters to and from the caucuses and polls. So while I will certainly not dispute that Paul supporters seem more motivated by a long shot than those of most of the other candidates, I think you’d be foolish to anticipate a complete collapse of the competition.
I believe he will get the nomination if he doesn’t the GOP will be deliberately thowing the election.
That said, back when I was researching Ron Paul’s History and record, which is impeccable, I came across something that said that after a campaign he buts the money into two places. Some goes towards his next office run and the rest goes to Charity! I cant remember the source as this was months ago but it is one of the things that give me piece of mind in donating.
All the money in the world can’t make the kooky little racists homophobic anti-choice Dr. Weirdo break double digits.
He will pour the money into other failed enterprises – like the anti-abortion ammendment – because he supports states right.
The idea that he might still break out is only from the same fringe corners or young naieve neo-political non-participants that throw their money away in support of anothger failed candidate and flawed ideology all the while pretending they aren’t voting for the GOP and more of the same.
GOP is GOP and that is the problem not the solution.
As a journalist you should know better than to watch too much TV for especially for political infomation. And you should also know about the tactics being used in the polls to marginalize candidatesn in particular Ron Paul. I say “in particular” about Ron Paul because he won the majority of the straw polls and the debates which have always been a better indicator of who gets the nod. Yet this election season we are witnessing a complete snubbing of those results. Fortunately enough of us see this, and we will show up at the voting booth to silence the critics again, in a slightly different way than the silencing that is taking place.
Scott, I haven’t watched TV for any reason other than to keep my film noir blood levels healthy in ten years. When it comes to news, I much prefer the illusion of disembodiment.