I think Ron Paul needed to deal with this head on. Instead, he turtled. One combative appearance on Blitzer does not cut it. He either needed to demonstrate contrition in Michael Richards / Duane “Dog” Chapman fashion (isn’t that what Larry King is for?) or he needed to go on the offensive in a coordinated way (sure I said it so what). People are sick and tired of PCism and I think they could get behind someone who actually tells the media and the Al Sharptons of the world to stick it.

He did neither in hopes that this will go away. But it won’t go away. If he get’s anywhere near success in the polls, it will rear it’s ugly head.

I just don’t see anyone with the same name recognition or buzz, and I honestly can’t get excited about supporting another Badnarik campaign.

I guess things just have to get really bad, before the American people will listen to someone like Ron Paul. They are just too busy choosing the options on their next Lexus to understand the looming financial crisis.

It seems obvious to me that any one Libertarian is only capable of endorsing their one and only individual position in politics, and most of them would only consider voting for themselves. The majority of Libertarians are incabable of endorsing any candidate where there exists the slightest disagreement with their individual set of ideals or policies, even if there is agreement on 95% of them.

In the meantime, the collectivists and tribal-minded populus will continue to erode the right of the individual as the core underpinning of American political philosophy, with each and every election.

Tragic.

Given a finite number of candidates with the possibility to move America away from it’s own demise, I’ll still give my vote to Ron Paul long long before I would consider giving it to those who would stamp on my civil liberties and the fruits of my free action (my property), whether those candidates are cloaked as “correct thinking” Republican or Democrat.

Wayne Allyn Root

What are the other options? The country is already bankrupt – on one side we have neocon warmongers who want to accelerate this country’s demise fighting the “Forever War” on terror, on the other side we have socialized medicine! This is nothing short of mass hysteria.

What Paul has working against him is time and the ignorant masses (which you obviously qualify as a member). The naysayers are the same dumasses that bought Lucent at $100, that bought the McMansion in July 2006 with a Pay Option ARM, and (when the economy implodes) will be out in the street jobless, homeless and penniless.
Economic and Social Darwinism at its finest.

I would be more upset about his position if the Republican nominee actually had a shot at the presidency, but its pretty apparent that the Republicans are going to lose the Presidency as well as seats in the House and Senate. It looks like the Democrats time has come, and with the increased power of the Federal government and office of the Executive, the Dems should be able to leverage their reluctant but eventual tit-for-tat support of the War on Iraq into big increases in the domestic welfare state; increases in foreign intervention always lead to increases in domestic intervention.

To effectively compete after this year the Republicans must re-tool a coalition, and I want a major portion of that coalition to be a return to fiscal conservatism, limited government, and free-market economics. I think we have found out that war, big spending, and socialism are losing issues for Republican voters. And I see a much more prominant place for Paul’s positions in the Republican establishment. It would be nice if the Republicans embraced conservative values again.

Until then, there is lots of money to be made by moving jobs and capital over-seas as America socializes itself down to the level of the rest of the world. Actually, this will help dampen our international arrogance and belicosity as we errode the tools necessary to create the capital accumulation necessary to fund a massive military and an aggressive foreign policy.

my head hurts just trying to wrap around that one…neo-con corporatist, maybe, neo-con facist probably, but you’re on the wrong side of the political spectrum with neo-con communist

anyway, stick a fork in Paul. He’s done.

I admire the passion of his supporters, but you backed the wrong horse in this race. Even if he is not a racist, when you lay down with pigs you get dirty. I will let you cling to the idea that Paul is not a racist, but you have to question the man’s judgment. Allowing a racist to peddle a philosophy with your name on the label is such poor judgment that you really cannot ask people to support this guy.

Sorry, not going to happen.

“Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder, who has known Ron Paul for 20 years, unequivocally dismissed charges that the Congressman was a racist in light of recent smear attempts, and said the reason for him being attacked was that he was a threat to the establishment.”

This race is not done….

http://freeatlast2008.com/

enough to maintain competitiveness (defined as picking up enough delegates to have a resonable chance of being a kingmaker)

There is one possiblity left, and that is Feb 5th. If Dr. Paul dumps $18 million into Tsunami Tuesday advertising, he could do well enough to maintain competitiveness (defined as picking up enough delegates to

I still say that running as an established 3rd party candidate would be a very bad idea. It will be expensive and Dr. Paul will be easily marginalized. If anything, we should just go straight to the write-in option. Then he can continue to campaign without breaking his pledge of not running 3rd party.

The main criticism of 3rd party voting is the “wasted vote” argument. and it depends on the preceived position of the 3rd party in question. For example if someone wants to vote Green party, that vote is said to hurt the Democrats and favor the the Republicans, but if someone wants to vote Libertarian, then that is said to hurt Republicans and help Democrats.

This is in defiance of the actual policy preferences of the voter in question. It doesn’t matter if the Libertarian in question would actually be voting Republican in absense of a Libertarian party or not, the LP is still seen as destorying Republican voter hegemony. The moment Dr. Paul runs as a 3rd party (whichever 3rd party) Justin, and others in the blogosphere will switch to “you can’t seriously vote for Dr. Paul, that would just be handing the election to Hillary… blah blah blah.”

In short, Dr. Paul should stay in the GOP and try to bring his followers along with him. Then next cycle we can try to find someone to carry on the legacy.

Later.

http://canyouspeakthis.wordpress.com/2008/01/13/naacp-president-ron-paul-is-not-a-racist/

It’s clear to me that this racist stuff is all a bunch of unfortunate bull. It’s unfortunate that Dr. Paul ever let any racists write a newsletter for him, but he himself being a racist is bull.

This and other evidence points to the fact that Ron Paul is not racist. However, he let this get out of hand. The person who wrote this needs to own up and clear Ron Paul and make it clear that the content was his and had nothing to do with Ron Paul, and that he was using Ron Paul’s name to get the author’s ideas published.

Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder, who has known Ron Paul for 20 years, unequivocally dismissed charges that the Congressman was a racist in light of recent smear attempts, and said the reason for him being attacked was that he was a threat to the establishment.

Linder joined Alex Jones for two segments on his KLBJ Sunday show this evening, during which he commented on the controversy created by media hit pieces that attempted to tarnish Paul as a racist by making him culpable for decades old newsletter articles written by other people.

“Knowing Ron Paul’s intent, I think he is trying to improve this country but I think also, when you talk about the Constitution and you constantly criticize the federal government versus state I think a lot of folks are going to misconstrue that….so I think it’s very easy for folks who want to to take his position out of context and that’s what I’m hearing,” said Linder.

“Knowing Ron Paul and having talked to him, I think he’s a very fair guy I just think that a lot of folks do not understand the Libertarian platform,” he added.

Asked directly if Ron Paul was a racist, Linder responded “No I don’t,” adding that he had heard Ron Paul speak out about police repression of black communities and mandatory minimum sentences on many occasions.

Dr. Paul has also publicly praised Martin Luther King as his hero on many occasions spanning back 20 years.

“I’ve read Ron Paul’s whole philosophy, I also understand what he’s saying from a political standpoint and why people are attacking him,” said Linder.

“If you scare the folks that have the money, they’re going to attack you and they’re going to take it out of context,” he added.

“What he’s saying is really really threatening the powers that be and that’s what they fear,” concluded the NAACP President.

Consider the fact that he has more votes than both Giuliani and Fred Thompson so far. Any finish above last is a victory for Paul. He’s only “2%” according to the MSM, remember? Also remember that only two states have voted so far. We got a long way to go, and Paul has the cash & support to go beyond Super Tuesday, if the Money Bomb doesn’t work out he’s qualified for matching funds while candidates such as McCain and Giuliani are going broke. And yes, he’s in the unique position to run as an independent but I would rather see him fight for the GOP nomination & return the GOP back to its traditional roots.

The other GOP candidates are bashing each other over minutia conservative details (that’s really nothing more than keeping the quasi-socialist status-quo going). This is a marathon, not a sprint, and Paul is sitting back letting these candidates fight to the death and he’ll smell like roses. The GOP convention is going to be brokered anyways, so if Paul doesn’t win, he’ll have delegates to move the debate.

Paul’s not out of this by a long-shot. His support is strong in Michigan and Nevada and even in South Carolina. The posters at FreeRepublic are freaking out over the possibility of McCain, Huckabee, or Giuliani getting the nomination. The GOP nomination is completely up for grabs.

It’s difficult, and depressing.

But sticking with Ron Paul is toxic, precisely because of his visibility and the money he’s raised. They amplify libertarianism’s new race problem — which is precisely that Paul’s racist supporters are rushing to his defense (”those newsletters aren’t racist, they’re the TRUTH!”) and those outside the movement can’t distinguish them from people with an actual ideological commitment to libertarianism.

What’s really depressing: The failure to distinguish today may harden into an inability to shake off the racists tomorrow. And that does not bode well for attracting “South Park libertarians” or other nonfringe constituencies into the movement.

It’s the only reason I can come up with as to why FOXNews paid their handpicked focus group at the last debate to all say Thompson was the winner.

Too early to talk about a third party.

“So What’s Next For Ron Paul?” – jg

Wrong Question.

While I agree that Ron Paul is done, I am going to hang with him through Super Tuesday, so I can vote for him in the California primary. The way the CA GOP primary works, I’m guessing it would only take about 7,000 Republican votes to get Paul 3 CA delegates to the convention from my district (San Francisco district 8 – Pelosi’s district – very heavy Democratic).

It makes no sense to suggest that going Independent would do anything to rehabilitate his campaign from the problems you identify – the Newsletters or underacheiving in N.H. Exactly how does an Independent campaign change that dynamic?

The more interesting question, is what happens to the “libertarian swing vote” that has coalesced around Ron Paul? It’s not big enough to do anything except be a spoiler as a 3rd party. However, it is big enough to put any of the major candidates over the top. It might be big enough to jump start a Bloomberg campaign. The interesting question is this: When will we see other candidates make a play for this passionate, principled, politically active, internet savvy constituency? Of course, the only thing that can pull this factions support, or even Paul’s support, is support for the freedom agenda. Nobody will adopt it as fervently as Paul, of course, but politicians are willing to offer policy compromise and political pandering for interest groups that are not as large. Why not the libertarians?