Posted on 06/22/2011 8:54:29 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
Ron Paul won the debate — and I don't necessarily mean the presidential debate that took place last week, but the most important debate now taking place in the Republican Party. Those who gave former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann high marks for their debate performances are not wrong. Both candidates exhibited that presidential "style" that is worth so much to pundits and voters. But what about substance? Who best represents the GOP's current philosophy?
At the second debate of the 2008 Republican presidential primaries, Fox News' Carl Cameron posed the following question to candidate Paul: "Congressman Paul, yet another question about electability: Do you have any?" The audience laughed, as did the other candidates. But Cameron's condescending question did contain a valid point: What place was there in the 2008 GOP for a limited-government, antiwar Republican?
The GOP's eventual nominee John McCain had many problems with the conservative base in the last election, not the least of which was his big government record. In McCain's defense, the senator's routine statism wasn't that much different than that of President Bush. Luckily for McCain, the party agreed and rallied around his "Country First" platform of "100 years" in Iraq and certain war with Iran.
Try to imagine if McCain was running today. It's now become a conservative consensus that the U.S. intervention in Libya is a bad idea. Candidate Newt Gingrich, a Bush Republican at heart yet deft enough to adapt, was for the Libyan war before he was against it. Populist candidate Herman Cain gave a list of reasons why Libya was wrongheaded. Bachmann proudly proclaimed her opposition to the Libyan intervention. And perhaps most amusing was Romney, who said that the military should not be used to fight for the independence of other nations. This was a complete reversal of his 2008 position when Romney thought that the primary purpose of the armed forces was to fight for the independence of other nations via his "No Apology" support for the Iraq War.
If the 2008 Republican primaries were based heavily on foreign policy, last week's debate did not even broach the subject until 90 minutes into the two-hour event, and there were only two questions from the audience about it. The first was from a Navy veteran with three sons currently serving overseas. The concerned father wanted to know, with Osama bin Laden now dead, when U.S. forces would be leaving Afghanistan. The other audience question came from a man who wanted to know how America could afford to have hundreds of bases all over the world considering our debt crisis.
How many GOP voters in 2008 were asking when we might be bringing the troops home? How many would have even thought to question America's global military footprint and tie it to spending? If Bush had intervened in Libya, would these Republican candidates have supported it? In the last election, would Romney have felt compelled to say that our military should be used more cautiously?
The reason foreign policy wasn't discussed for most of the debate last week is because the 2012 GOP's first concern — like much of the country — is the economy. But in 2008, Paul was warning Americans about an impending economic crisis. In fact, Paul's argument has always been that America is going bankrupt due in large part to its foreign policy. The questions at last week's debate relating to foreign policy were far more sympathetic to Paul's long-held views than those of any other Republican candidate in 2008. The fiscal concerns discussed were a lot closer to what Paul has been talking about for three decades as his fellow and supposedly more "electable" Republicans laughed at such warnings.
Like Bob Dole in 1996, Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, and McCain in 2008, most candidates are quickly forgotten not simply because they lost, but because they weren't philosophers. Their opinions change with the political wind, as evidenced by many of the candidates Monday night.
But who influences which way those winds might blow? The last real philosopher candidates to get the GOP's nod — Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan — had to change their party's philosophy before winning any nominations or presidencies. This is instructive because it reminds us that changing hearts and minds is just as important, if not more so, than winning the next election.
Whether Ron Paul gets the nomination remains to be seen. Whether he is winning the most important debate before us today does not.
fyi
I just have to take a minute and savor this mental image:
“President Ron Paul”
Thankfully it will never be any closed to reality than this.
That's the funniest thing I've read today.
Quit being a GOP Dupe. You must be able to see they are part of the problem.
I can’t wait for heroine to be legal. Oh, not that I’d all of a sudden start shooting heroine, it would just be legal.
The hooker thing is interesting, not that I’d want that either, but at least the government wouldn’t be telling I couldn’t, if I was so inclined.
I’m just not seeing the incentive. Oh hell yes, I would vote for the nut if he got the nomination. Hell, there are a lot of unsavory (not saying Ron Paul is unsavory...I’m just saying)people I vote for before I voted for Obama.
While Ron Paul’s foreign policy is to not have one, except trading with them in the hopes that they too become libertarian utopias (a reason I no longer support him), I do like that the GOP is finally leaving the democracy-by-force bandwagon. What we need is a principled, yet prudent foreign policy based off of a slightly amended form of the Monroe Doctrine that would include intervention overseas in certain scenarios, like the Cold War.
We also need to avoid intervention where we have incompatible views with those we are intervening in favor of, like the Libyan rebels. One of the worst foreign policy mistakes the United States government has ever made was making a deal with Stalin. I don’t care that both of us were fighting Hitler, you don’t make deals with devils.
Only in so much as the GOP is now aware of the Constitution and getting back to first principles, not following Paul's moonbattery. This is what happens when everyone is slapped in the face with a Statist Regime like we have now. Over half of Pauls policies are childlike Libertarian gibberish. Just today I saw him interviewed on Kudlow and he is teaming up with Barney's Frank to legalize pot. Who is for that except for the loonies and dopers?
Bush was no Conservative and moving away from his soft Progressive ideas isn't such a hard or remarkable thing.
“But who influences which way those winds might blow?”
Well, The Main-Stream Media does, of course! Silly gooses!
And if we let them have their way as they did last cycle, we’ll have another LOSER as our GOP candidate.
Let me say that again:
And if we let them have their way as they did last cycle, we’ll have another LOSER as our GOP candidate!!
*Shakes Head Walks Away*
Well, they don’t come much more unsavory than Zero...
Paul’s main problem is that some of his supporters are just nuts and make him look bad. But on the actual issues, his foreign policy views are much more traditionally conservative than any other candidate.
“Just today I saw him interviewed on Kudlow and he is teaming up with Barney’s Frank to legalize pot. Who is for that except for the loonies and dopers?”
Anybody who supports the 10th amendment and states’ rights.
Somehow, I kinda doubt that calling 9/11 America's fault would necessarily represent a traditionally conservative view.
I wouldn't bet the farm on that statement.
Just when you think it could get any worse (Jimmy Carter) it does.
Pulling our troops out of countries like Germany and Japan and putting them along our borders is a conservative position.
I sure hope people start to wake up. I am more amazed than ever at how many fall for the good cop bad cop routine. Two Parties. Zero solutions.
While I agree many Republicans these days are way too interventionist, Paul is nowhere near traditional conservatism in foreign policy. He’s a military isolationist. Ron Paul wouldn’t use the military, if one exists in his utopia, which is doubtful, until we are directly threatened. Conservatives have generally supported interposing in international affairs in certain circumstances, generally in accord with some form of the Monroe Doctrine.
True. After all, let’s not forget why Zero picked our first mentally retarded Vice-Emperor as insurance against unexpected removal from office.
Really. Putin and Kim decide to go bananas. Then what, noob?
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