Posted on 05/13/2011 8:04:10 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Go ahead. Act surprised:
It’s official: Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, will seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, he announced Friday on Good Morning America.
“At this moment I am officially announcing that I am a candidate for president in the Republican primary,” Paul said. “Time has come around to the point where the people are agreeing with much of what I’ve been saying for 30 years, so I think the time is right.”
Paul, a mouthpiece for all things small-government, has made the presidential leap of faith twice before: In 1988, as the Libertarian Party nominee, and in 2008, as a dark horse Republican with incomparable niche appeal and formidable fundraising prowess.
Hey, it’s the first time that I can recall that someone announced their bid the day after they effectively killed it. Insisting that he would have asked the same Pakistani government that won’t cut ties with Mullah Omar and the terrorist network that conducted the Mumbai massacre to, pretty please, arrest Osama bin Laden reduced Paul’s level of seriousness as a candidate to, er, the same level it’s always been. Only the true believers will support that kind of befuddled thinking in a Commander in Chief, and even some of those might have second thoughts — although not in the comments section to this post, I’ll boldly predict.
The former record, by the way, was held by Joe Biden, who managed to wait for a few minutes after the announcement to kill his candidacy in 2007.
But even putting that aside, and putting aside the issue of his flirtations with white supremacists and anti-Semites for almost two decades in his subscription newsletter (and a donation scandal in 2007, too), why would anyone take him seriously anyway? MSNBC calls him the “the Tea Party godfather,” which is ludicrous. Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin did far more for the Tea Party than Paul ever did, and Bachmann is also exploring a Presidential bid. Paul is a crank that routinely ends up on the wrong end of lopsided votes and has had zero success building coalitions in Congress. And let’s not forget that the last time America elected a President from the House of Representatives was over 130 years ago, and that in his mid-70s, Paul would be the oldest major-party candidate if he somehow managed to win the primary.
And wouldn’t that campaign look glorious indeed? The DNC would have a field day running quotes from Paul’s past newsletter gems in a campaign against the nation’s first African-American President.
So, go ahead and act surprised — and then have yourself a good laugh.
Update: Changed “Congress” to “the House of Representatives” for better clarity.
You Paultards belong on a cuckoo-libertarian site, not one for conservativea.
I want a unicorn, for real this time.
Err, yes what will? Spamming that picture is utterly meaningless and is obviously not evidence of Reagan endorsing Paul or anything he stands for. It's just an autograph. Half the Democrats in Congress at that time probably have one just like it.
Spamming garbage on forums is typical paulbot behavior though, so I guess I am not surprised.
They really don’t get it. It is Paul’s supporters antics who do more harm than even Paul himself. If it weren’t for their spam monkey antics, Paul would just be another old RINO. Instead, because of their cult devotion to him, he has become a joke on most forums.
I have a friend who is an editor at a major technology and culture magazine who says they absolutely refuse to say anything about Paul after they made one neutral article in the last election about how he uses the internet. They were so spammed and annoyed by Paultards, they decided they didn’t have the staffing or the time to deal with them.
And the GOP lands its first nutcase for 2012.
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"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. -- January 27, 1838 - Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois
It has been the Globalists in our midst that have empowered and enriched the Arabs and the Red Chinese while have putting the US on the road to ruin. The Arabs and Red Chinese would be nothing without the huge transfers of wealth from the West.
Pictured: Globalists that have run the country for the past 30 years - right into the ground
That quote is from Lincoln for those that do not know. Where is the edit button?
No, you seem to think it is important which is why your spamming these pics on forums. These photos are utterly meaningless. Collecting photos and autographs of politicians is just par for the course inside the beltway and elsewhere. It doesn't mean they support you. Half my clients have their offices full of such pictures. Again, half the Democrats in Congress when Reagan was President probably have several pictures with autographs of Reagan - and probably almost all the Republicans. Take a camera whore like Dem Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and she probably has hundreds of these sorts of photos/autographs of every important person she can find.
Unfortunately, you seem to be the typical, annoying paulbot forum spammer. Just know that most forum administrators detest paultards. Even gaming and weather forums I belong to have to ban paulbots on sight because they post nonsensical garbage and pure spam.
Sorry, Ron, you are No Ron Reagan! (Maybe Ron, Jr.)
I’m just adding my Ron Paul pics to existing Ron Paul threads. Real pics, not photoshopped creativity. And posting Ron Paul pics on Ron Paul threads that I didn’t start is exactly what is appropriate.
It’s nice to see how worked up the antiPauls are by the 2 Rons pics.
When you say antiPauls, you mean the vast majority of actual conservatives in the Republican party right?
Why isn't your guy running as a Libertarian? He is not a conservative and really has no business running in the Republican party anyway. Since he isn't going to win the GOP nomination, and his fanclub is more likely to vote Libertarian or Democrat rather than the eventual Republican nominee, what good does he do conservatives in the Republican party? Isn't he just using the GOP as a vehicle to run his perpetual presidential campaign? Can you see where that along with his paulbots spamming forums of all kinds can get tiresome to actual conservatives?
By antiPauls, I mean the people who feel the need to attack him on these threads.
You might be right about Ron II’s popularity, but most freepers don’t care enough either way to post on threads.
Many Republicans do, still, think it’s “Conservative” to do exactly what the Democrats do foreign policy wise.
Expensive Foreign Adventure has always been the Democrats thing. We’re building roads in Afghanistan. It could be great public policy. But it isn’t Conservative.
Conservative - less Federal Government
Liberal - more Federal Government
And Ron Paul wants the least Federal Government. Every year, even when we had the Most Conservative President of the modern era, government grew. Back in 1976, and 1980, and now, what the Conservatives want is a much smaller Federal Government, limited by the Constitution.
Now, I would argue that if the #1 issue for a Conservative is to make the Federal Government much smaller and limit it to bounds set by the Constitution, then Ron Paul is the clear choice.
But if the above is just one of many issues, if continuing to spend a lot of money in the middle east is also a priority, or any number of big government things that “Conservatives” also like, than Ron Paul would not be the guy.
And I really don’t know exactly where most freepers stand right now, where most Conservatives stand, most Republicans, most Voters.
I noticed that the tea party does not agree with RINOs, and it sounds a lot more like Ron Paul than it does Mitt Romney.
Conservatives are not libertarians. There are many conservatives with libertarian streaks (myself included), but at the end of the day conservatism is just not the same thing as libertarianism.
Conservatives are not, by and large, black and white on everything the way a libertarian tends to be. Smaller federal government? Yes, absolutely, but libertarians tend to take this stuff 8 steps further and want to do away with things like zoning laws (just an example). Fighting Islamic terrorism is something most conservative think is important, and fighting wars over it worthwhile. Less foreign involvement where possible? Sure. But isolationist foreign and defense policy is folly and not what most conservatives believe in. This is the kind of black and white thinking that causes Ron Paul to oppose going in and killing Bin laden. This is the kind of Paul lunacy that draws truthers and peacniks to his cause. Common sense conservatives understand that wherever we withdraw in the world something will fill that vacuum - and very often the risks are just too great. The world has changed, globalized, you just can't isolate yourself anymore.
Conservatives are also pro family. We do not support abortion. We do not support gay marriage. We do not say "anything goes".
The list goes on and on, but the fact of the matter is conservatives are simply not libertarians. Where Paul can be incredibly right on some economic issues, he is so insanely wrong on others that most conservatives could simply never vote for him. If Paul style libertarianism took over the Republican party, I suspect most conservatives would leave it.
And lastly, I think we both know that most paulfans are probably not going to vote for the eventual GOP nominee (and it won't be Paul). He was just on the tube right now saying he has to run in the 2 party system but encourages people to vote for 3rd party's. His most devoted followers are college kids, people who want dope legalized, peaceniks and sadly, truthers. These people are not even Republicans and won't stick with the Republican nominee. I suspect that given the choice between the GOP nominee and the Democratic nominee, most paulfans would either vote 3rd party or vote Dem. Paul really doesn't even belong in the Republican party but he has openly admitted he couldn't win elections without using the Republican party to do so.
Ron Paul isn’t a Libertarian.
Ron Paul believes in a much smaller Federal Government, constrained by the Constitution.
Limited Constitutional Government.
Same as tea party basically.
I’m not a libertarian, neither is Ron Paul, and neither I nor Ron Paul wants to defend all the excesses of libertarianism.
The focus is on the FEDERAL Government. There is a belief that the FEDERAL Government does a lot of things that the Constitution does not allow them to do.
Ron Paul wants the FEDERAL Government to stop doing those things.
It’s what Ron Paul has been saying consistently for 30+ years, and it has always sounded like the tea party sounds today.
Paul who? Last name?
“Only the true believers will support that kind of befuddled thinking in a Commander in Chief, and even some of those might have second thoughts — although not in the comments section to this post, I’ll boldly predict.”
I’ll prove your prediction wrong. I voted for Ron in 2008, and I donated my time and money to get Rand elected to the Senate in 2010. I was planning on supporting Ron again, but I simply can’t vote for him now after he said this. He seems to be pulling a Barry Goldwater in his later years, and I simply can’t support somebody who doesn’t believe that we should defend our country. To say that we shouldn’t have killed Bin Laden is utterly ridiculous. I’m supporting Michele Bachmann in 2012 instead.
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