Posted on 02/21/2008 6:18:29 PM PST by markomalley
On a couple of other boards, I have heard the allegation that "Ron Paul is the Military's Candidate." I always figured it to be your typical overblown hyperbole...
So I decided to research the numbers, in order to blow away the conspiracy theory. There's no way that he could be the leading candidate for military contributors...right?
Well, I went to the FEC Contributions Database that is maintained by opensecrets.org...the numbers I came up with were both surprising and very, very disturbing.
First of all, the methodology:
What I found was that the Paul folks were right! Both the number of individual contributions (372) and the amount contributed ($167K), far outstripped the other candidates checked. In comparison, McCain only had 110 contributions for $50K.
The disturbing part of this was that the runner up to Ron Paul wasn't McCain, it was Obama (172 contributions for $77K)! That was a shock!
For a short period of time the Military for Ron Paul had Jesse McBeth listed as one of his supporters. I couldn’t stand it and asked for them to take him off of the list.
You're actually trying to tell me what people I talk to have said!? You RuPaul kooks really are delirious.
From everything I've seen IRL and on lots of different websites, the only people who constantly call him that are the most gung-ho pro-Iraq war neoconservatives. Most other people like and respect him even if they disagree with his politics.
I wasn’t talking about IRL or any websites you may have visited. And I'm neither "the most gung-ho pro-Iraq war" nor am I a “neoconservative”. I just recognize a kook when I hear one and RuPaul is definitely a kook.
No one on this thread can present evidence corroborating that actual active military support Ron Paul more than any other candidate or even at all.
No one on this thread can provide corroborating evidence that each of the 372 persons listed on the FEC website are ringers.
Each name on that list, for all we know, could go either way from a purely practical perspective.
So the question is: are the troops motivated to support a candidate who says that their mission is a lie, that they are dupes, and that they are incapable of accomplishing their mission?
Or are they likely to reject such a candidate?
“Because anyone with a shred of military education knows this war cannot possibly be won with the strategy this administration is pursuing?”
Sheesh, you are all killing me.... As a vet, twice deployed to Iraq, going back again soon, I will say I know exactly one person for Ron Paul out of maybe 40 folks in our squadron that talk about politics.
Second, our current counter-insurgency efforts are going quite nicely, thank you. Yes, every loss is tragic, and I’ve been to too many memorials and funerals. But guess what folks, people die in war. As they do in training, as one of my brother officers near my base unfortunately found out yesterday at Eglin. Please study some military history before armchair qb’ing “counter insurgency strategy”. I’d recommend studying the British counter insurgency ops in Malaysia (which quite a bit of our current strategy is based on) and Russia operations in Afghanistan. Its long, bloody, hardest on civilians and takes about 8 years to win, and about 15 years to lose (reference Vietnam). Oh yeah, you have to control the borders (Iran/Syria) and get the population on your side, of which we are finally managing to accomplish both.
“....you may have an opinion, but no matter how loud you shout it, it may not have any merit nor be based on knowledge or facts”
-2001, viper dude
No one on this thread can provide corroborating evidence that each of the 372 persons listed on the FEC website are ringers.
You nailed it...
You cannot possibly have spoken to everyone in this country (you didn't speak to me) nor does everyone in this country share the same opinion on anything. If you think you can know what "the shared opinion is across the country" on anything I'd say you had delusions of grandeur.
Yep, he’s a little kooky, but him, Hunter, Tancredo, & Thopmson were the only ones who were advocating smaller, constitutional government. Republicans (not very long ago) rejected nation building outright. Republicans have already lost congress because of nation building, they will lose MORE seats in congress this year because of nation building and there is a pretty good chance if Obama does win the Dem nom that Republicans lose the presidency—all because of nation building. Republicans threw away ALL of it’s agenda for Iraq. People I know in the military (all officers but 1) were not happy with the way Iraq was run from 2003 till last year. If Iraq had been managed properly it wouldn’t matter. Bush Administration said Iraq would cost around $50 billion. Turns out they were about 1/20th the real cost. We also lost out on making the tax cuts perminent, real border control, social security privatization, education vouchers, and a general reduction of the size and scope of government—and for what? What have we gained by Iraq exactly (assuming we do end up winning there)? If we lose there, it’s likely we are the likely cause of complete distabilization in the middle east.
Yes, and also I think people realize that if our constitution and cherished liberties and rights are being trashed back home, and we have open borders and globalist policies that our destroying our sovereignty, which eventually means the destruction of our country... in light of that, what are our brave men and women dying for?
You Rupaul kooks are really desperate tonight.
Considering how much I travel and how many people I have spoken with "all across this country" I think I can safely and accurately say there are many people "all across this country" who think RuPaul is a kook. And they are right.
You didn't say "people I talk to"... You said "that's a shared opinion across the country." You were speaking for the whole country, that's what I said was a lie.
It's amazing how low this board has sunk. It wasn't long ago that people that did nothing but ad hominem attacks and 'personal' evidence were laughed off or banned. For every 50 anti-Paul posts, you MAY see one that has any factual information in it.
Not their burden. YOU challenged the O.P., YOU supply contrary evidence.
No one on this thread can provide corroborating evidence that each of the 372 persons listed on the FEC website are ringers.
Each name on that list, for all we know, could go either way from a purely practical perspective.
Which is an admission that you have no proof, and no basis to challenge the sample.
So the question is: are the troops motivated to support a candidate who says that their mission is a lie, that they are dupes, and that they are incapable of accomplishing their mission?
Paul has never claimed that the Military is a bunch of 'dupes', you made that up...as usual.
The mission is in fact a lie. There were no WMD's.
More people than Ron Paul are saying that the present mission of the military in Iraq is not possible. Many of them are retired military. i strongly agree with that assessment. The US Military is for the purpose of nation breaking, (which they do quite well, better than anyone else), not nation building, and certainly not for introducing 'democracy' (whatever that means) to a culture that wants nothing to do with it.
All the more reason not to pull out in defeat as kook RuPaul has stated he wants to do.
Clear enough for ya?
That Paulista didn’t last very long, did he? We still have some left, though, and they’re just as crazy as he was.
I won't disagree with that, and my officer friends in the military say the same thing--however they also are quick to state that (off the record) we probably should have never gone and that it was badly handled by the administration till Patreaus came on board (btw--they told me this BEFORE the gains in Iraq were very evident when the MSM and Hitler were still slamming him). The fact remains though that Nation building has never been a conservative trait nor has this global government going back to the 1800s, the beginning of the 1900s, the middle of the century and again when Bush was running for office in 2000 (he was the anti-war candidate in 2000 by the way, and Gore was the nation builder).
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