Ron Paul would have been laughed off the stage during the first debate. And imagine someone to the left of Obama on foreign policy.
Paul couldn’t win a state-wide election, let alone a national one.
Who would have been doing the laughing though? I've seen more here on FR deriding him [undeservedly] than I have elsewhere.
And imagine someone to the left of Obama on foreign policy.
Even so; why do you think the Congress is involved in Cabinet approvals? To act as a moderating influence against radicalism. (But he's right that we simply cannot afford to be "Team America, World Police".)
Paul couldn’t win a state-wide election, let alone a national one.
Apparently "ABO" really doesn't mean 'Anybody But Obama; I never swallowed that thinking (after 2008 I said I'd not vote for someone simply because "he's not the other guy") and it became clear talking to those who spouted it off that thy really meant something different: what they meant was "vote for the candidate we want you to vote for because he's not Obama."
It’s a myth that anything short of the U.S. as global cops is “to the left of Obama.” The Warfare State has only been associated with Republicans and therefore conservatives since the New Left pushed what came to be called neo-cons our way. Before that Democrats were the militarists. Our party started foreign adventurism in the Gay 90s, granted, but then again there was no modern conservative movement back when.
When I said only since the New Left, of course one of the three legs of the post-WWII conservative movement was anti-communism (the other two were, for lack of better terms, libertarianism—think Hayek—and traditionalism—think Kirk) and among anti-communists were hawks. But they were not all, and not all of them were foreign adventurists.