Posted on 02/22/2010 6:28:24 PM PST by presidio9
Over the weekend, Ron Paul won the CPAC straw poll for president. Many pundits immediately dismissed the win, for a lot of reasons. (The Atlantic did a roundup of all the "he's irrelevant" comments.) My take on Ron Paul is this: He says a lot of off-the-wall stuff, but his bottom line is that he's a limited-government libertarian. And he's not Mitt Romney, the establishment GOP choice. I think that's why he won.
Joe Scarborough likes to say that if you look at where Ross Perot did well in 1992, those are the same places that tea party candidates are doing well. That may be, but I think there's some overlap between Ron Paul supporters and the tea partiers, at least some of the younger ones. Ross Perot has a website, PerotCharts, that illustrates the government's fiscal responsibility; but Ron Paul supporters have an interactive site for those who want to meet up at campaign rallies (with over 100,000 people either already members or interested), and according to the timeline posted, it looks like many of them have joined in the last two years.
I came across a bit of a tea party manifesto, if you want to call it that, in Politics Daily on Sunday: "A Grassroots View of the Tea Party," written by Roy Nix, a golf pro in Florida. Here's how he describes the average tea partier:
"They don't dream of power, and they don't dream of telling their neighbors how to worship, how to spend their money, what kind of car to buy, what kind of food to eat and how to save the environment. They expect their neighbors to decide all of those things for their own families.
"They don't want big government, they don't want socialistic policies and they don't want to spend more money for things they don't need. They don't see Washington as Robin Hood, robbing the rich to help the poor, but as the Sheriff of Nottingham--taking their tax money and giving it to big business while we starve.
"They don't want to have to march in the streets, and they don't want to be 'activists' in politics because they have lives to live.
"They don't hate immigrants, but they don't like lawbreakers who come here illegally. They don't mind helping people, but they are out of money and want to help those closest to home first until their bills are paid off ...
"These lawmakers have forgotten what 'representative' means, and they end up in Washington doing what their party tells them to do, rather than what their constituents tell them to do ... And that's what's motivating so many who've joined the Tea Party movement."
Nix hits the nail on the head, in terms of the anti-Nanny State, limited government message of the tea partiers, and how all incumbents, not just Democrats, are at risk: "The Tea Party is sending a genuine grass-roots message to both Democrats and Republicans. And they'd better listen up and learn fast," he concludes. A New York Times/CBS poll from earlier this month supports this: Only 8 percent of respondents think that most incumbent members of Congress deserve to be re-elected; a whopping 81 percent said it's time to "give new people a chance." That's putting it nicely--I think if the election were held today, it would be a tidal wave against incumbents.
Ron Paul has NOT won over the Tea Party movement. That’s just stupid. CPAC is HARDLY a Tea Party entity. They are more K streat than Main street!
ROn Paul is a disaster on foreign policy and national defense and MOST of the Tea Partiers know that all too well. This is just another opportunity for the MSM to bash the Tea Party and try to tie and albatross around their necks.
It wasn’t the media that kept Ron Paul out of the presidential debates. It was other Republicans.
It’s reasonable to expect all Republicans to support the party’s eventual President candidate. But if the party keeps one candidate out of the debates, it’s likely his folks are staying home on election day.
WOW! You mean to tell me that Jefferson is where that Beck phrase came from? Amazing!!!
I have never seen anyone give a decent argument to forget all of Ron Paul’s baggage including being a truther and to vote for him.
To be up front legalizing drugs and fighting terrorism here instead of over there are not a good place to start. Also packing bills with pork that he knows will pass and then voting against them is transparent too.
Have any evidence or URLs to show he’s said these things? Thought not...
Really! I am not a Libertarian, but I’d support Ron Paul over anybody else whose name has been mentioned as a possible candidate. He’s better than Palin or Romney, IMO.
“The point it, really, that everybody is freaking out over this straw poll as if Ron Paul is already the anointed 2012 GOP candidate, and the CPAC poll only gives the winner bragging rights not necessarily some long term primary win.”
Excellent point.
Any bragging rights that Paul’s supporters may try to spin out of their CPAC win are colored by the low voter turn-out. If Paul had done as well in a higher turn-out, I might actually raise an eyebrow.
Sorry, didn’t feel like typing it out but here’s what I meant: The Fed Res prints money to loan to the gov’t (via the Treasury and/or various mechanisms; Treasuries etc.) so that there is always enough to cover the cash value of all the social programs that the dems love. BUT, the interest required to pay back the Treasuries (to China, et al) blows the debt to insane proportions and at the same time devalues the currency so all of us suffer.
So the Fed “pays” in the sense that it appears that the money comes from them, but ultimately, you’re right the taxpayers pay. I might add, though, that we not only pay, but have it taken from us by the hidden tax of inflation. So we get nailed from AT LEAST two directions!
Palin’s better than Ron Paul if she resists the media like she’s been doing. The real question is whether the media and Dems will be able to destroy her by election time.
I’m not counting her out.
Sounds to me like you are grasping for straws...but that’s OK. That’s politics for ya, I guess.
I’m beat after Pt. 1 of a two day audit at work. Ugh. G’nite everyone!
Correct. It was "Mr. REPUBLICAN", Sen. Robert Taft, that wanted the US to mind its own business & keep out of WW2 if it could. I think he had a point, but FDR was itchin' to get into the war so he could help his good buddy "Uncle Joe" Stalin.
1.4 AbortionRecognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.
Almost every libertarian I have ever known is a strict Constitutionalist (that's the whole point) and as such, believes that the Federal Government has no right to get involved in the domain of each Individual State. Abortion law concerns a murder and it is in the domain of the individual State to make law and prosecute Murder. Therefore, libertarians understand that Roe V. Wade was and is unconstitutional federal usurpation and should be repealed.
Have you ever been in one of those Libertarian platform conventions? It's pretty much of a joke (NOTA) and I wonder why you even waste your thoughts on them. You might try to find the common ground between Concervatives and libertarians and work to meld them inwith the GOP and the Parties of Tea! They really want the same but choose to travel a parallel path to the same place.
Nope. I blame Islam. You make my point by being indoctrinated about Islam and refusing to blame Islam for 9/11 attacks. I am sore at those who would make peace with Gadhafi and declare him to be a good guy all of a sudden. Most of American knows who was responsible for the PanAm attack. You just made my point by supporting Gadhafi and claiming that he is a nice guy. This is what I have been opposing. I am a paleocon, not a neocon.
Wow, do you project much.
“You make my point by being indoctrinated about Islam”
- you project that based on the factual statement I made that Al Qaeda was to blame for 9/11!?!?!?
Islam has 1 *billion* adherents. 999.999 million of those adherents were not in on the Al Qaeda conspiracy.
Go ahead and blame ‘islam’ but then what? Is your view that American should have gone to war with ALL of Islam? that would make a WWIV IMHO. Dumb.
“I am sore at those who would make peace with Gadhafi and declare him to be a good guy all of a sudden. “
Then why are you sore at “neo-cons”? they are the last people to let Gadhafi or Iran or Saudis off the hook.
But Gadhafi gave up his WMDs after he saw what happened to Saddam. And if Ron Paulites had their way, Saddam would still be comfy in power in Iraq.
Somehow the 'choice' / Govt butt out viewpoint ignores the fate of those whose rights are being violated. In the case of the unborn vs abortion, their very right to life. The LP position is a big cop-out, akin to the cop-out the Whigs had on slavery (it killed the Whig Party).
"the Federal Government has no right to get involved in the domain of each Individual State." That's NOT the issue, the issue is whether LP supports ANY protection of the unborn IN LAW. They clearly DO NOT.
"Therefore, libertarians understand that Roe V. Wade was and is unconstitutional federal usurpation and should be repealed." The GOP has the guts to put that in their platform but the LP is too gutless to say that. Hmmmm.
I don’t pretend to like Ron Paul, i think his foreign policy is a little crazy. But i think he would be useful simply because of his demonstrated commitment to small government would have him vetoing a lot! He would probably be the only president that actually wants to shut down the federal government. All he would have to do is keep vetoing the budget bills.
Bill Clinton did it during the 1990’s cause he and congress could not agree, and they played chicken until the government ran out of money.
if only we could artificially produce that think of all the money that could be saved. that being said congress’s “moderates” would simply get into the habit of overwriting Ron Pauls vetoes.
Ron Paul is a Fing moron and any of you imbeciles that support him are as well.
He wont get 1 percent of the electorate in the election.
This election is too important to vote for a clown and people know it.
That's just untrue. Reagan even stated that "the very heart and sould of conservatism is libertarianism."
He was not a libertarian, and was not a fan of the Libertarian Party, but he was not as philosophically hostile to libertarianism as you state.
I am not a libertarian, because I recognize that culture is intertwined with the understanding of our rights, so we cannot be "culture-neutral." I am, however, a small government conservative. I'm afraid that small government conservatives have been about as rare as libertarians over the past couple of decades, though. Hopefully, the tea party movement changes that.
Nothing in the piece suggests what the title infers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.