(sorry, more Ron Paul stuff)
I really want to avoid posting bi-weekly updates on Ron Paul, but some good stuff has been coming up after that George Will article. I’ll try to keep anything else that comes up commented in this post, at least for a week. :)
First, pajamas media, a neocon-oriented blog, posted a straw poll a month ago for both Democratic and Republican candidates. After four weeks, Ron Paul led with 43.4% of the vote. Giuliani came in second with 20.1%.
They didn’t like that much, so they purged Paul from the poll and got the result they wanted.
Drop them a line if you like. :)
Second, the anti-war dot com, www.antiwar.com, wrote a pretty snippy response to the Will article. Dr. Dan Phillips, from Lewrockwell.com (a primary source for all Ron Paul news), posted his own interpretation. Rojas thought that Will and Paul are kindred spirits. I’m not so sure. Anyway, Justin Raimondo at antiwar is really not so sure. Phillips offers his own take. Both worth reading, if you’re into this kind of thing.
Finally, I posted this in comments of the last Ron Paul thread, but it’s worth putting up here.
Fox has a terrific article up called “Ron Paul: The Real Republican?”
It’s an excellent piece, from Radley Balko of The Agitator. Rojas made the very good point in the last thread that the Paul candidacy may well be an acid test for the Libertarian party. Balko argues that the Ron Paul candidacy may, in fact, be an acid test for the Republicans party, depending on how they treat him. His “ideally”:
While Paul probably can’t win the GOP nomination, there’s a chance he can survive deep enough into the primaries to foster a national debate on issues like drug prohibition, as well as force the Republican Party to do some soul-searching, and perhaps reconnect with its limited government, Barry Goldwater roots.
Ideally, Paul’s bona fides on immigration, abortion, federalism, constitutionalism, and limited government will win him credibility with and respect from primary voters, giving him leverage to take principled stands and spur discussion on issues like the drug war, privacy, foreign policy, and civil liberties. He could at least win enough votes and support to last well into the spring, forcing the other candidates to adopt parts of his agenda, and the press to cover his platform.
Of course, it may end up that he just gets laughed off the stage, demagogued or outright ignored on everything, and becomes a straw man for all that modern Republicans hate about their former small government libertarian cohorts, and that’ll say something, too, about the state of the Republican party, according to Balko. And me.
We are going to be the Ron Paul clearinghouse for the entire internet. Excelsior!
Comment by Adam — 2/20/2007 @ 5:41 pm
Using plurality voting for more than 2 candidates is an absolute NIGHTMARE. It doesn’t work. You have to use Range Voting. With as few as 10 candidates, plurality voting will only pick the Condorcet winner about 34% of the time, and the odds it will pick the honest utility winner are about 32%. That’s shit. With Range Voting, it’s 77% and 79% respectively.
Comment by weltschmerz — 2/20/2007 @ 6:42 pm
My comment to them:
Comment by weltschmerz — 2/20/2007 @ 6:44 pm
Well, those are certainly some hypersensitive responses to the Will article.
Given that Will has spent the entirety of his journalistic career railing against out-of-control entitlement spending, I hardly think it makes any sense to interpret his column as a snarky hit attempt on a figure who jeopardizes Will’s beloved swag.
Will’s observation that Paul is an “anachronism” is just flat-out true. The rest of his column reads, from the perspective of someone who reads Will regularly, as a statement of bemused support.
Many Libertarians have a tendency to run amok at any perceived slight, and that seems to me to be what’s happening here. Which is regrettable. Whatever Ron Paul needs to make a meaningful run in the primaries–and surely, much has to go his way for that to happen–he certainly DOESN’T need for his supporters to go into hysterics every time someone in the media finds his agenda amusing.
Comment by Rojas — 2/20/2007 @ 7:02 pm
Ron will be interviewed by Lou Dobbs on Monday, February 26th, sometime between 6-7 pm ET.
New video.
He plays surprisingly well, I think. For a supposed lunatic.
Comment by Paint CHiPs — 2/22/2007 @ 7:55 pm
By the way, if you want to register your support (but not necessarily your money) to Ron Paul, for his exploratory committee, go here.
Comment by Paint CHiPs — 2/22/2007 @ 8:27 pm