Could this guy be the next US president?

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Sun, 2007-09-09 12:04
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brooosh
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Could this guy be the next US president?

US Congressman Ron Paul is being increasingly seen as one of the main candidates for president in the 2008 election.

What separates him from the others is that he is the only mainstream Republican candidate who opposes the war in Iraq and wants to remove US troops immediately.

Paul, a liberterian, is a qualified doctor and a highly persuasive debater. His views on Iraq make a lot of sense to me and make him attractive to growing numbers of Americans.

Sadly some of his other views are decidedly fruitcake. For example, he has no problem with airline passengers carrying guns and presumably therefore with shootouts at 40,000 feet, nor with ordinary members of the public owning submachine guns.

He believes in following the US constitution to the letter and in reducing federal government at every level. These are fine ideas in principle, but the problem is he lets these two ideas do all his thinking for him, even when it leads him into ludicrous areas of policymaking.

When confronted with the preposterousness of some of his proposals, he uses clever debating techniques to sidestep the point, so he never actually addresses the major flaws in some of his thinking.

I like the idea that he would end the war in Iraq, but the other aspects of this guy are a little scary.

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_jacobea_
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Well, you have to take the bad with the good, although this guy does sound somewhat out of his tree with the gun matter.
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patmac
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You can't consider Ron Paul without looking into the whole racist angle of his campaign magazine. http://www.usaelectionpolls.com/2008/articles/is-ron-paul-a-racist.html My latest killing is: http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

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bobblehat2023
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"US Congressman Ron Paul is being increasingly seen as one of the main candidates for president in the 2008 election." No, he isn't. He doesn't have any chance of coming in the Republicans' top three, let alone becoming President. I think it's pretty likely that whoever is elected President, with the possible exception of John McCain, will try to end the war in Iraq very quickly. I don't think the American people need to elect an isolationist nut-job to do that.

 

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brooosh
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I chose my words very carefully buk and I beg to disagree with you. From being a complete outsider and no hoper Ron Paul has steadily gained ground in recent months. While well known national names like McCain have stalled, Paul continues to go from strength to strength. Note I didn't say he is going to be president, I merely pointed out that he is being seen increasingly as one of the main candidates for the 2008 election and that is undeniably true. I guess you didn't see the recent Fox TV New Hampshire debate where Paul trounced all the other big names like Romney, Giuliani, McCain, Huckabee etc. Not only did he win the phone-in vote but almost every key point he made in the debate was cheered loudly by the studio audience. You probably hadn't noticed that he is now attracting more funds than ever before and that he is supported by a significant internet-based campaign that as far as I can see none of the other Republican candidates is able to match. I expect you missed several polls that are showing him gaining ground, including this one which put him top of all the big name Republicans. http://pajamasmedia.com/strawpoll2008/results.php?precinctid=d7b93ad39dd... If all that isn't a sign of what I've been saying, I don't know what is.
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bobblehat2023
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It isn't. That poll you've linked to is from self-selecting sample. Dennis Kucinich, who won the Democrat vote in the same poll and is actually my candidate of choice, has no chance whatsoever of coming in the top three for the Democrats nomination. In the recent Iowa straw poll, Paul came fifth with just over 9% of the vote, despite the fact that Giuliani and McCain both chose not to take part. "Note I didn't say he is going to be president, I merely pointed out that he is being seen increasingly as one of the main candidates for the 2008 election and that is undeniably true." It's not undeniably true. I do deny it, if you take main candidate to mean someone who could conceivably win either the primary or the election itself. I'm not saying Paul's irrelevant. If he starts taking 10-15% of the vote in some primaries with his anti-Iraq stance, that's a pain for the mainstream candidates but anything over 10% anywhere would be a massive result for him.

 

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brooosh
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Buk, no matter how you spin this the fact remains he is being seen increasingly as one of the main candidates. The fact that he is even included in the TV debates is a sign that he is seen as one of the main candidates. The fact that he won the most recent TV debate merely reinforces that point. I don't think he will win the presidency, maybe not even the nomination, but he remains a growing presence on the Republican side. Right now Paul has more momentum than almost anyone else in either party. I've seen it before in presidential elections. The no hoper outsider who starts to gain momentum as the primary season approaches and goes on to do well. Carter was an example of that and look what happened to him. When he started his campaign he was polling less than 1 per cent and almost no one gave him a chance of succeeding. By any reasonable assessment of what is happening Paul has to be seen as one of the main candidates. Even if he finishes as one of the top 5 Republicans that label still applies. But I have a feeling he will do better than that. Why? Because he will attract a lot of cross over voters in primaries that allow independents to vote and also because he is tapping into a very strong political cause at the moment - namely bring the troops home. Absolutely none of the other Republican candidates support that, and that is likely to hurt them. That suggests to me he could even be the runner up in the nomination race and possibly go on to stand as a third party candidate.
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bobblehat2023
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Paul did run as candidate for the Libertarian Party in 1988. I accept your suggestion he might finish in the Republicans top five. Don't think the Carter comparison works. Lots of candidates come from nowhere in the polls but Paul is on the wacky fringe of the political spectrum on more or less everything apart from Iraq. He's the right-wing Ralph Nader or Al Sharpton more than he's the right-wing Carter. I suppose he could run as a third party candidate if McCain got the Republican nomination but that seems pretty unlikely. I think Giuliani and Romney will probably both have revised their position on Iraq by the time of the election. I don't know what Thompson's position on Iraq is. Unless things change dramatically in Iraq, I can't see either of the major party candidates running on a 'stay the course' ticket in 2008. Most of them posturing at the moment.

 

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brooosh
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To my mind Ron Paul is the Ross Perot of 2008. He is so different from all the other candidates, that many will find him a refreshing change. His "get out of Iraq quick", "follow the constitution" and "less government" messages are very simple, easy to understand and could play extremely well with large sectors of the US population. Despite his squeaky voice he is a skilful debater, and can finesse his way out of tight corners (I've yet to see an opponent land an effective punch on him) so I think he could do much better than you imagine. Sadly, you are right about him being a nut, and if he won the presidency he would introduce some really weird policies. But surely he can't be any worse than the present guy?
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bobblehat2023
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Well, opponents don't usually lend effective punches on Tony Benn when he appears on Question Times these days. It was all very different in the early 1980s when there was a chance (albeit, a pretty slim one) that he could become Prime Minister. The big guns don't need to beat the likes of Paul in debates because he isn't part of the real contest. "But surely he can't be any worse than the present guy?" For people living in the US, he be an awful lot worse than the present guy. Whether an extreme isolationist foreign policy would be better or worse for the rest of the world than the current position is more debatable. It would certainly be the end of the UN, for example.

 

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justyn_thyme
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Ron Paul is one of those cranky guys with an ideology whose premise is that it is not an ideology. Comparing him to Ross Perot or Al Sharpton is spot on. That's his category. Yes, he is getting some attention and press. Yes, he can sound persuasive in front of an audience. So can Ross Perot and Al Sharpton. Then you learn what they're really all about and it is not such a pretty picture any longer. Ross Perot, for example, had a lot of support until his used some alleged kidnapping threats to his "world class daughter" as an excuse to leave the race. That was the end of his political ambitions, and rightfully so. Al Sharpton is essentially a carpetbagger. He pretends to be the spokesperson for blacks in America and the ignorant crackers who run the media networks are either stupid enough to believe him or too afraid of being labeled racists to challenge him. Every election brings people out of the woodwork, especially when there is no clear front runner on either side. What we really need is better journalists. In the 1968 presidential campaign, William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal provided the play by play commentary for the conventions. Now THAT was interesting television! "You don't need the light of the Lord to read the handwriting on the wall." Copies of Warsaw Tales available through www.new-ink.org
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