That GOP Debate
Chris has the view from the home team ... and I don't mean Republican, I mean Team Ron Paul:
Love him or leave him, did any other politician speak with such strength of conviction? The line about our attitude towards the Soviets and their 40,000 nukes in the Cold War and our attitude toward today's third world countries was right on target. How sad that our politicians can never shoot straight with us, or simply tell it like it is. Statesmen like Ron are a dying breed.
Remarkable since I've yet to see Chris blog any agreement with some of Ron Paul's pet issues like legalizing heroin, getting out of Iraq, impeaching President Bush, defunding support for Israel in the Middle East, returning to the gold standard, or my favorite ... his continued belief that President Bush is in violation of the Constitution. Of course, Paul's consistency hasn't exactly been something to marvel over lately.
For the record, here's the one comment that Chris does offer a "spot on" to:
I mean, we stood up to the Soviets. They had 40,000 nuclear weapons. Now we're fretting day in and day and night about third-world countries that have no army, navy or air force, and we're getting ready to go to war.
First things first ... given Paul's advancing age and physical resemblence to a skeleton, how fitting is it that his own paid supporters would use the phrase "dying breed?"
But seriously, maybe Ron Paul should elaborate on what it means to "fret" as well as "third world countries that have no army, navy or air force" before anyone offers an amen, though. I mean, I'd be pretty darned curious to know how a very hypothetical President Ron Paul would deal with Pakistan, for instance. Does the presence of their own military exlude them from any "fretting" boycot? Would Paul's liberterian and isolationist inclinations put him at a disadvantage in preventing Pakistan from keeping AQ Khan under house arrest and say ... give some of those third world countries assistance in building a nuclear weapon?
Granted, Chris Matthews didn't have time for such a question. I mean, nobody really takes Ron Paul seriously and Matthews had to get to his masterful question of Mitt Romney: "Would it be good for America to have Bill Clinton back living in the White House?" Yeah, you were right to detect sarcasm around the time I used the word "masterful."
So will Ron Paul's paid, professional consultants comment on whether they agree or disagree with actual specific policy views ... or does being a "statesman" really only require that he sign the checks in a timely manner?
Anywhoo, I caught about the first half of it before work intervened. But I was more interested in seeing how soon it would take for the Giuliani machine to come undone. Sounds like he wasn't impressive based on the punditry, but probably not enough to do any polling damage ... yet.
While I accept that Ron Paul's chances of nomination or election are slim at best, I take what he says seriously, and think it could have a positive impact on what too often is more of a coin toss than a presidential election.
His ideas can affect the process by introducing a third point of view, and bringing attention to topics that the Ds and Rs would otherwise avoid. He stood out at the debates in several ways.
After receiving thousands of emails, ABC righted their blunder and not too surprisingly, Ron Paul got an order of magnitude more votes than others.
There's more people out there supporting Ron Paul than the two party duopoly or the popular media would like to recognize.
Personally, I've never considered the more time consuming activities in support of a particular candidate. But this is different. I've purchased 1000 libertarian door hangers and printed an equal number of Ron Paul flyers. I'm looking forward to meeting quite a few of my neighbors in the next few weeks.