I keep reading that Ron Paul is raising so much money that he doesn’t know what to do with it.
What makes the Paul phenomenon unique this cycle is that there is no clear front-runner who can simply ride out the rowdy rabble until the party’s top-down instincts silence them.
That is creating an intriguing choice for the 72-year-old doctor: Plow ahead on what still seems a quixotic quest for the White House or play spoiler by using his millions to help take out one of the front-runners.
Here is my advice. Ron Paul should have two main goals and then…a pipe dream.
His first goal should be to do surprisingly well in the early primaries. A second or third place finish will accomplish this and help his second goal: getting out his message. And then there is the pipe dream: actually winning the nomination.
Giuliani’s campaign is imploding at just the wrong time. Paul shouldn’t worry about the mayor. He wants the mayor to remain viable for as long as possible. Paul needs to work on Romney and McCain. Using his substantial advertising dollars to accuse McCain of being soft on immigration and Romney of being a closet liberal who switched positions out of convenience, can help put Mike Huckabee over the top in Iowa. A Romney loss in Iowa can lead to a Romney loss in New Hampshire. Ideally, Giuliani would win in the Granite State…temporarily bucking up a fatally flawed campaign. Keeping McCain down in Iowa is crucial to preventing him from getting a resurrecting victory in New Hampshire.
If Paul plays his cards right, he could see Thompson, McCain, and Romney all near mortally wounded after the first two contents. But without the big three, what’s left? Huckabee terrifies the country club Republicans and no one takes Duncan Hunter or Tom Tancredo seriously (and they don’t have any money).
If Huckabee comes out of the first two contests as the victor and clear frontrunner, who is going to stop him? Romney will have fallen on his face…McCain will be broke and rejected, and Giuliani will be wrapped in failure as well as scandal. But Ron Paul will still be standing with his wads of cash and his loyal supporters.
If this scenario were to actually unfold, I’d expect the Establishment to the only thing left to them…pour all their resources into John McCain and see if he can stop the other two.
Regardless, Ron Paul would emerge as a race-changing lion killer, with all the money and press coverage he needs to teach the nation about his ideas…both good and really bad.
If nothing else, it would be many generations before people forgot the name of Ron Paul. And just imagine how many delegates he could pile up to bring with him to Minneapolis for the Republican National Convention? Yee-haw.
That’s a good analysis, BooMan, but I wouldn’t underestimate Romney. Being that Republican fundraising is diminished these days, it might be challenging to find sufficient funds for McCain. But funding hasn’t been one of Romney’s problems, and likely never will be.
I don’t know. Have you seen the primary calendar? No one can compete in the Feb. 5th races without tens of millions of dollars. Romney has to have a limit on what he is willing to spend.
Interesting. Very interesting. This is by no means a bad game plan.
In terms of getting out his message and preserving his legacy, if you can call it that, it would almost be better to run as an Independent.
But speaking strictly in terms of the primary, I wonder whether Romney would falter if he loses Iowa. New Hampshire never seems to agree with Iowa on the Republican side anyway, Romney is somewhat of a native son, and has a lot of $$$. (I will say that I’m surprised Romney has even put himself in such a good position to begin with.)
I don’t see McCain as that big of a threat, even if McCain falters. I think there is a caricature of him that has developed as an old, almost senile warmonger (Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran), and that would be too much for New Hampshirites (or is it Hampshirians?) to look past. Giuliani, as you said, is imploding.
If Huckabee wins, I think he’s a logical choice for the Republican rank-and-file, and they’ll stick with him. I truly think that the biggest thing that has solidified Ron Paul’s nomination as a pipe dream is Huckabee. They’re both grassroots-y outsiders. If Ron Paul was alone in that role, something could have happened.
But, of course, me looking at the Republican race is almost like a rich man having to live in a rat-infested housing project.
I think you are letting your personal opinion of McCain interfere with an objective evaluation.
The only thing standing between McCain becoming 2008’s version of John Kerry is money.
And money can come in late as part of a massive salvage operation.
Big money is very, almost irrationally, opposed to Huckabee, but they have to fight off a friendly press.
The ENTIRE Establishment is horrified by Ron Paul but their finest hatchet jobs can’t prevent him for carrying on his campaign if he has money.
Giuliani and Romney are Big Money’s candidates, if only because McCain does obnoxious shit like enact campaign finance reform. But compared to Huckabee and Paul, the man is positively a champion of Big Money.
And, the press still likes McCain, and he polls great against the Democrats.
McCain may still win this if Romney falls flat on his face and Rudy can’t navigate his way out of his current problems.
I see the support for Huckabee as an indicator of how many evangelical Republicans refuse to vote for non Christian (Mormon) and can’t abide Rudy. The weakness of the Republican field seems to be giving Huckabee the chance to display his rather formidable Political capabilities. That’s not going to be enough the get him elected, though.
The same voters that are going for Huckabee also can’t stand McCain. They haven’t forgotten his comments after the 2000 primaries.
The trouble for the others is that the Huckabee supporters are a major chunk of the Evangelical Republican vote, which is (I think) the largest single block in the Republican Party. They have always provided the intensity, the numbers and the foot soldiers for the campaigns. But always before, they followed the leader and voted as a block.
Up till recently, there was a chance the Republicans could coalesce around Giuliani, but he is currently imploding, as Thompson did when he announced his entry into the nomination race.
Ron Paul is a wack job, the Republican answer to Lyndon LaRouche. He is a cult figure. The people who like him are outsiders themselves, and the outsider groups are coalescing around Ron Paul. The LA Times has a good article on his followers today. His supporters love him, but there are only so many wack-job supporters, even in the Republican Party. Money for Dr. Paul is surprisingly easy, which probably is related to the fact that a lot of his supporters are Libertarians and Libertarians are over represented in computer professions and on the Internet. He can’t win the nomination. He’ll be dead as soon as anyone starts looking at the bills he has submitted to Congress. But you are right that he can get his message out because he is going to be able to go the distance in the nominating process because he can draw the money he needs.
If you haven’t read Josh Marshall’s Epiphany, he has a really good presentation of charts of approval polls that show the progress or lack of it of every Republican candidate. It’s a real crap shoot at the moment, with Romney perhaps a little above the rest. I think the media has about decided to anoint Romney, and the Econo-Repubs will support him. The Evangelical Repubs are going to be split and if Romney is the nominee, they’ll just sit this election out. But the CNN hatchet job (the LA Times today calls CNN the Corrupt News Network and properly so) that was the Republican debate last Wednesday was designed to showcase the immigration issue and support Huckabee (as flavor of the week) over Romney.
I’d hate to be a Republican for this election. They will be walking around in shell-shock, and they’ve already started. No one’s in control of the Republican party, no one running can gain control, and they can’t deal with that.
Then to, going into a Recession next year isn’t going to be nice, but it will put the election away for the Democrats. Trent Lott’s announced resignation is probably in large part because he doesn’t want to be relegated to the permanent minority that the Republicans, facing a Democratic President and Congress, are headed for.
good analysis.
I can’t help but think that it is in the left’s best interests to help Paul solidify a front running position by tossing a few bucks towards his campaign.
But the reality is that we would do better to do the same for Kucinich, lending legitimacy to a strong liberal voice. The media narrative is that money talks. Make them walk the walk.
“And just imagine how many delegates he could pile up to bring with him to Minneapolis for the Republican National Convention? Yee-haw.”
Are there enough mens’ rooms?
Huckabee winning Iowa would be the best thing for us. And Paul finishing 2nd in New Hampshire would be the next best thing.
The GOP was hoping to seem like it had its act together by coalescing behind Romney, Giuliani, and Thompson. But Giuliani is already bloodied, and Huckabee’s rise means that the evangelicals aren’t buying what Romney is pitching. Thompson is falling like a stone. After the first couple of primaries, it will be evident that no one is really steering the ship of the GOP. The GOP doesn’t even have much enthusiasm for its candidates besides Paul’s supporters. Poor showings in the early primaries will make the GOP ‘frontrunners’ look absolutely terrible. Giuliani’s Florida strategy won’t look so hot when he finishes embarrassingly low in Iowa. Paul is going forward for the long haul, because Tancredo and Hunter will be gone quickly, and Thompson will be gone after SC, which he won’t do well in after coming in 6th in New Hampshire. The GOP in the end may just spit up McCain in the end, but it won’t be with any enthusiasm. They will be depressed. They have spent so much time the last 9 months talking about Giuliani and Romney (I mean the DC class of the GOP) it will seem such a waste to spit out McCain because the only other guys left standing will be Huckabee and Paul. The evangelical base will be depressed because Huckabee’s rejection by the DC class will make it clear how they are seen by the GOP leadership. We are talking severe damage to the GOTV effort for the GOP.
While on our side, all the media attention placed on Clinton and Obama will have benefits. The Dems will be seen as having their act together.
You and I see this the same exact way.
Of course, it is all far from certain that any of it will break this way.
the winner? The United States! Maybe even the world… Damn it would be good to shake up the Establishment.