The Republican Establishment isn’t quite sure what to do about the popularity of Ron Paul.
“Paul’s kind of like a dangerous animal that needs to be treated with respect,” said a GOP consultant working for one of the 2012 candidates. “People underestimate him at their own peril.”
I’m not sure of the context of that quote, but I don’t think the consultant was talking about Ron Paul winning the nomination. Republicans are much more concerned about Ron Paul making an independent run for the presidency. They’re also worried about the prospect of Ron Paul commanding enough delegates to warrant a prominent speaking slot at the national convention. These twin considerations create a touchy situation where the Establishment would like to put a dent in Paul’s momentum to limit his take of delegates, but they don’t want to anger him enough that he either goes after Mitt Romney or splits the party to run on his own.
They keep telling themselves, and us, that Ron Paul won’t run as an independent because he’s concerned about his son’s career in the Senate and as a future presidential candidate. It’s beginning to sound like a threat, as if the Establishment is warning Rep. Paul that they’ll make his son’s life miserable if he hands the election to Obama. If that’s the message they’re trying to send, I don’t think it is going to be very effective.
I don’t think either Ron or Rand Paul have much loyalty to the GOP, and I don’t think either of them think the Establishment will be any kinder to Rand in the future than they are to Ron now. If Rep. Paul makes an independent bid, his son will presumably endorse him and campaign for him, and that could provide the rationale for stripping Rand of his committee assignments and/or his seniority (although he has so little seniority that it would hardly matter). But Rand Paul probably doesn’t care much about his committee assignments and they’d find themselves with one pissed off senator to contend with. We all know how much trouble one angry senator can produce.
So, the Establishment finds itself in a bit of a quandary. It doesn’t want the GOP brand to be associated with Ron Paul’s views on Israel or foreign policy in general or the War on Drugs or the surveillance state or the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or how fast blacks can run or torture or a variety of other things. They especially don’t want him expressing those views in a high visibility slot at the National Convention. But they also don’t want him to go after their nominee, or to actually become an independent candidate.
I hope this problem doesn’t go away. I hope it gets much, much worse.
it is thoughts like this that make me greet the day with a smile.
Maybe I’m wrong but it seems that Paul’s finances are more sourced from his organizational groundswell rather than super pac corp monies so turning off donor spiget is problematic.
The powerbrokers of the R Party seem to think if they igore Paul fringedom long enough it will melt away and find a new home within the party. Ignorning Paul is the last thing they should be doing; instead the more exposure where he’s allowed to answer consequential questions and in his own words demonstrate the gap his plans have to connect to reality is what will chill his followers. Better done now than in March.
I do hope that you are aware of the current runup to a war w/Iran. It is subtler than the runup to Iraq, as befits a subtler regime…errrrr, administration. Israel is the surrogate…or perhaps it’s the other way around, I’m never really quite sure who’s running whom in this criminal little U.S./Israel pas de deux. No matter, the shit is well on the way to hitting the fan. If you have somehow missed the various steps that have been taken in this direction over the preceding several weeks due to your excitement over the idiot-level RatPublican (
un)reality show currently being presented by the media, please read Alexander Cockburn’s War on Iran: It’s Not A Matter of “If” for a good, strong wakeup call. We are about one serious strike away from all-out war with Iran.My guess? No matter how much the Iranian leaders try not to retaliate…I mean, look at what’s left of Iraq after our tender ministrations…the provocations will continue to escalate until they have absolutely no choice but to either take a stand or see the end of their position at the top of the Iranian political food chain.
Over the top provocation? That’ll be Israel’s job. Then NATO…the U.S. and whatever European powers are not too financially stressed to be able to take action…will step in as “support.”
When?
Short game? Somewhere during or just after the Super Bowl mania, so’s the media will be able to somewhat cover it up in Super-hype.
Long game? Somewhere during the campaign, when Obama needs a boost.
Watch.
Nasty shit developing, but no nastier than any other part of our permanent war, economic imperialist policies over the past…ohhh, make it 60 years or so.
And here you are, acting as if Ron Paul…the only major anti-war, anti-economic imperialism candidate to actually have a shot at winning the presidency during that 60 years…is just a minor burr under the saddle of the so-called two “major” parties…a true UniParty, to be sure. Just playing the game as a spoiler. As if his candidacy is just something to be used to re-elect our current Spoiler-In-Chief, Barack Obama. Shame on you.
Wise up, Booman. On the evidence of serious popular mass movements going on all across the world, there is a deeper game going on here. The real street shit that went down in Cairo? The various other so-called “Arab Spring” activities…the real ones, not the NATO intelligence-driven versions. The economic and political unrest all across Europe? The Tea Party and Occupy movements here? Ron Paul is just another part of that phenomenon. It is internet-driven. Not “Facebook,”, not “Twitter,” but the entire free exchange of information system that has grown exponentially over the preceding decade. The lies simply do not work well enough anymore.
And here you sit on an internet website making believe that nothing much has changed, that Ron Paul is just more business as usual.
It’s sea change time, Booman.
Wise up or drown.
Ron Paul may or may not win, but your parroting of the current (increasingly desperate, I might add) media talking points…”Oh, he’s just a spoiler. He doesn’t really mean to get elected. He’s just trying to get more publicity for his viewpoints. He’ll simply fade because of his son’s political position. His candidacy will actually help the Democrats”…is short-sighted to say the least.
Win or lose, the Omertican Two-Party/UniParty system is in big, big trouble, and if Ron Paul is actually able to manage to get on a debate stage one-on-one with Barack Obama, George Romney…or better yet, as a third party candidate with both of them…he would eat them up.
You’re backing the wrong character in a good cop/bad cop movie, Booman.
Wake up and smell the change.
AG
With respect and in all seriousness, AG, what is your evidence for this? I mean, there’s plenty of evidence that people are angry at the disconnect between the policy preferences of ordinary people and what gets enacted by what you call the UniParty system. There’s plenty of evidence that that disconnect, in other countries, has led to rebellions that either seriously threaten or overthrow the status quo. But I see no evidence so far that the popular discontent/disgust in this country has figured out how to leverage itself into actual changes in policy or who wields power. We’re on the path, hopefully, more so than we have been in a long time. But most of that journey, so far as I can tell, is still hypothetical, yet to be taken, with no modern-day precedent that it will be successful.
So what’s your rational for saying that the popular support for Paul, the Occupy Movement, or any other expression of discontent is going to do anything more than force an adjustment in marketing plans?
Moreover, much of the discontent, as it applies to policy, is aimed at austerity measures (i.e.., cuts in government spending and people’s benefits). So, obviously….RON PAUL!!
What if that “adjustment in marketing plans” does not work, Geov? What then? The anti-Paul marketing plans”have falen as flat as the abortive attempts Herman Cain and Rick Perry to become the Non-Romney. Santorum isn’t going to make it either. But Ron Paul is still standing. They tried to ignore him (Marketing Plan 1); they laughed at him (Marketing plan 2) and then they fought him in Iowa and New Hampshire. (Marketing Plan 3)
Hmmmm…he’s not only still standing, he is growing stronger by the day.
What did the prophet Gandhi say about this sort of thing?
“First they laugh at you, then they ignore you, then they fight you. Then you win” is what he said.
You ask:
You consider these movements as separate. I do not. They are separate reactions to a common problem. A common vision of the same problem, the decay of the economic imperialist state. And Ron Paul is bringing those separate visions together into one political movement.
UH oh!!!
Tere comes a time when “marketing” will not sell he old jalopy anymore. It just doesn’t run well enough anymore. Detroit tried to do that versus the Japanese influx in the ’80s and look what happened. It got its ass kicked.
You “see no evidence so far that the popular discontent/disgust in this country has figured out how to leverage itself into actual changes in policy or who wields power.”
I got two woids fer ya, and they ain’t “Happy Boithday.”
Ron Paul.
The continuing success of his campaign while it has been opposed by the most powerful mind control device ever invented by humankind is my evidence.
“We’re on the path, hopefully, more so than we have been in a long time. But most of that journey, so far as I can tell, is still hypothetical, yet to be taken, with no modern-day precedent that it will be successful?”
Yup.
But the experiment is now well on its way.
Bet on it.
et on it.
Will the experiment be a success?
All experiments are a “success,” even if they fail. The good ones are, anyway, because they show what does not work.
Try, try again.
Until you get it right.
And finally:
I have you ever read a post of mine where I wrote “I do keep trying?” I say that often. Why? Because it’s the truth, that’s why.
Well…so does Ron Paul.
Someday someone is going to change this country.
Who knows? Maybe the time is now.
We shall see soon enough.
Bet on that as well.
Watch.
AG
Interesting post, Booman. I talked this morning with one of the savviest political observers I know. He lives in Virginia and won’t be surprised if Paul defeats Romney in that primary. The combination of libertarians, evangelical anti-Mormons, and anyone-but-Romney voters may be a majority there—perhaps especially if Romney seems likely to get the nomination. (It would then be a way for some people to cast a vote of dissatisfaction with Romney, knowing that Paul won’t ultimately win the nomination.)
Also, I won’t be surprised it the 1988 Democratic race becomes the “analogy-du-jour” among professional pundits. (For more on that see here: http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/1/14/135317/408 or here: http://masscommons.wordpress.com/ .)
Virginia is an interesting laboratory. It has four constituencies absolutely hostile to Ron Paul.
In many ways, it should be among Paul’s worst states. Only a moron would want Paulism to happen to Virginia’s economy.
President Paul would accomplish little, but whatever he did accomplish would come out of Virginia’s hide like no other state, even Maryland.
Yet, Romney is not popular.
You forgot something even you have admitted a week or two back. RP, for all of his faults, does get a lot of support, financial or otherwise, from members of the military. And I believe you correctly stated the reason why that is, in all likelihood.
The Ron Paul “quandry?”
Yup.
I got yer quandry, right here!!!
Yup.
The Ron Paul Quandry or the Ron Paul Effect?
Hmmmmm…..
He’s even worrying the DemRats, now.
I’m enjoying this one. I really am.
Bet on it.
I don’t ask for much, God, but please, please, please let there be a debate between Ron Paul and Barack Obama. Oh Lord!!! Pass the mustard, mama, there’s gonna be a fight on tonite!!!
Later…
AG
First, I wouldn’t count out Paul for an outright win. HE is surging in South Carolina, with one poll having him at 20%. SC should be one of his weakest states. HE may not be able to beat Romney, but a strong second is possible. After SC Newt and the Ricks will be either out or languishing around in low single digits, leaving it essentially a two man race and Paul will be able to win a number of states. Think Jesse Jackson, 1988. He didn’t get the nomination, but he certainly gave the Dem insiders a heart attack. I dare say he will be remembered much longer than Mike Dukakis. Yes, its a long shot, but…one year ago Mubarak ruled Egypt and I doubted he would ever leave. Now he’s in jail.
In the event Ron Paul is treated poorly, I don’t think he will run third party. But he can do a lot behind the scenes to help Gary Johnson win 2-3 or maybe even 5% of the vote. Enough to loose to Obama if it’s close.
Then Rand will be ready to run in 2016. By that time the Euro will likely be gone. The US will be in its own serious debt crisis. In foreign policy, if we haven’t attacked Iran by then, it will be obvious we never will. If we have, I bet we will be wishing we hadn’t. The public will be a lot more ready to hear the Ron/Rand message.
That’s my guess anyway.
If he runs as an independent Obama will win because he will split the right, the isolationists going with him and the neoconw with the GOP candidate.
If he runs as a Republican Obama will win because the neocons put Israel and their war policy ahead of everything and so will vote for Obama.