"Don't hurt people and don't take their stuff" - Matt Kibbe

7/21/11

Progressives Should be Careful What They Wish For

Here is a  factoid  that many political pundits would like to become an actual fact. In the coming campaign for President, "Ron Paul can't win."

I'm here to tell you folks, like most of the things these talking heads pontificate about, it's nonsense. I'm not here to tell you he will become President, or even for that matter, the nominee of the Republican Party. (Which is a much more difficult task.) I'm only telling you that he can win.

And believe it or not, I am beginning to think that he might actually do both.

In fact, in my opinion, the biggest obstacle that he must overcome is the notion that he is unelectable. For any number of sensible sounding, but inaccurate reasons, many people have become convinced of that.

And now that the less suicidal liberals among us (think Steve Wynn and his recent anti-Obama rant) have begun to desert the current President in ever growing numbers they are looking for someone to vote for before their US currency turns into the Monopoly variety. And guess where they have begun to look? If you answered Newt Gingrich or Tim Pawlenty, go get your dunce cap.

Ron Paul would seem to be an odd choice at first glance. Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson might be a better choice for them, but it seems that most of them have never heard of him. Particularly since the main stream media is terrified they will like him a lot if they ever find out who he is, so they have excluded him from any mention at all and managed to keep him out of the last introductory style debate.

But they can't do that with Ron Paul anymore and it's getting ever more difficult to marginalize him after many years of doing their best in that pursuit and largely succeeding. He has been right on too many things.

So some of the darlings of the left have discovered him and apparently they like what they see and are talking him up on their pretend news shows. They also like it a lot that people like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh oppose Paul's candidacy.

But they better be careful of what they wish for because while they love his anti-interventionist foreign policy and his constant expose of the continuing failure of the "war on some drugs", they will be aghast at his never wavering attempts to dismantle the nanny state once he gets into office.

It should be interesting to watch how they twist in the wind and scramble to back off their fawning admiration for "Paulism" when he is going head to head with the hapless Barack H Obama in 2012. A really interesting video is below which might shock some of you no matter what you think of the people praising Paul.

Two candidates of totally opposite political theories and records going against one another at the precise time in history that the country needs to decide if it is going to camp or just fold up the tent.

This just might be the best political theater in our lifetimes. It's what I'm wishing for and I'm certainly not being careful about it.


1 comment:

Brian Jennings said...

Grant - Another well constructed and well considered opinion/rant. I pray you are right, that Paul is electable. But then you have more faith in the electorate than I do. I worry that old Ronnie, as prescient and forthright as he is, just doesn't have the "hair, the youth, or the sex appeal" necessary to permeate the exoskeleton of a shallow public focused on more important matters like Lindsey Lohan's rehab, the "Housewives of New Jersey" and "Modern Family".
Your logic may prevail, because in the end, what trumps all, is pain in the wallet, a malady that every American, from the most economically astute to the most politically indifferent, has at least some recent experience. I guess we'll know soon enough.
Never more hoped, that you are right and I am wrong.