Blatant Reality

Oh that rascally Ron Paul keeps popping up here and there with his latest appearance being at the Missouri Republican State Convention. Just like Barack has a motto (“hope” and “change”) that he keeps repeating over and over again, Paul’s seems to be “Freedom.”

Presidential candidate Ron Paul came to Branson last Friday to speak to a throng of supporters and delegates to the Missouri Republican State Convention.

 

While at the Tri-Lakes Center, Paul spoke on a variety of topics including foreign policy, the war in Iraq, and income taxes, but ultimately his message was about how freedom could remedy a multitude of sins.

 

“Freedom truly is popular. Freedom works,” Paul said. “There is no doubt in my mind that the message of liberty is what this country needs.”

 

His speech outlined the various values of freedom and what it could fix. Freedom from the federal reserve could help with the economic crisis. Paul envisioned a world with no paper money where “gold and silver would be the legal tender,” to which the enthusiastic crowd responded with chants of “No more debt!”

Oh Ron, you have some great conservative ideas but then you have some plain crazy ones. However, I feel like I would definitely prefer your “freedom” over Obama’s “hope” and “change.”

There are some days that I just don’t care who wins the Presidency come November. Sure, I’m going to vote McCain but that doesn’t mean I have faith in him to not screw up this country. I only have faith that he won’t screw up this country as much as Obama will (and that isn’t saying much).

So today I began pondering what would be the Republican “dream ticket” comparable to the Obama/(2x)Clinton dream ticket when it hit me. A McCain/Paul ticket would be a winner. Don’t believe me? Just look at the polls. Ron Paul got 15% of the votes in Oregon the other day. In an election that is going to be pretty close, McCain is going to need every vote he can muster to win and Paul might have those votes.

So lets just go along with this idea that there would be a McCain/Paul ticket in November and by some act of God, they actually won the election. If this happened what would our country be like?

Well, in my eyes, Paul’s libertarian views mixed with McCain’s somewhat liberal views would create an almost conservative policy.

For example, on immigration McCain basically wants amnesty and Paul doesn’t, hopefully something could be reached that would lean to a more conservative side.

Another reason I want to see them in office together would be that Paul would be a loose canon. While McCain seems to be constantly wanting to please the other side and not offend them, Paul never did care what people thought. He always spoke his mind and even would call his opponents dead wrong.

Plus they are both old and them together would remind me of the movie “Grumpy Old Men.” I would love to see them both constantly arguing with eachother over policy in public and then there would be times when McCain would have to physically restrain Paul from attacking a reporter when they asked a stupid question. Can’t you see that happening?

You can’t tell me that you don’t laugh when you imagine them both running the country.

Anyways, that thought brought a smile to my face in an election season wrought with constant disappointments. What VP choices (on either side) have brought smiles to your faces?

Even with his presidential bid over, Ron Paul still finds ways to make his way into the news. What was his latest antic that was found newsworthy? Well, it seems that Paul was the only Representative to vote against sending our condolences to the people of Myanmar that were affected by the cyclone.

As the article states, these resolutions are just ceremonial and overall are completely worthless. Why he would vote against something this simple if it doesn’t commit any of our resources is beyond me. Even if he doesn’t give a care about anything else that happens in the world you would think a simple “We offer our condolences” would be fine. Crazy kid.

Anyways, my favorite part of the article was that the author referred to Ron Paul followers as “Paultards.” That made me laugh just because I, for one, have never heard his followers called that.

Yep, I’m sure you are in the same boat as most other Missouri Republicans and didn’t even know there were county caucuses this weekend. Well, there were and it seems that those crazy Paulians didn’t get the memo that Paul dropped out a couple weeks ago. They reportedly turned out in droves and basically overran the caucus locations getting about a third of the 2,137 state delegates. Here is what they had to say for themselves:

Missouri leaders of Saturday’s pro-Paul effort insist that they’re not driven by a quest to resurrect his chances for the White House.

 

Carlson and other Paul supporters say their aim is to force the Missouri Republican Party to embrace Paul’s principles.

 

“We’re not holding out an illusion that Ron is going to win the nomination,” said Debbie Hopper, Paul’s national field director. “This is about calling the Republican Party back to its roots.”

I have to hand it to them, they sure are an ambitious group of people. Plus, I guess Paul had to find some way to use the rest of the campaign money he had on hand.

After the false alarm a couple weeks ago, Paul has made it official that he won’t be running for the Republican nomination.

Rep. Ron Paul has ended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, breaking the news in a seven-minute video posted on the campaign Web site Thursday. The Texan, who ran on a libertarian platform and saw an outpouring of financial support via the Internet, tried to soothe anxious supporters by letting them know his “campaign for freedom will continue in this new phase.” While his campaign will not formally organize events, he encouraged supporters to continue to work on behalf of a broader movement.

 

“I don’t mind playing a key role in this revolution, but it has to be more than a Ron Paul revolution,” he said. “Our job now is to plan for the next phase.”

 

Paul campaign spokesman Jesse Benton confirmed that the video means the candidate recognizes he will not be the nominee.

 

“Winding down” is how Benton described the next phase of the campaign. “Dr. Paul acknowledges that he will not be the nominee but will continue to travel to address supporters and encourage grass-roots activism to influence the process and return the Republican Party to its traditions of limited government and personal freedom,” Benton said.

According to a message on his blog, it seems that Ron Paul has decided to bow out of the race and rules out a third party candidacy. Here is the message:

Whoa! What a year this has been. And what achievements we have had. If I may quote Trotsky of all people, this Revolution is permanent. It will not end at the Republican convention. It will not end in November. It will not end until we have won the great battle on which we have embarked. Not because of me, but because of you. Millions of Americans — and friends in many other countries — have dedicated themselves to the principles of liberty: to free enterprise, limited government, sound money, no income tax, and peace. We will not falter so long as there is one restriction on our persons, our property, our civil liberties. How much I owe you. I can never possibly repay your generous donations, hard work, whole-hearted dedication and love of freedom. How blessed I am to be associated with you. Carol, of course, sends her love as well.

 

Let me tell you my thoughts. With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do not now need so big a national campaign staff, and so I am making it leaner and tighter. Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no third party run. I do not denigrate third parties — just the opposite, and I have long worked to remove the ballot-access restrictions on them. But I am a Republican, and I will remain a Republican.

 

I also have another priority. I have constituents in my home district that I must serve. I cannot and will not let them down. And I have another battle I must face here as well. If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.

 

In the presidential race and the congressional race, I need your support, as always. And I have plans to continue fighting for our ideas in politics and education that I will share with you when I can, for I will need you at my side. In the meantime, onward and upward! The neocons, the warmongers, the socialists, the advocates of inflation will be hearing much from you and me.

 

Sincerely,

 

Ron

The main reason he gives for bowing out is that he doesn’t want to lose his congressional seat for a primary that he has already lost. Its a smart move on his part. He needs to stay in the political sphere to be able to continue his message.

Just look at Mike Gravel, the democratic version of Ron Paul. He was out of the political sphere for over 25 years and spouting the liberal version of Ron Paul’s shtick yet Gravel didn’t catch on like Paul did. Now, is this all due to the fact that Gravel wasn’t in the legislature? Probably not, but it could partly show that he wasn’t in touch with his constituency like Paul was. By Paul cutting his losses and opting to stay in the legislature, Paul will be able to continue his message, keep himself relevant (if “relevant” is what you want to consider him), and keep him connected to his constituency.

I’m actually somewhat sad about his departure, he has definitely been a source of entertainment for me in the debates and his supporters have also attributed to a lot of good laughs. Well, best of luck to you in your congressional race Ron Paul, and I’ll be looking forward to the next time we hear from you.

UPDATE (10:43pm ET):

Read what “The Other McCain” has to say about why Ron Paul has all of a sudden switched to campaigning for his congressional district. Its pretty funny.

UPDATE (February 12):

Well, after waiting around for three days for Paul to make his drop out official, I guess I’m going to have to say this was a false alarm. I do stand by my and several other people’s assessment that this letter could have been interpreted as Ron unofficially dropping out to focus on his Congressional race. However, for all intensive purposes, Paul seems to be officially still in the race. Sorry for any confusion my initial assessment may have caused anyone.

Out of all places, it seems that Ron Paul actually placed second in Montana. Huh. Weird.

They also are the most paranoid people in the world and prone to the wildest conspiracy theories. I really do hope some of them are writers because I would really enjoy reading their works of fiction. Take this story for example, it really has the start to being a good fiction novel.

This really just made my day a little bit better. Be sure to listen to the audio clip because it’s a lot more funny then the YouTube video.

Yesterday, Ron Paul received a glowing report from the Bulgarian blog PR-USA.net where they try to explain his “magic.”

Ron Paul is certainly the most magical presidential candidate in the race. Yet, he owes his accomplishments to genuine transparency, not sleight of hand. If he fails to produce a top tier finish right before your very eyes, it will only demonstrate that the prodigious conjuring of the American media has trumped him with a spellbinding illusion that he was simply no match for.

Oh sometimes I just can’t hold in my laughter.