Ron Paul For The GOP Nomination
by Andrew Sullivan
*snip*
For a long time, I thought Huntsman would be my ideal candidate. And indeed, his tax reform proposals - modeled on Bowles-Simpson - are dead-on. Removing every single deduction in one heave would do more to empower market-based decisions in the economy and to throw lobbyists out of work than any other single measure. It's the most important, simple, productive move we can make right now and Obama has been a coward and a fool for not embracing it. Alas, the rates Huntsman favors are, to my mind, far too low, given the desperate need for revenues, if we are to tackle the debt seriously. But we are not electing a dictator. We are electing one branch of three that govern us. Huntsman is not the kind of Republican who couldn't compromise with Democrats. The Grand Bargain may become possible again.
On foreign policy, Huntsman also favors a more realist correction to neocon excess, and would build on Obama's remarkable successes, without invoking some of Obama's more worrying bleeding heart tendencies. His longstanding ties to America's most important global partner, China, make him uniquely qualified to take that relationship to a new level. Unlike Romney, he is not for starting a trade war. And his sanity on climate change - certainty that it is man-made but real skepticism about how to tackle it - is, in my view, the conservative position. And, almost alone among the Republicans, he acknowledges that gay people exist and that our committed relationships merit recognition in the law.
So why not Huntsman? The sad truth is: he simply hasn't connected with the voters, generates little enthusiasm, and has run a mediocre campaign. He started timidly, and failed from the get-go to make a clear distinction between him and Romney. He isn't even campaigning in Iowa; and remains behind in New Hampshire. Nationally, he is at a sad 3.2 percent, a number that has barely budged since the summer. For all intents and purposes, he is a one-state candidate. I welcome his participation but view it as a marker for 2016, if the GOP crashes and burns next year, as they well might with Newt Romney. With such a defeat (and one would hope it is decisive), there will be an opportunity to rebuild a reality-based conservatism. And Huntsman may well be the man to lead it. I sure hope so.
Which brings me to Ron Paul. Let me immediately say I do not support many of his nuttier policy proposals. I am not a doctrinaire libertarian. Paul's campaign for greater oversight of the Fed is great, but abolition of it is utopian and dangerous. A veto of anything but an immediately balanced budget would tip the US and the world into a serious downturn (a process to get there in one or two terms makes much more sense). Cutting taxes as he wants to is also fiscally irresponsible without spending cuts first. He adds deductions to the tax code rather than abolish them. His energy policy would intensify our reliance on carbon, not decrease it. He has no policy for the uninsured. There are times when he is rightly described as a crank. He has had associations in the past that are creepy when not downright ugly.
But all this is why a conservative like me is for Obama. What we are talking about here is who to support in a primary dominated by extremes, resentment, absence of ideas and Obama-hatred.
And I see in Paul none of the resentment that burns in Gingrich or the fakeness that defines Romney or the fascistic strains in Perry's buffoonery. He has yet to show the Obama-derangement of his peers, even though he differs with him. He has now gone through two primary elections without compromising an inch of his character or his philosophy. This kind of rigidity has its flaws, but, in the context of the Newt Romney blur, it is refreshing. He would never take $1.8 million from Freddie Mac. He would never disown Reagan, as Romney once did. He would never speak of lynching Bernanke, as Perry threatened. When he answers a question, you can see that he is genuinely listening to it and responding - rather than searching, Bachmann-like, for the one-liner to rouse the base. He is, in other words, a decent fellow, and that's an adjective I don't use lightly. We need more decency among Republicans.
And on some core issues, he is right. He is right that spending - especially on entitlements and defense - is way out of control. Unlike his peers, he had the balls to say so when Bush and Cheney were wrecking the country's finances, and rendering us close to helpless when the Great Recession came bearing down. Alas, he lacks the kind of skills at compromise, moderation and restraint that once defined conservatism and now seems entirely reserved for liberals. But who else in this field would? Romney would have to prove his base cred for his entire presidency. Gingrich is a radical utopian and supremely nasty fantasist.
*snip*
by Andrew Sullivan
*snip*
For a long time, I thought Huntsman would be my ideal candidate. And indeed, his tax reform proposals - modeled on Bowles-Simpson - are dead-on. Removing every single deduction in one heave would do more to empower market-based decisions in the economy and to throw lobbyists out of work than any other single measure. It's the most important, simple, productive move we can make right now and Obama has been a coward and a fool for not embracing it. Alas, the rates Huntsman favors are, to my mind, far too low, given the desperate need for revenues, if we are to tackle the debt seriously. But we are not electing a dictator. We are electing one branch of three that govern us. Huntsman is not the kind of Republican who couldn't compromise with Democrats. The Grand Bargain may become possible again.
On foreign policy, Huntsman also favors a more realist correction to neocon excess, and would build on Obama's remarkable successes, without invoking some of Obama's more worrying bleeding heart tendencies. His longstanding ties to America's most important global partner, China, make him uniquely qualified to take that relationship to a new level. Unlike Romney, he is not for starting a trade war. And his sanity on climate change - certainty that it is man-made but real skepticism about how to tackle it - is, in my view, the conservative position. And, almost alone among the Republicans, he acknowledges that gay people exist and that our committed relationships merit recognition in the law.
So why not Huntsman? The sad truth is: he simply hasn't connected with the voters, generates little enthusiasm, and has run a mediocre campaign. He started timidly, and failed from the get-go to make a clear distinction between him and Romney. He isn't even campaigning in Iowa; and remains behind in New Hampshire. Nationally, he is at a sad 3.2 percent, a number that has barely budged since the summer. For all intents and purposes, he is a one-state candidate. I welcome his participation but view it as a marker for 2016, if the GOP crashes and burns next year, as they well might with Newt Romney. With such a defeat (and one would hope it is decisive), there will be an opportunity to rebuild a reality-based conservatism. And Huntsman may well be the man to lead it. I sure hope so.
Which brings me to Ron Paul. Let me immediately say I do not support many of his nuttier policy proposals. I am not a doctrinaire libertarian. Paul's campaign for greater oversight of the Fed is great, but abolition of it is utopian and dangerous. A veto of anything but an immediately balanced budget would tip the US and the world into a serious downturn (a process to get there in one or two terms makes much more sense). Cutting taxes as he wants to is also fiscally irresponsible without spending cuts first. He adds deductions to the tax code rather than abolish them. His energy policy would intensify our reliance on carbon, not decrease it. He has no policy for the uninsured. There are times when he is rightly described as a crank. He has had associations in the past that are creepy when not downright ugly.
But all this is why a conservative like me is for Obama. What we are talking about here is who to support in a primary dominated by extremes, resentment, absence of ideas and Obama-hatred.
And I see in Paul none of the resentment that burns in Gingrich or the fakeness that defines Romney or the fascistic strains in Perry's buffoonery. He has yet to show the Obama-derangement of his peers, even though he differs with him. He has now gone through two primary elections without compromising an inch of his character or his philosophy. This kind of rigidity has its flaws, but, in the context of the Newt Romney blur, it is refreshing. He would never take $1.8 million from Freddie Mac. He would never disown Reagan, as Romney once did. He would never speak of lynching Bernanke, as Perry threatened. When he answers a question, you can see that he is genuinely listening to it and responding - rather than searching, Bachmann-like, for the one-liner to rouse the base. He is, in other words, a decent fellow, and that's an adjective I don't use lightly. We need more decency among Republicans.
And on some core issues, he is right. He is right that spending - especially on entitlements and defense - is way out of control. Unlike his peers, he had the balls to say so when Bush and Cheney were wrecking the country's finances, and rendering us close to helpless when the Great Recession came bearing down. Alas, he lacks the kind of skills at compromise, moderation and restraint that once defined conservatism and now seems entirely reserved for liberals. But who else in this field would? Romney would have to prove his base cred for his entire presidency. Gingrich is a radical utopian and supremely nasty fantasist.
*snip*
Last edited:
