Ron Paul comes in from the fringe

[Modbert]

Once you're the nominee, America has no choice but to get to know who you pick. Who the hell was Sarah Palin?

And why was Sarah Palin picked? To reassure the base.

Ron Paul is likely to pick someone who is going to appeal to more voters. Picking Gary Johnson is just picking another version of himself. Though I personally think Gary Johnson would be a more effective President than Paul.

 

[Paulie]

Once you're the nominee, America has no choice but to get to know who you pick. Who the hell was Sarah Palin?

And why was Sarah Palin picked? To reassure the base.

Ron Paul is likely to pick someone who is going to appeal to more voters. Picking Gary Johnson is just picking another version of himself. Though I personally think Gary Johnson would be a more effective President than Paul.

Reassure the base what? That they have a pretty face with an annoying accent and no real knowledge of anything beyond her talking points memos?

 

[dblack]

The only compromise he would need to make to win the GOP nomination would be on foreign policy. That's where republicans who like him but wouldn't vote for him part ways with him.

Which he would never do. If you have any doubts (and don't want to read all his writings for the past several decades), listen to the first Republican debates of the 2008 primaries. Paul is by far the most consistent opponent of the corporate war machine currently running for office. He'd make Obama look like the corporatist warmonger he is and it's this trait that is his biggest 'selling point' as a potential Republican nominee.

But I agree with you that this is where most mainstream Republicans would withhold support for Paul. It's my hope that, this time around, Paul rides his primary run to a peak (right up to the point where the Republican power players decide to sit on him) and makes a break from the party. He'd still likely not win as a Libertarian or independent candidate, but he could just give momentum to a new alternative to the Democrat/Republican same old.

 

[Modbert]

Reassure the base what? That they have a pretty face with an annoying accent and no real knowledge of anything beyond her talking points memos?

Pretty much.

 

[Paulie]

The only compromise he would need to make to win the GOP nomination would be on foreign policy. That's where republicans who like him but wouldn't vote for him part ways with him.

Which he would never do. If you have any doubts (and don't want to read all his writings for the base several decades), listen to the first Republican debates of the 2008 primaries. Paul is by far the most consistent opponent of the corporate war machine currently running for office. He'd make Obama look like the corporatist warmonger he is and it's this trait that is his biggest 'selling point' as a potential Republican nominee.

But I agree with you that this is where most mainstream Republicans would withhold support for Paul. It's my hope that, this time around, Paul rides his primary run to a peak (right up to the point where the Republican power players decide to sit on him) and makes a break from the party. He'd still likely not win as a Libertarian or independent candidate, but he could just give momentum to a new alternative to the Democrat/Republican same old.

Trust me, you don't have to educate me on Paul. In 2008 I was burning hundreds of DVD's of his speeches and debates to hand out to people door to door to win support for him.

 

[Paulie]

Reassure the base what? That they have a pretty face with an annoying accent and no real knowledge of anything beyond her talking points memos?

Pretty much.

My point was, that Palin was a nobody and now she has millions of supporters and there isn't a single person who doesn't know who she is.

She was just the wrong type of nobody.

 

[Modbert]

But I agree with you that this is where most mainstream Republicans would withhold support for Paul. It's my hope that, this time around, Paul rides his primary run to a peak (right up to the point where the Republican power players decide to sit on him) and makes a break from the party. He'd still likely not win as a Libertarian or independent candidate, but he could just give momentum to a new alternative to the Democrat/Republican same old.

Maybe because it's his last hurrah, but otherwise I can't see Paul running on a third party ticket. The fact he's retiring from Congress and no longer beholden to the GOP does give some fuel for the chance of a third party run though.

 

[Modbert]

My point was, that Palin was a nobody and now she has millions of supporters and there isn't a single person who doesn't know who she is.

She was just the wrong type of nobody.

Perhaps. Though Johnson has some positions that would scare away a number of voters. Cutting Medicare and Medicaid by 43% and making them block programs turned over to the states is not going to go over well with seniors.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Ron Paul has a 30 year career of bucking the system, why is he all of a sudden going to start playing the game their way? He may not choose Gary Johnson, but I doubt he chooses somebody simply to reassure the base. Besides, Barack Obama as President should be enough to shore up the Republican base.

Kevin, he's going to pick someone who is going to appeal to more voters. Thinking he is going to pick Gary Johnson as of right now is a Libertarian fantasy, especially since the vast majority of America doesn't even know who he is.

No, thinking Newt would ever endorse Ron Paul was a libertarian fantasy. Assuming that Ron Paul would pick a running mate in line with his own views is perfectly reasonable.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

As I've already explained Ron Paul's position hasn't changed at all. He's always said that he would prefer a flat tax to the income tax, assuming of course that it reduces taxes, but that his ultimate goal is to simply do away with the income tax and replace it with nothing.

Except he has always wanted to see the government funded through excise taxes and tariffs. The flat tax is something new as far as I know.

He was talking about it back during the last election. It's not new at all.

 

[Paulie]

My point was, that Palin was a nobody and now she has millions of supporters and there isn't a single person who doesn't know who she is.

She was just the wrong type of nobody.

Perhaps. Though Johnson has some positions that would scare away a number of voters. Cutting Medicare and Medicaid by 43% and making them block programs turned over to the states is not going to go over well with seniors.

Republicans have been talking about cutting entitlements forever, they still get their party's vote from seniors and the moderate vote when the center is disenchanted with the left. It's the same back and forth crap we've seen for decades, nothing really ever changes.

The fact is, AARP is too strong of a lobby. Medicare is not going anywhere.

 

[Modbert]

Republicans have been talking about cutting entitlements forever, they still get their party's vote from seniors and the moderate vote when the center is disenchanted with the left. It's the same back and forth crap we've seen for decades, nothing really ever changes.

The fact is, AARP is too strong of a lobby. Medicare is not going anywhere.

Talking about it and going ahead with it are two different things. If you want to see how proposing cutting Medicare is going to go down, go look at NY-26. Paul Ryan's plan didn't exactly go down well there.

 

[Paulie]

Republicans have been talking about cutting entitlements forever, they still get their party's vote from seniors and the moderate vote when the center is disenchanted with the left. It's the same back and forth crap we've seen for decades, nothing really ever changes.

The fact is, AARP is too strong of a lobby. Medicare is not going anywhere.

Talking about it and going ahead with it are two different things. If you want to see how proposing cutting Medicare is going to go down, go look at NY-26. Paul Ryan's plan didn't exactly go down well there.

Paul has talked about the idea of allowing citizens to opt out of entitlement programs. A compromise to not cutting them would be allowing the opt outs, which would be a huge step in the right direction to managing the unfunded liabilities. This would be much less extreme than hitting beneficiaries with huge cuts.

 

[kaz]

The greatest threat is empowering the Federal government. That which you give it the power to regulate to legalize is the same sword by which they ban it. Paul is absolutely right. The Federal government needs to be out of drugs neither legalizing nor criminalizing them. Then we need to fight in the States to keep them legal.

What? If Paul was elected, even if the War on Drugs ended tomorrow, drugs would still be illegal in all 50 states. There is no fight to "keep them legal". The fight would be to get them to be legal.

Mainly you're word parsing. But how do you know there are State laws on the books outlawing them?

Though let me ask you how you feel about Jim Crow Laws. Since you feel that the greatest threat is the Federal Government.

How do I "feel" about them? They are an abomination to free people. I thought we were discussing the law though. How you "feel" about laws drives whether you support them or not? I actually don't think that, so how I "feel" about them isn't relevant to whether they are Constitutional. I know what you meant to ask, but you put me in a position that if I'm to answer the question other then with what you want then I am actually supporting them. BTW, you can't derive my answer from that statement, I just object to it being asked in a flagrantly loaded way. I'll answer if you phrase it as a question on the law without the booby trap.

 

[Kooshdakhaa]

I'd vote for anyone over those stupid women.

 

[kaz]

I'd vote for anyone over those stupid women.

Right, they won't take other people's money and give it to you. Raving imbeciles. Imagine a mere woman disagreeing with you. You're the sort of raging sexist that shows how pathetic liberal women like Ravi, Seawych and BDBoop are. They are Democrats first, women second. I am an individual first. Maybe instead of voting for politicians to redistribute money you should work harder and save more. Just a thought.

 

[MaggieMae]

Most republicans are rational enough to realize that there's bases we could close around the world. We don't need to be in all the countries we're in. Paul is the only candidate that will actually close those bases.

While I would love to see us leave them all, I know that Paul would not walk into the oval office and close every one of them. Once you're in that office and the intel reports come in and the pressure from military generals advising you not to close hits you, it's not so easy to just brush it aside and close them all anyway.

I still think congressional approval is needed before military bases are closed. Therein lies the overall problem. A president wants one thing, then Congress just says no.

 

[MaggieMae]

Well now you're changing the argument. Were we discussing Ron Paul vs. Obama or Ron Paul vs. the Republicans? It's going to be difficult to win the Republican nomination no doubt about that, and he's obviously not the leading candidate at the moment but things are changing. He's polling in third for the Republican nomination right now which indicates that even Republicans are becoming war weary, and look at a lot of the Tea Party candidates elected in 2010. They're much more skeptical of the wars than the traditional Republican establishment. Republicans like Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Justin Amash represent that new Republican position on foreign policy.

As for "isolationist" that's a misnomer, Ron Paul doesn't want to isolate us in the world. He's a noninterventionist.

My original comment was directed at liberals saying they could vote for Paul. I don't believe that for a second, sorry. It was like whan Biden stated he could vote for McCain.....nice rhetoric, but.....

Forget 'liberals' for this argument. Just focus on moderate democrats disappointed with Obama, independents, etc.

He's got the best shot of getting that vote for a few reasons...he's the only one tough on the Fed, and people have been waking up to the problems with the fed. His social policy best fits with moderates because he'd leave the Federal government out of issues like abortion and gay marriage. Moderates who'd like someone less fiscally liberal but more socially liberal would vote for Paul over Obama any day of the week.

The rest of the GOP field is basically the same old thing we've seen for over 10 years.

If he got close enough that it looked like he could win the nomination, the deciding factor for a lot of people would be who he chooses for his vice president. Ron Paul is getting old, which a lot of people worry about.

 

[StashMan]

Most republicans are rational enough to realize that there's bases we could close around the world. We don't need to be in all the countries we're in. Paul is the only candidate that will actually close those bases.

While I would love to see us leave them all, I know that Paul would not walk into the oval office and close every one of them. Once you're in that office and the intel reports come in and the pressure from military generals advising you not to close hits you, it's not so easy to just brush it aside and close them all anyway.

I still think congressional approval is needed before military bases are closed. Therein lies the overall problem. A president wants one thing, then Congress just says no.

The President is commander and chief over all military matters, and though he would consult with officials over the best way to do it, I think he alone has the power to order a bases closing. Don't quote me on this but I think that is more than likely the way it is.

 

[Divine Wind]

The President is commander and chief over all military matters, and though he would consult with officials over the best way to do it, I think he alone has the power to order a bases closing. Don't quote me on this but I think that is more than likely the way it is.

Congress holds the purse strings. Additionally, the entire base closure moves post-Cold War was put under BRAC.

Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC)

Base Realignment and Closure - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In short, the CiC leads our troops, but Congress controls the budget for them.