Ron Paul: At Your Service
An interesting article at the Washington Post about Ron Paul:
“Two days was not enough,” Jared Chicoine says, standing in the lobby of a Holiday Inn Express on the eve of Tuesday’s third Republican presidential debate.
Unshaven and dressed in a blue Ralph Lauren oxford shirt and khakis, Chicoine could easily pass for a hung-over fraternity brother. Instead, the 25-year-old is the non-drinking, nonsmoking New Hampshire campaign coordinator for Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.). That makes him the lone paid political operative working in a key state for a Republican presidential candidate whose candor has earned him plenty of buzz of late.
The presidential debates are the kind of spotlight every candidate relishes, and especially one like libertarian Paul, who isn’t exactly considered part of the GOP mainstream.
And Chicoine, with a true-believer’s heart, has arrived for these debates fresh from his honeymoon — all two days of it.
On Saturday, he married 19-year-old Kimberly Sutherland in a Baptist church in Woodsville. After the honeymoon in Jackson, he hotfooted here, his bride in tow. The two had planned the wedding last year, well before Chicoine got involved with the Paul campaign. But when your candidate’s got his big political moment and you’re his only man in the state, who’s got time to worry about honeymoons.
Barbara Hagan, a former New Hampshire state representative and mother of seven, said about Paul: “Ron Paul’s speaking to people like me. He’s an honorable man. He’s a hardworking man. I want my party back. I want my country back, and I want the U.S. out of Iraq.”
Chicoine about what he and Ron Paul stand for: “I like to think of myself as a Barry Goldwater conservative. When I think of the 1960s, I think of conservatism. People say, ‘Reagan, Reagan, Reagan,’ but what about Goldwater? That’s why I consider myself a paleo-conservative.”
And later: “I think [Paul's campaign] should refocus conservatives about what it means to be conservative. We have to be about more than preemptive warfare.”
So, how did Paul do in the debate? “He’s trying to remind the party of what conservatism used to be. I think he did that tonight.”
I agree with that – I watched the debate in its entirety by now and have to say – whenever Paul could, he made his point. He tried to remind the Republican Party what their Party was once all about. Frankly, he does in many ways remind me of Barry Goldwater, although Goldwater, of course, favored quite an aggressive foreign policy.
It is quite amazing to see with how little Paul’s campaign has to get by compared to some of the other candidates. The good news? The ones who do actively support Paul do so very, extremely passionately. They believe in what he is doing and in his message.
It feels like Paul is a man with a mission: not the mission people like McCain, Romney and Giuliani have, which is to become president, but an entirely different mission altogether. Paul knows that he will never win the nomination, he simply hopes to influence people, he hopes to influence other Republicans and, by doing so, he hopes that the Republican Party will return to its (Goldwater) roots, whether he gets credit for the work he is doing right now or not, doesn’t matter to him.
16 Responses to “Ron Paul: At Your Service”
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Out of all the candidates, both Dem or Rep, Ron Paul seems the most honest.
I hate ron paul, he is not a harworking man, and he most certainly doesn’t speak for me. As far as I’m concerned he is a moral degenerate.
Rambie, I agree. Even if you disagree with him you can still admire a man with real convictions. He certainly would be serious about fiscal responsibility and an end to deficit spending.
We go round and round with Ron Paul, yet outside the blogosphere, the man can’t even outpoll Gilmore or Pataki.
Therefore, let me cut to the chase………..
If you want to talk about Ron Paul as an “in-the-flesh” national office candidate, you might as well devote an equal expenditure of wishful-thinking time to Mike Gravel. They are both “blogosphere phenoms” with not a snowball’s chance in hell of even being remotely competitive in this race.
Secondly, for any non-Republican primary voter, please name a Ron Paul position other than non-interventionism that you find appealing.
Ron Paul is a l-i-b-e-r-t-a-r-i-a-n, my left of center colleagues. That means NO progressive taxation, VERY LIMITED government funding on social services, STATES RIGHTS, NO affirmative action programs, NO UN support.
Let’s first have a thread on how well everyone subscribes to a libertarian philosophy and once you convince me of that, I just might start to believe you really might cast an actual vote for Ron Paul.
Don’t get me wrong…..a Ron Paul adminstration would save me enough in federal income taxes in a year to launch my own blog. I would love to see a libertarian win. I just don’t believe the rest of you would.
I liked the way he kept defending the Constitution, and that he won’t pander to the base as the others have, just to gain the nomination. On the Democratic side I think Biden is very honest though. He’s always himself.
As a supporter of Ron Paul, the comment below in the NYT Caucus blog is most disturbing as my reaction would have been similar – and I am faaaar from uptight.
If there is any truth to this comment, I hope this gets addressed by Mr Chicoline.
“Ron Paul won’t be taken seriously as long as the “freak show†supports. It’s a classic Libertarian problem. He may have had valid ideas, but when I’m approached by a guy wearing circus pants who asks me to sign a petition to get some Libertarians on the ballot, and who then gets huffy and combative when I ask him what the “9-11 was an inside job†thing is about (these Ron Paul supporters had a loudspeaker (removed by the police, apparently they couldn’t read the rules) and was wearing a pirate hat. No joke, this is how they portrayed themselves at the rally last in Manchester.”
Romulo,
Since you do not specify the reason(s) you support Ron Paul, I may not be onpoint enough to assist you.
However, on the possibility you are actually libertarian instead of just anti-interventionist, I will suggest your party come back with a different candidate.
Outside the blogosphere, personality trumps policy wonking. Ron Paul happens to come across to regular people as a gruff caricature. When you are selling a non-traditional product to a traditional market, you always make sure your salesman is traditional to lower the “strangeness” quotient hitting the prospect. Had the libertarians had their messenger with the personality, appearance and demeanor of say, Mitt Romney, the libertarian cause would have been much better served.
Secondly, you don’t go to a party and insult the host. There is a thing called tact that Ron Paul lacks. had Ron Paul started out with a positive message, gained some acceptance amongst the “regular folks” before going negative, he might have actually attained some stature as the conscience of the party.
Unless you can get Paul to change his personality real, real fast, you are hitching your wagon to the Howard Dean Express of 2007/8. It is only a matter of when his style implodes him. It is really a shame.
Casualobserver, don’t be condescending.
I think most of us here know what a Libertarian is. My previous boss was a libertarian, there are many aspects of the Libertarian party that I agree with, and many of my close friends are Libertarians.
Yes, I’m more left of the majority of Libertarians, but I can at least debate and come to a compromise with them than the current crop of the GOP leadership.
Apologies for coming across as condescending.
I just get frustratingly confused when people say they support Ron Paul without specifying the why.
By way of example, support could come from the following significantly different sources:
-true libertarians
-anti-Iraq/interventionist Republicans
-9/11 truthers
-true Dems just looking to be pretend Republicans (maliciously or just capriciously)
-people just looking for the most straight talking candidates less focused on ideology
3 of the 5 I would enjoy a conversation with. But, I am onguard against the other 2.
I’ll admit their economic policies are a little frightening, but I’d still prefer Paul to any of the candidates in the debate last night who seemed more than willing to nuke Iran and who think DADT works fine just the way it is. I also agree with his stand on social issues.
Dr. Paul tells it like it is, and it is very refreshing to know he’s not just letting his handlers take over, so that he can appeal to GOP primary voters.
No problem Casual.
I still say out of the current candidates he seems the most honest when he speaks, no matter the consequences. If I only had to choose from the current Republican candidates, I would probably choose Ron Paul.
Why? I believe there is most common ground between he and I than with the other candidates and room for honest debate to work on a compromise.
Laura you said “I hate ron paul, he is not a harworking man, and he most certainly doesn’t speak for me. As far as I’m concerned he is a moral degenerate”.
Ron is a medical doctor who gave free care to lots of people.
What makes you think he’s a moral degenerate? LOL
I’ve heard criticisms of Ron but that surely is an odd one.
He’s been married 48 years to the same woman, has 5 kids and 17+ grandchildren. Was a flight doctor in the service.
I don’t think you know one damned thing about Dr. Paul.
casualobserver,
I don’t understand where all your hostility for Ron Paul (or those who have spoken favorably of his compaign) comes from.
No one on this blog has said that Ron Paul represents their beliefs. And very people people who have spoken favorably of his campaign have said that they will actually support him.
There’s a reason why Ron Paul’s candidacy has resonated with the anti-war community. On the 18 candidates running for president, Ron Paul has been the most consistent critic of the Iraq War, dating back to the Clinton administration.
He’s had the courage to stand alone against the war amidst the warmongering and propaganda offered by his fellow Republicans running for President. And unlike Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Joe Biden (all of whom voted for the war and only turned against it once the war became unpopular), Ron Paul has opposed the war from the very beginning.
Clinton, Edwards, and Biden have absolutely no credibility on the war. They were hawks in the fall of 2002. They voted to send our soldiers to die in Iraq, and they didn’t even have the courtesy of reading the NIE report.
Believe it or not, casualobserver, there are some libertarian-leaning bloggers at TMV. I personally consider myself to be a libertarian-liberal rather than a libertarian, but I voted Libertarian in both 2004 and 2006, and I’ll gladly do so again if 2008 if the Democrats and Republicans front a less-than-tolerable candidate (which seems increasingly likely with every day that passes).
And finally, as to your comments about Ron Paul and Mike Gravel not having a “snowball’s chance in hell of even being remotely competitive in this race”, I say WHO CARES! This isn’t a popularity contest! You’re supposed to vote for who you’d LIKE to win, not who you THINK will win.
There’s a reason why Ron Paul and Mike Gravel don’t have “a snowball’s chance in hell.” In fact, there’s several reasons:
They don’t receive all the media attention that the “establishment” candidates do.
They don’t receive as much time to speak during the debates as the “establishment” candidates do (see second comment on previous post).
They don’t have the party donors and special interest groups lined up to give them millions of dollars like the “establishment” candidates do.
They’ve become pariahs in their own parties because they’re willing to speak out not only against the opposite party, but also their own party.
Since you’re so interested in having the rest of us proving our “libertarian” credentials, I’m curious to know what your own political beliefs are.
Nic,
Happy to oblige.
Ayn Rand remains my favorite author of all time. I first read Atlas Shrugged in 1969.
Therefore, my personal “political” belief system is most closely aligned with the traditional Libertarian Party platform.
At heart, I am an “isolationist” for both domestic and foreign policy. In mind, however, I rationalize that there are “risks” to me on both fronts since a goodly number of others do not live their lives either wholly self-sufficiently or wholly within the boundaries of their own rights.
Therefore, on domestic policy, I “rationalize” if I agree to acquiesce to some amount of tax (other than use tax for which I readily agree to) out of my pocket, I save myself a future cost of protecting myself from the downside of others not living up to standards and boundaries.
On foreign policy comes the costs and risk decisions of pure isolationism (back-end loaded protection of my rights) vs. some amount of interventionism (arguably a more front-end loaded protection). Because I do not possess the same degree of comfort assessing the foreign-based risks to me than those of domestic origin, I am more of a waffler on accepting foreign risk than the domestic risks.
Those are my “political beliefs”.
As to your beliefs, Nic, and I say this without intent to just snark, I submit you are largely co-opting Libertarianism by cherry-picking off Ron Paul’s anti-war stance. Elections are pragmatic exercises……one cannot “elect” just one piece of a candidate. Therefore, I believe much of the “anti-war” praise now heard for Ron Paul will not translate into levers being pulled for him. I am clearly guilty of focusing on end of day pragmatics in contrast to what I take is your early day focus on piecemeal ideology.
While I can also admire Ron Paul for being in that first “seemingly clairvoyant” anti-Iraq invasion 12% group, I also submit he is now actually taking advantage of hindsight as well by converting what was just a general anti-interventionist view into a latter day false-clairvoyance about the exact facts of Hussein’s regime in 2002/3.
I also stand by my comment that he is NOT the personage that dyed-in-the-wool libertarians want to represent them in a national election. And defacto, he is not. He has chosen to be Republican Party standard bearer and in my personal view that comes with the obligation to convey any dissonance in a manner befitting a party improvement project and not a curmudgeonly attack.
And, it is again my prediliction to pragmatics that causes me to continually focus not an idealism but rather electability.
Hope that helps clarify.
I wish the American people will wake up and realize that everything Ron Paul talks about is the truth. He is attacked by the other GOP candidates BECAUSE HE TELLS THE TRUTH.
I wish with all my heart that Ron Paul becomes the next president. But I do not have hope. As Iron Maiden says: “You’re outnumbered by the bastards till the day you die.”