Could Ron Paul’s freshest strategy be to keep showing up for all his party’s nominee debates, bringing his message out over and over again… and then, near the midnight hour, maybe suddenly say, You know what guys? I’m booking. I’m going to run Third Party.

A lot of people right now, seem to be thinking it might make stark sense to vote third party. All across the blogplanet one can read post after post from writers on the left, right and middle, fed up with two parties who’re coughing a 2 cylinder engine up the mountain of US woes, while loudly proclaiming they’re running a finned Hemi. Many people think they look and act the same. Only different colored socks. Maybe.

Some notables who ran for president on Independent and Libertarian tickets:
–1976 Eugene McCarthy 740,460 votes/ independent candidate.
–1980 Congressman John B. Anderson 5,719,850 votes, aprx 7% of vote/ independent candidate for President.
–1988 Ron Paul won 430,000 votes for president/ Libertarian ticket.
–1992 Ross Perot, independent, got 19% of the popular vote/ no electoral votes
–1996 Ross Perot again, creating the Reform Party. He won 8% of the popular vote.
–2000 When George Bush won the fulcrum state of Florida by under 600 votes, some thought Ralph Nader’s run was the spoiler.

Many thought Perot was going to make it in 1992. Folksy, a quirky joker, shrewd as a fox, a way with words, military education…highly eccentric to many. He campaigned hard, spent a lot of money (He’s a billionaire), seemed to have a bead on the concerns of many ordinary people… but then suddenly pulled back, quitting the race because he said he thought Republicans were going to pull some kind of dirty tricks at his daughter’s wedding. His voters were divided between being angry, devastated, and feeling betrayed. (His daughter’s wedding was without event.)

So, now there’s Ron Paul. He already ran in 1988 as Ron Paul regular. But with his ever more solid podium presence in the debates this year, he could be Ron Paul Squared, as in, to the second power… far more powerful than before, gaining more momentum than he’s ever had before. And having far more weary hearts being nourished by his… hark! constitutional ideas. Goodness.

He keeps saying things that strike chords in people’s hearts and minds, unlike the other candidates who may have better hair but not necessarily better brains. I just keep thinking Ike was baby bald, and he took the US out of a murderous dead-end war in Korea. In my lifetime, which has been now measured by 7 wars, I have never known any power country to pull out of a crazed war with grace, not in WWII, not in any war. But Ron Paul seems to have the winch, and he seems to know that there’ll be breakage, but that the greater can be saved.

These are some of his attributed quotes. I don’t know if he writes his own words, or has a speech writer. I would like to think it is the former; just pure Ron Paul Squared:

All initiation of force is a violation of someone else’s rights, whether initiated by an individual or the state, for the benefit of an individual or group of individuals, even if it’s supposed to be for the benefit of another individual or group of individuals.

War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war expenditures.

You wanna get rid of drug crime in this country? Fine, let’s just get rid of all the drug laws.

Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms.

A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank.

Astonishingly, American taxpayers now will be forced to finance a multi-billion dollar jobs program in Iraq. Suddenly the war is about jobs. We export our manufacturing jobs to Asia, and now we plan to export our welfare jobs to Iraq, all at the expense of the poor and the middle class here at home.

Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven’t had capitalism.

Cliches about supporting the troops are designed to distract from failed policies, policies promoted by powerful special interests that benefit from war, anything to steer the discussion away from the real reasons the war in Iraq will not end anytime soon.

How did we win the election in the year 2000? We talked about a humble foreign policy: No nation-building; don’t police the world. That’s conservative, it’s Republican, it’s pro-American - it follows the founding fathers. And, besides, it follows the Constitution.

I am absolutely opposed to a national ID card. This is a total contradiction of what a free society is all about. The purpose of government is to protect the secrecy and the privacy of all individuals, not the secrecy of government. We don’t need a national ID card.

I believe that when we overdo our military aggressiveness, it actually weakens our national defense. I mean, we stood up to the Soviets. They had 40,000 nuclear weapons. Now we’re fretting day in and day and night about third-world countries that have no army, navy or air force.

I have never met anyone who did not support our troops. Sometimes, however, we hear accusations that someone or some group does not support the men and women serving in our Armed Forces. But this is pure demagoguery, and it is intellectually dishonest.

Legitimate use of violence can only be that which is required in self-defense.

Our country’s founders cherished liberty, not democracy.

The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people.

The obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people.

Throughout the 20th century, the Republican Party benefited from a non-interventionist foreign policy. Think of how Eisenhower came in to stop the Korean War. Think of how Nixon was elected to stop the mess in Vietnam.

“They’re putting their back up against the wall and saying, if need be we’re going to have martial law.”

“We’ve heard all these statements by the President, by the administration, why they need more militarism at the federal government to keep people in check so nobody knows how this will turn out but I do know that the only thing we can do about it is try to alert the American people to what’s going on so they can be prepared.”

“It’s getting close to it, it’s called usurpation of power and it’s done in many ways with Congress just going along because they’re sound asleep and this certainly is an attack on our Constitution and on our freedoms.”

When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads.

To date on television now, Ron Paul has said enough to earn his stripes for being down to earth. Let’s hope no fool will think he needs ‘a handler’. Many will be listening for not just his ideas, his truth-telling, but to see if he walks the talk… at this point amongst the Republicans, he’s way ahead…. whilst too many of the other candidates seem to be flanging themselves into a phony high oratory, or else snaggling along seeming to be aggravated by all beings and things, or trying to out-trump each other with how clever they can be with ‘the TV moment phrase.’

If you look at the vehicle that Ron Paul’s really running with, it looks and sounds like he’s got a big V8 under the hood of a quad and five. And maybe glass packs too. I hope he’s welded on a brush guard, because it looks like his favorite sashay has been and will continue to be 4×4 off–road instead of ‘riding in the silk’ in the back of a New Yorker.

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tx/Bucky1