Ron Paul Has Been Shafted! Why Are They Ignoring Ron Paul? Ehr, Because He Can’t Be The Nominee?

16 Aug, 2011 by John Hawkins

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Ron Paul’s fans and a number of liberals who are looking to make trouble have been going on and on about Ron Paul not getting enough attention after his 2nd place finish at Ames. Here’s Roger Simon (the liberal one) making the case.

I admit I do not fully understand Ron Paul and his beliefs. But I do understand when a guy gets shafted, and Ron Paul just got shafted.

On Saturday, the Ames Straw Poll was conducted in Iowa amid huge media interest and scrutiny. The results were enough to force one Republican candidate, Tim Pawlenty, out of the race, and catapult another, Michele Bachmann, into the “top tier.”

…Paul’s name was not mentioned in this piece nor in many others. A Wall Street Journal editorial Monday magnanimously granted Paul’s showing in the straw poll a parenthetical dismissal: “(Libertarian Ron Paul, who has no chance to win the nomination, finished a close second.)”

…And I don’t disagree that some of his beliefs – legalizing heroin, the right of states to secede – are strikingly peculiar (though he has been elected to a congressional district in Texas 12 times). But if Bachmann’s victory at Ames was good enough to gain her enormous publicity and top-tier status, why was Paul’s virtual tie good enough only to relegate him to being ignored?

Let me begin by noting that I am rather famously not a Ron Paul fan. Of course, I don’t hate him either. In fact, I found him and his handlers to be very gracious when I interviewed him. I also supported his son Rand Paul in his primary against Trey Grayson and have been extremely pleased with the job he’s done in the Senate.

That being said, I’m going to make some people very unhappy by pointing out the obvious: Ron Paul has zero chance to win the Republican nomination. Absolutely zero. By that, I mean if every other candidate were somehow to be killed in a freak accident and he were the only one left alive, a new field of contenders would get in the race and at least one of them would still beat Ron Paul.

How can this be, you say? He can raise money! He wins the CPAC straw poll every year! He came in 2nd place at Ames! He does great in online polls!

That’s because Ron Paul has an extraordinarily dedicated fanbase that loves him the way Lady Gaga loves weird outfits. These are people who are willing to give him money, travel to vote for him, and they promote him relentlessly.

Here’s the problem: Ron Paul’s fanbase is a relatively small group of people and it’s impossible for them to get much bigger because the very things that they like about him make it impossible for him to have mass appeal.

Whether you call Ron Paul a non-interventionist or, I think more accurately, an isolationist — he’s a guy who’s absolutely oblivious to the dangers that America faces around the world. He’s perfectly fine with people who work with terrorists and chant “death to America” getting nuclear weapons. He’s hostile to Israel. He would be happy to let Iraq and Afghanistan fall to pieces if we could get out of there 5 minutes sooner. Quite frankly, he’s not competent to be America’s Commander-in-Chief and his foreign policy positions alone make him a non-starter for most Republicans, even ones like myself, who would like to see America become less involved militarily in world affairs.

Ron Paul also has a lot of fans who admire him because he’s “conspiracy theory friendly.” Truthers, birthers, and North American Union conspiracists love Ron Paul because even though he won’t come right out and say that he buys into those theories, he treats them with a level of undeserved seriousness. Does that gain a lot of diehard fans for Ron Paul? Absolutely. Is it good for the Republican Party or America? No. Is it a palatable position for a serious candidate for the presidency to have? Absolutely not.

Add to that some of Ron Paul’s other oddball positions like doing away with the CIA, legalizing heroin, and going back to the gold standard, and it’s easy to understand why Big-L Libertarians love him so much, but it’s also impossible to see how he could ever become President of the United States. That doesn’t mean Ron Paul is always wrong — far from it. He says a lot of things that conservatives agree with on domestic issues — but so do a lot of candidates.

At the end of the day, Ron Paul is a Libertarian running in a conservative party. Can a Libertarian be elected to Congress as a Republican? Absolutely. Are there a lot of issues where mainstream conservatives can line up with Ron Paul? Yes, absolutely. But, at the end of the day, conservatives are just not going to choose a nominee for President who disagrees with them on so many big issues. So, if Ron Paul’s not getting enough attention, well, that’s because he’s a non-starter as a candidate. Always has been, always will be.