Quote:
Originally Posted by kane
1. He is a republican that looks more like a libertarian than anything else. In Texas is is going to be very hard to get elected as anything but a republican. Obviously people like the job he is doing because he is getting reelected. But I if you look at his positions on most issues he is more libertarian than republican. You can dress a duck up in a sheep suit, it doesn't mean it's not still a duck. Here is a quote from CNN, "Paul, who ran for president as a Libertarian in 1988, is the sole Republican candidate to call for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq." Sounds to me like a guy who knows he can't win as a libertarian so he goes with the party that will best help him.
2. I'm not an expert but here is a nice graph http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.asp it shows that as of Q3 of 2007 paul had raised around 8 million. He said his goal for Q4 was 12 million and he will probably raise around 15-18 that puts him at around 26 million which is still in 4th place on the list and about 1/3rd of what Romney has raised. I wouldn't consider someone who is a sensation on myspace, youtube and facebook a GOP sensation. Many of these supporters are probably not even going to be able vote for him in the primaries because they are either unregistered or registered in the wrong party. We aren't talking about a general election here, we are talking about the republican primary. Remember Howard Dean? He was the internet darling. The guy with all the small campaign contributions and they guy a lot of people picked to win it. Then they found out when called upon to actually get out and vote, the keyboard warriors were busy playing world of warcraft.
3. I understand that republicans have run on anti-war platforms in the past but in most of those cases they were wars started by the opposite party. it is easy to say, " they screwed it up, I'll fix it." It's not so easy to say, "we screwed it up, I'll fix it." Lets not forget that the hard conservative right still believes strongly in the war in Iraq and they are the ones that run the party. Love it or hate it the republican party has sold their souls to the Christian right in order to win elections. They picked their bride and married her, divorcing her won't be so easy. |
1) he has ran in Republican primaries and unseated Republican congressmen to get the nomination for congress, he IS a Republican and has been elected 10 times as one to the US Congress, he is accepted as a Republican and has never had the whip withdrawn even when he rebelled in the 1990's, Newt Gingrich never disciplined him because he is a respected Republican with his own mind
2) Ron Paul's campaign has steadily built through the year, he will be the top fund raiser this quarter and has been half of the year. Romney is writing cheques to himself and Guiliani is working connected networks and employee's of corporations to get $2300 contributions, he will outraise both of them this quarter depending on what Mitt gives himself. Mitt's campaign would be broke without his own bank propping it up. many of the campaigns spend money like drunken sailors (an example of what they would do in Government perhaps) but Ron Paul adheres to his principles and spends frugally, he stays in motels and up until last week was travelling commercially. Romney has aired literally thousands of expensive TV ads all year in Iowa and NH and is being beaten in the official polls in Iowa by Mike Huckabee who until this quarter had not raised much at all.
Howard Dean was the official polling front runner who couldnt win Iowa and subsequently collapsed, Howard Dean raised money on the internet but no where near as much as Ron Paul and Ron Paul is yet to peak in the polls and still has a few weeks to go.
3) Except they're not winning elections they're losing elections like the US congress and if they have a pro-war nominee for President they will lose to the Democrat. Ron Paul is also attracting a lot of people to the party, so many have left and are disgusted but now they're coming back, democrats are switching for Paul, freedom unites people and so does Ron Paul's message