John Fout is the Street.Com’s political correspondent. He has written some nice things about Ron Paul in the past, but his latest article is extremely positive.
Articles about Ron Paul and his presidential campaign almost always take one of two stances: Either he’s wacky or his supporters are wacky.
The most recent piece comes from Stuart Rothenberg, who writes the Rothenberg Political Report. Rothenberg argues that Paul’s wackiness proves both Paul and the Internet’s effects on politics need to be ignored. Rothenberg is wrong on both counts.
Here is the list of candidates along with a performance review:
Fred Thompson – I’m not with Fred. Unlike Huckabee Fred is a bad magician. In fact he seemed to bumble up a lot of his tricks tonight. He gives vague answers to questions while claiming he’s being “clear.” This was pretty evident when he answered the question on what 3 government programs he would cut. I still don’t know what 3 he would cut. Do you? See the video below.
Rudy Giuliani – I thought his performance was pretty bad. He came off as a bickering child during the beginning exchange with Romney. He stumbled a bit on the questions on abortion and gun control. I no longer see him an the inevitable nominee. Here is the bickering exchange if you can stomach watching the children argue again.
Mitt Romney – Romney played dodge ball quite a bit. He seems like he’s trying hard to force people to like him. He seems like when he gets the touchy questions he avoids answering by saying he’d ask a third party. This is much like he did in a previous debate when he said he’d talk to lawyers to find out whether it is Constitutional for the President to declare war. Here he is again dismissing his own responsibility on gays in the military. He is the 3rd candidate to answer in the video.
Ron Paul appears on the front page of both the online and print version of the San Francisco chronicle today with an article titled: Ron Paul Who?
They were a lonely band of rebels until just a few weeks ago, backing the darkest of dark horse presidential candidates.
But with Republican Rep. Ron Paul’s fundraising on the rise – $4.2 million raised on the Internet in one day this month – and his poll numbers jumping, the Texas congressman might no longer be a “who?” but a potential problem for leading Republican presidential candidates in key states such as New Hampshire.
The Virginia GOP has gained permission from the State Board of Elections to require anyone voting in the Virginia Republican primary to sign an oath to vote for the GOP nominee in the general election, no matter who the nominee is. The news story is here.
This is getting ridiculous. When I first read this actual news story I thought I was reading satire. But apparently it is true. There are reports that some people will not vote in the GOP primary because of this coercion. Some people actually take oaths seriously. I certainly wish those elected officials who swear to uphold the Constitution took that oath seriously.
Also, on the Virginia State Board of Elections web site it states:
“No person may intimidate, threaten or coerce any other person: for registering or voting; for urging or aiding persons in registering or voting; for purposes of interfering or influencing how a person chooses to vote or not vote; or for purposes of preventing a person from voting.”
I guess they can argue that the Virginia GOP is not a “person”. I suppose I could agree that they aren’t human in this case. What country do I live in again? What is happening to America?
The argument is that the GOP of Virginia are worried that the Democrats will “meddle in their Virginia open primary.” Well, I say why shouldn’t the Democrats be permitted to vote for a Republican in an open primary. Who is the Virginia GOP afraid of?
I think we know the answer to that. Perhaps a certain Texas Congressman who is gaining support from all colors of the political spectrum.
I can’t call this a good interview other than the way Ron Paul answered the questions he was given. Yet another interview where Ron has to answer the 3rd party candidacy question. I’m surprised Ron Paul doesn’t roll his eyes all the way into the back of his head once he hears where the question is going. He’s had to have been asked it at least 30 times. In fact, that may make a good YouTube video someday.
There’s nothing new here, but it falls into the any coverage is good coverage category. Ron is able to get his message out there in spite of the questions. At least the questioner ended on a positive note by plugging the campaign web site.
At 8pm tonight on CNN the Republicans will finally have their YouTube debate. At first glance one thinks of the open access this debate will bring where anyone can submit a question via a YouTube video to be asked during the debate. The reality is that a pool of main stream media journalists will decide which of the questions actually get asked.
It is not surprising since they received over 750 submissions on the final day of eligibility. Rather than control the questions to be asked so tightly, I think the method employed should be more random. Sure, they have a responsibility to weed out the completely ridiculous and offensive video questions. Once they eliminate those they can set up a system to randomly choose each question to be asked in real time during the actual debate.
If they really wanted more control they could categorize the questions by issue so they could cover a variety of questions.
CNN has been pretty Ron Paul friendly lately. They will have a live focus group during the debate to show in real time how the focus group is responding to the candidate’s answers. It can’t be much worse than the FOX Frank Luntz biased focus group. Or can it? This debate (like all of them) can make or break Ron Paul’s candidacy. Most likely it will do neither, but we’ll be watching tonight at 8pm.
I may even try my hand at some live blogging during the debate. Either that or I’ll be in some chat room arguing with Ron Paul supporters about how well he did.
I thought it may be a good idea to post some Ron Paul related events occurring in my every day life. To me this just shows, via anecdotal evidence, the proliferation of Ron Paul’s support.
Last week on my way back from Dallas in Dallas-Fort Worth airport a man came up to me and shook my hand because I was wearing a Ron Paul t-shirt. His comment puzzled me a little bit and caught me off guard. He said, “I saw him on Bill Maher, he’s the only independent out there.” My friend Mike (and co-contributor to Liberty Maven) was with me and he offered the man a slimjim (a narrow campaign flyer). It wasn’t until he walked away that we wondered “independent?”
Today I put in a support ticket with my web hosting provider. The support technician replied to my request and added a note at the end that said, “PS: Ron Paul ROCKS!!! He has my vote”. In the course of helping me he was forced to check out the Liberty Maven site load times. It made me smile.
Perhaps the best moment though, came when my wife told me our neighbor in the house across from us came over to ask for jumper cables. He noticed all of the Ron Paul bumper stickers on my car and said to my wife, “I like your stickers.” My wife asked, “So you like Ron Paul?” He replied, “I love him. I’m a member of a Ron Paul meetup near where I work.” It looks like I should get to know my neighbors better.
I placed a number in the title of this post in the hopes that I will be posting more Ron Paul encounters in the near and distant future. Perhaps my co-contributors to Liberty Maven can post some of theirs as well.
I was touched by a recent post on the Ron Paul Forums. The post is from a military veteran who is also a Ron Paul supporter. His effort is worth your time and help. I’ll let him explain by posting the entire message here.
A Soldier’s Plea
Hello my name is Douglas Hostetler and I live in Indianapolis, Indiana where I sell real estate. Selling real estate is a tough business nowadays but not nearly as tough as living and working in the combat zone called Iraq. You see I wasn’t always a realtor in my younger days during the cold war I felt a need to join the U.S. Armed Forces so I talked to some recruiters, The Air Force, The Navy, My dad was a Marine in Vietnam so I skipped that recruiter (no offense “leathernecks”) and finally ended up signing with the Army. They offered me a chance to go to Airborne School after basic training and AIT and maybe become a paratrooper. Well as a 19 year old kid how could I pass? So off to FT. Knox I go to be trained as an armor crewman.
Liberty Maven
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