Liberty Maven

It was a rather disheartening day for the supporters of true liberty yesterday. Ron Paul averaged about 3-6 percent in most of the states holding primaries. He did much better in states holding caucuses.

Caucuses seem more genuine to me. You are able to get your candidate’s message out through speaking about him to others. You are able to openly campaign for your candidate.  You then vote. In a pimary you go into a booth and pick your candidate. If you haven’t done your research you may vote for something you don’t want. At least with a caucus the lesser known candidates have a fighting chance.

There are two things to learn from the exit polls yesterday related to the GOP vote. Most people don’t care about the issues, rather it is the character that matters most to them. Also, most don’t even know what issues they are voting for, whether they care about them or not. These two truths come from the exit polling of those voting for John McCain.

In New York, 66% of those valuing personal qualities over issues voted for McCain. Also in New York, McCain received 56% of the Anti-war vote. I humbly submit that these statistics suggest that some people in New York are idiots. John McCain said he would be in Iraq for 100 years, maybe more. He also said that “there’s gonna be more wars”. He makes George W. Bush look like Ron Paul when it comes to war. The exit polls show similar statistics in other states as well. You can look at the exit polling in New York at CNN.com.

On the plus side, after being treated as if he had already dropped out of the race by the media, Ron Paul did well in a few states. He finished 3rd in Utah, Alabama, Alaska, and North Dakota. He came in 2nd in Montana. He received double digit percentages in Montana, Alaska, Minnesota, and North Dakota. He also received more than 500,000 votes in total yesterday. That is quite a bit of liberty right there. Also, remember that 21 states still haven’t voted. This is nothing to sneeze at when considering he has been shunned by his own party, ignored and marginalized by the media, and had to deal with a media smear attack of racism.

There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people out there who have recognized the true cause of liberty. I sometimes roll my eyes when people call this “a movement”, but a movement it is. Some will fall off the bandwagon and become discouraged. Many will carry on and fight for many years to come. I hope to live many more years. When those years have passed me by, I pray I will look back on my life as being one of the fighters rather than the discouraged.