Liberty Maven

Judging by some of the heroic worshiping rhetoric found here and other pro-Paul areas of the media world one would get the impression that Ron Paul is perfection personified. Unfortunately he has flaws. Most are of the perfectly imperfect variety. Indeed, flaws are a matter of perception.

In an interview on a Pittsburgh radio station last night the host implied that being honest with the American people is a doomed campaign strategy. I’m not sure if there is a sadder hard truth than that. It is almost as if many Americans beg to be manipulated by our politicians. It is the public discourse equivalent of a wife asking her husband, “Does this dress make me look fat?”. Meanwhile the wife is five foot four and weighs 210 pounds. If Ron Paul were to answer he’d say, “No, your large body makes you look fat. Your clothes are totally irrelevant.” It’s hard to win an election with honesty like that.

On a bit more serious note, Ron Paul’s newsletters would have been more than a minor stumbling block if he were to ever win the GOP nomination. His association with them would certainly doom him in a race against Obama. Whether he wrote them or not, he would be attacked for letting them go out under his name. His detractors would cite his naive management skills as a detriment to being President. That is, if they even got past the allegedly racist content. For those Ron Paul supporters out there who think this to be untrue, I only ask you to look at the fiasco with Obama’s preacher. The connection between Ron Paul and his newsletters is a much closer one than the one between Obama and Reverend Wright. In some ways Ron Paul is lucky he didn’t get more votes. The fallout from the smear campaign we saw from James Kirchik’s New Republic article was fairly small compared to what could have been.

A year ago, after the first GOP debate, I lamented that Ron Paul was the wrong messenger with the right message. In hindsight I still believe that today. Ron Paul, like it or not, came off as a whiner. It pains me greatly to admit it. His rhetorical style was almost always negative. If he were able to frame his positions in a more positive light, he probably could have doubled the number of votes he received (perhaps even tripled). A Mike Huckabee frame around Ron Paul’s message would be close to unstoppable.

Another element that worked against Ron Paul was his association with the 9/11 truth movement. This is a rather touchy subject because people have very strong opinions on both sides. The real truth is that no matter what caused 9/11 having Ron Paul associated with the government conspiracy side of the debate lost him mainstream votes. It is doubtful Ron Paul could have severed this association even if he wanted to thanks to the media’s love of sensationalism. No matter what side you are on I beg you to read and listen to the wise words of Harry Browne on the topic in 2004.

Ironically, all of these flaws were the very aspects of Paul’s character that many found endearing. I am one of them. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of us out here (yet). I will vote for the politically naive, sincere, honest, and non-PC candidate every time as long as he/she is a champion of liberty. The general populace is not like me. They want to be told they aren’t fat. They want to be told they aren’t lazy. They want to be told they aren’t dumb. Even if the truth is that they are all of those things and more.

During the entire campaign of 2008 people voiced their deep desire for change. The reality is people don’t really want change. Their idea of change is anyone but George Bush. Ron Paul’s idea of change is recognizing the true value of freedom and living it. People don’t want to be free. They want to be free from harm. They want to hand their own responsibilities over to the government so they have someone to blame other than themselves when things go poorly. Then they want the government to demonstrate there is no consequences for their actions by bailing them out. Ron Paul scares them because his brand of change forces them to be responsible for their actions.

Right now the world is not quite ready for the perfectly imperfect Ron Paul. Some of us are more than ready. We will still be here when the rest of the world wakes up and realizes that Ron Paul’s message is an idea whose time has come. When it happens we will only pause for a moment to tell you “I told you so.” After that, we will work side by side putting ideas into action for the cause of individual human liberty.