Ron Paul Effectively Ending Presidential Campaign 745
New submitter Dainsanefh sends this quote from the LA Times:
"Ron Paul, Mitt Romney's lone remaining rival for the Republican presidential nomination, announced Monday that he would stop spending money on the party's 11 remaining primaries, in effect suspending his campaign. ... Apart from President Obama and Romney, Paul has raised more money than any other White House contender this year – more than $36 million. His calls for strict adherence to the Constitution and his no-nonsense manner have spawned a vocal and well organized group of followers, but not enough to give him a realistic shot at the presidency."
Needs his organizers to stay on message. (Score:5, Interesting)
So... No $ = No Campaign? (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't matter, voting for him anyway.
Hey, it could be worse: I could be planning to vote for one of the candidates owned by Goldman Sach's. [opensecrets.org]
SLASHDOT: Citation please. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd like a citation from the articles where Paul or his manager say We are "ending" the campaign. Please.
IF you're going to act like FAUX News with distortions
THEN I'd like you to back up that distortion with direct-linked quotes
ELSE retract. Thank you.
Re:Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Same sh*t, different medium... (Score:4, Interesting)
Good Riddance ( Score: +5, PatRIOTic ) (Score:1, Interesting)
Ron Paul is a lunatic. The 20% of his potentially useful commentary is ruined by the 80 % of his lunatic rants such as :
1 The gold in the U.S. Treasury is not 99 percent fine but only 96 percent.
2. Eliminate the Department of Education ( Thanks for contributing to U.S. illiteracy and innumeracy )
3. The U.S. should return to the Gold standard ( You forgot something, the WORLD dropped the gold standard ).
Yours In Novosibirsk,
K. Trout, C.I.O.
P.S.: Ron Paul's agenda is further the political career of his nutjob son, Rand Paul. I'll this wacko for a later essay.
Re:"calls for strict adherence to the constitution (Score:4, Interesting)
>>> if Texas wants to enact a law saying gays and blacks have to sit at the back of the bus, thats OK with R Paul
Um no. The Supreme Court already ruled that segregation is a violation of the equality amendment. (14? 16? I forget). As for Obama's position: Marriage licenses are not granted by the Congress. They are granted by the People and their Legislatures. The U.S. has no authority to overrule what local people desire, anymore than the E.U. has the authority to force the Greeks or Poles or Spaniards to issue gay marriage licenses.
Re:so what? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm still planning on voting for him.
I think that the two party system we have is inherently broken. Do I think Paul would be the best president? not by a long shot. Do I think he would shake things up enough? hopefully.
Re:so what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do I think Paul would be the best president? not by a long shot. Do I think he would shake things up enough? hopefully.
... and that's why the House of Reps needs him exactly where he is. He does a great job putting what brakes he can on legislative excess before things get out of the committees he's on. People who want him to run for President don't often think of how well he does keep things shaken up. His positions fit his current position just right.
Re:Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Know what I'd like to see?
Ron Paul as a Democrat's VP.
He'd never do it but that might be the most productive position for him.
Re:Wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
Virtually none. Which was kind of my point. :)
Joe Biden's contribution to this presidency hasn't been in the form of policy decisions, it's been mainly as a public speaker and ideological mouthpiece. And in that capacity, he's arguably done a fantastic job - just look at how the gay-marriage thing played out last week.
I think Ron Paul would be terrible at the actual sport of governing if he were ever picked for the team. But he's a fine colour commentator.
Re:Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
You were marked +3 informative and should not have been.
According to http://thereal2012delegatecount.com/ [thereal201...ecount.com] Romney has about ~300 confirmed delegates (keyword: confirmed) versus Paul's ~100 confirmed. That's it. For example, Romney won the popular vote but Paul won the majority of delegates in Massachusetts. Those persons belong to Paul not Romney.
Any other numbers you see are GUESSES, because those states like Florida, Alaska, Idaho have not held their delegate-electing conventions yet.
How Ron Paul Can Still Win (Score:5, Interesting)
It turns out that the Republican National Committee has inadvertently disqualified Mitt Romney -- either that or they open themselves to a class action law suit which would require them to cough up tens of millions of dollars to Ron Paul supporters.
On 4/25/2012 the RNC made this statement:
"Governor Romney's strong performance and delegate count at this stage of the primary process has made him our party's presumptive nominee," Mr. Priebus said. "In order to maximize our efforts I have directed my staff at the R.N.C. to open lines of communication with the Romney campaign."
and
"It's my intention to have a seamless and complete merger between the presumptive nominee and the Republican National Committee," Mr. Priebus said. "That means political, communications, fund-raising, research and the chairman's office, along with the governor's main operational team, are completely merged."
The RNC's rule number 11 ( which can be found on page 13 here http://www.gop.com/images/legal/2008_RULES_Adopted.pdf [gop.com] ) States:
"(a) The Republican National Committee shall not, without the prior written and filed approval of all members of the Republican National Committee from the state involved, contribute money or in-kind aid to any candidate for any public or party office except the nominee of the Republican Party or a candidate who is unopposed in the Republican primary after the filing
deadline for that office."
(b) ... No person nominated in violation of this rule shall be recognized by the Republican National Committee as the nominee of the Republican Party from that state."
That the Republican Party is a "private" organization with its own rules doesn't permit it to defraud the public -- not even if that public is its own members. People have joined the Republican Party and made monetary donations on the reasonable presumption that the RNC would follow its own rules IT HAS ADVERTISED TO THE PUBLIC. The damages are actual and the fraud deliberate. Triple damages are due to all who have contributed to Republican candidates for President and the RNC is liable.
Re:so what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, that's another good comparison.
The problem with these guys is that they have forceful personalities conductive to a cult-of-personality campaign and organization style. So they say a few things that make sense (in a "blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while" sense) and then certain people are willing to jump on board with everything else they say without considering what's being said because "this guy started out making sense."
Consider the guy above you: "Tell me, what has had value for thousands of years. I guess that preferring a metal that has had value for thousands of years and will have value as far as we can tell for thousands more, over a piece of paper that politicians can print pretty much at will, makes hima loon."
Actually, the problem with goldbuggery is that it cannot work in the modern economic system for two reasons:
#1 - Most of the gold in the world is being used for industrial applications.
#2 - Even absent #1, there is not remotely enough gold in the world for even one major nation to create a "backing" system to allow people to trade in their currency for raw gold.
Additionally, even if that did exist, gold puts immense downward pressures on currency and economics. So much so that even at the beginning of the US, we actually existed on a silver standard, and only created a silver-to-gold exchange ratio in 1792 due to a shortage of enough silver to back the currency. The 1792 expansion was - tadahh! - the government instantly creating money by adding another so-called precious metal to the currency base.
Historically, goldbuggery and silverbuggery were pretty much at odds, and there was constant changing and exchanging of the two metals with other countries that were engaging in the same foolishness and setting their own silver-to-gold exchange rates. The Independent Treasury Act of 1848 caused a lot of gold to migrate to the British due to a skewed exchange rate; this also caused the gold rush of 1849, because gold was so overvalued by law. Constant changes in the availability of one metal or the other - due to finding of new veins for mining - would cause devaluation or overvaluation in one locality or another.
In short: hitching your finances to goldbuggery and silverbuggery is insanity. And it seems the only people who can't figure that out (the "never learned history so they're doomed to repeat it" crowd) tend to be on the Ron Paul side of the political spectrum.
Re:so what? (Score:4, Interesting)
goldbuggery
Yeah that's right. Tell me, what has had value for thousands of years. I guess that preferring a metal that has had value for thousands of years and will have value as far as we can tell for thousands more, over a piece of paper that politicians can print pretty much at will, makes hima loon.
Inflation is necessary for the proper functioning of the economy. You may be scared to death of inflation, but if it did not exist, peoples' natural tendency to save would act like brakes to slow down commerce activity. Nobody thinks that hyperinflation is a good idea, and the federal reserve does a really good job of preventing it. But inflation that varies between 0% - 5% per annum helps to encourage people to invest now rather than sit on piles of money that do nobody any good.
How can you be sure this is correct? A pile of money sitting on the ground all year long does nobody any good. Its net value to the economy is zero. Whether that money is paper or gold, it accomplishes nothing. On the other hand, a pile of money that is used as tender to exchange value between people lots of times generates tons of activity; it enables people to work, to feed their families, to buy entertainment, to do pretty much anything. Part of the reason the American economy is so huge and other countries' economies are so small is that America has lots of transactions that multiply the value of the currency that is in circulation.
Don't be scared of "politicians printing money". You should be much more scared about what will happen when people realize that gold is getting scarce and they should just buy it and sit on it and never spend it.
nativism and xenophobia
TY, I learned a new word. He thinks that we have laws for immigration that should be followed and that the current immigration process should be streamlined. I guess that's xenophobia? lol
America's immigration laws are self-defined. We wrote them, so we decide what is legal and what is illegal. It's purely a farce to say "This kind of immigration is illegal so they shouldn't do it." The opposite is true: we didn't want it to happen, so we made it illegal. Laws preventing people from migrating to America are a recent invention, and frankly they're doing more harm than good.
There are tons of talented people all around the world who wish they could live in America and start businesses and buy houses. We have lots of unemployed people who would love to work for a talented Chinese scientist or Indian doctor. We have tons of empty houses and it would be really neat if enterprising Latin Americans bought these homes and occupied them. Why aren't we willing to change our immigration laws to encourage people to immigrate?
Re:so what? (Score:4, Interesting)
But I gave Jeng's comment exactly the response it deserved.
You spat out a sweeping generalization based on your personal prejudice. Have you actually ever met any "Randians" or Libertarians, or does all you know of them come from /. forum discussions? Assume I'm one of them. We've never met, yet you presume you can read my mind? That's chutzpah. You know a lot less than you think you know.
Are you aware that Ron Paul once (?) ran as the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate? Are you aware that Rand disagreed vicerally with many Libertarian points of view?
Yeah, you gave it exactly the response it deserved, eh?
Re:so what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, a lot of the candidates lately have been pretty similar.
Bush I and Clinton were nearly indistinguishable from an economic perspective. Dole would not have rocked the Clinton boat too much. Bush II was pretty different from Gore, but even he kind of surprised everyone out of the gate by greatly expanding Medicare. Again, Kerry seems like he would have been different - but then again, Obama seemed different as well, and where has that gotten him? He followed the Bush timeline to leave Iraq, increased troop levels in Afghanistan, continues to push record levels of illegal immigrants out of the country, kept Guantanamo open, kept the Bush financial bailout rolling, renewed the Patriot Act, and of course greatly expanded Medicare. I'll grant you that McCain would have never dusted off and passed the old Republican Heartland Institute health care plan. And on social issues, it is unlikely that he would have ended don't ask, don't tell.
But wow, get away from the largely symbolic "wedge issues" and the parties don't really have much differentiation.
Re:so what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Congratulations You have just won an award in question begging.
Re:so what? (Score:4, Interesting)
When you write "power", I assume you mean "legal power". Exceeding the legal power of the president has been an almost monotonically increasing function for over 200 years, and Obama has so outrageously flouted the law that his actions bear no resemblance to the legal limits. It is precisely Ron Paul's greatest value that he will prevent this abuse by withdrawing previous illegal executive orders, vetoing illegal laws, and refusing to make new illegal actions.
Re:so what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ayn Rand (Anna Rosenbaum was her real name I think) was certainly a Libertarian in her political beliefs. What would now be considered a pretty standard Limited Government Libertarian. The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged no doubt have influenced some people toward Libertarian ideas. Perhaps Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has as well.
I don't believe the connection between Ayn Rand and Libertarians is unfair. Randians will almost certainly be Libertarians, but Libertarians are not necessarily Randians. I am a Libertarian despite the fact that I at least somewhat disagree with Rand's position on ethics. Rand also stressed a kind of pacifism where force can only be justified in defending yourself from harm. An idea which I think resonates quite well with many Libertarians as a principle behind their belief in political freedom.
Re:so what? (Score:5, Interesting)
I disagree. A President doesn't have the power to DO a lot of things without help from Congress, however he certainly has the power to NOT DO a lot of things, no matter what Congress thinks. Paul has been called "Dr. No" for a good reason.
Can he abolish Federal agencies? No. But he can force everyone to go home and not do their jobs. Can he unilaterally cut the defense budget? No, but he can make everyone go home; he is the Commander-in-Chief, after all. He can order all the troops to come home and bake cookies for their enlistment terms if he wants. Can he change marijuana law unilaterally? No, but he can direct the DEA to stop enforcing that law and allow states to do what they want while he's in the White House. He can also pardon everyone convicted of a marijuana-related crime, making federal and state efforts all useless. Finally, he can also put a quick stop to the TSA's shenanigans.
Re:Wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes but they were going on history; an executive branch that was breathtaking in its brazen power-grabs.
Previous presidents have fought various battles against the other branches of government. It's not like George W. Bush. was the first. Lincoln tried to suspend the right of habeas corpus until the Supreme Court slapped him down for it. The thing that amazed me about the crazy liberals (not all liberals are crazy by the way) who believed that W was going to suspend the elections was that the Bush presidency never disobeyed any Supreme Court decisions, not even ones they didn't like. If the court said "You can't do X" then they stopped doing X. I think by the end of his 2nd term that W really wanted out of the job and he wanted the next guy to have to make the hard decisions he was unable and unwilling to do while still in office, such as deciding on when to leave Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, anonymous coward does have a point that Obama has done many things that 5+ years ago were considered Republican ideas. The Democrats had little to offer in the 2004 election except "We hate Bush" and they failed to win the presidency. The Republicans' current "We hate Obama" campaign will also fail as campaigns devoid of any real ideas always do when running for the presidency. You have to have more to offer than "I'm the anti-incumbent" to win. Ronald Reagan knew that. Bill Clinton knew that too.