Rebel Resource
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Comments are frozen due to a technical error but the article was posted at least an hour ago. I've got a good comment ready to post as soon as comments are enabled and after reading the article maybe people here will want to do the same (you need to register).
Bear in mind this is the 50th or so article that CiF has posted as part of its election 2008 special and i've only noticed TWO PARAGRAPHS about Ron Paul. I've been voicing my discontent in most of the comment sections and I think this one needs an air bombardment. Lots of mentions of blimps, mini-blimps, choppers and planes.
The CiF authors do read the comments. This is the online site of probably the most popular broadsheet newspaper in the UK; our NYT, if you will.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_tomasky/2008/01/minority_report.html
--------------
by Michael Tomasky
Minority report
US elections 2008: Ron Paul's supporters are certainly vocal, but they aren't enough to propel him to the presidency
OK, Paulines, you've worn me down. As many of you have reminded me in emails and comment threads, I have not written a word about Ron Paul, the Republican-libertarian presidential candidate from Texas, and I confess that I do indeed routinely exclude him when I toss around phrases like "the leading Republican candidates".
Well, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, as we say in America, and enough of you have squeaked. So here it is: a Ron Paul column.
And here's what this Ron Paul column will say. First, he has nutty positions. And second, he has about as much chance of being president as I do.
Actually let's start with point number two. The standard complaint of the disciples of Paul to those of us in the press who continue to "censor" him is: how dare we ignore this man in the face of obvious evidence of a huge groundswell. Why, he out-raised all the other Republicans in the final quarter of 2007! In two one-day online fundraising appeals, he took in a staggering $10m! He now has more than 100,000 small donors! To establish money as a key benchmark of "seriousness" and to then ignore a candidate who has raised bushels of it is a grotesque double standard!
Funny thing though. If the Paul phenomenon is such a massive groundswell, why is he still an asterisk in the polls? According to this morning's poll aggregator at the ever-useful realclearpolitics.com, Paul is at 4.2% nationally. That's well behind even Fred Thompson (11.2%), whose candidacy so far has been one big practical joke.
Granted, he's doing better in Iowa, where if lightning strikes in the right place at the right time, he might even finish third. If he does, then he'll start getting all the press attention his acolytes have ever dreamed of, and he'll have earned it. But 4.2% merits a candidate about the amount of press coverage Paul has received (which has not, by the way, been nonexistent).
I'm sure the Paulines will have an explanation for this. It's the media's fault. They haven't portrayed his views accurately. They value artifice over substance, and Paul is boldly substantive and anti-artificial. It's the Republican party establishment's fault - the party is in the grip of neocon war-mongers, and as long as that's the case, a man of independent integrity like Paul doesn't stand a chance.
Could be. But maybe there's another explanation for why Paul hasn't climbed in the polls. Maybe his positions appeal to roughly ... 4.2% of the Republican electorate. And, correspondingly, they probably appeal to just under 2% of the overall electorate.
I applaud Paul's opposition to the neocons, don't get me wrong on that. But taken overall his views constitute a hodgepodge that doesn't even really represent libertarianism. He hews to some traditional libertarian views that put him at odds with standard conservatism - on foreign policy most notably, on civil liberties-related issues (he's a foe of the Patriot Act) and on government surveillance, which he opposes.
Fine. But then he takes some positions that are much more Texas-conservative than traditional libertarian. A real libertarian is for gay marriage - it's people's own business how they live and sleep, not the state's. On this issue, Paul weasels all over the place, paying lip service to the idea that two adults should be able to engage in whatever sort of association they wish, but at the same time speaking in support of the Defence of Marriage Act. A libertarian should also support a woman's right to control her physical destiny, but Paul is a rabid abortion foe.
Then he takes a centrist-liberal position or two. He supports the existence of the social security system. Now what kind of libertarian is that? I have a guess as to what kind: the kind who decides that the courage of his convictions stops at the doorstep of America's immensely popular public pension system.
And finally, he holds firm to a couple of wacky libertarian positions, like the notion that all of us ought to be able to carry concealed weapons. Libertarians always say things like: "If the students of Virginia Tech had been packing heat, those 30 kids might be alive today." Maybe. And at least 90 others would be dead as a result of drunk students, during bar fights, reaching for a gun instead of their fists.
I submit that these views are getting Paul more or less exactly the level of support they merit. And deciding not to write about such a candidate is not censorship, any more than it's censorship to write about the NBA without mentioning the Miami Heat or the Los Angeles Clippers (or to write about the Premier League and fail to mention Sunderland and Fulham). It's editorial judgment - a judgment with which you are entitled to disagree, but a judgment all the same.
Bear in mind this is the 50th or so article that CiF has posted as part of its election 2008 special and i've only noticed TWO PARAGRAPHS about Ron Paul. I've been voicing my discontent in most of the comment sections and I think this one needs an air bombardment. Lots of mentions of blimps, mini-blimps, choppers and planes.
The CiF authors do read the comments. This is the online site of probably the most popular broadsheet newspaper in the UK; our NYT, if you will.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_tomasky/2008/01/minority_report.html
--------------
by Michael Tomasky
Minority report
US elections 2008: Ron Paul's supporters are certainly vocal, but they aren't enough to propel him to the presidency
OK, Paulines, you've worn me down. As many of you have reminded me in emails and comment threads, I have not written a word about Ron Paul, the Republican-libertarian presidential candidate from Texas, and I confess that I do indeed routinely exclude him when I toss around phrases like "the leading Republican candidates".
Well, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, as we say in America, and enough of you have squeaked. So here it is: a Ron Paul column.
And here's what this Ron Paul column will say. First, he has nutty positions. And second, he has about as much chance of being president as I do.
Actually let's start with point number two. The standard complaint of the disciples of Paul to those of us in the press who continue to "censor" him is: how dare we ignore this man in the face of obvious evidence of a huge groundswell. Why, he out-raised all the other Republicans in the final quarter of 2007! In two one-day online fundraising appeals, he took in a staggering $10m! He now has more than 100,000 small donors! To establish money as a key benchmark of "seriousness" and to then ignore a candidate who has raised bushels of it is a grotesque double standard!
Funny thing though. If the Paul phenomenon is such a massive groundswell, why is he still an asterisk in the polls? According to this morning's poll aggregator at the ever-useful realclearpolitics.com, Paul is at 4.2% nationally. That's well behind even Fred Thompson (11.2%), whose candidacy so far has been one big practical joke.
Granted, he's doing better in Iowa, where if lightning strikes in the right place at the right time, he might even finish third. If he does, then he'll start getting all the press attention his acolytes have ever dreamed of, and he'll have earned it. But 4.2% merits a candidate about the amount of press coverage Paul has received (which has not, by the way, been nonexistent).
I'm sure the Paulines will have an explanation for this. It's the media's fault. They haven't portrayed his views accurately. They value artifice over substance, and Paul is boldly substantive and anti-artificial. It's the Republican party establishment's fault - the party is in the grip of neocon war-mongers, and as long as that's the case, a man of independent integrity like Paul doesn't stand a chance.
Could be. But maybe there's another explanation for why Paul hasn't climbed in the polls. Maybe his positions appeal to roughly ... 4.2% of the Republican electorate. And, correspondingly, they probably appeal to just under 2% of the overall electorate.
I applaud Paul's opposition to the neocons, don't get me wrong on that. But taken overall his views constitute a hodgepodge that doesn't even really represent libertarianism. He hews to some traditional libertarian views that put him at odds with standard conservatism - on foreign policy most notably, on civil liberties-related issues (he's a foe of the Patriot Act) and on government surveillance, which he opposes.
Fine. But then he takes some positions that are much more Texas-conservative than traditional libertarian. A real libertarian is for gay marriage - it's people's own business how they live and sleep, not the state's. On this issue, Paul weasels all over the place, paying lip service to the idea that two adults should be able to engage in whatever sort of association they wish, but at the same time speaking in support of the Defence of Marriage Act. A libertarian should also support a woman's right to control her physical destiny, but Paul is a rabid abortion foe.
Then he takes a centrist-liberal position or two. He supports the existence of the social security system. Now what kind of libertarian is that? I have a guess as to what kind: the kind who decides that the courage of his convictions stops at the doorstep of America's immensely popular public pension system.
And finally, he holds firm to a couple of wacky libertarian positions, like the notion that all of us ought to be able to carry concealed weapons. Libertarians always say things like: "If the students of Virginia Tech had been packing heat, those 30 kids might be alive today." Maybe. And at least 90 others would be dead as a result of drunk students, during bar fights, reaching for a gun instead of their fists.
I submit that these views are getting Paul more or less exactly the level of support they merit. And deciding not to write about such a candidate is not censorship, any more than it's censorship to write about the NBA without mentioning the Miami Heat or the Los Angeles Clippers (or to write about the Premier League and fail to mention Sunderland and Fulham). It's editorial judgment - a judgment with which you are entitled to disagree, but a judgment all the same.
