Do you want Rand Paul to win?

[Bergie Bergeron]

He can try both I'm sure.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

I loved the grassroots movement under Ron, but there is a danger in letting any supporter represent the campaign. It just takes one supporter with an offensive sign or youtube clip to make national news. Remember all the 9/11 truthers muddying Ron's campaign?

And trust me, the enemy knows that it'd be easy to have some plant act like he's a Rand supporter and do something embarrassing. We already saw it once in the Senate race with that Democrat Conway supporter acting like he was a Rand supporter and holding a racist sign

The truthers didn't muddy up the campaign. Some thin-skinned supporters who were hostile to 9/11 truth screamed about being associated with the subject, and used the Paul candidacy to try to dictate to everybody else exactly what issues "could not be discussed," thereby dividing what was a harmonious grassroots movement. This is where most of the "muddying" came from. These little Napoleons are STILL playing self-appointed "respectability patrol" years after Ron's campaigns are over, leveraging his name to project their hostility towards some issues unto all liberty supporters. That has been much more damaging than a stray person with a sign here or there.

 

[Natural Citizen]

He can try both I'm sure.

Perhaps. Of course, I wasn't directing my thought on that toward Rand, per se. I actually like Rand. As well, just as work in the grassroots was never really about Ron, the man, I imagine the same holds true with regard to Rand, the man.

 

[DeadheadForPaul]

The truthers didn't muddy up the campaign. Some thin-skinned supporters who were hostile to 9/11 truth screamed about being associated with the subject, and used the Paul candidacy to try to dictate to everybody else exactly what issues "could not be discussed," thereby dividing what was a harmonious grassroots movement. This is where most of the "muddying" came from. These little Napoleons are STILL playing self-appointed "respectability patrol" years after Ron's campaigns are over, leveraging his name to project their hostility towards some issues unto all liberty supporters. That has been much more damaging than a stray person with a sign here or there.

The truthers made Ron's campaign into a joke and provided fuel to our political enemies to distract the electorate from Ron's actual positions

Worst of all, their motivation was to further their own views at the expense of Ron's campaign

I remember getting handed DVDs with Ron speeches and 9/11 videos at Ron events. Give me a break

Not sure if they are selfish, delusional, or both

 

[Deborah K]

I loved the grassroots movement under Ron, but there is a danger in letting any supporter represent the campaign. It just takes one supporter with an offensive sign or youtube clip to make national news. Remember all the 9/11 truthers muddying Ron's campaign?

And trust me, the enemy knows that it'd be easy to have some plant act like he's a Rand supporter and do something embarrassing. We already saw it once in the Senate race with that Democrat Conway supporter acting like he was a Rand supporter and holding a racist sign

So what's to stop them (the opposition) from doing that anyway?

 

[Deborah K]

The truthers made Ron's campaign into a joke and provided fuel to our political enemies to distract the electorate from Ron's actual positions

Worst of all, their motivation was to further their own views at the expense of Ron's campaign

I remember getting handed DVDs with Ron speeches and 9/11 videos at Ron events. Give me a break

Not sure if they are selfish, delusional, or both

That's quite a broad brush stroke there. It reminds me a little of what Ron went through with the racist papers. Someone on his staff writes some BS and Ron gets the blame. Be careful about over generalizing when you speak of a group of people.

 

[Deborah K]

Yeah, I'd agree with you here, Deborah K. I think it's disingenuous to just say that Ron lost in such an obtuse way. The man was very clear when he said it wasn't like he was just trying to win and get elected. He said he was trying to change the course of history. Which he did. Is why some of these wet behind the ears youngins are in the positions that they are. But here is the flip side to that. What we're seeing are young people at the grassroots level who have looked to Ron because they hold his principles and want to further what he was and is doing looking to become active and supportive of some of these political prospects. And so then Ron tells them to go to this seminar or that seminar to learn how to be effective. The crap of that is the folks, in large, who run these things hold very little of Ron's values and disagree with much of what he says. Pasrticularly in the area of foreign policy. And so these kids end up learning to go work for the guy running seminars to further push his own agenda and that young activist never gets to actually work toward that which made him/her become involved in the first place. They don't get to try to help change the course of history. They are taught to just try to hurry up and get elected, personal values and issues that you hold in your heart be damned. And so this is just one instance of how the so called "professionals" operate during these campaigns when new people become involved with them. This is what many have liked to refer to as "the game". Of course, this is something that we could expand upon too. Don't know if it's worth it unless we start to see naive libertarians at risk of being sucked away from their principles. Ron's principles...

Of course, I'm basically talking about grassroots stuff here as opposed to the national stuff but we don't want to continue to disfranchise the grassroots who look to become involved in the process in the larger scheme of things either.

There's always the danger that someone might lose their moral compass. That's on them though.

And to be clear, I don't think playing the game to get in the club necessarily requires compromising one's principles. Unless of course you are unscrupulous about it. Does it take unscrupulous behavior to get into Congress or the Whitehouse? If the answer is yes - then that means Ron played it that way too - and I highly doubt that.

 

[Natural Citizen]

There's always the danger that someone might lose their moral compass. That's on them though.

And to be clear, I don't think playing the game to get in the club necessarily requires compromising one's principles. Unless of course you are unscrupulous about it. Does it take unscrupulous behavior to get into Congress or the Whitehouse? If the answer is yes - then that means Ron played it that way too - and I highly doubt that.

What caught my interest in this thread were the comments with regard to minimizing the grassroots. What I'm talking about is the lower level stuff, Deborah. Not so much the national scheme of things. Ron likely had no clue what was going on when he was sending these kids the way of some of these folks. I understand what you're saying, though, and agree.

I'll tell you what, though, when I hear someone come along and be so bold as to say that people shouldn't be permitted by some politicians to pass out literature with regard to their government and it's function unless it's officially endorsed, I think of Helmuth Hübener. And I will oppose it. Vigorously.

Heck, one of my favorite pastimes is discussing the way the world works with my friends in the community. The grocery store. The Hardware store. Heck, picking up the paper in the morning is like that show king of the hill around my way. You know the one where the dolts stand there and shoot the shit?

 

[jeffro97]

I want him to win another 6 year in the Senate. I think we get more value out of that, with less risk.

The problem for that though is that the Kentucky House and Governorship is still under Democrat control, and the Legislature hasn't been under full-Republican control since Reconstruction. He still needs to get that law passed still, if I remember right, that would allow him to run for both Senate and President, and with the Democrats controlling the passage and signing of that law, it'll be interesting to watch. I just hope a crony deal doesn't go on to get that through.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

The truthers made Ron's campaign into a joke and provided fuel to our political enemies to distract the electorate from Ron's actual positions

Worst of all, their motivation was to further their own views at the expense of Ron's campaign

I remember getting handed DVDs with Ron speeches and 9/11 videos at Ron events. Give me a break

Not sure if they are selfish, delusional, or both

Translation, you think 9-11 truthers are a joke, and you are scapegoating them for the Paul campaign's inability to communicate, even after he distanced himself from the truthers. In fact, Paul couldn't reach most pro-war Republicans because he never challenged their mindset that "we have to respond to the threat" by talking about false flags, like 9/11, that show the threats are mainly manufactured creations of covert ops. "Their motivation was to piggyback on Ron" is a propaganda line the non-truthers have used for years, when the reality is the non-truthers piggybacked on Paul in order to push their "demean and marginalize truthers" inclination, at the expense of unifying the movement.

A large fraction of the grassroots-driven liberty movement was on the streets distributing 9/11 videos circa 2006-7 when Paul started to run, along with tax truth material, anti-NAU, pro-gun rights material, and other issues of widespread concern to them. Of course there was some natural cross-over promotion, and of course everybody was cool with it, until the respectability Napoleons started whining about it, and demonizing everybody they disapproved of. It's the latter group that was, and is selfish, delusional, or both, for thinking the needless division they fostered was a good thing.

 

[Pawn3d]

That's quite a broad brush stroke there. It reminds me a little of what Ron went through with the racist papers.

They always save their best weapon for last. This will be no different with Rand.

 

[RonPaulMall]

I would argue that if you really want Rand Paul to win, you should avoid tactics and attitudes like that expressed in the "Good Luck Winning Without Us" pin.

 

[Suzu]

Voter fraud is the root to all of our problems

Please fix (edit) this post, because the real issue is election fraud, not voter fraud. Let's use the proper term instead of perpetuating the erroneous term. Thank you.