Hunter: Ron Paul's Revenge

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Hunter: Ron Paul’s revenge?

Opinion
By Jack Hunter - Special to the American-Statesman

Posted: 11:13 a.m. Tuesday, March 22, 2016

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Ron Paul has been frank about what he thinks of Donald Trump.
The libertarian hero calls the Republican front-runner an “authoritarian,” “dangerous” and even said last week he could not support Trump as the GOP nominee.
Paul has also been clear about what he thinks of Republicans’ current Trump problem. They deserve it.
Trump now stands to benefit from a sneaky, backhanded anti-Paul tactic used at the 2012 Republican convention at the behest of the Mitt Romney campaign.
It’s known today, unofficially, as the “Ron Paul rule.”

Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Ron Paul addresses the 2012 Republican Party of Texas State Convention in Fort Worth in 2012.



CNN explains, “The GOP’s ‘Rule 40(b)’ requires candidates win the ‘support of a majority of the delegates from each of eight or more states’ in order to have their named placed on the nominating ballot.”

“The raised threshold — it had previously been a plurality from five states — helped to prevent Paul’s supporters from upstaging or distracting from the presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney, on national television,” CNN noted.

Of course, today the front-runner is Donald Trump and not someone the GOP establishment might favor, like Romney.

Ron Paul told CNN, “They did not want my name to come up and so they changed the rules because we had the votes,” Paul told CNN. “We had the numbers to allow my name to be put into nomination, but they wouldn’t do it.”

“I think it’s a bit of an irony and they deserve the problem,” Paul added.

They certainly do.

In 2012, the Republican establishment sent a clear message to the grassroots of their party: You just don’t matter.

Mitt Romney was going to be the nominee, but they still wanted to make sure they controlled the event to such a degree that the establishment was calling all the shots, squelching the voices of passionate activists.

I was at the Republican convention in 2012 and spoke at the Ron Paul rally held the night before, which was attended by nearly 10,000 dedicated Paul supporters. Liberty activists gathered that day to celebrate the gains we had made in the Republican Party and politics in general.

Ron Paul spoke. Senator Rand Paul spoke. Liberty congressman Justin Amash reminded the crowd that Ron Paul now had backup in the House. Blues Traveler’s John Popper and guitar legend Jimmie Vaughn performed.

It’s one of my favorite political memories and many liberty activists have expressed this same sentiment to me over the last four years.

Our message that day was simple: We’re here to stay and our voices will be heard.

The message to the “Ron Paul people” from the Republican establishment?

Sit down. Shut up. We make the rules. We run things. You don’t matter.

Obviously Trump’s rise is due to many factors and not simply a Republican National Committee rules change in 2012. But the GOP establishment’s longstanding dismissiveness of large segments of its own voters reflects an overarching patronizing attitude that many Trump supporters now rail against.

Republicans are freaking out right now. The establishment’s grip has been considerably loosened. Will they rig the rules again to their benefit? I wouldn’t put it past them. Trump supporters don’t even seem to care that their candidate isn’t a consistent conservative or Republican.

Compared to who? John McCain? Mitt Romney?

Ron Paul fears a President Trump, but seems happy the Republican establishment is getting its comeuppance.

He should be.

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/opinion/hunter-ron-pauls-revenge/nqqWC/