OFFICIAL : Meet The Press thread : Sunday Morning!!

[propanes]

Comparatively Ron looks better than the rest since they have baggage and skeletons. Next week Huckabee is on!

Man, what a terrible interview. Ron Paul could have done much better than that.

 

[PatriotOne]

I don't have time to go thru all 500 comments here but this was one bloggers take on the third party question. Is this accurate and did RP just open the door a bit on the possibility?

He has no plans to run as an Independent if he doesn't get the nomination but he won't rule it out.

 

[louisiana4liberty]

Tim tried to attack Ron on earmarks for his district in these bills. The bottom line is that the way the troubling system works is that the money is going to be spent anyway, someone else's district is going to get the money if you don't try to take your share of the pie via an earmark. Besides, he votes no to these bills.

Some of the bills do pass because he is outnumbered, but what is he supposed to do? Is he supposed to leave his district without funding because the system is flawed, or because he personally doesn't believe in earmarks? He is a representative for them, not for himself.

 

[Hangly Man]

I'm under the impression that Boeing would wind up with a huge net loss if we stop providing milatary equipment to countries all over the world and curb federal spending in general. I have absolutely no figures to back that up.

Not fighting wars doesn't mean people can't sell weapons

 

[Georgia Agrarian]

Yeah. Companies like that are not interested in the free market. They are corporatist and want to use the levers of government for payouts and to reinforce their market dominance.

Yep, you are 100% correct. It certainly isn't free enterprise from my prospective. I think the most apt term to describe it would be "mercentilism." This is the term used to describe what the British did between 200-400 years ago when they granted firms like the British East India Company exclusive rights to trade goods in certain territories of the Empire. The means of it might be different today, but the ends are the same.

 

[King Crimson]

I'm not a regular Meet the Press viewer so I odn't know what the interviews are usually like but Ron Paul did fine. Not perfect but fine. The earmarks thing came off kind of bad if you don't know Ron Paul and so would the civil rights act thing. But overall he did well. Those two points stuck out at me as his "worst" on the show.

 

[Paulitician]

I don't have time to go thru all 500 comments here but this was one bloggers take on the third party question. Is this accurate and did RP just open the door a bit on the possibility?

He has no plans to run as an Independent if he doesn't get the nomination but he won't rule it out.

That's a pretty accurate statement. He's actually not even considering an independent run. It will be 2 months (after Super Tuesday) until he decides such a thing, if ever. And I seriously doubt he would do it.

 

[TooConservative]

I think people who don't understand the process when it comes to money and earmarks will say that it was a bad answer or didn't "hit a home run."

Did you notice RP's remark about "how many of those earmarks ever passed?" referring to all the earmarks he's passed through to the relevant committees in Congress for various constituent groups in his district?

I know very few of those he has submitted have ever passed. Maybe none. AFAIK, none of the 65 he passed on from his constituents passed this last year because if you don't play the pork game in Congress, your earmarks get ignored. RP's opponent, Peden, in the GOP primary in TX is campaigning on how they need to get more of their pork though it sure doesn't seem like they've suffered much, considering how much money is spent in that district now.

He has a good record on voting against earmarks when Jeff Flake brought up the 19 votes on the Bridge To Nowhere ($250M) and the Iowa rainforest which even a lot of Iowans think is stupid pork. In last year's, RP went 19 for 19 against porky earmarks in the 2006 votes.

This year, Flake came back with a larger list. However, these didn't have anything as egregious as a $250M Bridge To Nowhere. Flake and the other candidates elected with PAC money from Club For Growth PAC all made sure they voted against. Ron Paul compiled a good, but not perfect score on these anti-earmark votes. He recognized it was a little dog-and-pony show to help re-elect Club For Growth members and raise money for their PAC. The only earmark he voted in favor of in the state of Texas was one for a Houston zoo for $100,000 as I recall and it came out of Dept. of Interior funds. Other than the Club For Growth toadies, Ron Paul did better than virtually the entire Republican House caucus in these 2007 anti-earmark votes according to the Club's scorecard. Naturally, he still retains a very high record with the Taxpayers Union people but Tancredo slightly edged him out this year, probably because Tanc wanted to have a very pure record for his own presidential run. Ron Paul votes the same way, year in, year out, whether he's running for president or not. So that's a plus too.

Ron Paul doesn't chair a committee so he doesn't play the earmarks and pork game like the others do. Say, like Duncan Hunter who took home a $19M weapon system program this year that the Pentagon did not request (but did not publicly oppose). It was some sort of personal armor for troops or something like that. Hunter didn't get the $35M or more that others like Pelosi got but he still did pretty well for the minority leader of the Armed Forces Committee, one of the biggest porkmonsters committees in Congress. I assume Duncan traded his pork for the even larger pork that the majority chairman, Murtha, took home. And Murtha is about the most corrupt pol in Congress, going all the way back to getting caught by the FBI on tape trying to take bribes in the ABSCAM scandal.

Given how much FUD gets spread about earmarks, a lot of voters think they understand earmarks but actually don't so we all need to bone up on this basic civic education stuff to counter the attacks on Ron Paul.

I wish the campaign would research this and tell us how many of the 65 submitted earmarks passed this year (none, I think). And how many have been passed in all the years that Ron Paul has been in Congress. Well, at least since he returned to Congress in 1998.

 

[Paulitician]

What I found surprising is that they'd use quotes from '88. Not only because it was so long ago, but because I wasn't aware of them myself.

As for the fascism quote this is what I found:

Sinclair Lewis, in his 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here, about the rise of a right-wing dictatorship in America -- a paraphrase of "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag," a quote from Huey Long, radical populist governor of Louisiana (1928-30) and bombastic U.S. Senator (1930-33), assassinated in office. - random blog

The career of Long has left its mark also in popular culture with Long's life serving as a template for various fictional politicians. Sometimes this is as an example of a made-in-America dictator as in Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here where Buzz Windrip ("The Chief") becomes president on a strongly populist platform that quickly turns into home-grown American fascism. - Wikipedia

 

[Compulsive1]

Russert was terrible. For instance, on the earmarks issue: it was as if he completely ignored Ron's rebuttal. Ron made the point that cutting earmarks doesn't cut spending and that Congress has the Constitutional authority to appropriate money, not the executive branch. Russert just continued with attacks nonetheless, and I think he actually came off badly in that exchange, not Paul.

This was Russert's toughest interview to date of any Presidential candidate. He genuinely seemed to have something against Ron and seemed to want to destroy him on a personal level. How did Ron Paul respond? By giving THE BEST INTERVIEW BY A CANDIDATE THIS YEAR ON MTP! He knocked that interview COMPLETELY out of the park. The other candidates get caught in Russert's trap and don't even answer the questions directly; RP gave terrific answers and DIRECTLY answered the questions. That will mean a ton.

This summarizes my view on this interview as well.
Every candidate I saw on MTP is playing their cards by not answering difficult questions directly and many times contradicting themselves and getting lost in their own twisted stands and tales.
There was barely any of that from RP today. He knew exactly what his answers were going to be but sometimes had to inject some reality first before answering the questions. If you noticed every gotcha question was based on something that happened 20 years ago and was immaterial to the campaign issues. Like, the Reagan issue or desegregation issue. These were character attacks that were intended to make him look like a typical sneaky, two-faced politician. He had to explain the philosophy and principles first.
The one time where RP admitted wiggling is the 3rd party run issue. But, I agree that if RP wins enough primaries to secure nomination based on numbers, but the party goes on nominating someone else he should pursue another way of getting elected. That's why he is leaving himself that 0.1% chance.
The few cheap shots Russert took were exposed immediately through logic and facts. Dr. Paul had a very positive appearance on an important MSM show.

 

[TooConservative]

Tim refers to FOX as CNN in SInclair clip.

Didn't RP also have a brief CNN interview after the Faux interview where they asked him about the Faux interview where he made that remark? That's what I thought he meant anyway.

 

[free.alive]

That was brutal

 

[freelance]

True or False, guys (I didn't see it):
"Supporters of the US Congressman from Texas may believe he had a good appearance and most of the time any mainstream airtime for a dark horse candidate like Paul would be welcomed, but this was a disaster. Those that have Meet the Press on in the background on the television as they are getting the family ready for Church would have been appalled at the way his positions were described by Russert.

And Ron didn't help matters at all. He was on the defensive from the start of the interview and never rebounded. As I feared, Paul was unprepared and looked foolish as Russert peppered him with old quotes and positions. The interview was fair and this is just what I expected from the NBC giant. It was actually rather sad to see him manhandled this way but you can easily score this one Russert 1 Paul 0. "

A total misrepresentation!

 

[RevolutionSD]

We can pick apart the interview and point out all of RP's flaws in it but the bottom line is this:

-This interview is not going to dissuade anyone who was already voting for Paul
-It's also not going to gain much support from those already voting for rudy mcromneybee.
-It will get us a few more voters from the independent/democrat crowd who are just getting exposed to Paul and will research him further.
-It has ALREADY resulted in a spike in donations.

It's a net gain for us let's take it and move the Revolution forward!

 

[Paulitician]

A total misrepresentation!

Agreed. If anything Ron showed himself to be Russert's intellectual superior. It wasn't even "Russert 1 Ron Paul 0"... it was more like a tie.

 

[free.alive]

The worst part was the segment on RP's criticism of Republicans, resignation from the Republican party and then questioning why Reagan is on his literature.

That was orchestrated well by Russert. It's amazing the picture you can paint when a series of comments taken out of context are pasted together.

This was a rough interview, but I think he did well. He did look like a sailboat in a hurricane, but he answered everything and he FINALLY attacked back on the third party question. He could've been more direct on deflating the earmark mischaracterization.

 

[ThePieSwindler]

Anyone know what was said in the "political roundtable" afterward?

 

[synthetic]

The interview was by far one of his best. People around here have always been overly critical. I think it comes from wanting Ron to win so badly.

It was a great performance, he won over voters today.

 

[PatriotOne]

That's a pretty accurate statement. He's actually not even considering an independent run. It will be 2 months (after Super Tuesday) until he decides such a thing, if ever. And I seriously doubt he would do it.

Hmmmmmm. The statement does sound a bit less sure though. Frankly, I hope he does start mentioning the possiblility of a 3rd party run. That would be the repubs worst nightmare and perhaps make them a bit less agressive to stopping the RP nom.

If not, RP doesn't need a billion bucks to run a third party......he has what no other politician has ever had before and it's probably worth more than a billion bucks. He has an army who is spreading out like a fungus . If a person was to try to quantify how much we have been worth these past 6 months, I don't doubt it would add up to more than a cool bil

Come spring time we'll be viral on the ground even more so than today.

Anyways, a discussion for another day!

 

[louisiana4liberty]

The whole show was an attack ad. He was being attacked the whole time.

This is good news. The biased media has sunk so low and is so worried about his support that they have to spend all day and night doing research looking for snippets to try and catch him being inconsistent.

BTW, I really want to see this YouTube or audio of Ron Paul saying he wants to end public schools. And what was the context when or if he said that? Maybe he was referring to federally backed public schools like in Washington. I know Washington's federally funded public schools have failed pretty badly.

I personally think he did a great job and loved how he took it to Tim. He answered all the questions and had Tim getting flustered over his misunderstandings.