Ron Paul Would Have Crushed Obama in the Presidential Debate

[KingNothing]

You know, I really hate to give up on debate and resort to name calling. I just really hate it. But in this case, I'm in a quandry. After six years of reading about our quixotic crazy uncle unconventional radical cause on those rare occasions when the press talked about us at all, there's only one answer for this.

You're crazy. You're nucking futs. You have both slept through the whole primary and completely lost your mind, and not necessarily in that order. You are not sane. You're loony tunes. I don't know whether to laugh at you or cry for you. You'd look better on Thorazine.

Just damn.

Paul probably was the least attacked candidate by his challengers. But that's only because the media and Party made sure to diminish and delegitimize him every time they mentioned him since 2007.

 

[KingNothing]

If Paul was the nominee this year, he'd be down by a very large margin. Some of his core ideas are simply too unpopular as of now.

Paul would be in the awkward position of espousing libertarian ideals, while defending social security, medicare, and welfarism. It would be odd to see him straddle the line. But he would do so. He'd constantly remind people that the course we're on now is not a good one, that our spending is not sustainable, and that we should cut back on military spending to help ensure that the social safety nets so many rely on now remain in tact. He'd basically become, I think, the most unexpected defender of (temporary) populist welfare in American history.

 

[Veteran Citizen]

A ham sandwich would have crushed Obama in this debate. I'm sad Ron didn't make it, and that GJ won't either, but Obama needs to go back to chicago, hawaii or wherever.

 

[DeMintConservative]

Paul probably was the least attacked candidate by his challengers. But that's only because the media and Party made sure to diminish and delegitimize him every time they mentioned him since 2007.

Well, causality dilemmas apart, he was the least attacked candidate. And he still didn't get past 10% of the popular vote. He had plenty of opportunities to expose his ideas, including participating in all those debates, countless interviews, a solid warchest and the best grassroots operation (I suspect he beat all the other candidates combined in direct voters contacts).

The ideas aren't simply that popular. When you poll them apart from Ron Paul they're unpopular. Most people don't want to legalize drugs. Most people want to save the welfare state. Most people want a government regulating this, subsidizing that, a standing army, etc. Heck, even the TSA inspections are popular.

This is why I find the thesis that Ron Paul would have won this debate - especially versus a demagogue of Obama's calibre - very nonsensical. Sure, he'd win the debate in intellectual terms. People who write here would believe he completely destroyed Obama. But that's because they have very different perceptions relatively to the American median/average voter.

Paul would be in the awkward position of espousing libertarian ideals, while defending social security, medicare, and welfarism. It would be odd to see him straddle the line. But he would do so. He'd constantly remind people that the course we're on now is not a good one, that our spending is not sustainable, and that we should cut back on military spending to help ensure that the social safety nets so many rely on now remain in tact. He'd basically become, I think, the most unexpected defender of (temporary) populist welfare in American history.

I'm assuming Ron Paul would run as a libertarian/minarchist conservative/rothbardian whatever you want to call it.

Not as a defender of the welfare state.

That defeats the entire premise of the OP article: that Ron Paul would have crushed Obama by affirming his differences.

If he started running as a pacifist liberal, then I guess he'd still lose, but that's beyond the point.

Are you freaking kidding me?

How many other candidates were smeared mercilessly and lied about by the media networks themselves? That is far, FAR more damaging than any attack ads.

What about Jon Huntsman's poorly-disguised, immoral hit job on Paul that the media gleefully played along with? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuVhadbMvQo&feature=related

And you say there were no paid attack ads? I distinctly remember a number of them, and I found this one in about a second by searching "Anti Ron Paul Commercial": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO8mZL571J8

I'm not sure what smears are you talking about. I don't think he has much to complain about that vis a vis the other candidates - mostly because he was never a serious contender. Look, if the newsletter scandal, regardless of what you think of its merits, had happened with Romney, his political career would be instantly over.

Why do you think you had all those non-Romneys going up just to flop a weeks later? Because nobody would care about their downsides when they weren't serious contenders; once they'd rise to the status of serious challengers the scrutiny would go up, the public would become more aware of their problems, little details about their past would emerge, negative opinions would be given a larger megaphone... and soon they'd be bust. Check Cain's sexual scandals, people remembering again how much of a buffoon Gingrich is, Santorum's "satan is upon us" remarks surfacing, etc.

I'm an elections junkie, I spend plenty of time reading to and talking about politics, and I barely remember that Huntsman is Manchurian youtube video. 95% of the voters never heard about it. That stuff is mostly immaterial.

As for the Gary Bauer attack ad, what was the size of the buy? Did they really get it on tv or they just announced it? If it was, it was a single ineffectual add, featuring a hasbeen babbling nonsense in a SINGLE state - and one in which Paul didn't really compete seriously.

Do you really think that's comparable to what Santorum, Gingrich and Romney went through?

Are you serious?!! The media was running a non-stop negative ad, misconstruing everything that Ron Paul has said and believes in!


Viability? If they were good enough for our Founding Fathers, they're probably pretty damn viable. Ya think?


I do agree with you about this, unless the good doctor got one hell of a lot better in explaining how it would benefit them, personally. I would never count the good doctor out though. He touched people in ways others cannot. And when he was really "on", no one could beat him.

1 - I don't think they were being more negative about Paul than about any other.

2 - I was thinking about short-term electoral viability. Do you really believe every good idea from the FF is electorally viable today?

3 - Well, that was my entire point. I don't think style would matter a bit though. Many people know and understand the ideas: they just don't like them.

They say the winners write the history books.

I guess he thinks DeMint won the nomination...

I know who won the nomination. What I said about Ron Paul is actually valid for DeMint too, in a lower scale. If it was DeMint in the debate, he'd have done much worse than Romney - on substance alone, I'm totalling ignoring style here (assuming he wouldn't tweak what he believes in to fit the beliefs of the majority of the public). Not because his ideas are worse, rather because they're less popular.

 

[sailingaway]

Paul would be in the awkward position of espousing libertarian ideals, while defending social security, medicare, and welfarism. It would be odd to see him straddle the line. But he would do so. He'd constantly remind people that the course we're on now is not a good one, that our spending is not sustainable, and that we should cut back on military spending to help ensure that the social safety nets so many rely on now remain in tact. He'd basically become, I think, the most unexpected defender of (temporary) populist welfare in American history.

Ron Paul had his Plan to Restore America and wasn't the least bit awkward about it. Were you not watching his campaign at all?

 

[DeMintConservative]

He polled well against Obama and would pull from Obama's activist ranks, leaving him with none, virtually imho. We disagree because you don't like his ideas as much and cant imagine those who simply don't focus on primaries liking them better. We think they would. Without having it occur neither of us is going to convince the other on that point. I promise you Ron Paul would have a ton more excitement about him than Romney does.

Being ahead in only 2 polls isn't polling well. And again, that was before being attacked.

Those who didn't focus in the primaries are centrist/moderates. I think some people were convinced Paul was actually the most moderate republican because his most publicized stances are on issues like foreign policy. But the polling shows that's just a myth.

He only dipped into it, and then to reconfirm what he already thought. He didn't follow Ron as we did. For example he says Ron only had 10% despite the 20% national GOP ONLY poll in Feb and when I raise it he calls that an anomaly, but Ron was 20% in IA and NH as well, before other states were paying attention, and but for Santorum's CNN fake poll manufactured surge would LIKELY have taken Iowa and gotten the attention to make his case, imho. Also, when people raise Ron's beating Obama he says that was only two polls, which may be true, I don't remember how many were 'wins' rather than 'statistical ties within the MOE' which was definitely more than two, but ignores that Ron AVERAGED doing better against Obama than anyone but Romney, throughout the entire race.

1 - I said Ron Paul only got 10% of teh popular vote in the primary. 2 million votes, 10.95%. You can argue he'd have done better if he hadn't suspended the campaign, but if nobody had suspended the campaign, he'd end with a similar result.

2 - I'm not sure what polls you're talking about, but you can't just state polls you don't like are fake.

3 - Ron Paul had plenty of attention to make his case.

4 - you can check the RCP link, it has all the head-to-head Paul vs Obama polls.

You know, I really hate to give up on debate and resort to name calling. I just really hate it. But in this case, I'm in a quandry. After six years of reading about our quixotic crazy uncle unconventional radical cause on those rare occasions when the press talked about us at all, there's only one answer for this.

You're crazy. You're nucking futs. You have both slept through the whole primary and completely lost your mind, and not necessarily in that order. You are not sane. You're loony tunes. I don't know whether to laugh at you or cry for you. You'd look better on Thorazine.

Just damn.

The main reason the press talked about Ron Paul as a quixotic candidate was because that's what he mostly was.

The worst thing it can happen in politics is to start living inside an eco chamber. Do you really believe Paul lost because of the press and Gary Bauer youtube ad and the couple of attacks Newt, Santorum and Huntsman laid on him during the debates?

It wasn't - and if it was, what would that say about a candidate who can't overcome such fragile stuff? Heck, Romney was accused of murdering some woman because the company he created, after he left, laid her off years before she got a cancer.

I don't take any especial pleasure in saying this, believe me: most of the ideas that make Paul unelectable - as an advocate of those ideas - are exactly the ones I agree with him in mostly.

Romney won the debate because he in command of the issues, he was lively, assertive, funny even. But he also won because he defended the kind of stuff most Americans - especially those swing voters who decide elections - agree with: bipartisanship. Bank regulations. Welfare programs. Etc. A true small government conservative, arguing for the elimination of entitlement programs, across the board spending cuts, less taxes to everybody, less money spent in the war on drugs, the prisons lobby, the public schools lobby, etc, would lose it.

 

[DeMintConservative]

See? I told you that you can't fix stupid.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ction-matchup/2012/02/18/gIQABoeUMR_blog.html

http://www.fitsnews.com/2011/09/27/ron-paul-leads-obama-in-new-poll/

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/318764

http://politicalnews.me/?id=12069

http://www.ibtimes.com/ron-paul-2012-rasmussen-poll-says-he-would-beat-obama-418358

http://politicalnews.me/?id=11876

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politi...Paul-poll-shocker-He-beats-Obama-head-to-head

What part of the independents outnumber you and us combined do you not understand? Would it help you do the math if you took your cotton pickin' shoes off?

Just damn! Somebody give me a 2x4. I gotta learn a mule somethin'.

Well, as I said, there were only two polls (both from Rasmussen) in which Paul lead Obama: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_paul_vs_obama-1750.html

All those links you provided are either state polls (and sure, Paul would beat Obama in some states, even I would) or polls in which he's close but behind.

 

[sailingaway]

Being ahead in only 2 polls isn't polling well.

that ignores the times within the margin of error and the fact that of all the candidates ONLY Romney polled better against Obama ON AVERAGE, despite media ignoring, demonizing or dismissing Ron. THAT is polling well.

Those who didn't focus in the primaries are centrist/moderates.
.

that is your theory, mine is that they are people who are disgusted by both parties.

 

[KingNothing]

Ron Paul had his Plan to Restore America and wasn't the least bit awkward about it. Were you not watching his campaign at all?

I never said he was awkward. I said the position is awkward. Were you not reading my post at all?

Paul would have been framed as a "wants to cut all social safety nets and squash the poor" candidate. He would have been on the defensive against those claims. We would have had the most libertarian presidential candidate in recent history (maybe ever) actually telling people that he's the only candidate with a plan to maintain the social safety nets. Don't you see how that would be awkward? Obama's head would explode. Democrats wouldn't know how to handle it. The media would be at a loss. It would be.... awkward.

 

[sailingaway]

His position wasn't awkward at all. And sure, media could and did lie about him but they could do that with anyone decent. They are never going to like anyone we like.

As to Obama's head exploding at the awkwardness of Ron Paul providing better for those dependent, while cutting corporatist policies Obama wants to save instead, I could live with that.

 

[jkob]

I'm not sure Ron would have crushed Obama in a debate. I mean he'd obviously have Obama beat on substance and sincerity but it seems like debates are judged much more superficially(like posture, tone of voice, what they do while the other candidate talking, etc) and whatever narrative the media decides to run with after the fact. We saw what the media did once Ron was threatening to win in Iowa.

 

[sailingaway]

I'm not sure Ron would have crushed Obama in a debate. I mean he'd obviously have Obama beat on substance and sincerity but it seems like debates are judged much more superficially(like posture, tone of voice, what they do while the other candidate talking, etc) and whatever narrative the media decides to run with after the fact. We saw what the media did once Ron was threatening to win in Iowa.

I don't know that the media would have SAID he crushed Obama, but the people who watch the general election debates often are the kind fed up with politics so they don't pay attention in the primaries, and Ron Paul speaks to those fed up with politics as usual, imho.

 

[FrancisMarion]

Primary debates: Congressman Paul 30 seconds.
Presidential debates: Congressman Paul 2 minutes.

When he struggled, it always seemed to me because he was trying to clarify ideas and principles in 30 seconds. The train of thought cannot be illustrated in such amount of time.

I think he would have done fine. I care not to speculate whether he would have "won". If anything i think the audience would have.

 

[Bastiat's The Law]

Paul would be in the awkward position of espousing libertarian ideals, while defending social security, medicare, and welfarism. It would be odd to see him straddle the line. But he would do so. He'd constantly remind people that the course we're on now is not a good one, that our spending is not sustainable, and that we should cut back on military spending to help ensure that the social safety nets so many rely on now remain in tact. He'd basically become, I think, the most unexpected defender of (temporary) populist welfare in American history.

He could do well with that strategy. He'd have to make concessions for the welfare state and risk people on the forums calling him impure.

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

He could do well with that strategy. He'd have to make concessions for the welfare state and risk people on the forums calling him impure.

If he called for keeping them in perpetuity, yes, but he generally brings up that he wants to eventually end them in a gradual fashion.

 

[DeMintConservative]

that ignores the times within the margin of error and the fact that of all the candidates ONLY Romney polled better against Obama ON AVERAGE, despite media ignoring, demonizing or dismissing Ron. THAT is polling well.

Yeps. But Romney did that while being attacked from all sides: from the democrats to the rest of the Republican nomination challengers (at least the non-Romney du jour).

Do you really think those numbers would hold after he was actually attacked by the MSM/DNC machine on, say, his answer to that Wolf Blitzer question on the uninsured?

tthat is your theory, mine is that they are people who are disgusted by both parties.

They can be both.

Why do you think that every presidential nominee - in fact, pretty much every nominee in every slightly competitive race - turns to the center after the primary? Has everybody been wrong all these decades?

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

Yeps. But Romney did that while being attacked from all sides: from the democrats to the rest of the Republican nomination challengers (at least the non-Romney du jour).





They can be both.

Why do you think that every presidential nominee - in fact, pretty much every nominee in every slightly competitive race - turns to the center after the primary? Has everybody been wrong all these decades?

Hannity was bashing Ron on a nightly basis over the newsletters in December, and did so over summer, too. Same with Levin.

 

[DeMintConservative]

Hannity was bashing Ron on a nightly basis over the newsletters in December, and did so over summer, too. Same with Levin.

Levin spent a lot more time bashing Romney and it wasn't even close. I don't lose much time watching Hannity, but from what I remember, he wasn't exactly obsessing with Ron Paul. And again, if the newsletter episode had happened to Romney, his political career would be instantly over. Plus, if a couple of talk-show hosts hurt Paul so much, how would he resist the Democrat MSM machine in the general?

In any case, one can simply look at how the issues themselves poll detached from Ron Paul. Forget Ron Paul: a guy with great charisma, splendid communication skills, a pristine past, limitless campaign funding while espousing Ron Paul ideas would still have no chance this year.

In my opinion, changing the predominant policy ideas in a society takes a lot more time than you seem to assume.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

They can be both.

Why do you think that every presidential nominee - in fact, pretty much every nominee in every slightly competitive race - turns to the center after the primary? Has everybody been wrong all these decades?

Yup. Every major party nominee going through the elite controlled duopoly system for 'all these decades' has followed the same 'middle ground' script their masters have given them (with the partial exception of Reagan). THAT'S WHY PAUL WOULD HAVE BEEN, AND HAS BEEN SUCH A CONTRAST. Neither party wanted to talk about the Fed, the costs and failure of the wars, the police state, or other obliterations of the Constitution. As soon as they stopped covering Paul in the spring, the candidates and the media dropped discussion of his issues entirely and went back to contraception, gay marriage, and other majors in the minors.

That's the whole point of the 'middle ground'---to distract the public back into a secondary or tertiary-level discussion of minor wedge issues. The establishment wants no light to shine on endless monetary inflation, endless debt, war and empire, omni-Big Brother, or the conversion of the free republic into a prison state. So we get 'middle ground' debates over the rate of increases in spending. Pathetic.

 

[DeMintConservative]

Yup. Every major party nominee going through the elite controlled duopoly system for 'all these decades' has followed the same 'middle ground' script their masters have given them (with the partial exception of Reagan)..

Reagan did this as much as anyone.

In fact, one of the reasons won big was because the first debate, the one with John Anderson that Carter refused to attend.

Teh Dems had been painting Reagan as that extreme, radical, heartless conservative. Reagan came across as an affable, pragmatic, moderate republican in that debate. That pretty much turned around the race.

I agree Ron Paul would have make a large contrast. I never denied that, quite the opposite.