This is pretty comparable to the Jesse Jackson campaign in 1992. In the early part of the campaign, he had 10% of the vote locked down and was technically the front-runner, as no other candidate had quite that much. But as was made pretty clear in his earlier run, 10% was about as good as he was ever going to get and trumpeting his doomed campaign as a “front-runner” just wasn’t in any serious commentator’s interest. Ron Paul’s function in this election is to get thorny issues discussed; he will flame out (again) long before he’s ever in a position to actually do anything about them.
A lot of his views are in accord with the tea baggers. The powers will not allow him to debate the others after awhile. He will get too much applause from the bagger gallery. They want to create the impression of party unity.
They mentioned on TDS that there were stories about how both Rick Santorum and John Huntsman did. As TDS pointed out, 'Santorum didn’t get half of what Paul got. He lost to a guy that lost so bad, he dropped out of the race!"
“If all of Huntsman’s supporters met at the same time at the same Ames Iowa Quiznos, the Fire Marshall would say 'Yeah, that’s fine.”
Neither of these guys have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting the nomination. The fact that they are both knuckleheads isn’t even an issue.
I think the reason he’s not a real canidate is that, physically, he’s built like Gollum from LOTR.
Yeah, I mentioned that earlier. The press liked Huntsman as a candidate, maybe because he has an interesting resume or because the idea of him running against his ex-boss sounds juicy, but the Republican base was never going to go for him. I don’t think the straw poll counts for much, but whoever said he might have a shot is a nitwit. There’s no reason to believe that and there is especially no reason to think that based on the straw poll results.
And yet James Carville is on TV all the time. Assuming CNN still counts as TV, and come to think of it, maybe Carville is contributing to their problems. 
Ron Paul’s problem is that he has no constituency in either major party or in the media.
His military isolationism causes him to be shunned by Republicans.
His free market policies cause him to be shunned by the Democrats.
He is not attractive to either big business or big labor.
Basically, his beliefs alienate him completely except for a group of followers who, although not necessarily that small, are also not big enough to carry him to a win in any major state.
The media won’t cover him because he’s not a useful idiot for either the right or the left. In the liberal media, candidates like Bachmann and Trump are ‘newsworthy’ because they make Republicans look crazy. In the right-wing media, candidates like Sharpton or Kucinich are useful because they make the Democrats look extreme. But Paul has beliefs that span both parties’ platforms, and his craziness spans right and left as well. So he’s really not useful to anyone.
And despite how well he’s doing now, he’s simply not a serious candidate for President. You can imagine some crazy set of events that could propel Bachmann into the White House as a long shot, but there’s no path that would get Ron Paul there. Everyone knows he’s at an absolute highwater mark for popularity. He’s too old to make a credible candidate - he would be 85 years old at the end of a second term.
The other thing about Paul is that he’s not new. He’s been in this position before, so he’s not particularly exciting to follow.
It’s not fair, and he deserves to be heard given the support he has, but he’s positioned himself into a niche that really has no friends.
I’ve read his manifesto and though he’s got lots of democrat-friendly policies, the fact that he’s doesn’t plan a federal law guaranteeing woman reproductive choice would prevent many from the democrat base from voting for him.
He’s an ethical and consistant libertarian, but he seems to put state liberty over abortion liberty. :smack:
I’ve read about Kucinich as well, he’s like a democratic Ron Paul, in both the good ways and the bad
And also a lot like Gollum!
I think a couple of the things that work in his favor also double as problems. For instance, his fervent supporters are so fervent they try to drum up support for him… so nobody wants to support him even if they agree with him because they don’t want to be misconstrued as the crazy Ron Paul spammers you see over the net.
In addition, that fact that he’s so different means that he “can’t win” so people who would otherwise vote for him don’t because they want to “vote for someone who could actually win.” I think more people would vote for him if most people voted solely on political views and didn’t take into account electoral strategy (or pretty commercials).
That’s not to say he’d necessarily WIN if these things were fixed, but he’d at least be upgraded from “Snowball’s chance in Hell” to “Winning the lottery.”
What exactly do you consider to be his “lots of democrat-friendly policies”?
And not only does he not plan a federal law guaranteeing female reproductive choice, he has proposed anti-choice legislation, as well as other extreme legislation that would attempt to destroy fundamental civil rights.
This is another factor that people ignore all too often. In early 2007, Gallup found that a 72 year old candidate would fare only slightly better than a homosexual candidate - and Ron Paul was 73 at the time of the 2008 election.
Given the circumstances, that article’s not really convincing. We’ve got a whole lot of news coverage dishonestly minimising support for Ron Paul, and you just found some more news coverage minimising the support for Ron Paul.
Not to mention that the author of this article was one of the ones pulling the “Only talk about Ron Paul to explain why we’re not talking about Ron Paul” bullcrap:
He is no impartial observer, he’s covering his own ass.
But that is not the reason the media is shunning Ron Paul. If it were, they would shun Bachmann as well, because what you are saying is, straw polls are notoriously unreliable, But they are not shunning Bachmann, her win in Ames is being touted as a significant step in the nominating process.
It should be. This is exactly why perspectives with small but strong constituencies should be included in the debate. The process and ultimate result can be improved by candidates with no chance of winning in themselves. But this isn’t happening nearly as much as it should be.
Saying that the media is right to ignore Paul (or whoever) simply because they have no shot at winning is missing the point. The party conventions are a year away! We have plenty of time for the top candidates and the general election. This is the time for a broader view, for challenging assumptions anew. This is what should be keeping democracy vital. From Fox News to Mother Jones, it seems the media is letting us down.
Like this?
Another issue is that the 24 hour news cycle spends hundreds of hours covering election minutia. They have a lot of airtime to fill and this is probably their #1 topic. The idea that there’s just not enough time to justify some Ron Paul coverage is kind of ridiculous.
I wish they’d throw in some more extreme questions into polls like that. I’m curious to know how much more or less atheists are despised than child molesters or murderers.
That wasn’t actually him who wrote itand he ended up saying;
“ Everybody knows in my district that I didn’t write them and I don’t speak like that… and I’ve been reelected time and time again and everyone knows I don’t participate in that kind of language. The point is, when you bring this question up, you’re really saying ‘you’re a racist, or are you a racist?’ The answer is no, I’m not a racist. As a matter of fact, Rosa Parks is one of my heroes, Martin Luther King is a hero, because they practiced the libertarian principle of civil disobedience and nonviolence. Libertarians are incapable of being a racist because racism is a collectivist idea: you see people in groups. A civil libertarian as myself sees everyone as an important individual. ”
— Ron Paul, CNN, January 10, 2008
You mean, there’s a difference? Jesus Christ! Why won’t you think of the children?
That’s why he voted against giving her a Congressional medal of honor. I don’t think the guy is a racist, but he does have sort of a tin ear for these kinds of things consider voters would already have reason to be concerned about what would happen to civil rights laws under a Paul administration.