Looks like his inheritance is taking a beating: Ron Paul’s net worth has declined 40% over the past few months due to his gold and gold-producing assets.
But Glenn Beck said gold was the best investment!
Difficult as it usually is to feel sorry for someone who has gold-producing assets, this is no exception.
Some guy on our Lefty Radio station was just hawking gold last week, telling how scred he was of the future, and how the righties were going to ruin society, so he was squirreling his money away… where it was SAFE! “Innnn GOLLLLD!”
I remember thinking "So is this another example, like UFO belief, where both ends of the political spectrum bend around and meet each other?’
Maybe both ends have just run into a Tax on Whackos.
Why? Howard has a prominent role in the black community. It’s not like his audience was going to be just the people in the actual room with him. More blacks were going to hear about his talk at Howard than the one he gave the next day at Simmons College, another black college, regardless of the number and makeup of the people who heard either talk directly. Howard was, in effect, a bigger megaphone.
OK, now you’re back to being dumb. Maybe you do not understand the concept of changing one’s mind.
Let me talk you through this reeeeaaaaally sloooooowly.
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Last year, the GOP believed it could win by getting out the vote among its supporters, particularly suburban and rural whites, and suppressing the minority vote.
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The ‘suppressing the minority vote’ part was a total failure, and may have actually backfired. The efforts to suppress their vote made minorities damned sure to vote if they possibly could.
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The white vote just wasn’t enough. And it’s clear that it’s not likely to be enough, ever again, in a Presidential year.
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So NOW the GOP wants to get minority votes.
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Yes, last year’s aims work against this year’s aims. No shit, Sherlock. But they can’t go back and change last year to make it consistent with their current aims.
IYHO. Which is not an opinion I give much weight to, y’know?
I agree with your description of the problem but I disagree with your conclusion (bold). I think its just as likely, and more reasonable, to NOT give him credit because of your description of the situation. Its useless, it doesn’t help him, and it was a failure. As an olive branch, it was rotten to begin with. If his main goal was more black votes, he failed, and now looks like a buffoon. That’s why I give him no credit.
If, however, he secretly went there to shore up white votes by getting heckled by blacks and playing his “poor me” schtick, it also failed. It failed because playing the races against each other and hoping for a big share of the white vote is a losing prospect. It was in 2008, 2012, and will increasingly be a losing prospect because of demographic changes. Thus Paul’s only path to the White House runs through, not around, Howard, and the numerous other minority strongholds. Going to a black school and looking foolish didn’t help him with the people he’ll need to get elected
How many speeches from politicians include promises to do anything? That’s really nto a fair standard for anyone.
Rand Paul is (maybe) running for president the same way his father did. He has no chance, and he knows that. How much of the Black vote he would get is immaterial in the big picture.
Did I miss all the coverage of his event at Simmons college then? Since the media LOVES to cover these things, I wonder why that wasn’t on the nightly news.
Yes and no. Howard has a lot of symbolic importance for sure, but it’s role is declining, particularly in the DMV area given their lack of community outreach, cost of attendance, etc. His audience, was AFAICT, mostly students and invited guests. Given that he spoke on a Wednesday at the school of business, I question why you think this was supposed to be some huge event allowing him to reach out to the entire Black community. This was not a community wide event. They didn’t even hold it in one of the larger venues on campus.
This is not new. Were you not around in 2000? Or for that matter the last 60 years or so.
Debatable, but likely untrue given the similarities between the turnout in 2008 and 2012.
This is not new. Why do you think people like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, JC Watts, etc. etc. are always quick to rise to the top of the party. They have wanted to get minority votes for a while. It’s just that they can’t because they are selling a toxic, awful product.
Yes, because the whole party changed priorities over the last 6 months :dubious:. Do you also realize the GOP’s meager efforts during that time span have been focused on Latinos, not Blacks? Additionally, Paul speaking at an Howard is certainly not doing much in furtherance of those goals in and of themselves. Nor is speaking to a class at Simmons College. Let’s get real here, if you honestly think this was supposed to be some grand outreach program, the GOP would not send one of there most racially compromised senators to speak to Black people a few dozen/hundred at a time in an area where they have basically given up trying to compete.
Which I why you are a fucking idiot and why it’s clear you have no understanding of how campaigns are run. Nobody wastes money, time, and resources trying to rally their base by speaking to groups the base hates in some weird effort to get the base fired up on the off chance the hated group reacts negatively to the candidate. It’s just mindbogglingly stupid and inefficient. The fact you you think it’s likely just highlights how dumb and cynical you are.
The fact that he failed is kinda beside the point. Sometimes just showing up in an unfavorable situation should count for something.
I agree. I haven’t been suggesting otherwise.
Well, no, it doesn’t run through Howard. I think you greatly overestimate the importance of HBCUs in the Black community, and the possibility of a Republican winning DC, MD, and many of the other states where Blacks are a good percentage of the electorate.
Any that merit “olive branch” classification. The bare message “We’re really not as contemptuous of you as you might think” does not, by itself, measure up.
That’s not true at all. At most, speeches will make policy suggestions and/or promises to work on an issue. Very few politicians are bold/stupid enough to make promises to change/enact policies they have little control over.
I reject most of what Rand Paul says, but most of his speech was mostly about areas where he and the mainstream Black community agree (which went over relatively well), and how the GOP is in actuality great for Black people (which is BS, and was received as such). I dislike the guy as much as most dems, but there is no need to mischaracterize what happened.
But think about what he was trying to accomplish. It may be courageous to show up somewhere you’re not liked or wanted, but he went there for a reason. And the reason can only be 1) shore up his white base, 2) get support from the black and minority base, or 3) show the moderates you’re brave enough to go to hostile territory and hopefully they’ll see you as bipartisan. On each of those things, I believe, he failed, and came out looking worse. I’m not dogging him for his foolish bravery for showing up, I’m dogging him because he failed in his objective to gain support.
If you just want to give him credit for his bravery, that’s fine, but if his standing took a hit, that should count as a negative
Not just Howard but also other minority strongholds. Let Paul win the same percentage of a shrinking white voter base in 2016 and he’ll get even less votes than Romney, and due to the demographics, the next Dem candidate can win a smaller percentage of the minority vote and still win. The next presidential candidacy runs through not only the white base, but blacks, Latinos, women, etc. If you’re strong in only one area, a shrinking area, then it spells doom for you.
Just promising to try to work for a change in the GOP’s general direction in certain policy-areas would have had sufficient substance to it, but Paul promised not even that. No olive branch. Nothing at all but whining, “Come on, guys, why don’t you like us the way we are?! You should like us the way we are!”
Point taken. I think we just have different standards of evaluation here. I can understand why you feel the way you feel, but I think there are just too many opportunities passed up by politicians on both sides because there is not a guaranteed successful outcome. I think we should applaud people who buck that trend.
I agree 100%. He certainly looks worse in my eyes. Just to be clear, I don’t think anyone should vote for him because of that, but I do think not taking the easy route is admirable on some level.
Of course. But the percentage of the Black vote that can go either way is pretty small in the grand scheme of things. This is not a new trend, so it’s not as if these people who have been voting for dems for 30 years are really gonna change just because Rand Paul showed up. I don’t mean to imply that it is a lost cause, just that the well has been so thoroughly poisoned by the GOP that winning more than 15% or so of the Black vote would be incredibly difficult.
Eh, I hear you, but I think he did suggest a focus on areas where there is agreement. I really hate to defend Rand Paul on anything, but I think you are expected too much based on the type of speech he was giving, and from the way politics are. Nobody is gonna completely change their views and perspectives overnight. I think Paul actually believes what he said. He doesn’t think the GOP is bad for minorities. He thinks his stances are self-evidently correct. He is wrong, but that is kinda beside the point wrt the reasons I give him a bit of credit.
You mean where he played the junior martyr card and claimed that whites like him just weren’t allowed to talk about black history?
THAT bit of “successfully reaching out to blacks”?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
There, I think I’ve paid my “putting up with stupid people” dues for the night. 
Another great display of avoiding the question. Please feel free to quote where I or anyone else said this was a “successful reach out to Blacks”? You can’t because nobody said that. If you want to just continually spout off about things you clearly know nothing about, so be it. In the future, don’t bother to include others if you are just going to duck questions and make stupid and unfounded statements.
No, no, not -out. -Around.
Fish in a barrel!
[QUOTE=brickbacon, post 90]
the only reason we are discussing [Rand Paul at Howard] is because the media decided to cover it more due to it being a epic failure.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=RTFirefly, post 100]
Oh, bullshit. They’d have LOVED to cover a “Republican successfully reaches out to blacks” event. They love ‘reaching across’ and all that stuff.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=brickbacon, post 107]
Did I miss all the coverage of his event at Simmons college then? Since the media LOVES to cover these things, I wonder why that wasn’t on the nightly news.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=RTFirefly, post 114]
You mean where he played the junior martyr card and claimed that whites like him just weren’t allowed to talk about black history?
THAT bit of “successfully reaching out to blacks”?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=brickbacon, post 115]
Please feel free to quote where I or anyone else said this was a “successful reach out to Blacks”? You can’t because nobody said that.
[/QUOTE]
Too easy, really.
Anyhow, I think that’s my quotient of dealing with stupid people for this morning. There’s this guy in Emerald City who might be able to help you.
It’s official: you’re a retard. I cannot fathom how you think anything you quoted illustrates me thinking his speech was a success. Did you actually read what you quoted?
Yes, did you?
Again, reeeeeaaaaallly slllloooooooowwwwllly for you:
Me: The MSM would love to cover an event with Property X.
You: Then why didn’t they cover Event Y?
Me: Because Event Y didn’t have Property X, you nincompoop!
You: When did I ever say Event Y had Property X?
I can’t tell whether you’re being deliberately obtuse, or whether your IQ is competitive with that of kelp. Not that there’s a functional difference in the conversation, of course. I will continue to reply to you to the extent that I find it amusing to do so, but that will be the extent of it. You should continue to feel free to call me names if that makes you feel better; we all must to what we can to aid the less fortunate.
It looks an awful lot like you are saying his Simmons College appearance was an example of him successfully reaching out to blacks. Am I missing something?