# The best candidate to challenge Barack Obama in 2012 is Ron Paul **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 3, 2010, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114 "2010-05-03T03:50:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/41 "2010-05-03T15:41:17Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It’s a common position for Libertarians to have, and Paul is a sort-of Libertarian. Though Ron Paul does have sort of a weird pirate fixation too. He called 9/11 a case of “air piracy” and wanted to issue letters of Marque to fight terrorism. Maybe **Alessan** ’s on to something. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/42 "2010-05-03T15:59:18Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Well, I suspect Rudi Gulliani would beg to differ (he held the record for the most money spent for the least number of delegates gained, plus if nothing else, the '08 campaign raised Pauls profile but pretty much finished off Gulliani’s political career), but I agree with the rest of your post. Don’t forget Mitt Romney, who I believe was (partly) spending his own money. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/43 "2010-05-03T16:00:41Z")
> [@](#): > > Mr Paul believes in fiscal responsibility, and as such has no chance of ever winning a popular election in the United States, particularly against candidates such as Mr Obama One of the aspects of fiscal responsibility is a lack of a desire to instantaneously slash the country’s money supply by a factor of ten. Even if a reduction in the money supply were to be a good thing in the long run, a point which, to my knowledge, Paul has never tried to defend, doing it all at once like he wants to would be a large enough disruption to make the Great Depression look like a minor inconvenience. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/44 "2010-05-03T16:04:52Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I mean, gold? WTF? What is he, a pirate? Yeah, mate, I read that and that was in my mind. Really, there are posts above calling him a great mind and all that and he’s advocating a gold standard. That’s bog lunacy. One has to be stupid or nuts to believe in that. (Or I suppose profoundly ignorant…) ---
**Author:** ![kingbighair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/13edae/32.png) [@kingbighair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingbighair)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/45 "2010-05-03T16:13:29Z")
Ron Paul is 74. If the Republicans ran him, it would be the same sacrificial lamb campaign that Bob Dole ran in '96. Absent some meltdown, Obama will win the next election. Maybe Republicans can run Paul in order to get the fringe part of the party to shut up after seeing how badly he gets destroyed. The party is still tarnished, so maybe they would be smart to sit this next election out, retool, and then bring in a new face (probably a female) in '16. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/46 "2010-05-03T16:15:14Z")
Ron Paul will be 77 years old just before the next election. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/47 "2010-05-03T16:47:36Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Them and those afraid of the trilateral commission and illuminati. And the anti-vaxers. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/48 "2010-05-03T16:58:08Z")
> [@Drain\_Bead](#): > > And the anti-vaxers. There are people who hate [virtual addressing and orthogonal instruction sets](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAX)? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/49 "2010-05-03T16:59:15Z")
> [@ShibbOleth](#): > > Ron Paul will be 77 years old just before the next election. What, you think his mind will start to slip? ---
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/50 "2010-05-03T17:02:00Z")
Ron Paul is a candidate that just falls apart on close examination. There is no way he would withstand a Republican primary, let alone being the Republican nominee. At first, as a liberal Democrat with libertarian leanings (especially in social policy), I thought: “Hey, a libertarian candidate! A fiscal conservative. Great! I’d love to cut military spending and stop the war in Iraq. Though I don’t agree with all of his cutbacks, I’d love to have a candidate who actually is willing to stand up to the warhawks. Maybe I could vote for a Republican candidate after all.” I like a lot of things that he has to say, like stopping the trade embargo with Cuba. But then you start looking deeper. Letters of marque? Seriously? The gold standard? Elimination of all income taxes… well, that’s going to be hard to manage. Oh, we can possibly replace it with a national sales tax? How delightfully regressive. He supports tax dodgers as resisting a law they don’t support, but wants to end birthright citizenship because it promotes illegal behavior. Uh, that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. And sorry, but we do need some oversight of businesses; we can’t leave it all up to the free market to just magically work things out. And of course, he’s very much pro-life, which doesn’t really jibe with my sense of libertarianism. He’s what the girls in Clueless would call a Monet: “It’s like a painting, see? From far away, it’s OK, but up close, it’s a big old mess.” ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/51 "2010-05-03T17:22:20Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > There are people who hate [virtual addressing and orthogonal instruction sets](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAX)? Yes and what would that have to do with American politics… ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/52 "2010-05-03T17:33:11Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Maybe this field has no chance of beating Obama, but does Ron Paul have a chance of beating this field to become the Republican nominee? Well, I know the republican establishment will try to prevent Ron Paul from winning the nomination. If there was no voter fraud, relatively fair treatment in debates and in the media, then absolutely he could beat this field of candidates. Thats a pretty big “if” though. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/53 "2010-05-03T17:35:56Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > What, you think his mind will start to slip? I think he might start acting a bit odd in his dotage. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/54 "2010-05-03T17:39:02Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > Well, I know the republican establishment will try to prevent Ron Paul from winning the nomination. If there was no voter fraud, relatively fair treatment in debates and in the media, then absolutely he could beat this field of candidates. Thats a pretty big “if” though. I’m sorry, but did you bother to read any of the posts about why couldn’t win? Do you intend to directly respond to any of them, or will you just pop up with a boilerplate post every so often? ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/55 "2010-05-03T17:41:03Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Anyone who thinks the gold standard is a good idea is ipso facto unqualified to lead any modern capitalist country. You think the current monetary system led first by Greenspan and then by Bernanke, has been successful? Look at unemployment, look at the depreciation in the standard of living, the dwindling middle class, and the growing gap between rich and poor. Look at the deficit and national debt. This is where Keynesian economics has lead us. Believe me, if and when we experience hyperinflation and the destruction of the dollar, you will think back and say to yourself, “you know, maybe we should have backed the dollar with something of value, maybe there was some logic there.” Why not explain why the Austrian economists like Mises and Hayek predicted the Great Depression in the 20s when nobody else did. And why did Ron Paul predict this crisis years before anybody else? Ron Paul is a fucking modern day Nostradamus. You think one of the few to have gotten it right should be disqualified? Why not elaborate a little? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/56 "2010-05-03T17:42:23Z")
I do hope he runs. At least he makes the debates more interesting. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/57 "2010-05-03T17:43:28Z")
Ron Paul has a slightly worse chance of actually being elected than an openly gay, Muslim, transsexual. Which is really too bad, because a presidency run by that loon would provide better comedy than the Bush terms. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/58 "2010-05-03T17:43:56Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > Well, I know the republican establishment will try to prevent Ron Paul from winning the nomination. That’s not a big surprise, his politics are pretty different from theirs. And yet for whatever reason he won’t run as an independent. Maybe he thinks voters in Texas would turn on him. > [@](#): > > If there was no voter fraud Huh? > [@](#): > > relatively fair treatment in debates and in the media You know, considering his relatively weak showing at the polls, I thought he got a lot of coverage in 2008. The whole rEVOLution thing made for an angle that interested the press… and yet his supporters kept saying he could win if the press wasn’t so unfair. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/59 "2010-05-03T17:44:47Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > You think the current monetary system led first by Greenspan and then by Bernanke, has been successful? Look at unemployment, look at the depreciation in the standard of living, the dwindling middle class, and the growing gap between rich and poor. Look at the deficit and national debt. This is where Keynesian economics has lead us. Telling us that the other systems are bad doesn’t automatically make the gold system _good_. Why do you think the gold system will work? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114/60 "2010-05-03T17:46:06Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > You know, considering his relatively weak showing at the polls, I thought he got a lot of coverage in 2008. The whole rEVOLution thing made for an angle that interested the press… and yet his supporters kept saying he could win if the press wasn’t so unfair. Yeah, he really was a bit of media darling for while. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-candidate-to-challenge-barack-obama-in-2012-is-ron-paul/538114.md?page=4)