I think that from the beginning, Ron Paul realized that he had no chance of winning the nomination. I believe his strategy was to use the primary process to get public exposure for himself and his ideas for the sole purpose of showing that a third party could be viable in US political landscape and that he intends to make that point as forcefully as possible by running on his own ticket in the general election.
Absolutely not. If he runs as a 3rd party candidate, I will lick the bottom of my shoe and post a picture of it online for you all to enjoy.
He’ll never get Rand Paul on the VP ballot that way.
No, he didn’t run as a 3rd party candidate in 2008 I don’t think he’d do so now. He ran as 3rd party in the 1988 election. But he hasn’t done so since.
I didn’t want to have a long OP which no one would read, but I guess I could go into my rationale a bit more.
Paul is 77 this year. This is probably the last chance that has to run without his age being a major issue. That’s part of the reason that I think he wants to leave something more behind than a footnote in the history books.
Although I disagree with him on pretty much everything, there’s no denying that he’s a fairly smart guy. Accordingly, he clearly must have known going into this that he had almost no chance of getting the nomination. Even so, he gave up his seat in Congress to pursue this campaign - why?
One argument is that he wanted to recast the debate among Republicans. However what is the single biggest influence in the Republican party at the moment? The tea party. Paul is a natural fit for the tea party demographic but he certainly saw early on how it had been co-opted by the Republicans.
I think he sees some version of the tea party as being a viable third party and wants to bring that point home - making that his legacy.
I voted Other and since you asked, here’s my explanation:
First, I have no idea whether Paul is planning to run as a third party candidate. Second, I don’t really care because I can’t see it making any difference one way or the other. If Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Wallace, George Wallace, Ross Perot or Ralph Nader couldn’t show “that a third party could be viable in [the] US political landscape,” then I don’t see Ron Paul doing it. He’ll get Harry Browne numbers at best.
And he’s a terrible fit as a Tea Party candidate.
Probably not. This is more of an instinctive answer than one where I can fully explain my rationale, but here’s my best attempt:
(1) **dzero ** says “I believe his strategy was to use the primary process to get public exposure for himself and his ideas for the sole purpose of showing that a third party could be viable in US political landscape and that he intends to make that point as forcefully as possible by running on his own ticket in the general election.” I disagree. I agree with the first part, that he wanted to get public exposure for his ideas, but I don’t believe it was to show that a third party could be viable. It was purely to get his ideas into public discourse. I don’t think running as a third party candidate would help to achieve that goal.
(2) I think if that were his intent, he would have dropped out by now. Staying in as long as he has without winning the popular vote in a single state highlights how much of a long shot voting for him would be. He had strong showings in the first couple of states to vote, and if he wanted to be a viable third party candidate, he should have dropped out as soon as he started to slip in the vote counts.
(3) The reason I said “probably not” rather than “definitely not”: because when he was asked about it point blank, he refused to rule it out as an option.
Running as a third party will make in no more than a footnote in the history books. Unless you can name any of the Prohibition Party candidates.
He definitely will not be running third party. I think the OP completely misinterpretted his intentions. I think he’s seen how the social conservatives and religious right have taken over the Republican party that used to stand for small government. Now all the small government talk from Republicans is just lip service for whatever few still have some remaining libertarian ideals. I think he entered the race realizing the presidency was virtually impossible for him, and I’m not even sure he really wanted it at all. Rather, by getting national media exposure he could perhaps help redirect the debates and get people refocused on what he thinks we should be focused on. The thing is, he won’t win very many moderates, but he did win a decent number of votes in the primary which might help the eventual candidate see that the Republican base isn’t just a straight shot to the right, but includes a number of other ideologies.
I don’t know how much of a lasting effect his efforts will ultimately have, but I do think he’s shown that at least some of the libertarian ideas he has have more popular support than many people have thought in the past. I think people probably feel much safer really voting what they believe in primaries where they’re more inclined to vote for the lesser of two evils in November. So, he can get that out there without much risk of possibly costing the eventual Republican candidate votes that could cost them the presidency.
That’s a great summary.
I’ll just add that, and not only based on his Jay Leno appearance, he is looking for some relevant position, a position of significance to economic matters to be precise, in the future Republican President cabinet. It all seems as a reasonable way to get the message through in complex Government model as US is; think of it as NBA “role player”, the guy with a special skill and focus in a special role that sometimes, in certain situations, can be “make-or-break” kind of a guy.
It’s too bad he is linking all of his exuberance and political name to –based on the looks of it- highly unlikely Republican win in Presidential elections.
If he were a credible candidate (i.e., one who could actually count on double-digit support from voters), it’d be an issue this time out. AFAIK, Paul is in good health, but the oldest president we’ve elected was Reagan for his second term, at age 73 (he turned 74 around the time of his second inauguration), and Reagan was apparently suffering the early effects of Alzheimer’s during that second term.
That said, a Paul candidacy would have so many other issues in drawing the general electorate’s interest, that I don’t think his age would be the the issue which would make or break his candidacy.
I think he was testing the waters and seeing if there was support for a libertarian candidate. If he had run a close second to Romney and felt like he had crossover appeal from some Democrats, he might have considered an independent run. But as it is, he’s come in fourth place in the primaries and I think he’s seen the limits of libertarian support among the voters.