Sunday, January 15, 2012
Racing Ron Paul
The big posing question right now regarding Ron Paul, is why is he still in the race if his chances of winning or so extremely low? Despite Paul's has development of a solid following as a result of running for president four years ago and considerably higher polls than in '08---it is nearly impossible to imagine Paul gaining a lot of support across the nation he needs to take over Romney in the upcoming primaries and caucuses because of his extreme right views. For example, similar to Thomas Jefferson, he won't pass any laws unless it's explicitly allowed in the constitution. So again, why is he still in the race? Well for one, Ron Paul certainly has a better chance to win the nomination at this point then, say, Rick Perry or Jon Huntsman and those two candidates remain in the race. In addition, Paul seems to find himself making arguments that other GOP candidates didn't make - eliminating 5 cabinet level departments, and cutting defense spending, so either way in the end, nomination or not, Paul seems to have real conviction, and obviously, hopes he will have influence in changing the status quo in American politics. Personally, I think that Paul should drop out though, since he doesn't have very much national support and since he is already 76 he won't be running again anyway. There's also speculation that he's going to tamper with the race, which personally I'm not in favor of---there's been rumors that he might dump the Republican Party and run as a third party president, given that he ran as a member of the Libertarian Party during his 1988 campaign (which was a bust). Or, maybe he really is a Libertarian, but is just running with the G.O.P so he can have more ideological influence, and so Obama doesn't win a second term-if he ran in a third party would benefit Obama. So what are your opinions?
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3 comments:
Personally, I completely agree with Kenny that Ron Paul should drop out of the presidential race given that he seems a little shallow and malicious in his tactics-i.e. about not wanting Obama to win perhaps, that he's old and that he might just be running with the republicans to have a better chance at having a lasting influence. Some may side with him because he appears to be charismatic and pretty straight forward; or his opposition to militarism, the War on Drugs, and lower government spending and taxation might appeal to a wide range of people. But, Paul's arguments lack empirical basis-most of his proposed solutions will never work; his solutions would be shot down when they had to face to widely accepted theories about government and society. Furthermore, given Paul's extreme right views, I think the negatives will far outweigh the positives. In addition to Kenny's examples, Paul would restrict abortion based on anecdotal "evidence," rather than science, not to mention that he opposes the civil rights act of 1964, etc.
Ron Paul is probably still running in order to draw some votes away from the other candidates he doesn't want to win. It's like that 3rd party situation where even though the winner wasn't the most popular, he still won because the others took enough votes away from the other candidate. If you get what I'm referencing?
I think running with a major party was (or rather, is) an effective way for Ron Paul to make his political views known to the electorate and distinguish himself from the other key candidates, one of whom will go up against Obama. As Kenny said, his chances of winning the Republican nomination are low, and even in the rare case that he does, America isn't so desperate as to vote in a majority for someone whose views are as extreme as Paul's. He definitely does have the potential to draw votes away from other candidates, as evidenced by his finish in the New Hampshire primary. However, I believe another plausible explanation is that he's already thinking about the vice presidential nomination and wants to demonstrate that he can attract a significant bloc of voters. Between these two reasons, I'm not sure which one is more accurate, but both ought to be considered while Romney is now looking like he's going to win the GOP nomination.
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