I find Ron Paul to be an interesting candidate even if I don’t ultimately support him. He’s raising gobs of money and his poll numbers are comparable to a lot of the other Republican candidates. So, it’s inexcusable to me that the upcoming GOP debate sponsored by Faux News will be excluding Rep. Paul. Apparently I’m not the only one. The New Hampshire Republican Party is withdrawing as co-sponsor of the debate.
Keep in mind it’s a NATIONAL election, not just Iowa and New Hampshire. RP doesn’t stand a snowballs chance nationally, so why allow him to ramble on incessantly using up valuable time. It’s about picking a leader of the free world, not tossing soundbytes about “the constitution” and “states rights” to unemployed white males living in their parents basement.
Is it just that Ron Paul doesn’t have the right ideas about governing, according to someone, or is there a contention that Giuliani or Thompson are running more successful campaigns?
Best I can tell, they’re hoping that if they ignore him, his “radical” ideas will go away.
Tim, apparently those ‘unemployed white males living in their parents basements’ have a lot of money to give to Paul. Either that, or you’re talking crap.
Because it is indeed about picking the leader of the free world, the American people deserve the opportunity to hear all of the balloted candidates, not merely the ones some snobbish elite decides is ‘electable’.
Electable! Whatever that means. Raising that kind of money should be all any objective observer needs to know about whether or not there is at least some genuine support. There is. Get him on there.
As a matter of strategy, though, I LOVE the exclusion. It is just going to aggravate Paul’s supporters all the more. I was afraid that they might get a little complacent after the second money bomb, but this should take care of that.
Hooray for the NH GOP! They have some integrity.
Mike Kole,
You wrote:
Maybe Ron Paul will win the presidency, because I’m kind of on Tim Zank’s side on this one, and that means Hell must be gettin’ mighty chilly.
Let’s see what the Fort Worth Star-Telegram had to say on Wednesday:
(source)
I’m sure ninety bucks does feel like a heck of a lot of money to those Ron Paul supporters who live in their mothers’ basements, and vigorously support “flat tax” proposals because a 10% income tax hurts a millionaire every bit as much as it hurts a minimum-wage worker. How’s a guy supposed to make ends meet on several hundred thousand dollars a year? It’s rough, bro.
Who will stand up and fight for the prerogatives of our grievously oppressed ultra-rich?
I know Ron Paul won’t let himself be counted out.
Er, I forgot to attack Mike Kole’s position from the Libertarian stance.
Fox News has every right to exclude Ron Paul from its debate, because Fox’s programming belongs to them, and freedom of speech means never being compelled to provide a platform for anyone else.
Sounds like Fox is completely within their prerogatives, given Libertarian principles on the subject–as is the New Hampshire GOP.
If the few firms that control the vast majority of the television and radio airwaves in the United States happen to agree among themselves that “kooks” like Ron Paul should be represented unfairly or not at all on their programming, well, that’s just the Free Market at work. The FCC has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the laissez-faire light.
Let’s not gracelessly bitch about the completely predictable outcomes of our economic principles. If Henry Hazlitt were still alive, he’d be wagging a reproachful finger.
I know there was some tongue and cheek going on, but I’ll just take the opportunity to drift off topic by suggesting that libertarian principles don’t work very well with respect to broadcasting.
For starters, how does one come to “own” a slice of the broadcast spectrum? One doesn’t. It belongs to “the people,” and is rented out by the government . . . with strings. If the leaseholder wants to claim that it need not abide by the strings, “the people” can turn around and start broadcasting on that piece of spectrum and the broadcaster can go elsewhere if it wants help enforcing its monopoly on that piece of broadcast spectrum.
That’s pretty far afield here, I guess. I don’t know that Fox is violating any of the rules attached to its broadcast license. But, probably “we the people” should be more demanding when extending these licenses – at least to the extent of requiring broad access for those seeking public office.
Mike Kole sez:
“Raising that kind of money should be all any objective observer needs to know about whether or not there is at least some genuine support. There is. Get him on there.”
I don’t mean to offend but that’s preposterous, especially coming from a devout Libertarian. Just because anyone can raise $19 mil they should be afforded a spot on a privately owned television show? Aside from the obvious argument that in that case ANY nutbag must be included because he’s got $$ or a whopping 200,000 supporters (out of 100 million voters) the more serious flaw is precisely what Branden pointed out. You want to tell private businesses (Fox News) who they have to interview or include in their “forum”. That’s a rather UN-Libertarian stance, no?
It’s their forum for Christs sakes.
Doug, that “all americans own the airwaves” is bullshit also, unless you’re a big believer in the “(un)fairness doctrine. I thought you guys were “pro-choice”?? That doesn’t apply to the choice of content and the tv stations you want to watch?
Where did the broadcasters get their property rights to the broadcast spectrum?
OK, Branden, I’ll take the bait.
I agree that Fox has every right to invite and exclude anyone they want. And I have every right to call it chickenshit.
You didn’t actually make a call for the FCC to step in, did you? Ah, that was dreamt up. Bummer.
That is, you didn’t actually read me making a call for FCC intervention.
Sorry.
Mike Kole,
No, I wasn’t trying to put words in your mouth about the FCC; I was making an (apparently too oblique) reference to the FCC’s media ownership rules, which have been steadily relaxing over the past decade or so.
Your position appears to be internally self-consistent, but personally I wonder how long a political movement has to stay in the wilderness before it decides that whatever end is being served by its purity, human welfare ain’t it.
In my arrogant and haphazardly informed opinion, the biggest problem right-libertarianism has in the United States is its own Utopianism.
Harry Browne very sensibly decried this sort of error (as did the anarcho-syndicalist Rudolf Rocker a couple of generations before), but LP libertarians I bump into seem to have difficulty identifying instances when they’re committing it–and thus proceed to continue doing so, repeatedly.
The reason populism works is because real people have real problems–and for most people, the value of the top marginal income tax rate isn’t a real problem.
Branden- I do agree with you. Indeed, my own campaign was largely attacked by LP/libertarian purists who found great distaste in my efforts, which were rigorously focused on talking about the issues that the office could affect. My conclusion was indeed that we have too many people who would rather be ‘correct and defeated’ rather than ‘slightly impure but victorious’. (In my case, my specific ‘impurity’ was in not calling for the abolishing of the office I was running for. That’s it!)
If you want another area where Libertarians seem to take on pyrrhic victory, it is in the area of public financing of campaigns. We could be even-steven with the other parties if we embraced such policy, but we won’t because we don’t believe a public that doesn’t agree with us should be compelled to fund us.
To see whether or not we are foolish, maybe we have to carefully study the Paul campaign. He’s a former LP candidate for pres, but one who is now doing it as an ‘R’, and raising more money than any other ‘R’. Taken on its’ face, the libertarian principles of Ron Paul are the best-funded ideas on the Republican ticket. If the field were leveled by public financing policies, we’d be hurting this outcome.
So, the purity/suicide argument is not an absolute. What it really comes down to is that the majority of Americans like the ‘mixed economy’ and tend to reject libertarian principles. In that case, it doesn’t matter much how much you tart it up. Where I thought myself pure is that I would stand for such principles even in the face of such widespread disagreement. (Apparently not enough for some folks!) But how do you begin to affect a change in your direction unless you enunciate that direction and/or the principles of said utopia? Look- I know we won’t ever get to anyone’s utopia. That doesn’t stop the left from enunciating it’s views, and moving that way with increasing success. Would it move that direction without effort unless a more distant, dare I say ‘utopian’ ideal point were enunciated? (Think ‘universal health care’.)
Mike Kole,
Sounds like we have some other things to agree about. :)
I don’t begrudge Ron Paul’s current party affiliation in the least. If he can help run the religious wackjobs, corporate welfare hounds, and warmongers out of the Republican Party, then the GOP will better serve the American people.