Tucker on Ron Paul
Tucker Carlson’s TNR piece on Ron Paul is freewheeling and slightly zany and worth reading if only because there are far too few opportunities to read political correspondents writing lines like, “I wasn’t planning on showing up at Paul’s press conference with a bordello owner and two hookers, but unexpected things happen on the road.”
Tucker also attempts to answer my question from the other day about the makeup on Paul’s coalition, and what drives it:
It’s hard to think of a presidential candidate who’s ever drawn a coalition as broad as Ron Paul’s. At any Paul event, you’re likely to run into self-described anarcho-capitalists, 9/11-deniers, antiwar lefties, objectivists, paleocons, hemp activists, and geeky high school kids, along with tax resistors, conspiracy nuts, and acolytes of Murray Rothbard. And those are just the ones it’s possible to categorize. It’s hard to say what they all have in common, except that every one is an ideological minority—or, as one of them put it to me, “open-minded people.” To these supporters, Paul is a folk hero, the one person in national politics who doesn’t judge them, who understands what it’s like to be considered a freak by straight society.
This seems roughly accurate to me, although I also think there’s something to the argument made by Josh Harkinson in Mother Jones that much of his support is based around and fueled by the tech-geek community.
I still wonder, however, whether or not the movement actually requires Paul, or if some other leader or organization might be able to act as a proxy for a similar message. And I wonder how his coalition, and its ideals, however unfocused they might be, will hold up in the coming years. He and his supporters could easily remain a disruptive force in the two-party system after the 08 election, but will they still rally if, for example, a Democrat takes the White House and the war becomes less of an issue? Would they follow a Paul-anointed successor (or someone who just took up the mantle), or is part of the appeal, as Tucker suggests, the unassuming persona of Paul himself? It’s not that hard to imagine both parties seeing their electoral (and possibly even legislative) strategies frustrated if any substantial chunk, even just 5% of the electorate, decided to mobilize in favor of a broadly libertarian platform, and it seems to me that, in many instances, establishing a small center of gravity there would probably be a good thing. And failing that, it’d be fascinating to watch.
Update: Even given the above, I think the strength is the libertarian vote is regularly overstated. So while I appreciate David Boaz’s regular enthusiasm for the potential power of a libertarian vote, I’m not entirely convinced. He argues today that “the libertarian vote is about the same size as the religious right vote measured in exit polls,” but I can’t help but wonder if this summer’s Fabrizio study of the makeup of the Republican party doesn’t provide a more accurate picture of the coalition. The Fabrizio report puts moralists — who are far less concerned about free-market and presumably are the crowd fueling Huckabee’s rise — at 24% of the coalition, the largest single group. Free-marketers, however, the outlook of whose members looks more or less like the Club for Growth’s, only make up about 8% of the coalition, and are tied for the smallest group in the coalition.
I know a guy who’s a pacifist anarchist Christian communitarian of some sort who announced recently that he’s registering Republican so he can vote for Ron Paul. “He’s against everything I’m against!” he said. “He’s not for everything I’m for, but he’s against everything I’m against!” In politics, a lot of the time that’s the best you can do.
— Camassia · Dec 21, 09:33 PM · #
“I still wonder, however, whether or not the movement actually requires Paul, or if some other leader or organization might be able to act as a proxy for a similar message.”
I think it does require a ‘Ron Paul’. (Disclaimer: I’m a “probable” Paul voter of the ‘anarcho-capitalist’ strain…)
A vote for “Ron Paul” is basically an ‘anti-<i>Washington, DC</i>’ vote- How many other organizations/candidates can match his “consistency” over the long-term?
— fletch · Dec 22, 05:05 AM · #
Ron Paul has a long history of mining the crank/freak vote and money. He is not a serious candidate. Nor is his coalition a serious coalition.
New Orleans French Quarter before Katrina was filled with street kids, freaks, weirdos, and bizarre people from all over the country. I know, I saw it with my own eyes.
That was hardly a “broad coalition” however, merely a lot of freaks and weirdos. The real New Orleans was old-money Uptown, gang-infested mid-City, millionaire new money Lakeview, yuppie gentrifiers alongside crack-houses in the Garden District (with a few celebs), thug infested Fauburg Marigny, and the middle-working class New Orleans East. Each of these areas vastly outnumbered the freaks who rolled in like loose nuts from the rest of the nation.
Electoral success in America resides in the vast middle, people who go to work in ordinary boring jobs, work hard, pay taxes, worry about losing what they have as much as gaining more, and have responsibility for family.
You are right about too many single tech-freaks (young, under 25, unmarried, no/little responsibility) representing the Paul coalition and that is a weakness not a strength. Dean had the same weakness. The pierced and tatooed and nose/lip ringed techie who is 22 can set up a great website to network and communicate with other people like him.
But he is USELESS in going door-to-door in his neighborhood to canvass and stump for votes among ordinary people. He might even be considered a liability since his very freakishness will turn people off. He certainly won’t get out the vote on election day like pastors, boy scout troop leaders, shriners, Kiwanis leaders can and will. THEY’VE been turning people out for decades. Have respect among their neighbors and the community. Know how to convince people in ordinary everyday language, and get people out to the polls.
That was Dean’s weakness in Iowa — no ground game for getting out the vote among his cadres who turned Iowans off with their freakishness.
And that’s Paul’s weakness.
Paul’s endorsement by David Duke, Stormfront, various anti-semitic groups along with all sorts of other weird/marginal groups is symptomatic of a profound weakness. The inability to get ordinary people on board and playing to the freak shows.
Fletch is of course dead wrong. A vote for a freak show is a vote for business as usual. A vote for marginal but important changes in government is a vote for changing the status quo: Fred’s Federalism, Rudy/Mitt’s reformism, Obama’s JFK-style ‘New Frontier Part Two’ program all offer significant changes. Clinton, Edwards, and Huckabee all offer status quo true, but each party has significant candidates offering realistic, politically achievable, and important changes to how the nation does business.
The Gold Standard, isolationism, and Pat Buchanon-style-anti-Semitism that Paul embodies is a pure political fantasy by unserious people uninterested in indulging anything but their emotions at a world that won’t do what they tell it. It’s a massive temper tantrum. Anything from Federalism to the New Frontier’s return is arguably achievable by a committed and energetic President.
— Jim Rockford · Dec 23, 07:21 AM · #
I am one of the 25,000 that contributed to Dr. Ron Paul’s election campaign for the first time. Dr. Paul’s message is what I want to hear.
These teenagers and twenty-somethings that you call “crank/freak” and “single tech-freaks (young, under 25, unmarried, no/little responsibility)” are the very families and friends of the ones coming back from Iraq. Almost 4,000 dead and tens of thousands are horribly maimed and burned. Permanently disfigured and forever suffering from this insane war for Israel.
I am almost fifty years old and I have always voted. I have already changed my party to Republican to vote in my state’s primary.
For the first time in my life, I sent $50 to a politician.
— WD · Dec 24, 04:42 AM · #
Re: Jim Rockford
While I agree with parts of your post, you make broad sweeping generalizations that completely contradict what I’ve seen of Paul’s campaign so far. While I generally agree with the premise that some Paul volunteers may turn the middle America people off, most Paul supporters I’ve seen are much older than I am (29), and much more mainstream than you’d like people to believe. I’ve been to several meetups in different states, met Paul supporters in bars (by accident), and I would have never suspected them to be “Paulites”. Skeptics want to push the idea that these people are the tattooed weirdos in the mother’s basement with no life. I have yet to see one of those in real life.
Take me, for example. I’m self employed, own a house, a member of the Chamber of Commerce. I’m also Atheist. I’ve never been politically motivated before in my entire life. I voted for Bush twice (please forgive me). I’m not into consipiracy theories. I’ve actually researched Dr. Paul in great detail. The more I read, the more I understand. The problem with most people is that they like to take a superficial look at things, and most of Paul’s positions, when looked upon in that manner, look fishy. However, if you understand his position, and research it, it actually makes sense when you start digging. Most people that don’t like Paul never do any research, and basically have knee-jerk reactions to certain positions, like MSNBC yesterday with the Lincoln comments.
You sir, with your comment about isolationism, have basically outed yourself. Paul has never been for isolationism. That is biased spin to make him sound bad. The only time I hear opponents say isolationism, is when they are attempting to make Paul sound like he wouldn’t be effective with national security. Long story short, people who call Paul an isolationist have bought into the War on Terror. Seeing as you are most likely one of those, I’m inclined to believe that you like the propaganda they feed you about the war. As a person that’s been part of the military system, and with friends in that system, some of which were actually kicking down doors in Iraq, I think you are misguided if you think our current foreign policy is in this nation’s best interest. You are even more misguided if you think that we haven’t providing a breeding ground for this problem since WWII. It really doesn’t matter what anyone’s ideological standpoint is on the War on Terror, we can’t afford it for much longer without it bankrupting the country. This is fact. We cannot afford it. Period. I’m not sure how we can police the world with the current system we have in place. I guess borrowing 2.5 billion dollars a day to fight this war sounds like a good idea, eh? I guess we will just raise taxes to pay for it, that can’t possibly slow the economy down any more. We’ll raise taxes and print more money, just like we’ve always done. Name one candidate that has any background in economics, and has a comprehensive plan to fix the economy ASAP. That’s the main reason I’m voting for Dr. Paul. It’s kind of hard to have freedom when you can’t buy food. I might be safe from terrorists, but I won’t be safe from much else.
— J · Dec 28, 05:17 PM · #