Will Ron Paul get his turn as the GOP Front-runner?

I really doubt it.

I’d much prefer him over the rest of the peanut gallery.

It would surely make for an interesting connumdrum for the republican party and I wish him well but I do not think he will. There are too many americans who just can’t stomach his anti-war views. FWIW, he is the only one of the pack (both those who are left and those who have fallen out of favor) that I would vote for.

Probably not, but his contributions to sanity are enormously valuable.

^ You know, I don’t get that. Ron Paul sometimes seems to have some good ideas, seems pretty legitimate, then he spouts some stuff that’s nucking futs!

Ron Paul’s economic ideas are batshit insane. At least the others are just being cynical and trying to get more money for their cronies. I think Romney especially actually knows how the economy works and is just posturing for the base.

Paul believes in economic ideas that are the equivalent of the miasma theory of disease.

highly highly doubtful

No, his policies and beliefs are too outre even for the Republicans.

@Qingu I do not know enough about economic theory to judge his economic stance. Are his ideas ones that, at one time, were in vogue and have fallen out of favor or has he come to them on his own?

Yes in 2016.

@talljasperman That would be his son.

Ron Paul will never be the Republican candidate because Ron Paul is not a Republican. He’s a Libertarian.

Ron Paul will never be the Republican candidate because Ron Paul is not a Republican. He’s a Libertarian.

A member of the Republican party who is a Republican member of Congress running for the Republican presidential nomination is not a Republican.

That’s, ummmm, interesting.

@rojo, Paul has religious-like faith in what is called the Austrian school of economics. This school is essentially laissez-faire to the extreme, advocating the view that any government intrusion into the marketplace has negative effects and the invisible hand of the market will solve all problems if only given free reign. The Austrians have never been considered a notable economic school by actual scholars of economics. But they’re in vogue today especially with libertarians (who often don’t know a thing about economics) because it’s seen as justification for their political beliefs.

The school is interesting because it rejects models and empirical evidence. Austrians believe that economic activity is somehow “above” these things because it’s psychological and/or philosophical in nature. In this it has more in common with a religion than an actual scholarly discipline.

Though it does make predictions. In particular it makes predictions about prices and inflation, and this is something Paul has been screaming about forever. The problem is the fundamental predictions of his economic worldview have been completely disproven. According to Paul/Austrians, the government increasing the monetary base should cause drastic inflation. But since 2007 the US government has tripled the monetary base and inflation is relatively low.

The reason people like Paul believe in this garbage is because their economic views are based on faith, not evidence.

No, I think the party is afraid of him.

And I agree with @tedd. He is a libertarian, not a Republican. He’s running as a Republican because he thinks it will improve his chances (and it does).

Related comic relief: Ron Paul and Bruno

In my opinion Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum are all done in this primary (Even with the help of Democrat voters). Mitt Romney will most likely be nominated as the Republican challenger to Obama. Mitt Romney is the only candidate that has a real chance of defeating Obama.

Ron Paul as a front runner? HA! Forgetaboutit.

As much as I dislike Romney and think he would be much worse for the country and the world than Obama… I really hope you’re right, @gondwanalon.

Romney is clearly an intelligent, hard-working, and pragmatic person. Santorum, Gingrich, and to a slightly different extent Paul are delusional, ignorant, mean-spirited creeps. (Paul’s racist, fearmongering newsletters would seem to qualify him for this description as well). Even though Obama has a much higher chance of beating these people than he does of Romney, the thought of them even having a small possibility of winning the White House is absolutely terrifying

@jaytkay He counts himself as a Republican because we have a messed up two party system, where you have to be a member of one of the parties if you want to find your way into a major office… and the Republicans are closest to his viewpoints.

But how do you think it will go over if he talks at the RNC later this year and espouses cutting military spending, pulling out of foreign nations, and legalizing marijuana whilst completely removing medicare/medicaid/SS ?

Don’t see it happening but stranger things have.

Paul’s views on abortion and civil rights go over quite well with the Republican base.

He counts himself as a Republican…

And yet he isn’t a Republican.

Funny.

Republicans have practically trademarked the phrase ”... in name only”. It shouldn’t be such a difficult concept.

There are three sections of the Republican party: The Moderates, the hardline Conservatives (which includes the Tea Party, and those that support Ron Paul.
Romney has the support of the Moderates.
Most of the occasional front runners have been from the Hardline Conservatives.
Ron Paul is supported by his peeps.

If Gingrich dropped out, Santorum would be the front runner, because they are splitting the Conservatives. Once one of them bails, the other will leap forward. Should both exit (which they won’t), Ron Paul might get some of their support, mostly because he isn’t Romney.

The sad truth is that Romney has all the support he will ever get, as does Paul.

I can’t see it happening. Ron Paul has some ideas that are very good, but then like @ syz said, he comes up with these totally far-out ideas. I don’t think he can amass enough votes to take the republican nomination or to even be the top contender for the nomination. One thing for sure, all of the Republican want-to-be candidates seem to have Soc.Sec. & Medicare squarely in their sights & they seem to be dead-set on subjugating American women. Just the thought of one of them actually winning the presidency scares me tremendously.

No way. Aside from his crazy ideas, the guy is 77 years old. Which means the choice of VP would be at least as meaningful as Paul as the Republican candidate. My opinion is that Romney will be the nominee and that he has a very good chance of whipping Obama.

Considering the fact that Santorum is fighting, Romney is a Wall St. insider that helped this country to get where it is today, and Gingrich is an egotistical cheat and liar, Ron Paul, our crazy uncle, doesn’t look too bad.

The problem I expect anyone that read Ayn Rand will understand him and vote against him. Reagen was too old to be president and he wasn’t as old as Paul.

Gah! Apologies, all.. I answered each of you, but hit submit and nothing happened. I lost ALL THAT WORK! Fluther had logged me out.

It’s too late tonight to even think about doing it all over again.

@ETpro That has happened to me more than once! Sucks! Now when I have a long answer I copy it midway through so if I lose it, I still have some of it on my clipboard.

@JLeslie I am just returning for a second pass. I think this time I will write and spell check in my text editor (Textpad) and then paste the result in here when I know it’s good to go.

OK, Here’s trying again.

@JLeslie I see Ron Paul noted yesterday that the Washington State Republican Party was systematically excluding his supporters from the caucuses. Little wonder the GOP thinks whenever Democrats win, it’s a stolen election. It’s called Freudian projection. They are so deep in election fraud, vote suppression and such that naturally, they assume Democrats are doing it too.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Ha! That’s understandable.

@rojo True. So many of the Republican base have never met a war they didn’;t want to send someone else’s kids off to fight.

@Sunny2 Ron Paul seems to be a bundle of contradictions. One minute he’s as sane as they get, and the next he is preaching policies that are as wild as a witch’s brew. Do they have a word for that sort of mental condition?

@syz Great minds work together. Or is that great minds work alike and dirty minds work together? :-)

@Qingu Ron Paul’s ideas on economic policy would be an utter disaster for most Americans. He’d move us straight back to the wage slavery and robber baron days of the Gilded Age. But Romney has not demonstrated to me that his knowledge of economics will ever be directed at anything other than helping himself and other multimillionaires and billionaires. His economic plan is the same as Santorum’s and Gingrich’s. Massive tax cuts for the richest Americans and corporations, tax increases and cuts in services and investment for the working poor, and further exploding the National Debt.

More later.

Romney’s plan is less insane than Santorum’s and Gingrich’s, though it is similar in overall structure to theirs (focused on tax cuts for the rich, which of course don’t increase the deficit because of supply side magic).

I agree this would be a terrible idea—But if you look at what Gingrich and Santorum were proposing it’s a different magnitude of insanity.

@ETpro Excluding them from the caucuses? How? I accuse The other Republican candidates of being awful to Ron Paul, rude, dismissive. The media also is incredibly guilty of this. But, how are they exvluding people from the caucuses? From voting?

I highly doubt Ron Paul would ever be able to take the Republican nomination since he is viewed as a dissenter from the new right’s authoritarian, corporatist, and neoconservative foreign policies. Personally I like the guy and I think that he is sincere and humble, and I really like his noninterventionalist ideas along with his views on many social stances. Paul’s economic ideas scare me even though I can’t accuse the guy of being a chrony capitalist or corporatist.

@Qingu It’s true that Romney’s tax policy is less regressive than his running mates. What worries me about his plan is it stands the best chance of becoming law should a few more Republican senate candidates be able to ride his coattails to victory in battleground states. Republican tax cuts and loopholes for the rich have already cut the percentage of Americans in the middle class by 30% since 1980 and the Reagan conservative revolution. One more big tax cut, and abolishing the estate tax on estates over $10 million (which all 3 support) would soon destroy the middle class as we have known it, and keep us in economic stagnation, with no consumers with enough disposable income to drive the economy.

@JLeslie It wasn’t my conspiracy theory, it was Ron Paul’s. As with most of his ideas, like the gold standard and abolishing fractional reserve banking (having no central bank to control the money supply), he doesn’t bother to explain the magic by which they work. He just refers to some dark conspiracy that’s making bad things happen.

@Paradox25 My birth state of Virginia will offer a perfect test on Super Tuesday. Mitt Romney and Ron Paul were the only two candidates with sufficient ground operations and organizational skills to even get themselves on the ballot there by the filing deadline. So we will see what happens when Republican voters are asked to chose between Romney and Paul, with no other Anybody-But-Mitt alternatives sucking up possible votes from either.

@syz You’re right. I don’t really listen to what he says because I won’t vote Republican. It’s just the contrasts with his fellow candidates that make him seem more sensible.

@Sunny2 Roger that. :-)

OK, here goes another try at acknowledging the earlier responses.

@creative1 Now that it’s history and Romney won by a substantial amount, you were obviously right.

@marinelife I don;t know it that’s possible with today’s Tea Party dominated far right GOP. The problem is his policies and ideas aren’t right-wing enough, it would appear.

@talljasperman If he couldn’t pull it off on in 2008 or now, what makes 2016 the magic year? I hate to be ageist, but he;ll be over 80 by then, and the demands of being Commander in Chief in a nuclear age wear on even young presidents.

@JLeslie I keep wondering if Dr. Paul will try a third party run. He certainly realizes he can’t win, but he just might launch a viable third party under a Libertarian banner. Rand Paul could then inherit leadership of the rather substantial political and fund raising organization Ron Paul has been able to assemble. Some think he is in it just to collect delegates and try to shape the GOP platform at the convention, but I don’t see how he could be naive enough to believe the corporatists that own the party will let him do that.

@tedd That was my point above. Thanks.

@jaytkay That;s why I question what his real motive might be. Of course it is always possible he’s simply the loose canon his GOP “friends” make him out to be.

@Qingu The fact that Paul dwells in the faith based community rather than the reality based community is what leaves me uncertain as to his motives, as noted above.

@dappled_leaves Yes, but improves his chances of what? :-)

@tom_g Ha! You have actually succeeded in making me feel great sympathy for Dr. Paul. A side note—anyone wanting to watch the clip now must sit through one bout gluten free diets first.

@gondwanalon Well, with the Washington caucuses now history, I can see how prescient your comment was. You’ve got great political instincts for a feline. But then, that’s just the opinion of a cephalopod. What do we chambered nautiluses know about human politics?

@Qingu That is an astute observation. Democrats who vote in Republican primaries should keep that in mind.

@tedd Good point re the two-party system. I love Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. He isn’t a member of either party. But he is clearly the exception that proves the rule.

As to the Republican Platform including Ron Paul’s core issues, there is a better likelihood that a full fledged ice age will break out tomorrow morning.

@janbb “Stranger things have happened.” Without moving into the subatomic world of quantum mechanics, care to name one?

@Qingu That’s true, but i this, the base doesn’t count. They just respond like Pavlov’s dogs to the programming the GOP men behind the curtain pay to disseminate. The would-be oligarchs pay tribute to abortion and racism just to give them wedge issues to rile up their rabble. But what they really care about is decisions like Citizens United, tax and trade, and union busting policies, etc. that will establish them as the ruling oligarchs of America and eventually the world. All the divisive issues they push are just tools to that end. And they want no part of a Libertarian ideologue upsetting their master plan to rule the world.

@dappled_leaves Ron Paul’s a RINO. Too funny. But you are right.

@filmfann I don’t find that truth sad at all. :-)

@Linda_Owl The Republican party seems to have become a regressive movement. Some want to dial back to the late 19th century before integration, women’s suffrage and the breakup of the trusts that fueled the age of the robber barons and wage slavery for the masses. Others want to go a bit further back. They yearn for the return of real slavery and the South rising again to impose its ways on all America. And then we have the true regressives, who yearn for the dark ages and feudalism. No joke. The Tea Party that took over the New Hampshire Legislature in the 2010 “OMG, the Democrats stole the election and installed an ‘other’ backlash” actually voted to base all legislation on the Magna Carta of 1215. Fortunately, the Constitutional Committee had the wisdom to deep six the move, but the fact that it could ever be brought before them shows how the inmates are now in charge of the new GOP asylum.

@plethora Where have you been, my right-wing friend? I’ve missed you. Again, I find myself in complete agreement. It disturbs me how liberals are living in the fictional worls where Citizens United and the money the GOP billionaires and Corporations will pour secretly into Super PACs makes no difference. THe fact is that the candidate with the most money wins 95% of the time in IS elections.

@Ron_C You might be amazed at how many young people read Ayn Rand and come away convinced that if only they could destroy all government, they, like John Galt, would be able to single-handedly make the trains run on time. They are sure they would instantly become fabulously wealthy due to their singular skills. They don’t recognize that it take track crews, mechanics, engineers, brakemen, switch-men, conductors and a host of other people to make a single train run on time. And in the laissez-faire world of their dreams, the chances of their pushing the men with tens of billions in capital aside so they can bootstrap up into stratospheric wealth is infinitesimally small. Hope springs eternal in the minds of youth, and clever oligarchs use that.

@ETpro I read Fountainhead and her other books when I was going to engineering school. I needed something other than scientific reading. Anyway, I thought she was correct until I reached my thirties, had children, and became responsible for others. I then regretted the hours wasted reading sociopath novels.

@Ron_C That is just about the track I took as well, only it was the study of Chemistry I was escaping from. And that’s certainly why Ron Paul’s message of pure Libertarian paradise is so magnetic to college age voters today.

@ETpro weird, isn’t it? Libertarianism looks good to young adults then they mature out of it. I wonder what happened to Ron Paul and his son because libertarianism is really an immoral situation. It is very Darwin but against rational judgement. It is if we are all just animals and have no moral obligation to society. That is OK if you are a hermit but not a way to live if you live with other people.

@Ron_C People get off on tangents. Even brilliant ones do. Dr. Linus Pauling, the only person ever to win two unshared Nobel Prizes, went over the edge into insane dosages of vitamin C. How could a medical researcher who was clearly aware of the role of evolution in shaping our dietary needs believe that humans had evolved to require 12 grams a day of vitamin C to be healthy, and 40 grams a day if you caught a cold?