Posted on 05/13/2011 8:04:10 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Go ahead. Act surprised:
It’s official: Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, will seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, he announced Friday on Good Morning America.
“At this moment I am officially announcing that I am a candidate for president in the Republican primary,” Paul said. “Time has come around to the point where the people are agreeing with much of what I’ve been saying for 30 years, so I think the time is right.”
Paul, a mouthpiece for all things small-government, has made the presidential leap of faith twice before: In 1988, as the Libertarian Party nominee, and in 2008, as a dark horse Republican with incomparable niche appeal and formidable fundraising prowess.
Hey, it’s the first time that I can recall that someone announced their bid the day after they effectively killed it. Insisting that he would have asked the same Pakistani government that won’t cut ties with Mullah Omar and the terrorist network that conducted the Mumbai massacre to, pretty please, arrest Osama bin Laden reduced Paul’s level of seriousness as a candidate to, er, the same level it’s always been. Only the true believers will support that kind of befuddled thinking in a Commander in Chief, and even some of those might have second thoughts — although not in the comments section to this post, I’ll boldly predict.
The former record, by the way, was held by Joe Biden, who managed to wait for a few minutes after the announcement to kill his candidacy in 2007.
But even putting that aside, and putting aside the issue of his flirtations with white supremacists and anti-Semites for almost two decades in his subscription newsletter (and a donation scandal in 2007, too), why would anyone take him seriously anyway? MSNBC calls him the “the Tea Party godfather,” which is ludicrous. Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin did far more for the Tea Party than Paul ever did, and Bachmann is also exploring a Presidential bid. Paul is a crank that routinely ends up on the wrong end of lopsided votes and has had zero success building coalitions in Congress. And let’s not forget that the last time America elected a President from the House of Representatives was over 130 years ago, and that in his mid-70s, Paul would be the oldest major-party candidate if he somehow managed to win the primary.
And wouldn’t that campaign look glorious indeed? The DNC would have a field day running quotes from Paul’s past newsletter gems in a campaign against the nation’s first African-American President.
So, go ahead and act surprised — and then have yourself a good laugh.
Update: Changed “Congress” to “the House of Representatives” for better clarity.
Isolationism vs. Globalism. Give me Isolationism any day.
Practice your Arabic and Chinese, then.
What I’m afraid will happen is that in the early candidate debates the only sound-bites being reported are the over-the-top ones by Paul.
I have photos of myself with Presidents Reagan and Carter, Generals Haig, Vessey, Ross and Kingston and Billy Dee Williams around here somewhere, among others. So what? People like to be photographed with powerful, famous individuals. Congressman Ron Paul was not President Reagan’s “right-hand man” by any stretch of the imagination.
Paul has a lot of good ideas about limited government. I agree with a lot of what he says. Too bad he is a complete nut on foreign policy, and a jew-hater who will sell out Israel. He speaks in the anti-semitic code practiced by Pat Buchanan.
Reminds me of a certain individual running for President on the same ticket as Mr Clinton, who got nearly 20% of the vote, which then guaranteed Mr Clinton a room in the Inn.
Why do you keep posting this picture on every Ron Paul thread? Having an autographed picture of Ronald Reagan sitting with Paul does not make him a conservative or serious presidential candidate. In fact, it really means nothing. What is the reason you keep spamming this?
It’s just a picture Reagan signed for Paul. It has no significance or meaning. I have an office full of pictures like this from various politicians, commentators, sports stars, etc. - as do many people I work with. There are probably many hundreds of liberal Democrats that got along well personally with Reagan that have a similar autographed picture. What Reagan signed here looks like what he’d write on every autograph of this type.
Paul is not a conservative and as such has zero chance to win the GOP nomination. Paul’s college mushhead, pothead, peacenik and truther base of support will never be enough to make him a serious presidential candidate. Your spamming this picture will not help him.
Depending on the situation, isolationism can be dangerous. But Globalism WILL bankrupt us.
So if I were forced to pick between the two extremes, I'd agree with you.
I will take the dismantling of the Federal Reserve, return to the Gold standard and the US Constitution. Attach a scary word to that if you can. The US Constitution is the greatest paper written in the history of the world, and Ron knows it!
yes it will
Fraud Paul treats the US Constitution like Fred Phelps treats the Bible. Talking about it a lot doesn’t mean you live by it. By the way, Paul has been chair of the finance committee for a while now and what has he done about any of those financial matters- absolutely nothing. At that, he seems to sabotage his own issues, such as calling for an independent audit of the fed then turning around and calling for the ‘end to it’, thus killing any pretense of the independence of the audit. Then, he votes against the audit because it doesn’t guarantee it ends.
He is just an old career politician who found a niche. He doesn’t want his issues solved, he wants to keep them around so he can keep talking about them and keep raising money off them. He is an attention whore. He hasn’t accomplished anything to deal with any of his pet issues.
Paul believes in quaint 18th Century ideas like letters of marque and reprisal, open borders, surrender to terrorism, and that 9/11 was an inside job.
His understanding of the Constitution is flawed.
“The Constitution of the United States of America is not a suicide pact.”
-Edwin M. Stanton
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