[Jeff Head]

Actually, from what I have seen, Paul seems to be drawing at least as many out and out liberals to his cause as conservsatives and libertarians. In that, it seems he will hurt the Dems as much as anyone else.

I can say this about Paul, having met the man personally. He is NOT evil. He is NOT a whack. I disagree wholly with him on his stance on the Iraq war. But he is not against defending Ammerica as a whole, and most of his other stances on domestic issues, foreign policy, the border, and moral issues are much closer to my way of thinking that certainly any Democrat, as well as GOP candidates like Rudy.

But, we differ fundamentally on the war in Iraq and its good for our security and necessity in defeating the Islamic radicals. And for that reason I support Duncan Hunter and then Fred Thompson...in that order.

[cripplecreek]

I like Ron Paul but disagree on some key issues. Unfortunately he’s harming the best candidates the most.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Dr. Paul is single-handedly rebuilding the GOP. Libertarians, fiscal conservatives, and pro-American populists are all united for Paul. These are the factions that the GOP have ignored for the past six years, which explains Bush's razor-thin victory margins in his presidential elections & the GOP's 2006 mid-term defeats.

Americans also oppose any long-term commitment in the Middle East as well. I personally, do not want our troops to leave immediately and I wish Paul would recognize how god-awfully evil Islam is and the need for our troops to remain until at least the end of the decade, but unfortunately I don't speak for the masses. I just think it would be best for the GOP to compromise with Paul on this issue & start embracing some of his other views, instead of calling him a kook or Neo-Nazi which is just counter-productive and will only strengthen his campaign.

[George W. Bush]

Actually, from what I have seen, Paul seems to be drawing at least as many out and out liberals to his cause as conservatives and libertarians. In that, it seems he will hurt the Dems as much as anyone else.

I posted the article because it made me laugh. Apparently, Ron Paul is more hazardous to the GOP than Godzilla is to Tokyo. And yet, the pundits seem unable to decide exactly why he's so dangerous. The reaction shows how lazy and actually uninformed the media is about Ron Paul. And more than that, that they really are inaccurate about candidates in both parties, their policy ideas and plans, etc. The media is playing this as a straight horse race, not a political decision.

I can say this about Paul, having met the man personally. He is NOT evil. He is NOT a whack. I disagree wholly with him on his stance on the Iraq war. But he is not against defending Ammerica as a whole, and most of his other stances on domestic issues, foreign policy, the border, and moral issues are much closer to my way of thinking that certainly any Democrat, as well as GOP candidates like Rudy.

Fair enough. We're not fanatics. We don't imagine that everyone can be in complete agreement. People of good intent can support different candidates.

But, we differ fundamentally on the war in Iraq and its good for our security and necessity in defeating the Islamic radicals. And for that reason I support Duncan Hunter and then Fred Thompson...in that order.

I'm fine with both. Duncan can't break 1% in national polls. Fred still has potential and, as someone whose primary is over five months away, I anticipate I'll end up voting for Fred or Mitt to stop Rudy, my #1 goal.

I suppose what wins me to Dr. Paul is the unswerving record on liberty and on small government, certainly an area that the GOP was once very strong in. Now so many Republicans act as though those ideas are the enemy, more so than actual liberals in the media or the Democrat party or liberal Republicans. We see this constantly on these threads, some even saying they would actually vote for Hitlery herself instead of Ron Paul if he was the GOP nominee. It's rather startling, more so here at FreeRepublic than anywhere else. You've been here long enough to know why some of us find such statements to be quite shocking. But maybe we shouldn't be so easily surprised. The Bush era of compassionate conservatism has taken its toll and the Big Tent now has a lot of nannystaters and Wilsonian internatonalists. Funny, that was the stuff coming from the Dims that made me become a diehard Republican. I thought opposition to those ideas defined being a conservative. Apparently not. Some say "9/11 changed everything". I don't believe that. Personally, in my own political views, it changed nothing. I still have exactly the same political goals I had before. Maybe I'm a relic of a bygone era, when Republicans favored fiscal soundness, smaller government, private sector solutions, lower taxes, etc. Now, it's like I don't even recognize the GOP.

[MNJohnnie]

Paul is drawing his support from Leftists who see him as a Trojan Horse they can use against the Republicans in the 2008 primary. They have no intention of every voting for anyone but the Democrat candidate in the General Election.

The notion that Paul does anything to hurt Hillary is nonsense. Just more of the mindless blather spewed forth from the Paulbots in order to avoid having to make any serious analysis of Paul’s candidacy. For example, still waiting for even one Paulbot to post a serious, thoughtful response to this. So far all I get is slogans and bile, not ONE serious answer.

How and what would a Paul Administration do anything?

HERE is an example of an answer a serious Presidential Candidate would give. Notice NONE of Paul’s answers ever fit this format. Instead they are all mindless sloganeering and/or bile filled ranting at everyone and everything.

Slogans are not solutions. Electing a President is serious business and should not be treated like a high school popularity contest. See to answer “how” Paul would have to be saying something like this below. The whole problem with him is his whole campaign is based on misdirection and emotional hysteria, not a serious rational discussion of the issues of the day.

Paul might be taken seriously by thinking people if he said something like this instead of merely spewing slogans.

On Federal Spending. Federal Spending is out of control. To put our fiscal house in order my Administration will work with the Congress to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the US Constitution. I will work with Congress to abolish base line budgeting, eliminate earmarks, impose strict pay as you go rules for new spending. In my 1st term, I will reduce the federal deficit to zero and return our Govt budget to surplus. To achieve that goal, I will impose a mandatory 2% increase cap on all executive agencies budgets, require a top to bottom review of all agency functions and work with the Congress to reduce or eliminate departments x-y-z.

That is just the 1st step. Serious budget reform can only take place when we reform both the tax code and the systems of entitlements we have created. There has been no serious Social Security or Medicare reform since the systems were created! Obvious a system that is 75 years old in one case, and 40 years old in the other are way over due for an overhaul.

To overhaul these systems I will introduce legislation to the Congress that will privatize the following parts of both the Medicare and Social Security systems...

That is an example of answers that tell us HOW a politician plans to do something. Nothing in PaulÂ’s campaign does any of this. All he does is spew reckless demagoguery based on Talk Radio culled slogans designed to push the emotional hot buttons of a certain fringe segments of the US population Too bad for them we don’t elect a President simply for spewing the best sounding rhetoric on this emotional hot button issue or that one. We elect a President on the base of his whole agenda.