TONIGHT Gov. Gary Johnson will join Jill Stein of the Green Party, Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party, and Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party for the only Presidential debate that WILL discuss the issues that matter to the American people.
The debate will begin at 6:00 pm PDT / 9:00 pm EDT and will be moderated by the legendary Larry King. More information at http://freeandequal.org.
I’m down for this. I will DEFINITELY be watching.
In 2007, before the newsletter scandals, I sent a couple hundred bucks to the Ron Paul campaign. As a result, I ended up on his email mailing list. It appears that at some point, Paul sold this list to various political groups, and as a result, I’ve gotten a steady stream of junk emails from causes I don’t like. For example, the one above.
Getting emails like this makes me far less likely to send more money to the Paul campaign. I suspect I’m not the only one who feels this way. I don’t know how much money Dr. Paul got by selling his email list, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t worth it.
Disgusting.
President Obama has got two bulletproof insurance policies against
Mitt Romneya future GOP challenger. One is a a steep drop in the unemployment rate. The other is Ron Paul running an independent campaign for president.And the second one just isn’t going to happen, as BuzzFeed’s Rosie Gray explains.
After this presidential run, [Ron Paul’s] campaign has said he’ll retire. And when he does, a generation of loyalists will need a leader.
“I think [Ron’s son and Kentucky Senator] Rand could be a wonderful president,” said Jesse Benton, the Paul campaign chairman and husband of Rand Paul’s niece.
In the meantime, the family’s dreams for Rand have created something else: A hostage. Terrified Republican leaders worry that Ron Paul will take his rowdy mix of Republicans and independents and run a spoiler third party campaign he hasn’t quite ruled out. Ron Paul, they are making clear, has nothing to lose – but his son’s career.
“The question of Rand’s future hangs over the 2012 race in a real way,” said John McCain’s 2008 campaign manager, Steve Schmidt.“If [Ron Paul] were to leave the GOP it would have a crushing effect on his son’s political career in the Republican Party and would be ruinous to any chance of a serious national campaign under the Republican banner.”
And while Ron Paul hasn’t ruled out a third party bid, his aides insist it won’t happen. Inside the Paul clan, Rand’s generation is rising, and the dream is a new kind of Paul campaign: One that’s dead serious, a tick or two closer to the mainstream, and one that wins.
Read on at BuzzFeed for the whole story.
PHOTO: Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX) is introduced by his son U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) (R) at a town hall campaign stop in Meredith, New Hampshire, January 8, 2012.
I have been saying this for years. Ron Paul sole purpose is to build support and a backbone for the eventual presidential run of his son Rand.
image: randomactsofchaos
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The 2012 GOP Presidential Candidate lineup: have at it, Iowa!
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YOUR 2012 GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES (via: silas216):
- Michelle Bachmann: ”Don’t misunderstand. I am not here bashing people who are homosexuals, who are lesbians, who are bisexual, who are transgender. We need to have profound compassion for people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life and sexual identity disorders.” (2004)
- Ron Paul: ”The rate of AIDS infection is on the increase again. From the gay point of view, the reasons seem quite sensible. First, these men don’t really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners… because sex is the center of their lives, they want it to be as pleasurable as possible, which means unprotected sex. Third, they enjoy the attention & pity that comes with being sick.” (1995 in a newsletter)
- Rick Perry: ”I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school. ” (2011 in a campaign ad)
- Mitt Romney: ”I should tell my story. I’m also unemployed.” (2011 while speaking to unemployed people in Florida. Romney’s net worth is over $200 million.)
- Newt Gingrich: ”She’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer.” (1994, about his first wife)
- Rick Santorum: ”Is anyone saying same-sex couples can’t love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?” (2008)
- Michelle Bachmann: ”Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.” (2009 during a debate)
- Mitt Romney: ”PETA is not happy that my dog likes fresh air.” (2006, when questioned about driving 12 hours with his dog in a cage strapped to the top of his car)
Some more:
- Rick Perry: “Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don’t have to buy from a foreign source.” (Dec 2011)
- Ron Paul: “I also do an investment letter — it’s called the ‘Ron Paul Survival Report’ — which is a gold oriented newsletter. But it’s also expressing concern about surviving in this age of big government.” (1995 video)
- Ron Paul’s campaign: “Dr. Paul did not write that solicitation. It does not reflect his thoughts and is out of step with the message he has espoused for 40 years.” (Dec 2011, responding a day after Reuters reported that a direct-mail ad for Paul’s political and investment newsletters – they were sent around 1993 and appeared to include Paul’s signature at the end – warned of a “coming race war” and a “federal-homosexual cover-up” to play down the impact of AIDS.)
- Mitt Romney: (aka Braveheart): “By in large, Rush Limbaugh speaks a number of conservative principles that a lot of us agree with.” (kissing the ring, Dec 2011)
- Newt Gingrich: (summary): If elected, he says he might (1) eliminate courts he doesn’t like; (2) ignore court rulings he doesn’t like; and (3) take judges into custody if he disapproves of their legal analyses. (Dec 2011)
- Ron Paul: some things he’s against — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Reserve, income taxes, and even the dollar bill. (video)
- Newt Gingrich: “Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash,’ unless it’s illegal.” (Dec 2011)
- Michele Bachmann: “Our nation needs to stop doing for people what they can and should do for themselves. Self reliance means, if anyone will not work, neither should he eat.” (Nov 2011)
- Michele Bachmann: “… I believe that Iraq should pay the families that lost a loved one several million dollars per life, I think at minimum.” (Nov 2011)
Shorter Ron Paul: Everything is unconstitutional.
Re: Medicare, income taxes, and even the dollar bill.
99% of what our federal government does can be considered “unconstitutional.” That is because, despite what American children are brainwashed into believing, the U.S. Constitution was not “the perfect document.” It wasn’t meant to be the perfect document either. It was meant to be an evolving document (see: Amendments).
POLITICO’s Reid Epstein and Ericka Bolstad of McClatchy put together very similar stories in recent days asking a simple question: What the heck are all of these no-shot presidential contenders doing in the GOP field?
Before the sparks fly, Decoder sympathizes - sort of - with Ron Paul supporters who are melting down right now at the suggestion that Paul belongs in this group. Yes, he polls above everyone else in the POLITICO photo montage shown above. And we would not put him remotely in the same category as, say, Buddy Roemer (anyone heard of him? We think not). But when it comes to Paul’s actual chances of winning the nomination… c’mon. It’s not going to happen.
Candidate by candidate, then, here is our take on why GOP presidential hopefuls not named Rick Perry or Mitt Romney are still hanging in there.
Ron Paul:
- If you don’t think Paul is in it to win it, then he might be engaged to further the libertarian cause for his son, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (R). Paul’s “pretty motivated to win now,” Paul’s New Hampshire campaign chairman, state Sen. Jim Forsythe, told POLITICO. “But I know a lot of people in the movement are looking at Rand Paul further down the road.”
Gary Johnson:
- Beat Ron/Rand Paul to the punch as the libertarian movement’s next standard bearer. Johnson’s campaign manager told POLITICO: “Ron Paul is 76 years old, this is wearing him out. A lot of people will see that Ron is a fantastic prophet, and he’ll need an Aaron at some point. I think that’s the way it’s going to go.”
Herman Cain:
- Elevate himself to “party elder” status. Cain, who has spent 0 percent of his life up to this point as a politician, could ensconce himself as a thought leader and part of the public face of a segment of the Republican party. (Also, he’s selling a book).
Rick Santorum:
- Rebuild brand Rick. Santorum, smarting after being absolutely dismantled in his third bid for the US Senate, has improved his public image by serious debate performances and his decent fourth-place finish in the Iowa straw poll. As the chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican party noted, Rick has seven kids and needs a job: he “is exposing himself to a lot of different people, and a lot of different people will want him to work for them.”
Buddy Roemer:
- Get national attention for two issues that drive Roemer bonkers: big money campaign contributions and America’s trade policy with China.
Newt Gingrich:
- A combination of Santorum and Roemer. Gingrich’s debate appearances let him show off his broad intellectual approach and help shape the GOP’s discussion of various issues. He may also be hanging in there to gain distance from his early gaffes, including his massive credit line at luxury jeweler Tiffany’s, his vacation to Greece, staff defections, and his knock on Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R) budget plan. Brand Newt needs some time to rebound.
We would also add two other candidates - that escaped mention in these articles - to the list:
Jon Huntsman:
- Playing for 2016. Huntsman is hoping his introduction to a national audience this year puts him in a better position to run in 2016 (if the GOP doesn’t win this year’s election, of course). At that point, Romney would likely be off the national scene and Huntsman would be a significant player in New Hampshire, where a recent poll put him in third place with 10 percent support.
Michele Bachmann:
- Cement her status as a leader of the most conservative wing of the GOP and tea party. Bachmann has consistently portrayed herself as a “fighter” in the debates, recently arguing that conservatives should not “settle” for a candidate who doesn’t represent their views well. While her momentum has died after winning the Iowa straw poll, Bachmann could solidify her role as Queen of the Tea Party. (Also, she’s selling a book).
Want more?
- Check out RealClearPolitics’ excellent site for tracking the latest in polling data to see how the candidates stack up in the eyes of the public.
Are the media ignoring Ron Paul?
Yes, according to Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ).
From January 1-August 14, Paul has been a dominant newsmaker in only 27 campaign stories. (To be considered a dominant newsmaker, someone must be featured in at least 50% of a story.) That is less than one-quarter of the media attention generated by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (120 stories), who is the top newsmaker among Republican candidates. And he has received 25% as much coverage as Bachmann, the Minnesota Congresswoman (108 stories).
Paul’s coverage also lags far behind Trump (94 stories), who dallied with a run before opting out in mid-May and Palin (85 stories), who has given no indication to date that she will enter the race. In addition, Paul trails longshot candidate and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman (44 stories) and Texas Governor, Rick Perry (33 stories) who only announced his candidacy on August 13.
Even Jon Huntsman, the gay rights-supporting Obama appointee running in a Republican primary, garnered more media coverage than Ron Paul. For supporters of Paul, this is a proof of corporate media intent to marginalize the lone, consistent antiwar voice in the field.
After all, if indeed electability is a reason for the media’s treatment of Ron Paul, why would Newt Gingrich or Tim Pawlenty or the truly unelectable Huntsman attract more media coverage?
Jon Stewart on the Ron Paul Media Blackout
Everybody should watch this.
(Source: antigovernmentextremist)
