RSS 2.0 FeedSunday Open Thread: Why Has Ron Paul Flatlined ?
by Doug MataconisJames Joyner takes a look at the national polling trends asks this question:
Could it be that hard-core libertarians are just a relatively small group? That, despite being organized and enthusiastic, there aren’t enough of them to elect a president?
To the extent that the campaign has never done a good job of reaching out beyond this core group of supporters, not to mention the fact that events since November have contributed significantly to a drop in support from libertarians who might otherwise have supported the campaign, I’ve got to say that the answer to both those questions is yes.
Thoughts ?
It is a bit hard to reach out when the media refuses to act in an unbiased manner. They would rather manage and create the news than report it.
Yes, the hard core libertarians are a small group, what a surprise. But freedom loving Americans are everywhere. If they ever do find out how close to an ideal candidate they had and never heard about or gave a second though they will be truly pissed. Finding out you’ve had something dear to you stolen by a bunch of hoaxsters does that to a person.
Comment by Chad_Underdonk — February 3, 2008 @ 6:58 amYes and No.
You take Ron Paul’s message and wrap it up in prettier face…about 6’1, 6’2 and speak for vaguely and you can do it.
You’ll get the libertarians but you’ll also get libertarian leaners and get yet others to discover their inner libertarian.
You can’t go hardcore.
Comment by John V — February 3, 2008 @ 7:02 amPoor marketing. His ads were empty and did not differentiate him from the others. If only they had a part of the Iowa speech where he talks about over taxed, over regulated etc. it would have changed history.
Comment by Mayberry — February 3, 2008 @ 7:09 amRight off the top of my head, I can think of 3 good reasons why Ron Pauls’ Support has Flatlined.
1) Initially, his support base was greatly exaggerated because it consisted of supporters that were ineligible to vote due to age or voter status.
2) Many of his supporters prefer to sit at their computers and cast virtual votes, participating in numerous online polls, wishing the man of their choice gets elected without having to actually do any real voting. Those too young to vote fall into this category as well.
3) Many people seek the consensus of their peers in the decision making process in an effort to maintain harmony and, will ultimately follow the “group” regardless of how they feel or who they support online.
Comment by Ben L. — February 3, 2008 @ 7:10 amMcCain and Paul are 100 votes apart in Maine. I don’t think that is flat lining. That’s so close! If he could inch into second in Maine, thousands would be reserching and considering him. People want to vote for a winner. Dispite the lack of coverage he could still reach that tipping point.
If you believe in Ron Paul’s message, know that the great eye of interest that is the American people is fickle. McCain is going to say something stupid, Romney will waffle, folks will question their ability to win in the fall. It takes a movement. Neither of them have what it takes to win. Their platforms are too close to the Democrats.
September is a long way away.
Comment by Steve G — February 3, 2008 @ 7:32 amI think John, Mayberry and Ben have offered some very valid points. I also think his support has flatlined because
1) The official campaign generally never did much with the grassroots support they did get. I heard quite a few stories about local groups never getting feedback from the main Paul campaign on their efforts and basically leaving them on an island. That’s an absolute morale killer and it generally has the effect of alienating current volunteers turning potential volunteers off. Nobody wants to work for someone for free if that person doesn’t take any notice of the work they’ve done. Paul was generally grateful for support in his speeches, but his targeted instances of praise seemed very few and far between.
2) Ron Paul displayed a sort of bunker mentality when it came to his staff. Most of the people working for him were loyalists or personal friends. That’s not always a bad thing, but most of the people working for him also had no experience running a presidential campaign, which is always a bad thing. It causes you to reinvent the wheel a lot because you’re not learning from other people’s failings. Paul only started appointing precinct captains about a month or so ago…that should have been done six months to a year ago. A good press coordinator or campaign manager would have recognized how important infrastructure was when he was starting out.
3) I agreed with John V.’s point about toning down the rhetoric, but also I think when you’re assembling the campaign you need to appoint to positions in your campaign people who have some standing in their communities (especially true of precinct captains…you can’t just appoint the first guy who volunteers). Most of the people working for local Ron Paul groups appeared to be idealogues that didn’t know anyone except other Ron Paul supporters, which isn’t going to attract anyone except people who’d already planned to support Ron Paul and didn’t need to be talked to. People don’t vote for candidates they don’t know, and they especially don’t vote for candidates they don’t know if the most prominent people associated with that candidate tend to be people they wouldn’t consider talking to on the street (“truthers”, anti-Semites, the insane).
4) Unwillingness to spend money…Paul appeared rather obsessed with running this campaign frugally and it showed in the lack of campaign infrastructure, the willingness to forego targeting a major population center (Florida) in favor of secondary areas and (hate to say it again) the crappy to mediocre quality television spots. I’m sorry, but if you’re not willing to spend money, especially if it’s donated to you by people who want you to spend it, then you’ve got absolutely no business entering a presidential race.
As for whether we’re a small group, while I agree that people who declare themselves libertarians are a rather small group, I don’t think that means that libertarianism in general is a philosophy with limited appeal. I think that most people are inherently libertarian but don’t realize that and usually have many core values in common with us. The trick is in demonstrating this to them without scaring them off and in convincing them to actively participate in the process. I don’t think this is an impossible task, I just think that Ron Paul was the wrong candidate to do it.
Comment by UCrawford — February 3, 2008 @ 7:51 amFirst of all, I do not agree that Ron Paul is flat lining. I speak to so many people that still do not know who he is or what he represents! Unfortunately, the media (MSM) has decided that they do not deserve to know any more about him. The internet has been his only source of positive (and negative) coverage! I’m not sure why, but I truely do believe that the best is yet to come for Ron Paul. It may not be before Tuesday, but, brace yourselve, it’s coming! T
Comment by Freddie L — February 3, 2008 @ 7:53 amI thought it was interesting that the media has already called second place for Mccain. Remember when only 12% of precincts had reported, Ron Paul was out infront of Mccain. We do know that Paul did win some precincts… and lots of people still haven’t even voted yet today! Don’t expect to hear that anywhere though.
Comment by Cedric — February 3, 2008 @ 7:54 amAll the Independents have rallied for Obama.
Comment by PismoPam — February 3, 2008 @ 8:16 amThey know that the Republicans have NO chance this fall, and will do anything to keep Hillary from winning.
We are doing G R E A T. So many people have heard about the Fed, SO many people have considered life without the IRS, Ron Paul Republicans will start running for Congress and WIN.
Chad,
The media is under no obligation to give Ron Paul or any other candidate free media coverage.
Comment by Doug Mataconis — February 3, 2008 @ 8:23 amDoug,
Their only obligation is to themselves. How many consumers have they alienated with their bias? How many are now paying attention and realizing that they don’t necessarily have a desire to report. Once upon a time there were some standards and ethics in reporting the news. Those days are long gone, but not everyone has realized how much so before now.
It may take time, but a new news agency will eventually respond to their unethicality and bias by taking up journalistic standards again. Fox News has long been understood to be a mouthpiece, now the other cable newsies are as well. They will lose market share, they will lose audience, they will lose ad revenue, they will gain competitors who will challenge them. After all Fox, was supposed to be a “conservative” response to left wing biased media. Maybe next time we’ll get an honest response to media with no ethical journalistic standards.
Comment by Chad_Underdonk — February 3, 2008 @ 8:44 amI think ron has too many negatives that overshadow his sound message. His age is a factor, He gets no respect from the media or the other candidates, the newsletters controversy hurt him, running as a gop hurts him, no credible big name endorsements to vouch for him. Then you have OBAMA who is drawing the independents and young voters to his camp.
Comment by corgiguy — February 3, 2008 @ 8:53 amI think for me the most obvious negative of Ron Paul was the way he put across his message. Everytime he had a softball question for a libertarian about the economy, he went off about the war. Paul became a one-issue person, just like Tom Tancredo. I would not make any conclusions about libertarian ideas from his performance simply because he really didn’t talk about any of the ideas to the mainstream audience. His first couple TV interviews were about the only time he felt comfortable discussing libertarian ideas, but once he hit Rudy on terrorism, the war became everything to the campaign.
Comment by trumpetbob15 — February 3, 2008 @ 8:54 amI wrote recently about my concern that there may indeed be not more than 10% of the electorate in the United States that will not fall for it again. The rest will and they are a majority.
The mob rules and the mob has learned they can vote themselves entitlements so unless we restore the republic this nation is doomed to kill itself with out of control spending, war lust, and greed.
It is abominable to live in a democracy in its decline phase. Rome falls again. Bread and circuses, wine and war.
Pay no attention to this wise council from a respected elder statesmen like Ron Paul as he might be pointing to the path to avoid this unpleasant demise of our once great republic.
Comment by Michael McDonnough — February 3, 2008 @ 10:10 amThe problem is simple
Ron has told people what the problems were.
But he didn’t spend enough time on telling them the solutions.
People don’t want to hear the problems.
People want to hear a person that has answers.
Also most people don’t know about David Walker and this should have been brought up in the debates.
There is no way they can promise a tax cut faced with the mounting debt.
With out massive cut backs taxes will have to rise by as much as 200% to cover this problem.
Never touched in the debates – why?
Comment by Vincent G — February 3, 2008 @ 10:38 amSeems like an important issue to me.
I read what is written above me and it is all so true . The masses in America are swayed by the biased media . Ron Paul was our only chance right now to better our financial well being . Europe is laughing at us . American zombies who think the second comming of the Clintons is going to change anything . Even if Paul got into the final vote they would fix the voting machines as in the past . America is a present day Rome. Buy Gold , Silver and those that have the money to leave should .
Comment by don — February 3, 2008 @ 10:50 amRon Paul can only achieve so much while running in the GOP primaries.
Independents and others who might vote for Paul to be President just can’t stomach the idea of having to vote Republican (and support that party) to support the man.
If Paul runs as an Independent Presidential candidate in November, then his support would truly be over the top.
HE’D WIN AS AN INDEPENDENT.
Comment by Thedog — February 3, 2008 @ 10:58 amThedog,
There’s absolutely no evidence to support that argument
Comment by Doug Mataconis — February 3, 2008 @ 11:00 amVincent G, good point on David Walker! When the “CFO” of our country is telling us that we are broke, you know that the candidates are either lying about what they are going to do to fix this country, or they have absolutely no clue. I wager that it is a combination of both.
David M Walker’s Fiscal Wake up Tour on youtube is a great video. The video discusses the whacked out spending, borrowing, Social Security and Medicare. Too bad only 560 people have viewed it. It only takes 1 1/2 hours of your time.
I’d like to see Walker endorse Dr. Paul.
Comment by Amyz — February 3, 2008 @ 11:15 amRon Paul is far from flatlining. He just pulled in 19% in Maine. How is that flatlining for someone who is said to be polling at like 7%?
Since the start of the campaign he’s moved in 1 direction, up. And has done it despite the huge bias against him, and having 0 establishment support.
People who treat Ron Paul like the other candidates in terms of success is a bunch of crap. If he had the same amount of exposure as the others, and then finished 3rd, then I would agree that things are looking bad. But the reality is he has not in any way been treated like a normal candidate, so measuring him like a normal candidate just isn’t realistic.
For some reason, people want to believe everything is over after the causus/primary. But thats not how it works, you have all the way to the convention. And as the economy crashes and other problems become more apparent to people, Ron Paul gains support. And when he gains support, he keeps it.
Comment by badmedia — February 3, 2008 @ 12:05 pmJohn V, Mayberry, Ben, trumpetbob15 and UCrawford had good points; but I would like to add a few things:
1) You have to touch on an issue that average Americans can relate to. Most people do not understand, let alone have any interest in or care about the Federal Reserve vs the gold standard.
2) Ron Paul is politically dumb at best, a race baiter at worst. He should have given back the $500 from Stormfront and he should have owned up to the newsletters.
3) Giving credence to insane conspiracy theories about “one-worlders” or “the banking cabal” will doom any campaign.
Comment by Kevin — February 3, 2008 @ 12:05 pmand finally, he should have done a better job explaining his position on foreign policy. It came off as a “blame America first” foreign policy, most Americans, regardless of ideology, reject it.
Comment by Kevin — February 3, 2008 @ 12:06 pmThe Federal Reserve has managed to suspend reality for a few more months. The dollar drop can be spun by the media in the process. That is why Ron Paul is not doing as well in Dinseyland. This is mass-media, not rocket science.
Comment by GeneG — February 3, 2008 @ 12:30 pmIt’s the weather stupid, to put it in ’92 terminology. Half the country has been snowed or frozen in for the last month or more. Does that correspond with your flat line. You and I both know that when the weather warms up the Ron Paul supporters will be out and there will be a lot more of them come spring. Sporting events and barbecues, swimming pools and birthday parties, meet-ups and social gatherings, marches and rallies. I think your pronouncing the patient dead a little to soon. It’s not the nomination from the republican party that indicates the health of this candidate’s potential at becoming president but rather how many voters does the Ron Paul revolution pick up between now and November. Never say never.
Comment by mistermr — February 3, 2008 @ 12:30 pmMistermr,
You’re joking, right ?
Comment by Doug Mataconis — February 3, 2008 @ 12:31 pmHe never was a presidential candidate. He was a protest vote. That’s what killed him. Ucrawford points out many reasons for the failure, but simply put, he didn’t come in with the air of a choice, he came with the air of an alternative and an alternative he stayed. However, even while republicans are talking about the pointlessness of the whole Paul insurrection in public, in private, they’ve got to wonder if a better candidate with similar positions could be a threat in the future. Paul shook the establishment by appearing on the radar and depending on who wins in November, the party might come to realize that theirs is a coalition, not a bloc vote they can always count on.
Comment by Greg — February 3, 2008 @ 1:55 pmUhm mistermr
The conventional wisdom is that good weather hurts Ron Paul because less motivated people aren’t kept away from the polls.
Thus, in good weather Ron Paul tends to do worse since his supporters are more enthusiastic (95% of them would show up at the polls even if a nor’easter were in full blow). The guys who are only willing to vote if it is convenient tend to go for frontrunners like McCain and Romney. this was definitely a factor in Paul’s lower than expected performance in NH.
Comment by tarran — February 3, 2008 @ 1:59 pmThe newsletter controversy was much ado about nothing that “libertarians” used to beat up a real-world candidate who is not part of the beltway. A tempest in a teapot. Sentences taken out of context by a fascist-leaning pro-Guiliani “journalist”.
Ron Paul is not flatlining. He is just now building momentum. Think about the large majority of the anti-war vote that went to McCain in the NH exit polls. Those people obviously didn’t know what the heck they were voting for in “Hundred Year War” McKill. Every dollar donated, every commercial ran, every door knocked will keep growing this movement.
Comment by Abe — February 3, 2008 @ 2:16 pmGuys
Comment by Doug Craig — February 3, 2008 @ 2:20 pmTime will tell. I believe we have alot of people who are working on this campaign who have never worked on a campaign.Alot of the people who have worked on campaigns are people like myself who have worked on low budget Libertarian campaign. I am in Georgia and the volunteers are still fired up and still giving money. The big thing is people are still giving money even with the chance getting smaller that he will win the GOP nomonation.
I went to a rally Saturday (BTW Jason Pye was there) maybe about 300-500 people showed up. I knew about 25-30 from the LP.I talked to these folks to see what would happen if he ran third party. They said they would follow. Alot of them are mad at the GOP because how they are being treated, When this is over either the GOP is going to get alot of new blood or The Libertarian party will. I believe at the end it will be the Libertarian party that ends up with the new blood.
I do believe the campaign has made some mistakes. It has been hard to get some feed back.but some of that I believe is because of exspection from people who have not work on campaigns before.
If Ron Paul does run as a third party candidate and starts off with 15 million in the bank and one of the best grassroot campaigns in years it will give everything else a differnt perspective.
I believe the picture will be much clearer in about three days.
Ron Paul has done a very good thing.
He opened the door for a better way.
Not a new way but the way it was supposed to be.
Back to the roots of our country.
Too many people were sold on bad ideas over the years.
But it’s not easy to show them this is wrong.
It’s not easy to tell them expansion of programs does not fix programs that didn’t work in the first place.
The solution to socialism is not more socialism.
The solution to socialism is no socialism!.
Without fair news coverage of not only the election but the state of the economy
is a direct attempt to alter the course of the election.
How can people make sound decisions if they don’t know the truth of what shape we are in.
We didn’t know doesn’t cut it!
They have an army of people that know what’s going on.
You can’t tell me you didn’t know when you have sports writers on staff that can give you every detail of every game going back 80 years.
Are you saying your Business coverage people are not as good as your Sports Writers?
How can people make proper decisions on who to pick for president when the News and the government is hiding the fact that a complete disaster is coming.
And it is coming – why do they hide it?
Are they afraid of a run on the banks or stock market?
Could it be they are wrecking the economy on purpose?
Wars are best fought during bad times.
Cheap armies.
Obama said he will push trade offs.
Better education for service in the Army.
Why would he say that?
What type of change is he talking about?
I don’t trust who David Geffen backs – a person the profited on the Death of John Lennon.
He was on the ropes with Geffen records and then John was killed which saved his company.
That never sat well with me.
World war three may well be around the corner.
The steps to fight a war is first destroy the present economy and then you can get as many people you need to fight.
And people get mad as hell when things go really bad.
Bomb Iran was popular back in the 70′s due to the problems a Gas shortage caused.
All they need do is direct that anger to a country.
Is this what they are doing?
Are we sheep?
There is no way they will cut any spending no matter who is president going forward.
This means the government will go broke.
This will happen sooner than what David Walker is saying because as it starts to become a problem then like the Trade Center Buildings it will just come down at free fall speed.
What then?
We have to continue where Ron Paul left off.
Comment by Vincent G — February 3, 2008 @ 3:24 pmElse we face possibly a real revolution.
If we loose this form of Government we will loose everything and we can never get it back again.
You know Abe, calling people who criticize Ron Paul “fascists” doesn’t help your cause.
Comment by Kevin — February 3, 2008 @ 4:15 pmDoug M,
“The media is under no obligation to give Ron Paul or any other candidate free media coverage.”
Your right, no obligation, except a moral one. Is somebody afraid people might like his campaign platform? Why would the media care? And so begins the speculation.
Comment by mistermr — February 3, 2008 @ 4:46 pmmistermr,
Nope, not even a moral one. They own the station, they can put whatever the hell they want on their channel and you’ve got nothing to say about that except to decide whether or not to watch them. And your candidate would agree with that. Nice job of misrepresenting your candidate’s position to push your own victim mentality…well done.
Comment by UCrawford — February 3, 2008 @ 4:51 pmterran,
Your weather theory is correct for the primaries and caucuses in which, generally speaking, seniors gather at the voting locations with baked goods and gossip and vote for who they are supposed to. Now enter loads of people who have never voted in a primary or caucus in their lifetime. We can almost empirically say the numbers are in the hundreds of thousands. They are very motivated and Ron Paul does have a message that is not complicated (nor should it be) and the people like it. What do you think motivated people will do all summer long. Not sit at home or in their office like we are now and watch tv and type into a computer screen. You should not be so negative and look at it as the cup is half full. After all, maybe there will come a day when you are gray haired and feeble and you can tell people about how you lived through an historical event. Perhaps that should be what motivates your tone when you write.
Comment by mistermr — February 3, 2008 @ 5:04 pmUCrawford,
Not sure how you arrive at the victim mentality. Lots of magazines and papers do not cover anybody in the election, why should they when their publication or tv show is about baking or fishing. The issue is not right of coverage, the issue is why not cover the platform of a candidate that is still running. What is the motivation for not covering it? Until you answer that with something more than “just cause, it’s mine”, people will be suspect. When people are suspect you are doing a disservice to those people. Here comes the morality of it, if people (hundreds of thousands evidently) are getting riled up do we not have an obligation to investigate what is causing it?
Comment by mistermr — February 3, 2008 @ 5:24 pmMrMr,
Two theories
1. Ron Paul has no chance in hell of winning the GOP nomination so why waste valuable reporter and broadcasting time on a gadfly.
2. The First Amendment gives Fox, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC the right to cover the election however they wish to. Considering that Ron Paul is the Pro-Constitution candidate, I would think his supporters would recognize and support that.
Comment by Doug Mataconis — February 3, 2008 @ 7:32 pmDoug,
1. Good point: inelectability IS the best way to piss off a Paul supporter.
And I can tell you haven’t seen the last 2 republican debates where McCain and Romney “wasted” the vast majority of my time squabbling over details. Giving the “serious” candidates more time may actually be the networks’ effort to make the debate more fair: since you can only trust 1/4 of what they say,
Comment by David B. — February 3, 2008 @ 8:56 pmthey get 4 times as much time to talk.
And to address the original question: Has Ron Paul’s support flatlined? I don’t believe it has, nationaly. It used to be around 5.0, now it is 5.8. (His numbers go up as people actually
Comment by David B. — February 4, 2008 @ 12:49 amget a chance to hear what he has to say).
i, for one, am glad libertarian support has dropped off. looking at the stances and principles that, say the liberty papers, took on a regular basis in 2007 as well as ad nauseum attacks on Ron Paul, it became clear to me that whatever an “average libertarian” is is not a principled person.
further evidence, personally for me, surfaced as i listened to libertarian talk radio over the last 6 months. libertarianism sounds real neat on the surface, but the lack of an actual principled philosophy makes your libertarian rather useless in real life.
Comment by oilnwater — February 4, 2008 @ 4:20 pm