You believe some odd stuff!…about the ‘relatively well-informed’ bit, I mean. Of course what you say is valid.

While Ron Paul’s press secretary was young and inexperienced, this is insignificant in the causes of Ron Paul’s lack of coverage. His campaign’s communication with the press and the people at large was more than adequate to get media attention, and his political views, policies and opinions have been communicated clearly, boldly and efficiently. He trounces all in debates, and has shown more intelligence and integrity than the other Republican candidates. I don’t wish to sound like a Paultard (Paul fan doesn’t equal Paultard, btw), but hey.

His staff haven’t been significantly worse than any other Republican candidate. I can give you one strong example that compares both McCain’s and Paul’s racism-allegations…

We all know about the newsletters, but they were written during a time when Paul was working as a doctor, not a congressman. It was carelessness, yes, but there is only so much overseeing you can do of small political newsletters while being occupied by a full time job that is completely unrelated to politics. Ron Paul is obviously not a racist, and the racist statements in question weren’t directly racist in the first place. They were factual, even if their usage was out of line and derogatory. The NAACP chairman defended Ron Paul’s character.

Distinct from this kerfuffle is that of McCain’s previous use of the term ‘gook’ to refer to those who held him captive. He doesn’t say that now, and he stated that he only uses the term to refer to those few Vietnamese who held him captive. These words came directly from the senator’s mouth, not from obscure ghostwriters of a petty newsletter. It isn’t statistical fact that someone is a ‘gook’ or not.

McCain’s spokesperson from 2000 said “We hope that people understand that the senator was referring very specifically to the men who beat and tortured him for five and a half years in a prisoner of war camp, … His language in no way represents his feelings toward the people in Vietnam or the Vietnamese American community”. Could this not easily be construed as a shoddy coverup for genuine hatred against Vietnamese people, DIRECTLY from the mouth of Senator McCain?! It’s odd to use racial slurs to refer to people who severely wrong you, and Chris Rock’s ‘black people/niggers’ dichotomy is for the use of blacks only, not whites; a white guy would be humiliated if it became public that he refers to the two black people who robbed him as ‘niggers’.

I don’t believe McCain is racist, but his actions were direct, abrasive and very odd. Ron Paul doesn’t tend to act this way, even if he has eccentric qualities to him as well. Despite this, the mainstream media have gone to town, nay, gone to city over Ron Paul’s newsletters, while McCains direct use of racial slurs does nothing to weaken his position in the Republican nomination race.

The actual statement by McCain’s communications staff was a fairly poor excuse, especially compared to the statement released by Paul over the newsletter scandal. This just one example, but it isn’t anomalous. Paul’s staff is no less competent than McCain’s. It is ill informed to say otherwise, and three staff members involved with the newsletters during a time when Paul wasn’t in politics cannot be used to determine the man’s character judging skills by any decent measure.

The disparity of press coverage between him and the others, and even him and the success he’s had, cannot possibly be explained away. There has indeed been an MSM brownout. I don’t presume conspiracy, nor do I rule out circumstance being partially to blame, but there is a conscious effort to ignore Paul or write negatively of him.

I really think it is best to endorse the bloke.

I’m not an LP-partisan by any means, but do you realize that they’ve been campaigning on the bascially the same platform that Ron Paul did since 1972 ?

They don’t need to change anything. Unless Paul’s supporters intend to undertake the difficult task of changing the GOP, the LP would seem to be the perfect home for them.

And, no, they don’t have to participate in some March on Washington to prove it, either.

I would suggest if you really want to attract the Ron Paul Republicans, you have your own party turn out and support our common platforms of peace, liberty, sound currency, etc when the march on Washington D.C. is confirmed.

There’s a motto here in Dallas by one professional organization which states, “We support those who support us.” That’s a “hint” :-)

In that respect you really have no business IMO asserting any position electorally.

Ah see, now that’s where you’re completely and utterly wrong. I have absolutely every right to assert an opinion on any race whether I’m informed or not. On the subject of this particular race I believe my comments to be valid and relatively well-informed, so if you don’t like it you’re more than free not to frequent this site if you don’t like how I pointed out that your candidate ran a bad campaign and deserved to lose. There’s more to being qualified for President than having some good ideas and Ron Paul fell far short on most of those qualifications.

Ron’s press coordinator may have been inexperienced, point taken there, but that doesn’t explain the press treating Ron the way it did at all.

Actually, it explains it completely. A press coordinator’s job is to sell their candidate to the media to convince them why they should cover him…if the press wasn’t interested, it’s mainly because the coordinator wasn’t very good at his job. Most of that was probably inexperience, which doesn’t make Paul’s coordinator a stupid person (just inexperienced) but it does make it a rather stupid decision by Paul to hire him…and to stick with him when it was apparent the guy wasn’t getting through. That’s what I’m harping on about accountability…if the people you hire aren’t getting the job done as a leader you need to inform them of the standards you expect them to meet, you need to get them assistance to meet their objectives if they’re struggling or need help, or (failing that) you need to replace them with people who can accomplish the necessary tasks. Ron Paul didn’t do any of that (even when he had the funds to hire more help) ergo he didn’t run a serious campaign and the press justifiably ignored him.

The Media Blackout was firmly intentional, and it was a conspiracy, not a shadowy one, an obvious and overt one.

The media are privately-owned. They are under absolutely no obligation whatsoever to provide coverage to anyone they don’t want to. If they didn’t cover Ron Paul it’s because Ron Paul’s campaign did a terrible job of convincing them that doing so was in their best interests. Ergo, the “media blackout” was the Paul campaign’s doing.

You make a good argument, but your stated intentions, perceptions of what occurs around you and idealistic motives are serially muffled by the walls of your Ivory Tower once again.

I worked as the press coordinator for a gubernatorial campaign when I was 23 and when the press ignored my candidate I didn’t fault them. I faulted myself for not coming up with a better sales pitch and worked to improve (which I did). By the time the campaign wrapped up, lack of press coverage wasn’t an issue, despite the fact that our campaign had far less money than the two who finished ahead of us, spent less money on advertising, and relied primarily on grassroots support. And we did a hell of a lot better than 10% of the vote.

Campaigns that lose as badly as Paul’s have done do so largely because of internal factors or because they did a terrible job, not because it’s the rest of the world’s fault for not automatically recognizing the candidate’s brilliance.

At least you’re up front about the fact that you have unrealistic standards. In that respect you really have no business IMO asserting any position electorally.

Ron’s press coordinator may have been inexperienced, point taken there, but that doesn’t explain the press treating Ron the way it did at all. The Media Blackout was firmly intentional, and it was a conspiracy, not a shadowy one, an obvious and overt one. It was and is obvious to any honest observer that that was the case. You make a good argument, but your stated intentions, perceptions of what occurs around you and idealistic motives are serially muffled by the walls of your Ivory Tower once again.

Ah, I see what this is…your candidate didn’t win and now you’re looking for someone to blame. That’s a rough one, moving from Denial (Ron Paul can’t lose) into Anger (It’s everyone else’s fault except Ron Paul’s that he lost and I blame all of you). Pretty soon you’ll hit Bargaining (maybe Paul can have a brokered convention with his 16 delegates that no one else needs), after which you’ll go through Depression (man, I was a complete idiot for thinking Paul had a chance at winning) and eventually into Acceptance (Well, I guess it really wasn’t anyone’s fault but Paul’s how his campaign fell apart…oh well).

Condolences, best of luck to you on the grieving process, and welcome to reality.

“That’s never been what I’ve argued for”

That is what you are voting for or not voting for and that is what you perpetuate. No other candidate is against the war as is Ron Paul. You can argue and justify till you are blue in the face but that is what you are doing.

” not that you’ve likely read anything I’ve written on those subjects”

Your actions and supported positions are clearly not what you write.

“so if you’d like to fabricate positions for me and try and put words in my mouth because you can’t come up with an argument for your position based on fact”

Fact is the only candidate running that is completely against the War is Ron Paul and you are against Ron Paul. Hence like it or not you are supporting someone who supports the war if you fail to support someone that does not.

“as far as I’m concerned you can fuck right off.”

Whooa what a fact based response. A little lame don’t you think.

“How’s that for honesty, sport?”

Well that is the only thing that I believe you on and it certainly shows your true colors sport.

“If Ron Paul can’t rally the Republican troops against the worst Republican president in the last 140 years (who cost the GOP Congress) when all of the other candidates are running on Bush’s platform, what does that really say about Ron Paul’s leadership ability? You’re not a leader when nobody’s following you.”

Nobody’s following you, that is a fact. But Ron Paul’s following remains strong. By the Way the Libertarian’s have not even made a little dent so you are says that Libertarians have no leadership abilities either and come to think of it didn’t Kerry lose to Bush so the Democrats have no leadership ability either.

So let me get this right: In a reduced core of Republicans neo-cons while not getting enough Libertarians to switch over to the GOP because they didn’t believe Ron Paul could change Washington inspite of his steadfast record in congress Libertarians decide to smear him as an unelectable , uninspiring leader, who is a racist. Then Libertarians complain that it was Paul’s Campaign which was at fault in spite of a large body of evidence from candidates like Nader whom the MSM and other did not want to run shutting him out of debates and it was the campaign’s fault he was crossed off of ballots and let off of major newspapers etc.. etc …

Golly.. you must be a genius.. how could I not have seen something so clear!!

Oh boy back to dunces corner for me.

“I’m not on anyone’s “side” except my own. I vote for the candidate who I think best represents my view. When nobody represents my views I don’t cast a ballot and I don’t win anything for it.”

It is true that you don’t win anything; however, that does not mean you have not lost something.

In that case, then, I’ll just re-iterate:

–Dr. Paul is still in the race.

–You ARE obnoxious for writing this article (and you’re not catching any “flies with vinegar”.)

–Actually Paul HAS won delegates.

–Yes, he IS the best candidate.

–If he’s not elected, you’re still not done with us.

–And we’re supporting him for your own good, you know.

You can make excuses for others that directly oppose your stated political ideology it seems, because at least they are qualified or popular, or well-spoken and uncontroversial.

Actually no, I’m not supporting any of the others. I haven’t read enough about Wayne Root’s policy platform to make a decision but if he’s pro-Iraq he’ll be out too. I probably wasn’t clear when I said Paul’s not the best candidate in the race…I didn’t mean someone else was better than him, I meant that none of them are worth my vote. If that means I have ridiculously high standards, so be it, I won’t vote for a candidate I consider unfit for the office simply to say I cast a ballot for the least-worst candidate. That’s not to say that no candidate is worthy of my support ever (because I’ve been willing to compromise in the past) but all of the candidates in this race are sufficiently bad for me not to care. I’ll likely restrict my voting to the Congressional races (where I’ll be voting for whoever opposes Todd Tiahrt).

While a continual coordinated media blackout and smear campaign, and a corrupt media machine

Actually that probably had more to do with Ron Paul’s 24-year old press coordinator who had (from what I could gather) no experience in a presidential campaign, little experience in press operations and zero contacts in the media. It wasn’t an “MSM conspiracy”, it was the press ignoring a second-tier candidate who couldn’t be bothered to hire real staff…which was rational, unless you thought (in the interests of “fairness”) the press should have further cut into Ron Paul’s time by covering all of these guys too ( http://www.votesmart.org/election_president_search.php?party=Other&go.x=7&go.y=12 ), which would have guaranteed that no one would have heard about Ron Paul. The press, who are privately owned, are under no obligation whatsoever to provide coverage to anyone and they chose to expend their energy on candidates they thought were running serious campaigns. They gave coverage to Paul when he raised large sums of money, and he had some high-profile gigs (Leno, Maher, Blitzer, O’Reilly), but the Paul campaign did almost nothing to capitalize on that (likely due to their press coordinator’s inexperience).

He enjoys roughly 20% GOP numbers even under concerted GOP Party Machinery efforts to exclude him.

That was reflected in no scientific polls and he’s come nowhere close to 20% of the vote. Try 10%. Or less. Which he wouldn’t have gotten had the grassroots not organized on their own because his hired staff damn sure wasn’t responsible for it.

For that I see the campaign itself, and the candidate as prime examples of good leadership. Not perfect of course, but you don’t even expect that of theoretical front runners or George Bush!

George W. Bush is a rampantly unpopular and incompetent shitbird who took us into a war that he’s now losing and has wrecked the economy, and yet he’s won his presidential elections…twice. Ron Paul couldn’t even get through the primaries. If Ron Paul can’t rally the Republican troops against the worst Republican president in the last 140 years (who cost the GOP Congress) when all of the other candidates are running on Bush’s platform, what does that really say about Ron Paul’s leadership ability? You’re not a leader when nobody’s following you.

In my opinion UCrawford. Well, your standards are suspect to say the least.

They’re my standards and I’m happy with them and with my decisions on this race, regardless of what others might think. Some see me as being unrealistic, I just see myself as not selling out my beliefs for a candidate who’s not worth it.

No thanks to you for making the situation better, of course.

If he’d run a serious campaign and hired a professional staff he might actually have had a shot at winning. But he didn’t, so he lost. Ultimately that’s on him and not me. I was willing to vote for the guy right up until he exposed his poor character judgment and inability to handle crisis with the newsletter scandal and I decided that he wasn’t worth it anymore.

But at least we can be civil, and your side seems to have won the day. More people are on your side than mine it seems though all for differing reasons.

I’m not on anyone’s “side” except my own. I vote for the candidate who I think best represents my view. When nobody represents my views I don’t cast a ballot and I don’t win anything for it.

More people are on your side than mine it seems though all for differing reasons.

I think that says more about the dearth of good candidates than anything else.

You said:

“Michael,

Yes, I’ve become firmly anti-Paul since January. Before that, believe me or not, I had intentions of voting for him in yesterday’s primary.

And I don’t support McCain or Huckabee either, by the way.”

You sir are a liar… You posted many times that you supported Ron Paul after jan of this year. You replied to my comments about this very point. You posted on liberty several times when people questioned your support but you always stated you supported Ron Paul.. Now, sir you are twisting the facts…..

Your on my list of liars of 2007/2008. At least I know where you stand.

Doug is just a fake Ron Paul supporter no where to be found on the FEC donations list and he lied to all of you about his support of Ron Paul.

Move on….

I agree with RP on far more issues than I do with the LP. I’ve met plenty of LP pary members and I find a lot of them to be irrational and far dumber than a lot of the people that support RP. I would even go so far as to say that most of the crazys that support RP are LP members.

Good luck LP, your just wasting your time.

Take the GOP back, that’s the only way to do it!

I salute your perspective, it’s valuable to see how this is dissected from someone from outside the incestuous US beltway machinery, and by extension the PC group-think that modern American libertarian thought now espouses. If you are pro border enforcement prepare for accusations of utter and complete racism to inevitably flood towards you. At the very least your ideological purity is called into question or even worse you may not even be an individualist at all!

I guess I’m a Jingoist tool, oh wait, I don’t want to blow up Iran, just a tool then. Vile.