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| Republican Renaissance |
| This is about changing the direction of the Republican Party. This is a call to true conservatives who feel their party has been led astray, steered by ambitious big-government politicians fundamentally indistinguishable from their counterparts on the left. Jettison the pretenders, the sloganeering mountebanks, the profligate Caesars-in-waiting, and show the country a different kind of candidate. |
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| Mea Culpa |
| 2008-02-24 21:56:55 |
Around the time the Super Tuesday primary results started rolling in it became clear to me that I needed a break. I'd dedicated myself pretty completely to the campaign for so many months, and finally ordinary, everyday life crashed the gates. Without going into detail, my priorities were forcibly shifted for a time. I apologize for my abrupt disappearance.I'm proud of the work I did during those months, and even prouder of all those whose hard work and commitment exceeded my own by orders of magnitude. There are too many people to name, but they know who they are. And everyone who helped just a little bit here and there formed the backbone of a heroic effort that has sent ripples through the waters of American political life.This is just the beginning...for the movement - and it is a mov...
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| Clinton Conservatives, Go Home. |
| 2008-01-15 01:20:13 |
Writes Vox Day: Now, it is true that some individuals are very liberal in their youth and become more conservative as they get older. But if one examines the "conservative" media, one notices a surprising number of individuals who were liberals and claim to be conservatives now, but still continue to advocate the same powerful and intrusive central government that they advocated in their liberal youth. And like young cuckoos and cowbirds, these parasites attempt to push the genuine intellectual heirs out of the nest, hence National Review founder William F. Buckley's attacks on Murray Rothbard and Joe Sobran, FrontPage's Ben Johnson's call for "modern conservatives" to repudiate Paul Craig Roberts, National Review's David Frum's call for "a conserva...
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| Fascist Mitt |
| 2008-01-15 00:02:45 |
Think it's hyperbole?Marc Ambinder quotes Romney:"First, we have to tackle the problems head on. If I am your President, in my first 100 days, I will roll up my sleeves, and I will personally bring together industry, labor, Congressional and state leaders to develop a plan to rebuild America's automotive leadership. It will be one that works for Michigan and that works for the American taxpayers." [emphasis added]Uh...can anybody say, Corporativismo? Jonah, can we get a ruling on this?(Hat tip: Laura Ebke)...
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| More |
| 2008-01-14 23:13:44 |
More resented, more distrusted, more despised.A reasonable barometer of sympathy for terrorism among moderate Arabs? Yes, I think so....
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| What's Wrong with the GOP |
| 2008-01-14 22:25:51 |
Mark Shea says it: "[C]onservatism as prostitution to the power of Leviathan."My frustration with many rank-and-file conservatives stems from what I see as their affection for power...not that they wish to wield it themselves necessarily, as liberals do, but they are warm to its existence and ready to compromise themselves in defense of its exertion by those with whom they identify.It's why "strength" is the magic word of nearly every Republican campaign.(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)...
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| Apocalypse Soon |
| 2008-01-12 01:41:25 |
Not NOW, but very soon. We are in deep trouble and only one candidate has the guts to talk about it. Glenn Beck reveals who that candidate is during the course of his conversation with the Comptroller General:What's funny about all this, in a most tragic, ironic way, is that the old goals of the communists are finally coming close to fruition. In 1938 J.B. Matthews wrote an autobiography he called Odyssey of a Fellow Traveler, in which he reported on his comrades' new strategy after their grandiose dreams of proletarian revolution in America had dissolved. The capitalist system of production, they perceived, might be sabotaged indirectly by method ofplacing upon that system burdens of restrictive legislation and enervating taxation. These ends would, it is hoped, be achieved by the slogans...
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| "I Want This Man For President." |
| 2008-01-11 21:33:21 |
Over at NRO Derb responds to Andrew Sullivan's remarks about Ron Paul yesterday.Just so. Furthermore, I doubt Paul has ever been any different. I had a most interesting email yesterday from a friend in Texas. My friend's father was a slightly-cranky far-rightist who'd corresponded with Paul in the early 1980s. He'd send Paul one of his letters (my friend has preserved them) ranting about something or other. Paul would send a polite letter back, calmly agreeing with the bits he agreed with (limited government, Constitution) and pointedly ignoring the nuttier bits. Letters that were all nuttiness got no response from Paul.That's our man. He's a rock. And if you're crazy, he's fine with it.You can b-s in the sound bites, but you can't b-s for a full 65 minutes of questioning. Sit through this...
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| Ron Paul's Best Debate Performance Yet? |
| 2008-01-11 04:40:26 |
I think it was, far and away. Giuliani's vulturine giggle and McCain's frozen shield of a smirk could not have been more repulsive, nor more revealing of an ignorance determined to find a consensus.Paul's intelligent answers shone through all the rubbish.Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8Part 7 was probably his most outstanding moment....
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| Sticking It Out |
| 2008-01-11 03:15:55 |
Immediately following the disappointing result in New Hampshire, I had begun a post lamenting the fact that Ron Paul didn't get the 3rd place finish that I felt was the minimum he needed in order to generate the buzz of a major upset and go on to be a factor in this year's Republican primaries. My mood was dark.Then I saw this:Be change. It doesn't start anywhere else....
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| Republican vs. Conservative |
| 2008-01-11 01:04:07 |
It seems as if both parties—Republicans and Democrats—are now squarely located in the center. The welfare-warfare state is simply accepted, unquestioningly, by the leadership of both parties. At this stage the question must be asked: are Republicans conservatives anymore? David Hill has doubts:Republicans, as a whole, are not as conservative as they once were. Research results I am seeing suggest to me that this is key to why the rules are changing. Conservatives no longer benefit from the domination they once enjoyed.So does Bruce Ramsey of the Seattle Times, who observes:Recently I met a general who had served over there, and I asked him why we had started a war with Iraq. He paused, dropped his voice, and...
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| The Paleo-Neo Divide |
| 2008-01-07 21:53:05 |
American Conservative Magazine with a good article on the rift.On one side: John Derbyshire, Pat Buchanan, Andrew Sullivan, Joseph Sobran, George Will, and Tucker Carlson.On the other: William Kristol, Norman/John Podhoretz, Michael Medved, David Frum, Michael Ledeen, and Michelle Malkin.Is that a difficult choice?...
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| McCain's 100-Year War |
| 2008-01-07 16:03:04 |
This may be old news already, but McCain's blithe answer to the question of how long we should stay in Iraq is so outrageously absurd that it defies belief:"Make it a 100 years," he says. And here's the kicker: according to McCain, our presence will diminish al-Qaeda's influence and recruitment!What planet is he living on? He doesn't seem able to understand that you cannot solve a political problem with military force, and that is frightening. He even invokes Korea in his answer, just as I knew he would. He really believes that the U.S. military is a stabilizing force in the Middle East. McCain may deserve respect for some things, but his foreign policy views are not among them....
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| One Candidate Gets It. Not McCain. |
| 2008-01-07 16:01:37 |
Ron Paul:"John McCain's statement in favor of keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years or longer puts him out of sync with the majority of Americans, who want our troops to come home. Further, his comments recklessly put America at risk as such a statement will likely serve as a recruiting tool for Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, who appeal to radicals and incite violence against Americans by claiming that the US desires to occupy the Middle East indefinitely."McCain is an old Cold-Warrior who seems to think that we're facing down something akin to the Soviet empire, and all we have to do is stand firm at the front and not blink. He is in la-la land. What will happen is exactly what Paul describes above. With Pakistan teetering on the brink and Saudi Arabia at risk of...
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| Oh What a Tangled Web Some Weave |
| 2008-01-06 22:52:46 |
The New York Times does a nice job of exposing a few (just a few) of the lies and half-truths that so many of the candidates routinely drop. "In Debate Clashes, Accuracy Takes a Hit".I've said it before...the number one political issue must always be honesty. If you can't trust the person to be straight with you, none of the rest matters....
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| Radical Ignorance on Radical Islam |
| 2008-01-06 16:42:47 |
The ABC News GOP debate in New Hampsire produced a serious exchange on foreign policy (transcript). The candidates were asked whether they would continue the Bush policy of nation-building and attempting to spread democracy throughout the world.REP. PAUL: Well, I certainly agreed with his foreign policy that he ran on and that we as Republicans won in the year 2000 -- you know, the humble foreign policy, no nation-building, don't be the policeman of the world. And we were strongly critical of the policy of the Clinton administration, that did the opposite. And we fell short. Of course, the excuse is that 9/11 changed everything, but the Bush doctrine of preemptive war is not a minor change. This is huge. This is the first time we as a nation accept as our policy that we start the wars. I d...
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| Will Bushism March On? |
| 2008-01-05 23:13:28 |
McCain is the equivalent of Bush the First. Huckabee and Romney are Bush the Second....
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| Last Iowa Ruminations |
| 2008-01-05 04:03:42 |
The more I think about it the more heartened I am by Ron Paul's 10% in the land of corn and mammoth super churches. Iowans tend to care most about two things: religiosity and handshaking. The candidates that fare best in Iowa are those who publicly converse with God and exercise "retail politics". Ron Paul had the fewest visits to Iowa (27) of any candidate except Duncan Hunter (data here). I wish it weren't the case, as more palm pressing might have yielded better caucus results, but then again, maybe not. I trust the campaign knows where his scarce time is best allocated. Perhaps they sensed diminishing returns in the breadbasket. New Hampshire, on the other hand, is a no-brainer. A straight primary vote in a state with a penchant for liberty and contrari...
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| Thoughts on Iowa |
| 2008-01-04 14:04:03 |
My prediction that Ron Paul would come in third was not born out, but he didn't miss by much. He garnered a respectable 10%, which, for that kind of candidate to accomplish in a state like Iowa isn't bad and is a good deal better than the mainstream media have ever given him credit for. It was a strong finish within an unfavorable framework and I have to believe that he will break upward by a substantial margin in New Hampshire.And of course, beating Giuliani so soundly does make one smile.Thompson and McCain supporters surprised me tonight, I'll admit it. I do not, however, believe for a moment that Fred can go the distance. For one thing, he's out of money and not likely to get much more. Whether he hangs on by his fingernails or throws in the towel tomorr...
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| Ron Paul Wins Independents |
| 2008-01-04 01:08:23 |
Andrew Sullivan points out that these are the people you need on your side to win a national election. The Christian evangelical base can make you shine in Iowa as it did for Pat Robertson in 1988, but it cannot deliver a general election. A much, MUCH broader coalition is needed for that, and (forgive the pun) Huckabee hasn't got a prayer....
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| Jonah Goldberg States the Obvious |
| 2008-01-03 23:35:57 |
"It's ultimately kind of sad that the controversial person in the race is Ron Paul rather than Huckabee."(Interview)...
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| Reason and Ron Paul |
| 2008-01-03 23:30:09 |
Reason magazine's Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie acquits Dr. Paul very well in this short interview.Nobody has been able to explain to me just how, precisely, Iran—or Pakistan—is a threat to the continental United States. Vague accusations are all I ever hear.We've had over fifty years now of incessant global interventionism and it has blown up in our faces time and time again. If you believe it makes us safer, read Another Century of War? by Gabriel Kolko for the whole sordid history of our Middle East meddling. The rise of al Qaeda and other militant Islamists was an inevitable outcome, and not just because we supported them in the Afghan-Soviet war. How Bill O'Reilly can convince himself that more of the same will bring a different result is senselessness personified. ...
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| The Fox Campaign of Sabotage |
| 2008-01-01 23:07:02 |
Yep, it's an outrage, says Josh Marshall of TPM. The fact that the excluded (and $20-million rich) Ron Paul is polling twice as high as the invited (and bankrupt) Fred Thompson highlights the lengths to which Fox News Opinion is willing to go to destroy any serious challenge to the status quo. It's a disgusting display of venality and degeneracy.The ABC News criteria for inclusion makes much more sense, as Andrew Sullivan has already pointed out, and Ron Paul easily meets that threshold.For my part, I will never in my life watch another Fox program. I also intend to boycott their sponsors unless the network reconsiders, and will be spending the next day or two telling them so....
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| Ron Paul Will Finish Third or Higher |
| 2008-01-01 21:21:16 |
Paul should easily capture third place in Iowa.Look at the results of the Iowa Republican straw poll in August:(1) Romney(2) Huckabee(3) Brownback(4) Tancredo(5) Paul(6) Tommy Thompson(7) Fred Thompson(8) Giuliani(9) Hunter(10) McCainPaul placed fifth at a time when his official campaign had virtually no prior presence in the state. Since that day in August the Paul campaign has been in high gear in Iowa (under the organizational stewardship of Dr. Drew Ivers, a veteran of Iowa GOP politics), and his profile has risen dramatically.Two of the candidates who finished ahead of him at the straw poll have since dropped out. Many former Brownback supporters are evangelicals who have likely found a home with Huckabee. Tancredo voters will have dispersed more evenly, though they will surely stay a...
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| "Nothing to See Here" |
| 2007-12-31 21:24:18 |
Thomas Woods writes:Making my way through the Mises Institute's Bastiat collection, I came across this: the state, according to Bastiat, "applies itself to loading everybody's brain with prejudices, and everybody's heart with sentiments favorable to the spirit of disorder, war, and hatred; so that, when a doctrine of order, peace, and comity presents itself, it is in vain that it has clearness and truth on its side; it cannot gain admittance."Ah, Bastiat. Were he alive today he would no doubt shake his head in amazement at the extent of collusion between the state's political establishment and partisan corporate media outlets like Fox News Opinion, which thrive on disorder and prejudice. When the usual tools of indoctrination begin to break down, more direct measures are taken by the cour...
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| The Willful Ignorance of Joseph Farah |
| 2007-12-31 03:03:09 |
Joseph Farah, of WorldNet Daily fame, has launched another attempt to discredit Ron Paul. Having labored to knock down the strawman he created by distorting Paul's foreign policy proposals beyond recognition, insisting they represent a pacifist's program of appeasement despite Paul's repeated identification of our enemies and his vote to stop fooling around in Iraq and go after them, Mr. Farah now takes a different tack. This time he's jumped on the earmark issue, hoping to whip up something loosely approximating a scandal. It goes like this:I just simply didn't know that Ron Paul plays the Washington racket just like the rest of the gang. The only difference is he has figured out a system of plausible deniability for himself – a way he can still maintain his image of incorruptibility an...
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| No to Celebrity, Yes to Authenticity |
| 2007-12-31 02:16:34 |
Another gem from Raimondo, who explains it so well. We don't need another telegenic Republican: I'd settle for an intelligent Republican, and in this I sense I'm not alone. ... It's precisely because he isn't in the least bit telegenic that Paul has motivated many thousands to get active in his campaign at some level—because of the power of Paul's ideas. More than that, the Ron Paul Revolutionaries are taking a clear position against the politics of celebrity, with its over-coiffed over-coached candidates and complete absence of authenticity....
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| Crisis and Leviathan |
| 2007-12-31 01:52:45 |
Justin Raimondo describes the next great folly which looms—aka, "Doing Something About Pakistan":The reality is that the panicked atmosphere surrounding this issue is completely bogus: the Pakistanis are getting their act together, and the country is not falling into chaos. The hopped-up hysterics of our media during a very slow news cycle is closely tied up with their inherent bias in favor of yet another manufactured "crisis," which puts pressure on political candidates to respond with what is thought to be appropriate assertiveness."Well, then," David Shuster demanded of Ron Paul, during a television interview shortly after the assassination, "what would you do, what action would you take?" Action without thought of the consequences: that's the proble...
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| President of the World? |
| 2007-12-28 14:58:39 |
Ross Douthat at The Atlantic gets it:Yesterday's tragedy, which leaves the Bush Administration's delicate plans for stabilizing to Pakistan in fragments, will prompt at least some voters to view America's attempts at managing the affairs of complex, chaotic, and far-off nations - places about which even the McCains and Bidens of the D.C. community presumably know relatively little - not as a hard duty that requires toughness and experience, but as a folly to be avoided."How candidates respond" to Bhutto's assassination, JPod suggests, should determine their fitness for the Oval Office. Well, all the leading contenders have responded, and all of them have dodged, in one fashion or another, any strategic question about where U.S. policy should go from here, beyond platitudinous references to...
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| Bhutto Predicted U.S. Foreign Policy Blowback |
| 2007-12-28 04:54:59 |
As other candidates rush to make political hay from Benazir Bhutto's assassination, and hyper-sensitive Jingoists pound out doltish and unreflective headlines like "Ron Paul Blames America Again!", an all too familiar story is unfolding in Pakistan. Chaos and unintended consequences.Ron Paul saw it coming, and so did the former Prime Minister. Bhutto herself has said almost exactly what Ron Paul said today (and has been saying for a very long time). From her recent interview:What would you like to tell President Bush? I ask this riddle of a woman.She would tell him, she replies, that propping up Musharraf’s government, which is infested with radical Islamists, is only hastening disaster. "I would say, 'Your policy of supporting dictatorship is breaking u...
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| Russert Phones it In |
| 2007-12-24 01:43:49 |
I've watched and re-watched Tim Russert's interview with Ron Paul this morning on Meet the Press (video here). Mine is a mixed reaction. On the one hand, I've seen Paul do better. Although his responses during the first part of the interview were very good, later on he seemed a bit rushed and defensive at times. Moments like the earmark exchange came off somewhat muddled. But overall I think he handled himself reasonably well.Russert's performance, on the other hand, was pretty consistently atrocious. The majority of the quotes he picked were from Paul's 1988 Libertarian campaign, which was odd. There are a lot of Republicans who, when quizzed about their vision of an ideal world, would talk about ending just about everything the federal government presently does. But these are philosophi...
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| Why Derb is Backing Ron Paul |
| 2007-12-20 13:12:24 |
He lays it down at NRO. A wonderfully written piece, as is to be expected. Every line is a must-read, but here's a summing-up snippet:Are those [Ron Paul] supporters crazy, as some colleagues tell me?Perhaps they are, to be shouting for liberty in 2007, after decades of swelling federal power and arrogance, of proliferating taxes, rules, and interests, of gushing transfers of wealth to politically connected elites from working- and middle-class grunts, of the college and teacher-union scams, of the metastasizing tort-law rackets, of ever more numerous yet ever more clueless intelligence agencies, of open borders and visas for people who hate us, of widening cracks in our sense of nationhood (“Press one for English …”), of speech codes and race lob...
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| McCain's Korea Scenario for Iraq |
| 2007-12-20 10:40:03 |
Andrew Sullivan, following his endorsement of Ron Paul, has posted a few letters from dissenting readers. One of them makes the case for McCain, citing the Iraq war issue:"His [McCain's] goal is to leave Iraq with a functioning government and the ability to defend itself after the departure of American troops."'Winning' has been redefined in terms of how best to get out. The reader above cautions against a hasty withdrawal, insisting that we mustn't turn our back on Iraq until the government we have installed is working and proves viable.In my view this a fool's errand. In Iraq the Arab-Islamic identity and sectarian divides are so deeply embedded that the idea that a secular, Western-style democracy installed by an outside...
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| Third Place in Iowa |
| 2007-12-19 17:54:31 |
It's been the Huckabee and Romney show in Iowa, but pay attention to the third place slot. Ron Paul, at 8%, is currently in a virtual 3-way tie for third with Giuliani (8%) and Thompson (9%) according to today's Washington Post-ABC News poll. A strong third place finish in Iowa would mean a lot for the campaign's momentum heading into the other early primaries. Bet you won't hear that from the dinosaur media.(Hat tip: Eric Garris)...
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| Huckabee and "The Cross" |
| 2007-12-19 15:34:05 |
File this under "Don't Much Care, but Sliminess is Interesting". I watched the video as well as the clip of Huck's smirking denial of intent, which strikes me as supremely disingenuous. I'm a film school grad with cinematography experience. The edges of that bookshelf were obviously intentionally lit. They were brighter than the dark blob of a Christmas tree which provides the contrast, while the rest of the background was given a dimmer and more diffuse light as is typical. You can't tell me that was an accident in the framing of the shot. A more natural and less obtrusive choice would have been to bounce a little fill light onto the shelf from below, which would have much lessened the cross effect.Make of it what you will, but I think the Huckster has struck again. I don't believe his ...
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| One Third of Republicans Favor Troop Withdrawal |
| 2007-12-17 18:29:54 |
That's according to a Pew Research study, which finds that while most acknowledge that the surge has managed so far to appreciably suppress sectarian and insurgent violence, many do not see a compelling reason to continue our present military commitments there.Two-thirds of Republicans (67%) currently favor maintaining troops in Iraq, little change from February (71%). Just 39% of independents and 21% of Democrats want to keep troops in Iraq.If these numbers are accurate, it adds another reason to be skeptical about the data we keep seeing from old-fashioned telephone polls that rank candidates. That 33% bloc of Republicans not in favor of maintaining troops in Iraq have only one candidate to turn to if they intend to vote in the GOP primaries.And let...
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