Still winless, Paul supporters press on

[Crossroads Inc.]

From Yahoo News

(Charlie Litchfield/Idaho Press-Tribune/AP Photo)
FARGO, N.D. - Presidential hopeful Ron Paul's hopes for his first win of the presidential season were dashed again tonight when North Dakota handed the libertarian leaning Texas congressman another loss.
The campaign was very optimistic about a win here, even abandoning the Super Tuesday caucus state of Idaho to campaign here Tuesday night.

He told a group of several hundred supporters earlier tonight at a caucus site in Fargo that he was going to win.
"This country is ready and raring," Paul said to thunderous applause.
Paul is sticking with his strategy of focusing on small caucus states and placed big bets on three Super Tuesday states: Alaska, Idaho, and North Dakota.

Those three states have a total of 87 delegates at stake. Paul told CBS News' Bob Schieffer on Sunday that there is a "good chance we come out with a majority of delegates."
The Texas congressman visited Alaska over the weekend.

Paul is the only candidate who made a trip up there, while others sent delegates or held teleconferences.
According to the Washington Post, it's a toss up there. Sarah Palin has ambiguously endorsed Newt Gingrich there, but it remains to be seen how far it helps him.

Paul then went to Idaho, which offers 32 delegates. And although Romney, Santorum and Gingrich have campaigned in the state, only Ron Paul actually has a campaign office there.
Paul won second place in the 2008 Idaho GOP primary and he won a Jan. 6 straw poll of 399 Republicans, the Idaho Statesman reported.

Today was Paul's third visit to North Dakota in the primary season, following a February tour of the state and an event in Fargo last November.

Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have also visited North Dakota, while former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has not.

Four years ago on Super Tuesday 2008, Romney easily won North Dakota's GOP caucuses, getting 36 percent of the vote in a five-candidate field. Although Paul was third, with 21 percent, he fared better in North Dakota than he did in almost all of the 20 other states that held Republican primaries or caucuses.

Matt Becker, a spokesman for the North Dakota GOP reportedly said that the demographics of North Dakota play to Paul's strengths and Paul's North Dakota operation has been the most extensive of any of the four GOP candidates.

Paul's state headquarters, tucked into a small Bismarck office across the street from the city's federal courthouse, has been running for almost four months.

More than $50,000 of the $152,000 in North Dakota contributions reported so far have gone to Paul's campaign, according to Federal Election Commission disclosure reports.

Although Paul admitted that his chances "are slim" of winning the GOP nomination, he shows no sign of slowing down.

In a statement released to this column Monday, Paul explains: "While other candidates are focused solely on the beauty contests to get the headlines, we're undertaking a comprehensive strategy that I am confident can lead to the nomination."
Paul is already planning campaign events in Kansas on Friday and Missouri on Saturday.

The name says it all really... the man looses again and again, and his cultish following remains unchanged in the face of reality.
I guess his losing will sadly ensure the Doom of America without his visionary leadership!

[Raw Shark]

The name says it all really... the man looses again and again, and his cultish following remains unchanged in the face of reality.
I guess his losing will sadly ensure the Doom of America without his visionary leadership!

Check out this thread for an interesting discussion of his possible strategy here. Paul may be down at the moment, but he just might win the long game (which would make me laugh my ass off, considering his chances in the general).

[Simon_Jester]

(Since Raw shark didn't link to the page, it's Page 7 of that thread)

[bobalot]

The name says it all really... the man looses again and again, and his cultish following remains unchanged in the face of reality.
I guess his losing will sadly ensure the Doom of America without his visionary leadership!

Check out this thread for an interesting discussion of his possible strategy here. Paul may be down at the moment, but he just might win the long game (which would make me laugh my ass off, considering his chances in the general).

This is just another Paulbot delusion.

Ron Paul is getting roughly 11% of the popular vote in the Republican primaries. However, Paulbots believe they can get the candidacy through some technical trickery and this wont have any adverse reaction from Republican voters in the general election.

Seriously, that's hilarious.

[Raw Shark]

Seriously, that's hilarious.

Sure, it's not likely; I just hope it happens because I want to see the other three with egg on their faces while Paul high pitch victory-cackles on tv and then gets slam-dunked by Obama. I can dream, can't I?

[Simon_Jester]

It's utterly impossible- but just by doing it, the Paulists are demonstrating a serious flaw in the convention system, and in the incredibly unlikely event that they actually get a shot at what they want, it'd make such a mockery of the convention that the Republican party will go through an earthquake.

I think that in the long run, the real story of this election cycle will be the way the cracks started to appear between the different parts of the Republican Party. More and more, the libertarians, the corporatists, and the fundamentalists simply aren't marching to the same drummer. The party is struggling to find people who can make the right promises to all its separate constituencies without making fools out of themselves in the process.

Romney's a great example of the corporatist wing of the party- so was Bush Junior, really. But unlike Bush, Romney can't play "man of the people" well; he's as blatantly one of the high and mighty as Kerry was running against Bush. So he's flailing against a string of people who keep grabbing the blue-collar social conservative vote away from him. Meanwhile the libertarians are screaming and jumping up and down and throwing things in the background- they clearly don't really hold the reins of the party, but their potential as a dissenting wild card is very real.

[Sea Skimmer]

I still wonder about the theory that Ron Paul personally is just trying to make his exit of the race and endorsement of the winner contingent on the Republican Party adapting the gold standard as the party platform.

[bobalot]

Seriously, that's hilarious.

Sure, it's not likely; I just hope it happens because I want to see the other three with egg on their faces while Paul high pitch victory-cackles on tv and then gets slam-dunked by Obama. I can dream, can't I?

I must admit, I do have the feeling of schadenfreude while I watch the Ron Paul bandwagon crash and burn.

I notice the amount of Ron Paul spam on message boards and websites like reddit has decreased remarkably. Although they are making numerous claims of voter fraud.

[Grumman]

Sure, it's not likely; I just hope it happens because I want to see the other three with egg on their faces while Paul high pitch victory-cackles on tv and then gets slam-dunked by Obama. I can dream, can't I?

I'd hate to see that happen. Obama needs to be hoist by his own petard. He needs to lose the Presidency as a direct result of his administration's efforts to persecute whistleblowers and murder brown people. That doesn't mean Paul should win, but dragging Obama down with him would be great.

[bobalot]

Sure, it's not likely; I just hope it happens because I want to see the other three with egg on their faces while Paul high pitch victory-cackles on tv and then gets slam-dunked by Obama. I can dream, can't I?

I'd hate to see that happen. Obama needs to be hoist by his own petard. He needs to lose the Presidency as a direct result of his administration's efforts to persecute whistleblowers and murder brown people. That doesn't mean Paul should win, but dragging Obama down with him would be great.

And replace him with who?

[Grumman]

And replace him with who?

Someone who is opposed to murdering good samaritans with airstrikes and torturing whistleblowers. Know anyone?

[The Romulan Republic]

There is no candidate with a significant chance of winning who would not be worse.

I also find your insinuation that Obama's choice of drone targets is racially motivated offensive. Support it or concede it.

[Gil Hamilton]

Keep in mind who's voting for Ron Paul. If you look at the exit and entrance polls for the primaries, the people who are supporting Ron Paul are college aged individuals with low income... well, politically motivated college students. His support comes from people who aren't thinking practically but because they got an Idea, typically that the Republican party is corrupt as the Democrats and Ron Paul is the answer. As long as Ron Paul is in the race, they'll support him and when he drops out, they probably won't vote (some may go for Romney, but polling indicates that Ron Paul supporters hate Santorum).

[The Romulan Republic]

The countries America is fighting are populated primarily by non-white people, so the casualties are probably going to be predominantly non-white people. And I don't think racism is the main reason for those wars.

[SirNitram]

I can't believe I still have to hammer this home in some people. Debating. Rule. 5. If you make a claim, BACK IT UP. That means claims of racial motivations or racism need to be BACKED UP. Do it or don't post.

[Grumman]

I can't believe I still have to hammer this home in some people. Debating. Rule. 5. If you make a claim, BACK IT UP. That means claims of racial motivations or racism need to be BACKED UP. Do it or don't post.

I made no such claim. What I was insinuating was not that Obama was racist but that he was just as bad as a racist. If you want the CIA to stop shooting Hellfire missiles at civilians in Asia, the "racist" Ron Paul is a better bet than the "non-racist" Obama.

[Akhlut]

I can't believe I still have to hammer this home in some people. Debating. Rule. 5. If you make a claim, BACK IT UP. That means claims of racial motivations or racism need to be BACKED UP. Do it or don't post.

I made no such claim. What I was insinuating was not that Obama was racist but that he was just as bad as a racist. If you want the CIA to stop shooting Hellfire missiles at civilians in Asia, the "racist" Ron Paul is a better bet than the "non-racist" Obama.

Unless you have a problem with letting 3 million brown people starving per year due to the sudden elimination of foreign aid. Whoops.

Suppose Ron Paul is even worse, then.

[UnderAGreySky]

Not to mention the few million South Koreans that will die when North Korea is free to invade.

Whoops.

[UnderAGreySky]

does giving out a few condoms in one country justify mass murder in another?

What does one have to do with the other? Why does it have to be *and*?

it is OK to destroy as long as you rebuild

There are many of us here who are not OK with BO's tactics in AfPak. We would like that to change.

This still doesn't mean we consider Ron Paul to be a credible alternative in any shape or form.

[SirNitram]

I can't believe I still have to hammer this home in some people. Debating. Rule. 5. If you make a claim, BACK IT UP. That means claims of racial motivations or racism need to be BACKED UP. Do it or don't post.

I made no such claim. What I was insinuating was not that Obama was racist but that he was just as bad as a racist. If you want the CIA to stop shooting Hellfire missiles at civilians in Asia, the "racist" Ron Paul is a better bet than the "non-racist" Obama.

Not you, Destructionator the terminally retarded.

I won't bother with the political debate because I am here in my role as a moderator.

[Bakustra]

You do understand that he is using the sociological definition of racism, where if a policy disproportionately affects people based on race, then it's racist? Because in that context, your demand is nonsensical and irrelevant.

[madd0ct0r]

well, the policy of drone strikes directly affects people based on the area they live in.
I'm pretty sure if I was wandering around the mountins with 8 of my whitest friends, all dressed up in the cold and carrying the rpgs for the ceremonial goat expoding session i might find my day becoming terminally shorter too.

He IS killing brown people, dosen't mean the the skin colour is the cause.

[Akhlut]

well, the policy of drone strikes directly affects people based on the area they live in.
I'm pretty sure if I was wandering around the mountins with 8 of my whitest friends, all dressed up in the cold and carrying the rpgs for the ceremonial goat expoding session i might find my day becoming terminally shorter too.

He IS killing brown people, dosen't mean the the skin colour is the cause.

That doesn't make it NOT racist, though. If the policies disproportionately affect some races more than others, then it is racist, regardless of motivations.

FYI, over one quarter of US foreign aid is targetted in places that we're directly responsible for fucking up, or places we're using in our process of fucking other people up.

And? It's still better than NOT giving.

While some of the foreign aid is doing good work like delivering food and fighting disease, the truth is much of it would be unnecessary if we started promoting peace instead of war, and that's not even going into the practical problems that sometimes come up and our ulterior motives.

That doesn't make it wrong or any less of a humanitarian disaster if we stopped giving it, though.

We need Dennis Kucinich back in Washington! Peace and genuine, honest compassion is the solution. I'd love to have my peace and my aid too.

The Greens or Socialist Workers would be preferable; none of the taint associated with the Democratic Party.

But, this is a Ron Paul thread, so let's ask this question: does giving out a few condoms in one country justify mass murder in another?

No, but not going to war in one country doesn't justify mass murder in another, either.

The first and most important step in preventing atrocities is to refuse to take part in them, even if it will be difficult for you. That's real courage.

Ergo, voting for Obama is superior to voting for Ron Paul, because it is a vote to prevent a much worse atrocity from occurring, even though it is difficult for people.

That, or voting for the Greens or Socialist Workers.

In the short term, the numbers game might say less are killed by going with Barack Obama, but what about the long term consequences of telling yourself that it is OK to destroy as long as you rebuild?[/quote]

[Akhlut]

And? It's still better than NOT giving.

My point there is there would be less need to give if we'd stop fucking up these countries in the first place, or didn't want to use them to further increase our global hegemony.

Doesn't change the fact that the US has been on imperialist adventures for over 150 years; those places we fucked up still need our help; I think it is very much a moral obligation to assist those that one has harmed in the past, so it would be a moral failing for the US to not supply aid to those nations which it has harmed in the past.

Ergo, voting for Obama is superior to voting for Ron Paul, because it is a vote to prevent a much worse atrocity from occurring, even though it is difficult for people.

It'd be better yet to vote for Ron Paul to put your voice on the record against foreign adventures, and then double your private charity action to make up for the lack of government aid (private charity already accounts for about half of the medicine and developing country help).

With some organization, you can use private donations to make up for reduced government programs. You can't do the same when it comes to CIA operations.

Ron Paul is also associated with a lot of other problems, such as wanting to dismantle the EPA, OSHA, and dozens of other parts of the American government which work to protect American citizens. Simply because he happens to not be a warmonger is not really a good reason to obliterate America's national forests, allow corporations to sell poisoned food without issue (can you afford the expertise to see what food gave you salmonella and if that is a problem due to a bad batch or simply you forgetting that you touched some raw chicken before making a salad?), or letting the arsenic released by mining operations get into your drinking water? Ron Paul's antiwar stance, while admirable, is not a large enough single issue to vote for him. If you want to really register your voice as being antiwar, but pro-aid and pro-not-crippling-Americans, you'd be much better off voting Green/Socialists.

[Simon_Jester]

Doesn't change the fact that the US has been on imperialist adventures for over 150 years; those places we fucked up still need our help; I think it is very much a moral obligation to assist those that one has harmed in the past, so it would be a moral failing for the US to not supply aid to those nations which it has harmed in the past.

For that matter, there are other places that were fucked up by other, entirely different nations, for whose actions we are not responsible. Abandoning them as part of a "never help or hurt anyone" policy would hardly be doing them a favor. How would you like it if you were a subsistence farmer coping with droughts in Destitutionstan, and someone stopped helping you with food-and-medicine money because they had fucked over some other person on another continent and they now figure it's better if they just don't get involved?

That sounds like a very strange thing to do- sort of a 'drama queen' behavior pattern writ large: "No, I can't help you with this, it's not you, it's me... every time I do anything it's all WRONG!" Which is very annoying to hear from someone you want to, say, help you move. And almost intolerable to hear from someone whose help you were really counting on.

It's much more adult and logical to be able to say "I will help you with this, but not hurt that other guy by doing something else," and actually make a reasoned effort to do good and not harm.