H -°, L 28° | Tomorrow: 
H 36°, L 27°The national political climate is certainly much different now than it was two years ago in the run-up to the 2008 Presidential primaries and election. One thing, however, has managed to stay eerily similar: whenever someone holds a meaningless poll about who they want to be the next Republican presidential nominee, Ron Paul always manages to perform exceedingly well. The results of last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll proved no different, with Paul taking first place with 31 percent of the vote, with second place finisher Mitt Romney at 22 percent and Sarah Palin’s third place finish of just 7 percent.
Now, of course, as with every previous poll that produced a similar victory for the Texas libertarian, the pundits dismissed the results as meaningless. The most famous example being Sean Hannity’s repeated assertion that Ron Paul did not win a 2007 Republican presidential debate despite the fact 38 percent of Fox News viewers disagreed.
This time, however, the excuses are strikingly different. In the past, tech-savvy Ron Paul supporters were blamed for skewing the poll results from the comfort of their living rooms. And considering the average Mike Huckabee voter probably doesn’t even own a computer, that’s not too surprising. This time around it was those darned college students and young people that were to blame: 48 percent of participants were students and 54 percent were under the age of 25.
On one hand, the naysayers can correctly cite those numbers to show those choosing to participate in the voluntary straw poll don’t represent an accurate cross-section of GOP primary voters — much less the rest of the electorate — but rather was dramatically skewed towards the younger end of the spectrum. In the short run, this is good news for the war-mongering statists who desperately don’t want to see the Republican Party led by the likes of Paul.
On the other hand, this is a pretty clear sign that those people who are signing on as conservatives and Republicans aren’t really very conservative at all, at least not in any post-Barry Goldwater definition of the term. They’re in fact much more libertarian leaning than Michael Steele or Mitt Romney want to admit. Given the popularity of the Republican brand over the past couple of years, it might not be too far from the truth to claim that Ron Paul is the only person bringing new people to the Republican Party and to conservative events like CPAC.
And, after all, what does a straw poll measure; a candidate’s ability to get people to show up at an event to hear them speak and check the box on the ballot next to their name? It’s not like that has anything to do with campaigning or actually getting elected.
CPAC isn’t the only piece of evidence of the infiltration of young libertarians into the Republican Party. Not yet on many people’s radar is the fact that Ron Paul’s son, Rand (not named after Ayn), would almost certainly become the next junior senator from the state of Kentucky, if the primary and general election were held today. The evidence is a little bit closer to home, as well with “Federal Reserve Audit” not only appearing as an option, but currently receiving the most votes in Wisconsin 8th district Republican primary candidate Terri McCormick’s poll of issue importance. Ron Paul can be the only explanation, unless, of course, you think it was Mitt Romney that was inspiring the “End the Fed” chants at CPAC.
Economist John Maynard Keynes once famously quipped, “In the long-run we’re all dead.” What he neglected to mention was the important detail that some of us will be around for longer than others. In the coming battle for the control and direction of the Republican Party, I’m going to be putting my money on those under-25 Ron Paul supporters who showed up at CPAC.
Patrick McEwen ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in nuclear engineering and wrote in Ron Paul for President in 2008.
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“Not yet on many people�s radar is the fact that Ron Paul�s son, Rand (not named after Ayn), would almost certainly become the next junior senator from the state of Kentucky, if the primary and general election were held today.”
This is absolutely false. Hal Rogers and Mitch McConnell both favor Trey Grayson in the Republican primary, which means Paul has a slim shot of even being nominated.
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That’s great- except for the fact that the people say otherwise. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Rand-Paul-Takes-21-Point-Lead-bw-3089813303.html?x=0&.v=1
New poll shows Rand Paul up by 21%. Oops!
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Ron Paul supporters will probably control the CPAC wikipedia article but I’ll put my money on Sarah Palin and the angry moralizing tea party protesters.
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Considering only roughly 2,400 people voted in the CPAC straw poll, out of roughly 10,000, in which Paul only attained 31%, I wouldn’t consider it plausible that the new face of the GOP is libertarian. Furthermore, at CPAC if a person wishes to vote they must seek out the voting booth and only if you are really zealous or have a lot of time to kill does someone really vote. And given that Paul’s followers are myrmidons, they basically packed the ballot box and gave an unrepresentative view of those at CPAC. Oh, yeah the cheers for Paul when the straw poll results were released were balanced out with boos.
In a larger picture, the majority of GOP voters haven’t attended tea parties or are Paul-ites (or even know what CPAC is). These two groups are minorities but vocal minorities at that and, hence, their voice makes it seem like they are much larger then they truly are. The face of the GOP still remains conservativism in its truest sense; though, conservativism and libertarianism maintain some common ground: anti-Statistism and pro-laissez-faire capitalism. Minus that, the GOP is still proudly pro-life and traditional-value-based which is more in line with conservativism than libertarianism.
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The percentage of the overall vote from students last year was actually higher than it was this year. I know it wouldn’t be wise to say Paul is now the frontrunner, but it’s always funny how when Romney won the last few years the corporate media always claimed he was the frontrunner.
As for the boos, they were because very few Paul supporters were actually in the ballroom when the results were announced. Some were boycotting Glenn Beck who was coming up next and most others came from another event but the auditorium (1/2 attendance capacity) was already full. So basically the room was filled with a bunch of neocons.
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Ron Paul is great. Conservatives like him because he is for small government and less taxes. Progressives like him because he is against the current wars (unlike Obama) and he protects civil liberties. He’s the best of both worlds and he votes on principle every time. This 75 year old congressman has more spine than either of our last 2 presidents.
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First, Ron Paul will have to separate himself from the white supremacists. Otherwise, we may as well go with Bob Barr. The Libertarian Party could do better than Barr, but I’ll take a guy who dissed the GOP and didn’t sit too well with Georgians during his time in Congress than someone who comes off as a neo-Nazi.
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Can you provide me with a direct quote from Ron himself that would suggest otherwise? I think not. Ron’s a libertarian, apparently the poster doesn’t have the faintest idea what a libertarian is. Ron has called racism an illness in his books and here is what he says on the topic:
“Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans only as members of groups and never as individuals. Racists believe that all individual who share superficial physical characteristics are alike; as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called “diversity” actually perpetuate racism. Their intense focus on race is inherently racist, because it views individuals only as members of racial groups.” - Ron Paul
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3:56PM, 4:31AM has a valid concern. If Ron Paul is not a racist, and I’m not quick to rush to judgment, then he needs to speak up. when his campaign accepted a $500 donation from Stromfront and took a whole month to release a statement about it, people can’t help but to wonder what’s going on. Add to that the fact that his local campaign organizer in Midland County, Michigan was a Klansman. Was Ron Paul himself aware of this?
Personally, I agree with the ideas Ron Paul has in mind, like ending the Federal Reserve and repealing the 16th Amendment, but hey, Adolph had similar ambitions for Germany…which, unfortunately, include ulterior motives for certain groups within the European population. If he can persuasively shove off the hate groups, he’ll certainly have my support. Until then, I’m uncommitted.
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I would love it if Ron Paul became the nominee, but the GOP establishment would never let that happen. One compromise I could get behind would be the GOP leadership backing Paul for Speaker of the House. In exchange Ron would agree to stay out of the 2012 election.
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Ron Paul should ditch the GOP and run as a Libertarian. The only adjustment he’ll have to make is the one 4:31AM suggested. I don’t think Ron Paul is actually a racist, but he certainly should’ve kept a closer watch on what the folks running his campaign were up to. He also should’ve rejected the $500 donation from Stormfron.org. What’s $500 from a hate group when you’re already the #1 campaign fundraiser? No politician should allow extremists, left-wing or right-wing, to work in their campaign. On the other hand, the Democrats courted illegal immigrants for support, so there’s plenty of guilt on both sides of the fence.
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It’s difficult to reconcile the libertarian wing of the republican party with the Christian religious fanatics who seem to control the base. Throw abortion, drug use and other social controversies (like prostitution) into the mix and you have a perfect recipe for division. Neither Barry Goldwater nor Ronald Reagan would be able to get the current Republican party nomination because of their social views.
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Libertarians are not a wing of the Republican Party, they are their own party. You’d be surprised just how much they differ on the issues.
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Patrick,
This is a very good column with a compelling point: Unlike the text-message voting on FOX after every presidential debate, you can’t exactly chalk Paul’s success in the CPAC straw poll up to mindless shenanigans from people who want to make a little noise. I have even written in this newspaper that Ron Paul may become “the only transcendent figure to emerge from the 2008 race.” I’m still waiting to be proven wrong on that.
But the problem with transcendent figures is that they’re just that: transcendent figures. Americans have a funny way of either a) supporting a candidate without supporting the majority of that candidate’s platform (e.g. Ronald Reagan and I suspect Ron Paul), or b) supporting many individual policies while opposing the person implementing those policies (e.g Obama’s health care plan). So I’m not sure yet what the support for Ron Paul “means.” Does it mean the majority of the Republican Party seriously wants to end the Federal Reserve and leave the United Nations? I doubt it, but you never know with these things. Does it mean fiscally conservative Republicans are taking over the party? Almost certainly. What it does not mean is that an extreme brand of libertarianism is likely to become the norm in GOP politics. In the first place — and here again we come to the problem of polling — the Republicans know that their party membership would buckle if Ron Paul’s proposal of across-the-board elimination of federal programs were seriously considered, let alone implemented. My grandparents voted for John McCain — the first Republican they voted for in their lives — because he’d helped ensure the passage of TriCare for military families. Republican votes are not always votes against federal spending.
Ron Paul represents what is sometimes called the “door in the face” approach of salesmanship. He is selling an ideology, forcefully, and his supporters are ramming that ideology down voters’ throats. The benefit of this strategy is that it ensures that any “compromise” with such extremism is still more right-wing than current GOP politics. Kind of like the vacuum salesman who talks your ass off for an hour about his complete line of products, so you’ll buy one vacuum you never intended to buy just to shut him up. There are worse ways to do political business, but that’s my appraisal of what’s going on here. By proposing that the GOP move 60 miles to the right, Ron Paul can get them to move 5 miles.
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This was not an upset or a surprise many political pundits predicted a Paul victory due to the influx of his hardcore supporters at events like these
The CPAC straw poll has not had success in picking the GOP nominee (Romney 2008)
Paul’s victory was met by BOOS at CPAC, not a very good sign for a presidential run.
Not only was is young-skewed, 48% of the votes were by students in the CPAC poll. If you think this number will be even close for a presidential election/or more importantly primaries you are insane
Caveat: I love Ron Paul, but it kind of boggles my mind how you ignored all of the info that I posted above that was easily available, as it was in almost every other article about the CPAC straw poll
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Sorry Charley, Rand Paul already owns a 20% lead in the polls. Tray Greyson is a typical NoeCon RINO who voted for TARP and the Stimulus. He has barely out raised Libertarian and Tea Party candidate Rand Paul. The RINO’s are going down in Flames.
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You glossed over the Wisconsin aspect.
Take a look at Campaign for Liberty, Grandsons of Liberty, Fox Valley Initiative, The Sheboygan Liberty Coalition, N.E.W. Patriots, and other nonpartisan groups which are active, have hundreds of members, and a large percentage who Ron Paul supporters.
Consider at candidates beyond Terri McCormick, but Tim Nerenz, Dan Sebring, Rob Taylor at the national level and at the state level Rick Richards, Ed Thompson, and Frank Lasee. Those who are generating the most attention lean libertarian.