The GOP and the Six Million
by Patrick Ruffini :: April 18th, 2008 12:54 amRarely a Saturday has gone by the last few weeks that I haven’t gotten someone e-mailing me that they’re off to their Republican county conventions to fight the RonPaulbots. I didn’t think much of it. But something jogged me and I decided to do some Googling. Even at a 30,000 foot level, it’s pretty remarkable.
UPDATE, 10:45: A Ron Paul volunteer and organizer in Kansas City confirms that the Jackson County Republican caucus elected a nearly-complete slate of Paul delegates at its convention Saturday.
Larry Holland says the caucus elected more than 170 Paul delegates out of an estimated 187 available. Those delegates will eventually, directly and indirectly, pick delegates to the Republican National Convention.
Alaska (where Paul came in third, wth 17% of the caucus vote) held its state convention Mar. 13-15, in Anchorage. Ron Paul Alaskans reports that, thanks to efforts at the district conventions, Paulunteers “were to were able to secure 105 delegates to State, or roughly 30% of the total.” At the convention, the Ron Paul Republicans (RPR) managed to pass several platform resolutions, calling for repeal of the Patriot Act, opposing Real ID, and advocating abolition of the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Education. Another resolution, opposing the Iraq war, lost; author Chris McGraw notes that “we were simply unable to pull support from anyone outside of the Ron Paul delegates for this purpose”.
Over the weekend, [Ron Paul supporters] captured six of a dozen GOP national convention delegates elected at congressional district meetings. The rebellion has left local party officials crying foul, even as state leaders downplay the importance of the unexpected result.
Nolan Chart correspondent “Paul from Clearwater, Florida” recently reported on his local caucus: “I got about 30 Ron Paul meetup members to join and become Commmittee Members for the Local Republican Party…. We get there, roll call is taken. We each individually introduce ourselves. The Chairmen of our county and surrounding counties are there. Voting time comes around and THEY DO ALL OF THE VOTING. No one else. And of course they vote themselves in and it is over”
The Orlando Sentinel reports that “similar struggles are occurring in other Florida counties and states.” In Orange County, party chairman Lew Oliver led a move to block Paul supporters from becoming precinct captains at this month’s party meeting. In Pascoe County, Paul supporters were asked to publicly pledge their loyalty to the GOP.
Let’s take a look at what this means, both short term and long term.
Short term, county convention delegates elect state convention delegates. In many cases, the state conventions elect delegates to the national convention. The end result could be a lot of Ron Paul people sitting on the floor in St. Paul, pledged to vote for John McCain but free agents otherwise.
Little will be decided by the delegates. Outwardly, their goal is to get Paul a speaking slot, which I imagine he’ll get, at 8:05 p.m. on Tuesday night.
But by far the biggest impact delegates can have is through floor demonstrations. In some ways, their reactions to the speeches set the tone for the convention, amplifying messages from the stage. Remember how Pat Buchanan enraptured the floor at the 1992 convention but lost the country? Or how the Texas delegates turned their backs on gay Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe in 2000? Now, imagine, Paul loyalists get 20-30% of the seats on the floor in St. Paul, controlling delegations like Missouri, with a significant presence in Minnesota, with closest promixity to the stage. Can the speakers safely voice a pro-victory message in Iraq without a significant amount of boos and catcalls? How will this look on television? And don’t forget, national conventions are also heaven for reporters trolling for off-message quotes from delegates.
The long term aspect is what fascinates and disturbs me. It’s not that Ron Paul supporters are a fearsome army in raw numbers. I don’t worry about them taking over the party. They couldn’t manage 5% of the vote in most states, and are violently opposed by the other 95% when they care enough to show up.
It’s that last part that worries me. If they care enough to show up. In primaries and generals they do. At county conventions, where the party’s identity at the local level is forged, they don’t. Ron Paul supporters are the only ones motivated to organize a bloc of people to take over local Republican Parties across the country. That matters.
I can’t fault them, can you? Dodging on loyalty oaths aside, all they are doing is Grassroots Organizing 101. Even the social conservatives who traditionally filled this role have punted, drifting into lifestyle-based forms of self-identification. What is remarkable is that this is being pulled off by an historically smaller and smaller base of people using the Internet. All because the regular Republican organization across the country is demoralized, demobilized, and eviscerated.
Nationally, it doesn’t look like help is on the way any time soon. The McCain campaign is making a strategic gamble that they can do this without a grassroots organization – and certainly nothing on the scale of 2004. It’s a strategy that’s consistent with McCain’s actual strengths and weaknesses, and from that perspective, I suppose you can justify it.
The problem is that this overlooks some broader realities about the evolution of politics in favor of some narrower, McCain-specific realities. In an over-the-air campaign like 1988, volunteers probably didn’t matter much. In 2008, we’ve seen how active supporter bases can be everything. Look at Obama. Look at the left’s swift, coordinated block-tackle of ABC News. And even in the GOP, look at how grassroots candidates who appealed strongly to a specific niche exceeded expectations (Huck and Paul). The Internet empowers geographically distributed communities to fund campaigns, to set the tenor of media coverage, to explode little YouTube clips into a big, big deal. These are the 5-6 million people on each side who can be inspired enough to sign up for the nominee’s email list, visit blogs, spread messages and volunteer. In caucuses, these types of people represent 100% of the turnout universe (including older people if you take out some of the tech references). Let’s round up and call these groups the Six Million (this is a smaller group, I think, than “the base”).
Republicans haven’t had a concerted strategy for reaching the Six Million since the 2004 election, and help is not on the way in 2008. McCain won the nomination despite the Six Million, is resigning himself to running at a severe financial disadvantage, and is bypassing them by pivoting into general election messaging (blasting Bush on climate change?). At the grassroots level, no one seems to care that these regular Republicans — who are more often than not down the line conservatives on economic issues, cultural issues, and the war — are going home and leaving local parties in the hands of the Paulbots. The Congressional leadership abandoned the Six Million by overspending, and only embraced earmark reform after it was too late. The President abandoned the Six Million on immigration — though that’s a tough one, since restrictionism has very little resonance outside the Six Million.
The Democrats, meanwhile, can be easily confused as a customer service organization to their Six Million, as opposed to a messaging entity targeting the Sixty Million (or, voters). The Six Million includes MoveOn (3 million). The Six Million probably correlates to the 2-3 million emails Obama has today and the 5-6 million he’ll have by November — though that includes some of Obama’s in-house Six Million, younger people from outside the process. If you were to take a poll, the Democratic Six Million would be 70% for Obama and 30% for Clinton.
The focus on the Six Million — which quickly yanked the party in a harder, more partisan direction in the post-9/11 era — can lead to oddities that may well poison the Democrats’ sure thing in 2008, most prominently the nomination of a William Ayers-Jeremiah Wright associate for Leader of the Free World.
That should cause at least a few sighs of relief in Republican circles — but it doesn’t negate the power of an energized Six Million. The standard litany on the right — about the lack of online donors, shot grassroots organizations, the desire for its own MoveOn, and (expletive) Ron Paul supporters taking over county conventions – can all be traced to a lack of care and feeding of its own Six Million in the mid-2000s. Even now, many envision they can create grassroots organizations from the top down, using an issues matrix conjured up by a pollster. Sadly, it’s not that easy. When the right idea to energize the Six Million comes, it won’t come from a “MoveOn of the right” occupying a D.C. office suite funded by an initial round of 7-figure commitments. It will come from someone working outside their den in far outside the Beltway hosting a little activist website that hits the right message at the right time on a $7 shared server.
If we don’t want Ron Paul people controlling our party machinery by default, and if you’re tired of the Obama online fundraising headlines, we need to be focusing on the best minds on empowering David-with-his-slingshot from the Six Million. Even if that means a little less emphasis on the Sixty Million in the short term.
Comments (44) 
Trackbacks (6) 
del.icio.us 
digg it 
subscribe
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Dead on. It’s all about the “tool-box” that gets made available (or in our case “not” made available) to the grassroots.
We might luck out this time and get a Democrat that we can convince the American public to reject, but this doesn’t address the fundamental concern of lack of tools for self-organization on the part of our “six million”…or the potential loss of a demographic in the long term.
I very much agree that the toolbox is necessary and needs to be bulked up.
I also agree that the kind of enthusiasm that the Ron Paul and Obama crowds display cannot be manufactured - it just kind of happens.
Put those two things together and it creates a bit of a quandary in my mind - if we all agree that the technological items in the toolbox can only be used to capitalize and facilitate organically grown movements then what exactly could they do to really make an impact in the current situation?
I strongly believe McCain is a great candidate (based on the last time I posted a comment to that effect I fully expect to hear how bad some of you think he is) but we have a voter base that has become acclimated to a 50+1 strategy that seeks to maximize the impact of hot buttons. (Don’t get me wrong here either I firmly believe that the 2004 strategy was not only the best but the only way to victory). McCain isn’t that kind of candidate - he holds firm on his beliefs (as his voting record shows)but also by nature takes a different tact when it comes to the public debate over those ideas.
At this point - without some external event that is outside of anyone’s control to galvanize and motivate I am just not seeing what the implementation of a full complement of today’s technology really has the impact to do.
Granted it is bound to have SOME kind of impact but I have yet to be convinced that mediums designed to facilitate the rapid diffusion of information and enthusiasm can serve as a tipping point in an environment where that kind of excitement doesn’t currently exist.
Yup. If windbag Rush could get by his ego and support McCain, he could energize. If Hannity and Coulter and Ingraham could possibly see the evil lurking, they could energize. If we lose, I personally will email everyone of these gasbags and tell them they are responsible for the defeat but also for the country’s demise!!
The Paulbots are suffering from the same mental illness as the democrats. Someone had better start building mental facilities with lots of rubber rooms. I expect a flood of crazies to show up at the door in Nov.
I hate to give Hillary credit for much beyond breathing but when it come to losing caucuses because folks with businesses, jobs with inflexible schedules, or parents with children don’t show up in large numbers, well I suppose I “feel her pain”. The Paulbots have been stereotyped as aging Dungeons and Dragons fans, and they have lots of time for a new hobby, like spending the weekend in some stuffy meeting rooms to stack some obscure local GOP committee. Part of the problem here is in many communities the GOP “leadership” stifled participation so the same six old guys would be the only people showing up and picking delegates; this is now biting them in the b-hind.
One should not confuse Ron Paul fanatics with Libertarian Republicans. The vast majority of Libertarian Republicans are opposed to Paul’s position on foreign policy, and fully support McCain’s Victory over Al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That said, McCain still has some work to do, winning support even amongst Pro-Defense Libertarians. His campaign has done nothing to reach out to Libertarian Republicans, and certainly not Libertarian Party members.
Bob Barr (or Wayne Root), as the Libertarian Nominee could steal a significant portion of McCain’s vote. Barr is already polling 2% in Zogby.
If McCain doesn’t do something quick to reach out to libertarian voters, they’ll vote Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party National Convention is to be held in Denver in late May. The Republican Liberty Caucus (GOP’s libertarian wing) convention is set for September in Michigan.
Perhaps if McCain addressed both events he could win back significant libertarian support.
Eric Dondero, Publisher
MainstreamLibertarian..com
I hope I’m wrong, but I really feel uneasy about the Mccain strategy. If he doesn’t do anything to energize the base, and given his significant financial disadvantage, I see an uphill battle this fall.
Obama is turning out to be a very weak candidate and very beatable this fall. I just hope Mccain’s ‘unorthodox’ campaign pays off for him.
Maybe it’s because I live in Michigan, things are very bad here. I can’t see how the Dems cannot win this time.
Not even sure who John McCain is…pal of Lieberman and Kennedy…proponent of amnesty…man who wants to win the war…?
Seems to me the GOP had a tremendous opportunity in ‘95 to get control of this crazy spending…instead they decided on more of the same.
Demoralized? Sure. I will probably vote third party this fall.
I think if the Republican would hold fast to their ideals - a simple platform of small and responsive government, strong defence, respect for the Constitution, and Liberty - they could actually unite the party organically. Instead, they’ve allowed themselves to be hijacked by the Christian Right and Neoconservatives who spread their message of fear and exclusion.
They often cite Reagan, but never behave like Reagan.
It’s too bad that so many conservatives choose to leave the Republican Party instead of fighting for control. If Paulbots can assume Party control so could conservatives if only they had the balls to actually show up and work within the party for change. But no, instead they send messages by dropping out and staying home.
I oppose McCain because he has the best chance of unleashing an irreversible change to the population of voters that will render impossible most future conservative victories at the polls.
Once McCain grants citizenship to 20 million illegal aliens both parties will pander to these new voters and compete to give them what they want, including letting them bring in their families from Mexico or South America. The result will be at least 50 million uneducated, inassimilable poor people who may well be “good-hearted” but will also be drains on our social services. They will vote for whichever politician will redistribute the greatest amount of tax money to them. We will lose any security on our Southern border, our American culture, and we will become a socialist nation. Irreversibly.
Clinton or Obama can not do as much permanent damage, if we successfully stop the amnesty that would swamp the votes of Republicans and conservatives. We have a much better chance at stopping amnesty if it is proposed by Clinton or Obama.
I admire the service and sacrifice in his youth. But when I vote, I’ll write in Tom Tancredo or Duncan Hunter for President.
What? people dissatisfied with the Republican Party are trying to take over on the county level? What you guys don’t realize is that many Ron Paul supporters are long time conservative Republicans. They find the war not a very important issue, but the betrayal of the Republican congress and President to conservative issues the biggest problem. The conservative talking head would say only if Newt would run. Last time I saw Newt he was in a commercial with Pelosi talking about the need to stop global warming. Jesus! America is lost and will never recover.
“It’s not that Ron Paul supporters are a fearsome army in raw numbers. I don’t worry about them taking over the party. They couldn’t manage 5% of the vote in most states, and are violently opposed by the other 95% when they care enough to show up.”
Answer me a question, O Guru. Ron Paul received 16% of the vote in the Pennsylvania primary yesterday. Who, oh who, are these people, constituting more than 10% of your party, who are ‘violently opposed’ to Ron Paul yet voted for him anyway?
PS - thank you for linking to my “Delegate Wars” article, BTW.
Oh please. The Ron Paul revolt is an expression of true conservatives trying to retake the party that has been stolen from them. They will be the only Republicans left in four years after the neocons have all gone back to the Democratic party.
Well, all I can say is that in my state Ron Paul supporters have already taken over at least two county Republican Parties with more on the way. I myself am now on my county GOP executive committee.
Ron Paul supporters are true conservatives. The true followers of the Goldwater and Reagan conservatives. I was a college Republican because I believed the GOP stood for non-intervention (remember Republican opposition to Clinton’s illegal war in Serbia), smaller government, and personal responsibility.
If you do not agree with these positions, well I do know the Democrats are having their county conventions (at least in my home state) next month.
It wasn’t long ago that Conservatives and Republicans stood for fiscal sanity, smaller government, lower taxes, humble foreign policy and personal liberty.
It is laughable to hear this den of Neo-Cons bitching and whining about True Conservatives wanting their party back when it is they who hijacked it to begin with.
If McCain’s a Conservative, I’m a Unicorn.
District 5 in Missouri elected 3 delegates out of 3 to the National Republican Convention. All are Ron Paul supporters.
“They couldn’t manage 5% of the vote in most states…”
Check the election results on CNN.com. In every state with a caucus, Ron Paul earned at least 8% of the vote, topping out at 25% in Montana. In states with primaries, the total ranged from 3% to 8%, except in Pennsylvania, where he hit 16%.
In most states, they did manage 5% of the vote, or a lot more. In eleven states, Ron Paul reached double digits.
“Can the speakers safely voice a pro-victory message in Iraq without a significant amount of boos and catcalls?”
Considering that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was an illegal, unprovoked, and unconstitutional war of aggression that has bankrupted the country and cost the Republican Party control of Congress and soon the White House, I hope there is a lot of booing whenever someone says it should be carried on indefinitely.
I can’t wait to see what happens at the convention. 20-30% r3VOLution presence is going to be a purgatory on the floor. Its taken far too long IMO.
Then, after the election, local governments are going to get reigned in across the land. State Constitutions will be enforced, and the mass of unconstitutional federal controls will fall lifeless as to dung… powerless under its own weight.
True republics across and in every land, technology-enhanced, will emerge from the ashes of our decimated federal union(s). Life, liberty, prosperity, happiness will be available to all, and on their own terms. You own your own life.
So let me see if I get this right. Ron Paul people “show up” and get shunned. Everybody else stays home and they get courted? Yeah, that sounds like a plan.
He does more to galvanize traditional conservatives in defeat than McCain does in victory. Obviously the Neocons and RINOs have the right plan…
…for a Democratic victory.
Hey Lynn - I’d rather be a “Paulbot” than a “Bush-bot,” an unthinking, rubber-stamping idiot who thinks whatever the ‘Decider-In-Chief’ does is OK by them. Trampling on the Constitution, fighting endless wars with borrowed money, debasing the money supply and bailing out big bankers and stock brokers… gee, I can’t see a problem there.
Ron Paul’s positions make more sense than any other candidate in either party - bar none. People talk of voting for a Reagan conservative… hell, we haven’t seen one of these running for President since Reagan was in office: Bush Senior, Bob Dole, Bush Jr., and now McSame.
I’ve been in the Republican party in Colorado for 14 years… I’m tired of getting crapped on by dumb-ass neocons like Bill Owens and Bruce Benson. I’ve worked my ass off to get true conservative Republicans elected, but I’m tired of swimming upstream against neo-con moderates all the time. Until you dumbasses in the party leadership pull your heads out, you’ll still have the continued decline of the GOP on a national level.
The article I give 3 out of 5.
The comments 5 out of 5.
I love how folks that don’t like Dr. Paul will go to any length to reduce the numbers of supporters for the Constitution. That is what we, Ron Paul supporters, are trying to get back into our governing classes head. That simple little piece of paper they swear an oath to up-hold and defend to the best of their abilities.
From what I can see from 30 years of watching, our governing class must think that little piece of paper is old history and they don’t up-hold and defend it. A very small number do, as Dr. Paul’s track record proves. But boy-o-boy Bush/Cheney and crowd sure don’t and I’m not too sure McCain has read the Law of the Land either.
With every penny McCain and his campaign spends, he breaks Federal Laws, but you want this in the White House?
DSC
PS. Good luck with selling that one.
Curious- would you call Thomas Jefferson a “Paulbot”, a “kook”, or whatever demeaning name you can think of? Do you not realize that EVERY position RP holds is consistent with the positions of our founding fathers? When you mock him, you mock them. So we have a country full of half educated, brainwashed, partyliners willing to support a Republicrat because he has an (R) next to his name? And we “Paulbots” are just supposed to sit back and let you all ruin our country? Completely ignore our Constitution or warp it until it has no meaning? THAT’S where we get our energy and it’s just beginning. We are in this until the end. We are the real conservatives, taking BACK the Republican party from warmongering, big govt NEOconservatives. It’s our party, too. Get over it. You are fighting a losing battle because you can’t gather the passionate support from conservatives to fight FOR bigger government, illegal immigration, more war, and a faltering economy. Go ahead and try, though. It’s entertaining at best.
The Republican party is a wreck right now and Eric Dondero is a jackass. The idea that we are in Iraq for victory over Al Qaeda is ridiculous. Dondero may be as ignorant as McCain when it come to the Middle East. These people don’t seem to know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, and they probably think Iranians are Arabs. How you say… MORONS!
If these fools want to claim we are working for victory in Iraq then I want a definition of victory, because it will not be a terrorist signing surrender papers on the deck of a battleship.
If these fools want to claim that we can’t leave Iraq because it would become a haven for Al Qaeda, then they need to understand that Al Qaeda already has a haven, it’s where Osama bin Laden lives and it’s called Pakistan.
Just look at the results of our foriegn policy up to this point, we remove elected leaders that don’t help our businesses and we support dictators that will work with our businesses. How is this making me and my family safer and more properous?
Why all the hate for the Ron Paul supporters? I (a long time Republican voter) find thier views refreshingly conservative compared to what the current GOP has offered up. The RP supporters are carrying on the fine tradtions of Goldwater and Reagan. Is there no room for dissent in the Republican Party? Is it necesary to support the Iraq war to be considered a Republican? I can tell you there are plenty of Ron Paul Republicans here in the Great Northwest. They are pro-America but anti Iraq war. They are long time old school conservatives that have the utmost respect Constitution, small government and sound fiscal policy. They believe America is good but not infallible in it’s forign policy over the last 100 years. They wanted to target those who attacked us not Saddam or Iran. They do not want to sacrafice our principles outlined in the Bill of Rights for safety at home. The GOP leadership ignores this large constituency at it’s own peril.
Lets face it, McCain is a BAD compromise candidate. The guy just isn’t Presidential material. A lot of Huck and Paul supporters will not support him- they won’t volunteer, they won’t donate money (thats a big one, folks), and they may not even vote for him.
I’m a libertarian Republican- I remember when the Republicans at least payed lip service to those of us who are fiscally conservative. Up until George W. Bush, I donated the maximum allowed by law. I won’t be donating a red cent to McCain, and I for darned sure won’t be volunteering to help him (too bad, because since I retired last year at age 44, I have plenty of time). At this point, I won’t even vote for McCain- unless Hillary is nominated, then I’ll vote for McCain to vote against Hillary (I’ll write-in Ron Paul or Ronald Reagan- yes, Reagan’s corpse would be a better President than McCain).
I’ll just sit back, watch McCain get destroyed, then hope the Republican Party gets its stuff together in 2012 (fat chance).
#18: Yabadabadoo: It wasn’t long ago that Conservatives and Republicans stood for fiscal sanity, smaller government, lower taxes, humble foreign policy and personal liberty.
They also stood for open debate on issues, such as abolition of slavery. It was the Democrat Party that historically had a top-down, everybody has to think the same thing, obey the Party attitude.
#21:Craig
“They couldn’t manage 5% of the vote in most states…”
In most states, they did manage 5% of the vote, or a lot more. In eleven states, Ron Paul reached double digits.
Just like that backers of the war in Iraq - not letting facts get in the way of their appeal to emotion.
And, Mr Ruffini, if 95% of your Republicans are “Violently” opposed to us free-thinking, open to debate “Paulbots” (nice manufactured buzzword, painting us as unthinking followers), are then wrong to be scared of the large Taser purchase by the Minnesota Police?
Just remember, It was claimed here first by the loyalists themselves that they are violently opposed to the revolutionists.
It has Not yet been claimed that the Revolutionists are violently spreading their message, but already we are being threatened by violence if we try to participate in the GOP.
Nice.
Through Reagan, Bush I and Bush II we have accumulated 70% of the $10 Trillion National Debt.
During Bush II we have seen our uniquely American Freedoms, once the envy of the world, evaporate before our eyes as we are admonished to tremble in fear at the mention of a group of goat herders armed with laptops, home made bombs and AK-47s (who aren’t in Iraq, BTW).
We’ve watched the dollar fall from the world’s reserve currency to its lowest point in history.
We’ve watched the FED inflate the dollar at an unprecedented rate while refusing to even publish the figures as they have been handed absolute power over the US financial markets, currency and interest rates without any debate within our government.
We’ve seen our rapidly dwindling resources moved into an illegal war that was sold by fraudulent claims with the balance of the cost being borrowed from a Communist country.
We continue to witness an historic flood of illegal aliens across our borders as Republicans continue to vote to give them education, medical, food and birthright citizenship on our dime under an administration that barely mentions the problem, much less addresses it.
We’ve seen the mass exodus of the US manufacturing base, once the mightiest in the world, without which we could not have won WW II, flee to Asia and other ‘free trade’ countries leaving our ‘NEW ECONOMY’ to be made up of 70% consumer spending, all of which is fueled by the flood of inflated credit that’s backed by nothing, provided for the sole purpose of purchase of the products that we used to make and export which now flow freely from those new ‘global’ locations.
Record deficits, record entitlements obligations, record inflation, record dollar fall, record national debt, record budgets, record growth of the Federal Government, unprecedented loss of Freedom, unprecedented profits for Exxon as the price of oil quadrupled since the Iraq invasion, etc, etc.
Conservative? The best we could do is John McCain? And you folks continually call us Ron Paul supporters every derogatory name you can conjure. I run a small business, I have 2 sons in college, my wife nearly succumbed to open heart surgery, spending months in the hospital and months more in recovery and I still logged 10,000 miles campaigning for the chance to see a true Conservative in the White House in ‘09.
Let’s stop kidding ourselves. McCain ain’t the guy. Not even close. And don’t ask anyone with half a brain to believe he is, either.
“perhaps if McCain does this or that…blah blah blah”
You guys need to wake up. Ron Paul people are not “crazy dungeon and dragon type people”. They are well read, have researched their facts, and have an understanding of America’s political landscape far beyond anyone who simply belittles Paul’s position becuase a talking head on TV told them they ought to.
McCain is not getting any votes from “Paulbots” no matter what he says b/c “Paulbots” turned off the TV, looked at history, McCain’s record, have rejected the Foreign Policy of the NeoCons (which is the same foreign policy advocated by Hitler…look it up before you argue), and have realized that this country is headed so far from the freedoms that made it great.
To say Ron Paul supporters are anti-American is like sayind Washington, Adams, and Jefferson were Torries. Wake up people and turn off your TV.
Libertarians that support the war are, in my estimation, not true libertarians. How can a true libertarian support unprovoked aggression and obscene government spending (taxation and borrowing) to support it?
In conclusion: piss off, Dondero.
So the man with the most consistently conservative voting record in congress is a nutjob? In a race against McCain - a supposed war hero and P.O.W., Ron Paul STILL managed to rake in more campaign money from active duty military personnel than all the other candidates (D or R) COMBINED. And Ron Paul continues to be ignored by the party he’s graciously served for his entire career. You are all on crazy pills, and will most assuredly lose the upcoming election to a socialist leaning democrat in the fall. Thanks for nothing. The true conservatives don’t need your help anymore, we’ll take over from here, thank you very much. Go back to the democratic party where you belong.
The Republican Party cannot win the 2008 election unless a true conservative is nominated for either President or Vice President.
RON PAUL IS THAT TRUE CONSERVATIVE.
Ruffini is right about the fact that there will be large numbers of us coming to Minneapolis as delegates and alternates. He may even be low balling it.
Ron Paul can still win one of those slots at the convention, under the GOP’s own party rules. Check it out:
http://www.delegatesforronpaul.com/
Thanks for article… not enough reporters out here talking up the current trends in the Republican party.
I’m sorta new to politics, in the past month I’ve attended my first Libertarian meeting, as well as paying $30 for the dinner for the Lincoln Days event in central Missouri. At the Lincoln Days event I sensed that all the energy that night was in the local elections. I stood alone during cocktails and listened to the chit chat in the room… NO ONE was talking about McCain. Nor did they talk about McCain during their stump speaches… and to top it off they imported a speaker that night who gave a luke warm speach about “needing unity” immediately followed by an even cooler reception to the said speach.
As to my stature as a Paulbot… I’m retired from the media, am a web entreprenure ( online since 1996 ) and am “maxed out with worry” about the side-swipe’n of our liberty and the run away disrespect for the Constitution.
Do I have any regrets about my increased involement in politics in 2008…. well yes I do… I was warned before I went to the Lincoln Days dinner the meal would be “rubber chic’n and rice”. Dinner was bland and so is your GOP message.
The U.S. Government is insolvent and has essentially been defaulting on its obligations since 8/15/71, when Nixon de-linked from gold. Not a coincidence that $8+ trillion of our $9 trillion debt has been racked up since that date. It’s also the day a young physician from Texas decided he had to go into politics.
I assume you know who I’m talking about.
Ruffini: I don’t know if you understand economics, but the dollar index has fallen from 120 to 70 over the past seven years, and it’s only getting started. The world is turning away from the dollar, and that’s going to change American society in ways you never thought possible, and quickly, and it starts this year. And it will probably be ugly.
It will all happen because we failed to follow the constitution. Somewhere, Madison, Jefferson, and Washington are saying:
“We warned you.”
Good luck, everyone — we’ll need it.
With regard to comment 7, let me point out that Mr. Eric Dondero represent a very minute group of so called “neolibertarians” that believe in aggressive intervention in other countries, including bombing Mecca. The mainstream Republican libertarian minded normal intelligent people follow Ron Paul, also traditional christian conservatives.
Paul is the one that can unite fiscal as well as social conservatives, with an openness to moderates and liberals as well as also cross-party appeal.
Borrowing millions of dollars each day from China to fund our wars is not conservative, and is actually quite unAmerican. Implementing things like the REAL ID and yesterday’s “DNA Warehousing” bill are incompatible with the founding precepts of this country. Rewarding 20 million illegal aliens with amnesty is just outright betrayal. McCain-Feingold draws a line straight through the First Amendment. How precisely is the Republican Party conservative in any way today?
I’m voting Paul because he is the only candidate operating in the real world. I will never vote for John McCain.
No matter which of the 3 “leading” candidates gets in, we’re headed for a depression that will make the ’30s look like a walk in the park. As soon as the major parts of the world stop dealing in dollars, the US economy is going to take a huge drop just like the value of the dollar. What will we do when China, Japan, and all the others decide they want their loans to us paid up? Or should they decide to dump dollar debt for something better.. hmmm….
The government has been slowly selling us down the river since the 70’s .. just recently though that river had become a waterfall and we’ve already gone over the edge. I suggest you all pay off as much debt as you can, and quickly because when the great depression comes along… you’ll be glad you did.
restrictionism has very little resonance outside the Six Million
Good grief. What an ignoramous!
I must say thank you for the Newest New News video link on the wire. That John McCain interview was very funny!
I would not put much credence in what Eric Dondero has to say.
[…] Ruffini's Ron Paul/GOP Activist Concerns http://www.patrickruffini.com/2008/04/18/the-gop-and-the-six-million/ […]
[…] Sometimes history is being written by the losers…. […]
[…] Patrick Ruffini discusses the affect that Ron Paul supporters efforts to elect delegates at various GOP state conventions could have: Short term, county convention delegates elect state convention delegates. In many cases, the state conventions elect delegates to the national convention. The end result could be a lot of Ron Paul people sitting on the floor in St. Paul, pledged to vote for John McCain but free agents otherwise. […]
[…] Not only did he get 16% of the GOP vote in Pennsylvania — his best showing yet in a primary — but Ron Paul has also been quietly picking up delegates to the Republican National Convention, although Republican officialdom has tried to make matters as difficult as possible for Paul delegates at county and state conventions in places like Missouri and Minnesota. The steady grassroots progress of the Paul revolutionaries has GOP insider Patrick Ruffini very worried: Little will be decided by the delegates. Outwardly, their goal is to get Paul a speaking slot, which I imagine he’ll get, at 8:05 p.m. on Tuesday night. […]
[…] Patrick Ruffini knows what can happen. But by far the biggest impact delegates can have is through floor demonstrations. In some ways, their reactions to the speeches set the tone for the convention, amplifying messages from the stage. Remember how Pat Buchanan enraptured the floor at the 1992 convention but lost the country? Or how the Texas delegates turned their backs on gay Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe in 2000? Now, imagine, Paul loyalists get 20-30% of the seats on the floor in St. Paul, controlling delegations like Missouri, with a significant presence in Minnesota, with closest promixity to the stage. Can the speakers safely voice a pro-victory message in Iraq without a significant amount of boos and catcalls? How will this look on television? And don’t forget, national conventions are also heaven for reporters trolling for off-message quotes from delegates. […]
[…] If you’ve read Rick Perlstein’s Before The Storm, this increasingly regular infiltration of the Republican party at the state party level as well as getting involved in arcane ways with the national platform is right out of the same strategy the Goldwater faithful used to take over the Republican party. They didn’t have the power to get their candidate into viability, but I sense that they are on the verge of throwing a small but disruptive wrench into the workings of the well-oiled GOP machine. […]