Breaking News: Ron Paul wins at CPAC (ideology, party, vote)

[SLCPUNK]

Originally Posted by Kappy1

CPAC Straw Poll Vote:

Ron Paul -- 33%
Romney -- 22%
Palin -- 7%
Pawlenty -- 6%

Wow, that's actually good news for a change. It appears that at least some fraction is willing to embrace a rational candidate and send the loons to the back of the line.

[Eddie Ho]

Ron Paul is a great constitutionalist but IMO as a President he wouldn't be able to stimulate the economy. Romney has a Degree in Business and has owned and ran his own business. At least if he were elected President he would have clue #1 about what needs to be done to get this country back on track.

Obama has lots of ideas but he's never ran a business before so he really is in over his head. It's too bad he lets Pelosi and Reed handle everything.

I like Romney a lot and if he's running in 2012, I plan to vote for him. IMO, he IS the best choice, and really ... the only chance this country has.

[thinkin about it]

Ron Paul is a grown up, and an intellectual. He is a highly educated medical doctor who understands the intricacies of tax policy, health care, et al. He will not degrade himself by wallowing into the cynnicism of modern day GOP stupidity, where candidates pretend to be as stupid as their base is for the sake of populism. He has principles, and understands them; he is not a neocon, and he understands that remaining a global power involves more than bombing first and asking questions later. In this way, he is an actual conservative.


Thus, this is very strange. CPAC generally brings out the dopey, unintelligent angry white man voter who picks a candidate based on red meat and things neither of them really understand. How is a serious thinker like Ron Paul getting attention at a place like CPAC?

Very, very strange.

[Swingblade]

I enjoyed the young ladies comment introducing Paul when she said that I am introducing a real conservative that will be different from all these posers.She had that right when you have the likes of Romney and Cheney at the podium.Even though I love Paul he has no charisma and his speeches could use some juice.If I was his speech writer his opening line would have been "Is Dick Cheney still here I still smell neo con in the air.
It's funny that {R} posters want to ram the likes of a McCain down our throats and expect LBT conservatives to go to the polls and support there guy.But if it is one of our guys they are extremist and fringe.
Paul did say one thing that was true,during the campaign Fox news wanted nothing to do with him and shoved him into a corner to be ignored.But since the crisis that Paul predicted way back in 2005 he has been on Fox news over 60 times.
One of our posters here at CD wrote "they hijacked the tea party movement let them have it we are trying to hijack the {R} party" Yep, they stole the tea party and thought we were flat on our backs to their surprise we came off the mat and whipped their neo con A$$es at CPAC.

[Swingblade]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

As I recall, FOX wouldn't let him on TV during one of the debates, a sure way to sink a guy running for office.

Good point,these {R} posters whine about the liberal media but don't blink a eye when it comes to FOX.Most of the posters here resemble the {R} party,hypocrites.

[buzzpost]

Originally Posted by AnUnidentifiedMale

Congrats to Ron Paul. I'm so glad Romney didn't win for a fourth year in a row.

FOXNews.com - Ron Paul Wins Presidential Straw Poll at CPAC (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/20/ron-paul-wins-presidential-straw-poll-cpac/ - broken link)

Me too. I had to immortalize your post via imagery...

[Loveshiscountry]

Originally Posted by Eddie Ho

Ron Paul is a great constitutionalist but IMO as a President he wouldn't be able to stimulate the economy. Romney has a Degree in Business and has owned and ran his own business. At least if he were elected President he would have clue #1 about what needs to be done to get this country back on track.

Obama has lots of ideas but he's never ran a business before so he really is in over his head. It's too bad he lets Pelosi and Reed handle everything.

I like Romney a lot and if he's running in 2012, I plan to vote for him. IMO, he IS the best choice, and really ... the only chance this country has.

Why does the Federal government have to stimulate the economy? You do know when the Federal Government gets involved bad things happen. If you want someone who knows how economics work there is NOT ONE person in Congress who knows it better than Ron Paul. How many others were predicting the collapse as early as Ron Paul did.


July 2002

"Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act. This legislation restores a free market in housing by repealing special privileges for housing-related government sponsored enterprises (GSEs)."

"However, despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government’s interference in the housing market, the government’s policies of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing."

Government Mortgage Schemes Distort the Housing Market (http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr071602.htm - broken link)

[TnHilltopper]

Originally Posted by Kappy1

CPAC Straw Poll Vote:

Ron Paul -- 33%
Romney -- 22%
Palin -- 7%
Pawlenty -- 6%

Good, about time

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

While I like his agenda, Ron Paul tends to ramble for quite a while when he speaks. I've watched him when he grilled Uncle Ben and Tiny Tim on C-SPAN. The guy is windy....

Well Ron Paul delves into the extremely complex world of economics, a subject that makes my eyes glaze over as I try to get my mind around various concepts. I don't consider him an eloquent speaker and he speaks a lot on abstract concepts, political philosophy, etc... and these are generally things that can't be summed up in sound bytes.

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Ron Paul was the only one of the four that can honestly claim to have any true conservative values, though some of his positions are too out there for me. Shoot, Palin can't even spell the word, she thinks it has something to do with the nation of Africa.

That the CPAC group went for Paul is encouraging and shows a lot more sense than the Tea Party Convention the other week, which was full of clown-assed birthers, truthers, flat-worlders, and people who STILL think putting fluoride in drinking water was a communist plot.

I worked for his Presidential campaign and even I, a strong supporter of his don't agree with all his views. Perfect candidates don't exist and chances are the only person in the world we agree with 100% is ourselves. (and hopefully even then we carry doubts) However, I appreciate and respect his approach from a more paleoconservative manner that is born in a far more reasoned and intellectual basis than sound byte regurgitation from the freepers.

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

There's an old aspect of politics that when a new movement comes along there are established interests who will seek to co-opt or take over that budding movement and bend it to their own purposes.

Chris Matthews had a person on his TV show who was ostensibly the leader of the Tea Party group and I'm here to tell you, that chap was a bona fide fruit cake. It really amazes me that there are people out there who seriously have the views which that character voiced. I'd bet that Ron Paul would want nothing to do with that man, or his viewpoints. Thus it seems that the neo-cons are dead set on keeping Ron Paul from having any effect in the political marketplace.

In a manner of speaking, since we have became a bit more of a socialist nation (not in the European or Canadian sense) after FDR's Presidency, if one were to argue on behalf of traditional views, you would think the Tea Party folks would be arguing on behalf of FDR's America. (chuckling)

Humor aside, one of the biggest reasons Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich were chided and outed from various debates during the primaries was one simple part of their platform, they were pro-peace, anti-interventionist.

This country quite literally worships militarism and the glorification of war. We use our military as the primary tool for our foreign policy... either you're with us or against us, and this mentality permeates our establishment politics as well as our culture and national mind set.

The outing of Paul by contemporary Republicans was based almost entirely on this one aspect of his views. After all, he is pro-life, been married to the same woman for 51 years, has advocated his entire political career for fiscal responsibility and restraining government spending, strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment.

The secondary reasons most contemporary Republicans denounce him is his advocacy for smaller more efficient government, as contemporary Republicans love big government's hand in social matters as well as promises to keep them safe from boogymen. Of course the fact he supports the decriminalization of drugs based upon the notion of individuals should be free from government prying into their personal lives (individual liberty to choose) Again, since many contemporary Republicans like big government's intervention in social matters, they see things like marijuana as some evil sin that needs to be eradicated and are willing to expand the government to combat this evil. (along with all those other evils and evil doers)

However, Paul's greatest contribution has been the rise in popularity of his views. A kind of populist conservatism predicated upon paleoconservatism with a dash of libertarianism. While many can argue this is good or bad, I say any bulb brighter than Coulter, Palin, Hannity, Giuliani, et al is a better light to read by.

Originally Posted by roysoldboy

I am not a neo-con but I am not a supporter of Ron Paul either. Does that make one of those things? I ask because I just don't believe that I am one of those things.

Don't worry Roy, someday you will fix a box to crawl into that fits you, if it is a political label you seek.

[Fleet]

Originally Posted by luke9686

the tea party movement was originally started by ron paul suppoerters. Unfortunately it has been hijacked by the neocons and fixed news.

msnbc?

[Azalea City Man]

My perfect candidate would have Ron Paul's fiscal views, Ron Paul's foreign relations views, Bernie Sander's governing views, Barak Obama's personality, and Sarah Palin's legs.