Ron Poll

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In the wake of Ron Paul's (admittedly predictable) ongoing failure in the elections despite the amount of money donated to his campaign, I've made a poll to find out what the consensus opinion is on the reason for this. The questions were formulated by cross-examinination and studious research of the social demographic that is most likely to support Ron Paul.

 

Er, are you serious about this (sorry, the finer points of British humor are often beyond me)? Anyway, I presume no, because all of the answers are, shall we say, very biased towards Mr. Paul.

If you are serious, then from what little I know, my top reasons would be:

a) he doesn't have the pull other, "mainstream" candidates have among Republican voters. Sadly, as imo his ideas are close to what I'd consider "traditional" conservative policies, at least as far as economy and perhas foreign policy are concerned. At any rate, it appears that a lot of self-identified Republican voters place more importance on the issues/angles the other candidates espouse. Perhaps after being told for so long that Iraq was necessary, deficits are no big deal and tax cuts are good for an economy already strained by fighting a mini-war, the public just doesn't worry about these as much as it would have in, say, 1985. I don't like it, but perhaps it's true.

b) Perhaps despite his donations, he still doesn't have the opportunities other candidates do. I'm not really sure on this one, but I think Romney, Giulianni or McCain have bigger budgets. Also, some of them have ways of extending their influence that don't involve money such as through religious or other institutions.

c) he wasn't able to get important endorsements that would lead to people supporting him even when they don't know much about him personally. As a friend of mine said, never underestimate human laziness.

d) though it is unlikely, perhaps people were just ****** off by his fandom turning Youtube, and probably other media, into their political club. Seriously, at some point it got annoying. "So-and-so snubs Ron Paul!", "Vote Ron Paul" "Ron Paul 2008..." ... Ugh.

All in all, it seems to me that he never quite shook the mantle of "curiosity candidate", the kind of exotic appeal that is good for creating an internet fanbase but not enough for a solid performance. AFAIK Dennis Kucinich has a similar problem on the "left".

 

Yeah, all that plus....

He ran an inept campaign.

His credibility in the republican party was hurt from running for president on the libertarian ticket in 1988 -- while remaining republican. The old adage of 'don't bite the hand that feeds you' applies here.

He wants to pull out of NATO and the United Nations.

He is against gun control, the patriot act and the war on drugs. I can see the patriot act thing; but wanting to end the war on drugs and gun control? Wow, let's just have fully armed drug dealers roaming the streets without the DEA to stop them. But then again, perhaps all the vigilanties will be able to stop the drug lords.

He's from Texas. Why would anyone wanting change vote in another republican from Texas? Even the majority of republicans don't want that.

 

T2Bruno, this reminds me of something I've often wondered about: what exactly is the "war on drugs," apart from that bombastic phrase? Pretty much any non-failed state wants to keep drugs out and persecute dealer - even the Dutch authorities, while they condone certain practices, are afaik as serious against hard drugs or non-legitimate stuff as any. So when Paul says he wants the War on Drugs ended, just what does he propose? I'm pretty certain he's not going to push for crack to be legitimized.

 

The option I would have picked wasn't there.

- His platforms are unrealistic and his supporter base is made up of highly technical young people who spent a lot of time making him look more popular than he really was. Combine that with the fact that everyone over 30 knows that people in their twenties don't know their arse from their elbows (trust me on this, it takes a few years to figure this one out) and he was doomed to failure.

 

That's prefectly valid, but this poll is based in the most likely assumptions a Ron Paul supporter would make, not those of a rational person.

 

God damn immigrants. The U.S. has never needed and never will need immigrants, since our founding fathers all we've needed are good ol' Anglo-Americans. Ship all 'em immigrants out is what I sez, good riddance. You don't like what I sez, we can fight.

 

Soon as I saw that in my little neck of the woods the people campaigning for him were hard-core LSD'ers I figured I'd stay away. I'm that easily influenced, I admit it.

 

If drugs were legal there would be no need for either one.

 

Reminds of one of my father's favorite sayings: the Native Americans should have had a better immigration policy.

 

I do think the mainstream media did ignore him in favour of higher profile candidates, but how many democrats are in the same boat? This election, I think the majority of the attention is set to the "sideshow candidates", the ones that get mroe attention for what they are, not what they advocate, like Mitt Romney for being a Mormon, Barrak Obama for being black, or Hillary Clinton for being a woman. I believe that a large number of candidates would get reduced coverage because of this.

I don't think that Paul would have fared well when it came to the Evangelical support anyway, and I've heard it argued on a Mormon discussion board that Ron Paul's platform was more in line with what the Church teaches than that of Mitt Romney...

 

I don't quite get the animosity toward Ron Paul. The guy's basically saying we should stick to the Constitution. Gee, what a radical concept. And let's face it: he stands no chance of winning his party's nomination, let alone the national race, so why even waste your breath criticizing him or his supporters? Hey, Kucinich saw a UFO! Har har! What a fruitcake, eh?

The fact that he's attracted some fringe support doesn't necessarily mean he's insane. The guilt by association thing doesn't fly with me.

 

Who's crazier? The guy that sees a flying object which he cannot identify and admits it, or the guy who sees one and will not? He admitted to seeing a UFO. Big deal. Seeing a UFO does not make you crazy. Seeing a UFO and believing that you have spotted unequivocal evidence of alien abductions here on earth, on the other hand, is a completely different matter. Kucinich didn't do that, though. What Tim Russert did to Kucinich was unfair and really quite sad.

 

It's not that Ron's insane, it's just that:

-let a racist newsletter be published for twenty years in his name, and still employs the person who published it even after finding out about it, even though he told everyone that he fired the people involved

-gives interviews to white separatist organizations

-describes immigrants as "not looking very American to me"

-voted against the renewal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act

-works with anti-psychiatry organizations because he doesn't believe in mental illness (including the CCHR, a Scientology front group)

-describes the Constitution as "replete with references to God" (even though it is demonstrably not)

-thinks that forced smallpox vaccinations are a bad thing even in the case of outbreak due to terrorist attack (which demonstrates a distinct lack of knowledge about how plagues work)

-is a Creationist (jump to 2m 40s)

-uses eliminationist rhetoric in his campaign mailings

-votes against a medal for Rosa Parks but sponsors legislation for medals for soldiers who never saw combat during the Cold War

-And finally, sponsored legislation to "strengthen the American family and promote the virtues of family life" by "prohibiting the expenditure of Federal funds to any organization which presents male or female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it can be an acceptable life style", amongst other things

 

I was being sarcastic. My point being that both Kucinich and Paul get an equal amount of criticism when they both stand about an equal chance of receiving their respective party's nomination.

Yes, they're both pretty fringe but, personally, I like having a few fringe candidates up there on the stage injecting some original ideas into the debates.

Kucinich should have said that light he saw in the sky was God. Then no one would dare make a joke about it, cuz y'know, that would be religious bigotry. Yeah, that was sarcasm too.

 

Snook, there are idiots in every age bracket. Being 30 myself, I nevertheless disagree with your assessment. While the young may be a little short on life experience, they make up for it by being similarly short on prejudice. In many ways, they see the world more clearly. Age may provide wisdom, but youth has a wisdom all it's own.

 

Yes, yes, yes. But it's so hard to convince anyone over thirty of that. We think we know it all....