Ron Paul wins CPAC presidential straw poll

Miscellaneous Current Events
1

Rep. Ron Paul, hero of a fervant band of libertarians, unexpectedly won the presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference today, claiming 31% of the votes cast.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who has carried the survey for the past three years, was second at 22%.

The straw poll is unscientific but is sometimes seen as a show of organizational strength among presidential hopefuls. However, Paul, who made a longshot bid for the Republican nomination in 2008, has given no indication he plans to run again.

“It is clear that Paul brought a lot of people” to CPAC, said Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who ran the straw poll.

Fabrizio said 2,395 of a reported 10,000 attendees voted. It was the most votes in the history of CPAC – about 40% higher than last year, he said.

Fabrizio noted that Romney’s support was about the same as in last year’s straw poll but that support for former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and former House speaker Newt Gingrich was cut by about half.

Palin was at 7%, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty at 6%, Indiana Rep. Mike Pence at 6% and Gingrich and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee at 4%.

Romney, Pawlenty, Pence and Gingrich had addressed this year’s CPAC, but Palin had not.

In the straw poll, a majority also said they were dissatisfied with the field of contenders for the 2012 nomination against President Obama.

The announcement of the results brought gasps, cheers and a round of boos from a packed ballroom. The annual three-day conclave, hosted by the American Conservative Union, ended tonight with an address by Glenn Beck.

(Posted by Susan Page)

Link

If Ron Paul were to win in 2012...
2

I think he should run, be taken seriously just to get elected and destroy all these agencies. Finding a principled VP to take his place would be the number one priority. Even if he was only president for a week that would be great.

3

[8-)]. He didn’t “bring” anybody, except maybe Carol.

He should run, against the presidency - like he always does. He won’t win. The political parasitic elite won’t ‘allow it’.

That being said, his PR campaign against the state and for liberty will swell the ranks and get people interested further.

"Question: Who would you support in the 2008 elections?

Answer: I would like to see elections for public office abolished, and that is particularly true for the presidency. The idea of the president was initially that some far-seeing, wise person would emerge from the aristocratic class who would sit atop the apparatus of the state and make sure that all things ran well. The founders were not stupid: they knew there was potential for abuse. So they made it possible to impeach the president if there was the slightest slip up. Unfortunately, this didn’t work. It was like putting the chief inmates in charge of overseeing the conduct of the other inmates. The problem is that they all end up working together.

If you look at the crop of people who are running for president today, you gain new understanding of Hayek’s phrase “the worst get on top.” What an amazing bunch of dangerous nothings they are. The Democrats look positively dreadful. The antiwar people among them have touted the idea that every young person should be enslaved into national service. What are these people thinking? Most of them are nothing but voices for a special interest cause. The Republicans are creepy too: people in love with the idea of military force and who think more jails and more wars will solve all the world’s problems.

In many ways, it seems like the 30s all over again, when everyone thought we had to choose between socialism and fascism and that there was no other path. At least the confusions of the 30s have the excuse that a depression was raging. What’s our excuse for forgetting the liberal vision today? It is really disgusting.

Of course I’m cheering on Ron Paul because he is exposing the nature of the whole system. He is not running for president. He is running against the presidency as it is currently understood. Ultimately, however, I do not believe that politics offers a way out. What we need is a new consciousness concerning the idea of human liberty." - Lew Rockwell

4

Because the agencies can be destroyed by executive fiat and will not come back into existence? I think it’s too easy to notice the current executive power, and assume that there’s been a real shift of power. There hasn’t, not really. If the executive got cold feet about the MIC, then Congress would be reempowered - to keep the MIC in power. If that didn’t work, the military would take power. In our current system, power is always held by the branch most under the control of the MIC.

5

Do you really think the president could destroy billion-dollar organizations without being assassinated?

6

I’m trying to discover how I feel about this event.

7

Like that is all we need. A libertarian president with pictures of Mises in the oval office, while there is a massive run on the dollar.

The future of the US is one of only 2 possibilities: massive default on foreign and domestic debt or hyperinflation. Pick your choice.

You’re not going to reverse the process using the system. To avoid economic collapse, you need to eliminate not agencies, but massive programs; Medicaid, Social Security, etc… All Ron Paul could do is maybe bring some troops back home. That will only buy the welfare state a little more time, and frankly, I don’t know why we should embrace delaying the inevitable.

People, wake up!! There is a socialist in the White House with a filler buster proof senate and substantial majority in the House. The guy can barely get a health care bill through. There isn’t going to be a revolution through the political means.

Ron Paul is only effective because he runs as a non-viable candidate, and then he brings people here.

Do we really need Ron Paul in the White House when the US defaults? I would much rather have Obama there.

8

Hope he runs.

Also, they no longer have a filibuster proof Senate and the 2010 elections are likely to bring many new conservatives into office.

9

This doesn’t mean anything besides an fetish fix for the Limbaughites.

They are going to do the same exact thing they did before. Notice how it’s still the same characters?

10

Well wouldn’t you rather have an Austrian in power during that time? Say we have hyperinflation…would we have a Keynesian?

11

I don’t share your pessimism.

12

No, my point was that the president cannot destroy billion-dollar organizations, with or without being assassinated. Even if he orders them shut down, and is killed, and has a VP who agrees with him, the organizations will not go away.

13

The question boils down to this: Who do you want the mob to go after.

14

Hopefully someone who can rationally explain in laymen’s terms what is going on. Whatever you think of the ‘American people’, it is not as if they will somehow be surprised over what is about to take place.

15

Somebody has to be surprised, otherwise the crisis would occur tomorrow.

And all of a sudden people will only listen to Ron Paul, as oppose to all of his adversaries?

All of a sudden Democracy works. Right? Democracy is tyranny except when there is a Ron Paul in the white house? This is very hypocritical.

What happened to all the theories about how government as a coercive monopoly can only grow and become more tyrannical? I guess that was just a theory, right?

16

Well you will always have naysayers. This just goes back to my point of, I’d rather have someone who actually knows what they are saying.

Woha woha, easy Don Quixote. I’m not a windmill. I have a mild interest in getting Ron Paul into power and it is because I want to see how far he can take this reform motif.

17

Democracy never works. I hope, if ever Ron Paul gets into office he’ll remove most of the “democratic” bureaucracies.

18

Good, minarchists are finally going to shoot themselves in 2012 when Paul wins and fails abysmally (judging form the recent thread on Thatcher, this will be so much fun to watch from my TV).

19

CPAC is filled with freaks. I don’t see how anything coming out of this meeting of boneheads matters at all. I remember that Alan Keyes won this straw poll one year - and Pat Buchanan too.

20

My dad pointed this out yesterday and he’s a Neocon! But, yeah they’re mostly just boneheads coming to this thing…

Glenn Beck, must I say more?