My take: Dr. Paul should run on his socially conservative record since he’s up against Romney alone and since the Republicans don’t generally care about expenditures.
You tell me what Santorum-“social conservatives” find to be “social conservative” about Ron Paul.
The “family values” angle. The part where Paul is a pro-life ob-gyn who believes in personal responsibility. In order to give more detail, I would have to be familiar with santorum’s platform, so hahaha
According to self-proclaimed “social conservatives” he doesn’t count as being “pro-life” because he’s not in favor of a federal mandate against abortion.
See how Fox News explains the “social conservative” angle:
Why Social Conservatives Should be Leery of Ron Paul
And then, just for you, No2statism, here’s what Ron Paul has to say about your suggestion:
Ron Paul on Social Conservatism: ‘I Think It’s a Losing Position’
I guess those self-proclaimed social conservatives will have to decide whether they want the feds to own marriage and abortion or not. Now that santorum is out, Dr. Paul and all of us will have more bandwidth for our message.
You’d think so…but I wouldn’t be so sure about that.
Its true, look how long this quote is:
The long quote I posted. Its an example of how much more bandwidth we have since santorum dropped. Search my posts and see how this is longer than any quote I posted from Dr. Paul when santorum was running.
Yeah, JJ, is that Paul’s stance?
Is what his stance?
That whole quote was just another lame-duck Malachi joke. I didn’t even read it. Spell out your question for me.
-
Ron Paul is a social conservative - his personal values are socially conservative
-
Unlike the others on the stage, Ron Paul isn’t just saying whatever people want to hear. These really are his views.
-
But it doesn’t matter - the Faux News-controlled dialogue has determined that opposition to Federally imposed social values is anti-social-conservatism.
-
Santorum is a lackey of the Establishment. His dropping out now is not a good sign for Ron Paul. Every interview from here on out is going to be just a single question repeated over and over “Now that Rick Santorum has dropped out, it’s clear who the front-runner in the Republican nomination is, so don’t you think you would better serve your party by uniting behind the apparent Republican nominee rather than continuing to fragment the Republican base?”
There are two paths forward. The low path is to continue slogging through the primary and hope for a VP spot. This seems unlikely. Ron Paul as VP would actually be a bad thing since he wouldn’t be able to speak his heart and mind as much once in office. The redeeming value of this strategy is that it could act as a set-up for a Rand Paul Presidential bid.
The high path is to drop out of the Republican primary and go independent. People don’t realize that if it was a three-way race between Obama, Paul and Romney, Romney would be way behind either Paul or Obama - I’m thinking something like 40% Obama, 35% Paul, 20% Romney. Romney does not poll well in the general election. An Obama v. Romney race is just a rubber stamp on Obama’s 2nd term.
Clayton -
run for what?
“I didn’t even read it.”
thats interesting. How often do you feel compelled to reply to posts you havent read?
Swap Paul and Romney percentage and you’ll be closer. I’d say it’d go closer to 15% for Paul. Maybe. Don’t forget the Ross Perot stats. Yes, I’m aware Ron Paul is at the head of a revolution, but it’s still pretty early in said revolution. Sure the tipping point may have already been crossed, but that doesn’t mean everything changes this election cycle. Leviathan is still pretty large, and the people are still largely sheep. And if you notice, it took the Paul campaign almost 4 or 5 days just to raise $1 million in the latest moneybomb a couple weeks ago. (Granted, it didn’t seem to be as canvassed as others have been, but still.)
And after '92, the establishment made sure no third party would ever get in the main debates again. And there is no way in the hell of hells that Ron Paul is going to break through that barrier.
It’s been said before but it’s true: the only thing a Ron Paul 3rd party run would do is piss off rank-and-file Republicans and ruin any chance for a Rand Paul run. Plus Ron doesn’t want to do it anyway.
No, the 1st choice path is to garner enough Santorum delegates to force a brokered convention. It’s a long shot, but it’s possible. Paul was already in good shape in the caucus process for something like half a dozen states…good enough for a plurality of delegates in multiple caucuses. If he were able to gain enough Santorum delegates and keep Romney from getting the needed majority, he could quite conceivably win the nomination. It’s been done before.
Short of that, I’d say just continue the Campaign for Liberty and leverage as much of a concession from Romney as possible (even if it’s just a speaking slot), and just watch Obama win.
JJ
Paul went on to say: "A Human Life Amendment should do two things. First, it should define life as beginning at conception and give the unborn the same protection all other human life enjoys. Second, it must deal with the enforcement of the ruling much as any law against violence does–through state laws.
Am I the only one that laughed at the thread title?
The title should be “Santorum pulls out.”
But, anyway, I didn’t expect this today. It will make it harder for Paul and Gingrich to force a brokered convention. Gingrich will drop out early as well, I predict.
Makes sense. Paul says life begins at conception, and that abortion is a form of violent aggression. Therefore, according to the Constitution it should be dealt with at the state level. I understand many people don’t agree about when life begins, and therefore are able to make the argument that abortion up to some arbitrary point along the gestation period is not an act of aggression because they are classifying what is being killed as “not really alive” or at least, “not human” (kind of like the way offenders of genocides justify their killings). Either way, as always, Paul’s consistant.
The article gives a link to Paul’s full addendum.
I pretty much agree with 100% of what Clayton said. I’m disappointed that Dr. Paul hasn’t ditched the GOP by now. I’ve always been wondering why he hasn’t since I think the percentages Clayton predicts are probably exactly right. It would be funny seeing one of the 2 major Parties come in 3rd place. It would be good for the future as well, because then surely that would kill the Party of Lincoln.
JJ is right about what Dr. Paul said, and I hadn’t really been thinking about that when I started this thread. I think that was a good argument, because then uninformed people would think he was inconsistent if he started running as a social conservative.