I mentioned this earlier this spring, but I am afraid that Paul’s connections with the Mises Institute and Lew Rockwell will be mainstream news if Ron Paul catches on after winning Iowa and/or New Hampshire (I’m hearing he is getting ready to take off in Iowa with support from evangelicals growing). Obviously nothing has stuck on his campaign yet, but a simple Internet search will reveal his ties to (gasp!) anarchists.
I can’t imagine conservatives getting excited over the prospect of electing an anarchist-sympathizer to hold political office (“you cite a publication “Let’s Abolish Government” in your book Liberty Defined and are affiliated with the anarchist and, as some claim, the neo-Confederate Mises Institute…”). People would probably do cursory perusals of LRC and determine that it hosts crankish science (I know Rockwell doesn’t endorse everything he posts), has content about the Bildebergs/bankers/Rockefellers, etc. It would be interesting to see if Paul could survive this like Obama survived Reverend Wright if it became a problem.
Perhaps it might, but that stuff doesn’t interest the mainstream media as much as racism. They will jump on anything, and I mean anything, that can be twisted around and presented as racism, as we saw in 2008 with the newsletter articles. This time around, they’ll simply take his position on the Civil Rights Act, connections with Tom Woods and nullification, DiLorenzo and the League of the South, and imply, though not state explicitly, that Ron Paul is a backwards, racist bigot who probably belongs to the KKK.
Just wait and you’ll see…especially if he starts to gain more momentum.
lewis, how hard would that kind of attack be to overcome?
wouldn’t it be as simple as filming Ron, Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams in a room laughing and joking, and then Walt turns to camera and endorses RP.
I don’t know why this would be one-starred; it seems like a legitimate problem for Ron Paul to overcome. Every frontrunner has had their past dug into vigorously and I don’t see why this would be any different for Paul. Obviously as libertarians who post on the Mises forums, we don’t see any issues with LRC or the LvMI, but you have to think of how an ignorant outsider would view the situation.
Of course, this isn’t a criticism of Paul’s campaign either.
I’m also not suggesting that he will lose support among his base. Obviously they agree with many of the things on LRC and LvMI. But if Paul wants to win, he has to crossover to conservatives. If conservatives won’t join the campaign, then his campaign has hit a ceiling and won’t advance any further. That’s where I think the problem could be.
I agree Marko that it would be a good thing for these organizations, but the mass criticism of Paul’s campaign will probably hurt his election chances.
I suppose this “guilt by association” thing would be brought up by political opponents as well as a neocon news demagogue or two. But the issues in the coming election - collapse of the dollar, endless wars, and America basically becoming a more extreme police state and aggressively expanding empire - would make it a monstrously obvious diversionary tactic to all but those who already dislike Paul and wouldn’t vote for him in the first place.
Look at it this way, I was 100% apolitical until this year. But I remember back in '08 when I caught blurbs of Obama criticism having to do with something a preacher he knew had said. Despite not caring at all about the election or Obama, I thought the critics were pretty obviously grasping at straws on that issue.
I believe there have been a few posters in the recent past who were some kind of political researchers on Ron Paul’s background and associations - I called them “Ron Paul deep-divers”. However, you have to remember that it’s not nearly as damning to be endorsed by an individual or organization considered repugnant by the mainstream as it is to endorse such an individual or organization.
Saying “Lew Rockwell worked on Ron Paul’s staff 30 years ago and then he later went on to found an anti-government organization and website and regularly endorses Ron Paul” really isn’t much to go on. They need something from Ron Paul’s own mouth. If RP starts to gain momentum, they’re going to go after him on the Civil Rights Act, Americans for Disability Act and so on. At least, that will be the initial assault. I don’t know where they’re planning to go from there but I don’t think Lew Rockwell’s endorsements of Ron Paul will be very useful to Ron Paul’s enemies.
It’s his connections to the Mises Institute and LRC that brought me here. I think it was on one of the @Google Candidates videos back in 2007 where he mentioned the Mises Institute and then I googled it.
I don’t think “the problem” is RP’s connections, but instead, it’s the individual’s mindset and worldview that will determine whether the person joins the movement.
Daniel, I absolutely agree that it’s the mindset of the voting public that may be the problem. I’m not blaming Rockwell or LvMI, I’m saying its perception what counts, that Ron Paul needs regular conservatives to get on board in order to win, that regular conservatives would be put off by the kinds of stuff that they see these places endorse, and that Paul would be “guilty” by association. I’m also not commenting on whether or not some of the conspiracy theories posted on LRC are “crankish”; again, perception, perception, perception.
Talking about abolishing the Fed used to be crankish until recently. Now it’s become an issue that even leftists can sympathize with. All courtesy of Ron Paul not trying to bend over for the mainstream.
Let the mainstream media launch a frontal assault of LvMI, LewRockwell and anything pertaining to the non-Beltway right. This is the publicity we have been waiting for.
When they’re done spinning a story about DiLorenzo and Woods secretly conspiring to re-introduce slavery, the mises.org hit counter will have gone through the roof with many new converts in the making.
Another thing I like about your scenario is that it assumes Ron Paul “catches on” after a win in Iowa, New Hampsire or both. Coming within sight of victory only to be irrecovarably set back by a concentrated effort of the mainstream media to do hatchet jobs on him on the account of his anarchist fellow travellers sounds a lot more upbeat than say a scenario where continued media blockout of Paul prevents him from ever really “catching on” and so a hatchet campaign isn’t even needed.
Worrying about links to LVMI as a content for hatchet jobs against an on fire Paul, thats the spirit!
If the topic of anarcho-capitalism and Von Mises gets brought up to discredit him, Paul only needs to bring up the fact that other candidates such as Perry and Bachmann have endorsed Von Mises and Hayek aswell.
My fear is that they will try to bring up the racist newsletter charges again.