It's Not Ron Paul and It's Not Hillary Clinton

When rockstories suggested we try something different and each blog our own take on

The Biggest Obstacle To Electing The Right Presidential Candidate

I figured this would be another slam-dunk kind of post to write. My first temptation of course is to name Ron Paul as the biggest obstacle. (Ron Paul is THE crack cocaine for authors of political blogs these days; the mere inclusion of the man's name in a post title practically guarantees a blogger a slew of new readers, a bunch of Diggs and a slew of comments both on the blog itself and on Digg and I am as susceptible as the next hack to the temptation to "give 'em what they want" and draw all those eyeballs to my words and ads.) But try as I might, I can not fashion a cogent argument that the Gentleman from Texas is any obstacle at all. America is not going to elect a Libertarian running as a Republican, no matter how many genuinely committed and Internet savvy supporters he can muster.

IMHO, the real effect of the Ron Paul campaign will be the political awakening and activation of those supporters, some of whom will no doubt go on to become involved with other more successful campaigns and perhaps become political players in their own right, in the manner of several currently prominent liberal bloggers who got their starts in the Howard Dean campaign.

My second thought was to cast Hillary Clinton as the biggest obstacle to electing the right President. I quite agree with techfun who has argued that electing Hillary would insure we have another four or eight years of deeply divided government that is primarily focused on political in-fighting and incapable of effectively addressing the myriad real problems we face as a nation. And I yield to no one in the depth and strength of my disdain for Mrs. Clinton. But if I am to be honest, I do not believe that Hillary is electable, and for all the copy she generates and all of the passions she arouses, both negative and positive, I can't honestly say I believe that Hillary is our biggest problem. (She is at most a symptom of the problem or obstacle rather than the obstacle itself.)

So having ruled out the easy and obvious answers, I'm forced to look deeper. I gaze into the mirror over the sink in my bathroom and realize the obstacle is staring me back in the face. The real obstacle to electing the right President lies with the citizens who will cast their votes this week next year rather than with any of the candidates they will blacken an oval or pull a lever for. The real obstacle I believe is that we Americans by and large have lost the ability to speak with and more importantly Listen To people we disagree with.

Whether we listen to Rush Limbaugh or Air America, watch Fox News or PBS, read The Nation or The New Republic and get our political news and world view from Red State or daily Kos, most of our political intelligentsia preach only to the choir and most Americans who care about politics pay attention mostly or exclusively to media (both old and new) that reinforce and re-affirm their convictions and beliefs and actively urge, if not outright require, that they see their political opponents only as enemies, to be fought and battled against and vanquished rather than as fellow citizens who care as deeply as they do about the country we all share and claim to love and want what's best for.

Whether Ron Paul or Hillary Clinton (or any of the other candidates) would make a great President or a terrible President is a question for another debate. But to my thinking it really isn't debatable that we will never be able to agree upon and elect the Right President until we learn again to talk civilly and substantively with people we strongly disagree with and learn to see again that all of us-- liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, red state-ers or blue-- are first and foremost Americans. Our inability to see that and use it as a starting point for trying to understand each other and find a common ground we can share is the biggest obstacle to electing the right Presidential candidate.

Ron Paul-- Will He Get Zapped by WOD Third Rail?

I touched on the subject of immigration reform in the post on Social Security so I had figured to do a follow up post on immigration, and looked up Ron Paul's position, I found that I completely agreed with everything he said. That does increase his palatability in the general but does not make for an interesting blog post. Ditto Ron Paul's position on Iraq. With over 70% of Americans wanting to bring our troops home, Paul's position is for once positively Mainstream.

And then I read Ron Paul's position on the War On Drugs. And again I agreed, but this issue is, imho, meatier for a real discussion on the theoretical Hillary vs Paul in November question.

The War On (some) Drugs (users) has been a third rail in American politics since Jimmy Carter pledged on the trail to de-criminalize marijuana and found the issue untouchable once he got to Washington. And while it is widely acknowledged by sensible people that the United States' War On Drugs has been a costly failure that has caused far more harm than it has prevented, no politician has ever been willing to go Near this issue.

It's an issue I feel strongly about. Just last night I was sitting at a restaurant table and the name of an old friend who has moved away came up and we recalled how horrible it was when her son was murdered. Her son had been a heroin addict. He had gotten himself clean and had been off the junk for over two years when he was killed soon before he was scheduled to testify against his dealer, which he had been more or less forced to do to keep his own hide out of jail. Let's be clear here. This bright, handsome young man did not die because of drugs. He died because of Prohibition.

My own cousin, who was a number of years younger than me, and who had been a kind of little brother to me at family gatherings through the years died of a drug overdose. And I always felt strongly that if it were not for prohibition, his death would likely have been avoided. Drugs purchased pharmaceutically of a specific and known strength and dosage are much less dangerous than street drugs that may be tainted or 'cut' with who knows what and if unexpectedly purer than expected can cause an accidental overdose. In any case, my argument that my cousin was Not well served by our present system seems incontrovertible, even to those who would argue that in this case it was drug abuse and not Prohibition that killed my sweet, funny cousin.

A part of me is thrilled to see that Ron Paul agrees with me about ending this horrid and destructive 'war' that we will never win and which is largely fought as a cash cow for the prison industrial complex (one of the few true growth industries in Bush America) just as Iraq is primarily a cash cow for the Halliburton wing of the Republican party, regardless of the justification du jour for our misadventure there.

But another part of me strongly suspects that if and when the media comes to feel that they can Not continue to largely ignore Ron Paul they will attack him hard with the soft on drugs, soft on crime meme that the Rove wing of the Republican party often uses successfully against politicians who defy the playbook. And the fact that the Rove wing would be operating via Terry McAwful and the Hillary campaign should not surprise anyone who's been paying attention.

So my questions are-- how long can Ron Paul stay under the media radar on the WOD Third Rail and is there any way he can survive the attack when This story gets its 15 minutes of fame?

Ron Paul: Lockbox Illegal Aliens Out Of Social Security

Having written about the Hype surrounding the Ron Paul campaign and having gotten an interesting comment from Zagurim (who by the way has an excellent breakdown of the funding sources that go beyond the fund raising totals mentioned in my Hype post) who asked how I would vote in a Hillary vs Ron Paul match-up.

Anyone who has read my Hillary post knows that I think she is the only chance the Democrats have of losing this November and that I personally Would NOT vote for her. I replied to Zagurim that I would either vote for Dr. Paul or for Mickey Mouse and that I have NO intention of ever coming any closer than that to pledging to vote RP in the general. But blanking my ballot is not a real attractive option. So I realized maybe I should take a closer look at Ron Paul on the issues, beyond the hype. And today I start with Social Security.

First, a thanks to my Blog Catalog buddy, Cindy, who kindly provided me with a link for ronpaullibrary.org which has a wealth of Dr. Paul's position papers and other writings. I found a concise document out-lining Paul's Social Security positions, which can be summed up by referencing three bills related to Social Security introduced by Rep. Paul in January 2007 at the start of the 110th Congress:

H.R. 191 Senior Citizens Tax Elimination Act

H.R. 219 Social Security Preservation Act

H.R. 190 The Social Security for Americans Only Act

(click on any bill number to read summary or full text information at OpenCongress.org)

The first of these bills, I happen to agree with completely. American workers paid taxes on the income that they contributed into the Social Security trust fund and it seems wrong to tax that income again when it is paid out of the trust fund as benefits.

The second bill sounds good. It seems to say simply that Social Security funds must be invested in interest bearing accounts and can not be lent to other government entities interest free nor used to pay any other government obligations. This sounds to be a great deal like the "lockbox" concept that was a key element of many plans that have been floated to save Social Security and it does sound good. The problem for me it that I haven't a sophisticated enough understanding of law or finance to really know if the bill will as promised insure Social Security's continued solvency. Does this bill really address any of the fundamental problems with Social Security that are often attributed to demographic changes and increasing longevity rather than Congress' raiding the cookie jar?

The third bill is the one where I Know I'm going to piss off friends and make new enemies. I confess to being the only Liberal extant who is opposed to illegal immigration, opposed to "amnesty" and on this issue find myself strangely standing in a corner with the freepers. (And man do they creep me out.) The following is quoted from a post on my books blog, The Thin Red Line:

And then this issue of illegal immigration seems to re-draw these lines rather strangely, and to a large extent I find myself cast uncomfortably on the side of the freepers.

I believe that illegal immigrants depress wages for all Americans and utterly reject the argument that we must have illegal immigrants because there are so many jobs that American's just won't do. (It seems to me that argument is really an insistence on being allowed to have illegal immigrants so as not to be forced to provide the level of wages, benefits and working conditions most Americans would likely demand.) Certainly, I believe that America should continue to welcome immigrants, that we should develop a fair process for rationing the privilege of coming here that takes into account both the needs of business for additional labor and the limits of our resources to care for, succor and support new arrivals, while actively and effectively enforcing our immigration laws, primarily through stiff financial and criminal penalties for those who employ illegals.

The "compromise" immigration reform currently being debated in Washington does none of this.

I do, however, have a problem with the fact that this bill would not in any way exempt illegal aliens from paying into the Social Security trust fund through OASDI deductions (which are of course Mandatory) on paychecks earned in the United States. I am uncomfortable with the idea of forcing undocumented workers to supplement the retirements of everyone else. As Ron Paul argues strongly elsewhere money you pay into Social Security out of every paycheck is there for you to live on when you get old or sick and not for the government to spend on anything else. So I think that if you pay into the fund you earn the right to draw out of the fund.

My biggest concern about all three of these bills, however is that since being introduced and referred to committee in January, absolutely Nothing has happened on any of these bills. No hearings, no votes, no nothing. Which leaves me wondering "is any of this actual serious legislation that Ron Paul had any intention of pushing through Congress or are these three bills basically campaign promises written in the Congressional Record, the use of a Congressional Seat as a Presidential Platform printing department?

On the surface I like much of what Ron Paul says about Social Security. But I lack faith that his prescribed solutions would solve the real problems. And I also wonder whether he is legislating or grand-standing with these bills.

How Real Is The Hype About Ron Paul?

He's been called the Howard Dean of 2008 and there is a lot of hype about Ron Paul's Internet supporters being a force to be reckoned with. But I have to wonder, how real is the hype?

Recently, blogger Anonymous Liberal argued that Ron Paul is not the HD of '08, stating that Dean was a relatively mainstream Democrat, whose popularity with the party's base was proved by his subsequent appointment as DNC chairman, where as Paul is basically a Libertarian posing in an ill fitting GOP suit.

Over on Blog Catalog we have a small but very vocal contingent of Ron Paul supporters, always prepared to spin their candidate in the best possible light. Stoneman suggested some research is in order to answer the question of how real the hype is.

Nothing substantiates buzz like cold hard cash, and according to Open Secrets.org Ron Paul comes up short, ranking 5th among Republican presidential candidates in 3rd Quarter fundraising, with a Q3 total of 5.2 million vs 18 million for Romney, 12 million for Thompson, 11 million for Giuilani and 5.7 million for McCain. In total fundraising the order shakes out a little differently but with Ron Paul still in fifth place-- Romney 62 million, Giuliani 47 million, McCain 32 million, Thompson 12 million and Ron Paul 8 million. (And all of these numbers pale next to the 90 million and 80 million raised by Hillary and Obama respectively.)

Money is important, but it isn't everything, so I also decided to take a look at what kind of buzz the candidates are making in the blogosphere. For this, I turned to Nielsen Media's Blogpulse which provides a measurement of the percentage of All blog posts that mention a particular candidate. This is a Very fuzzy metric, imho since without exhaustive and painstaking analysis there is no way to differentiate from posts that may have mentioned a candidate in passing and posts that are actually About that candidate. Also note that these numbers are Very low because they are a percentage of All blog posts, including the many, many, many blogs that have nothing to do with politics. With those caveats, the numbers are:

Romney 0.113%
Giuliani 0.105%
Thompson 0.064%
McCain 0.0003%
Ron Paul 0.118%

and for comparison

Hillary 0.170%
Obama 0.12%

Note that all of these numbers are for blog posts on October 22, 2007 and the numbers spike up and down a great deal each day so this is only a static snapshot that may not be indicative of any larger trends. But it does appear that on the 22nd at least, Ron Paul was the most blogged about of the Republican candidates.

I'm honestly not sure how much or how little relevance to attach to any of these findings. I also realize that there are many, many other data points that could be examined that might lead to a truer and fuller picture of the state of Paul's campaign. I doubt my Ron Paul supporter friends over on Blog Catalog will be too thrilled that I sum it up-

Ron Paul-- last in money, first in buzz, except for Hillary.

Call Your Congresscritter and Urge Support for HR 3835

Just in case I have any readers who still are Not totally confused about my position on Ron Paul, today's rant is to urge support for a bill recently introduced by Rep. Ron Paul in the US House of Representatives.

HR 3835-- To restore the Constitution's checks and balances and protections against government abuses as envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

This bill would strictly limit the use of military tribunals to crimes committed under genuine battle field conditions, require substantial proof before detaining anyone as an "unlawful enemy combatant", require that this label never be applied to US citizens and specifically allow the right of habeus corpus such persons.

The bill would also prohibit torture and coerced confessions, prohibit the President from adding "signing statements" to bills that violate the Constitution and prohibit government and military authorities from kidnapping , detaining and torturing people abroad.

The bill also affirms the right of journalists to publish information critical of the government and prohibits the use of secret evidence in making a determination to designate a person or organization as a "terrorist".

These changes would go a long way to restoring our civil and human rights that have been trampled by the current Administration in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks. I urge you to call your Congressional Representative to urge them to support HR 3835. (You can easily look up their telephone number here.)

In this particular instance, Ron Paul is right on!