Monday, May 14, 2007

Ron Paul


No one could be better-suited as an ideal candidate for Sullivan’s rhetorical pose as the Last of the Goldwaterites than Ron Paul, who is as genuinely libertarian and constitutionalist in reality as Sullivan pretends to be during one of his “fundamentalist”-induced panic attacks, yet you will not see someone like Sullivan (or anyone else in a similarly prominent position) lift a finger to advocate for Dr. Paul’s candidacy. Why? Because he is “not serious.” Of course, candidates can never be really “serious” until large numbers of people support them, so instead of complaining about Ron Paul’s candidacy antiwar, realist, small-government and constitutionalist conservatives might actually stop whining about how the movement and candidates have failed them and back the one person who has had the integrity and willingness to defend these positions when most of them were hiding or on the other side. - Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison has been working the Ron Paul candidacy as a hobbyhorse for a while now, unfortunately he also carries with it the typical "We wuz robbed" whingeing with it.

Truth be told, I don't think he'd neceesarily be that a President. If I had to make my own personal ranking with the Three Amigos leading in the polls, I'd put Romney first, then Paul, then McCain, then Rudy. But as Daniel knows yet still finds painful to acknowledge, the reason that his candidacy is languishing isn't because of lack of respect from the pundit class, but simpler than than. Nobody, proud or humble, supports him.


1 comment:

Prior Peter, OSB said...

Somebody must be supporting him--didn't he rank high on the viewer polls after one or both debates?

Also, for what it's worth, almost any libertarian in the blogosphere is strongly pro-Paul, as is Dan Flynn. This may be a disadvantage in the long run, but who exactly is so pro-Romney?