Ron Paul not quitting, necessarily, but . . .

[we vs us]

Says he has to start looking towards keeping his congressional seat, so is going to be scaling back  his national staff in favor of concentrating on his district.  

Oh, and he's also ruled out running as a third party candidate.  

This looks to me like a man who's backing away from the race altogether, and is beginning to soften up expectations.

Fun fact from the article:  RP has been in the House of Rep for ten terms. Can anyone here do complicated multiplications and such?  How many years is that?

[YoungTulsan]

Are you being a smartguy with the 10 term question?  10 x 2 = 20

More exact, he has served around 18 years, his first term was only a year as he won a special election.  His current term has almost a year left on it.

With Romney suspending his campaign, the assumption is that a brokered convention (Mccain not being able to secure 1191 delegates) is now almost impossible.  Probably a safe assumption that donations will slow down as the odds of victory lessen considerably.  He has to deal with that reality, and run a leaner campaign.  The only thing he is going to do now is keep getting a delegate here and there, and go to the convention to hopefully talk some sense into the GOP with whatever amount of power in the party he has gained from this campaign.

He would have been a serious force in a brokered convention, which is why his supporters kept fighting and donating even though the primary votes were ranging from 3% to 8%.  Once the delegates became unbound, there would have been a large portion of them for Paul as he has been doing very well in organizing people to go into the local precinct and county level conventions to become the very delegates that are temporarily bound to the popular vote contests, but can support the candidate of THEIR choosing once the convention goes brokered.

It had a chance until Romney quit.  Maybe it could still happen if Huckabee's surge keeps growing, but there is no way Paul could keep the money flowing in during the meantime to keep the campaign going ahead when the odds are a million to one.

Primary vote %s were ranging from 3% to 8%
Caucus %s were a range from 10% to 25%
Delegate loyalty could have been higher than the caucus results

Each of those were progressively smaller numbers of people involved, so the Paul campaign was getting more with less.

Actual delegate loyalty was going under the radar, but there were rumors of them getting a majority through in some places.  The campaign was very organized in the areas where the fewest people could make the biggest difference.

A third party run would disqualify him from running for reelection in Congress.  He knows good and well how stacked the system is against a third party, how virtually impossible it would be for him to even get on 100% of the ballots, much less make a run that actually has a chance of victory.

At least with his seat in congress he can continue to be a voice against big government.  He'll probably get a little more attention now.

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

Are you being a smartguy with the 10 term question?  10 x 2 = 20

Nope.  Just couldn't remember how many years a Rep's term is.

[YoungTulsan]

quote:Originally posted by we vs us

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

Are you being a smartguy with the 10 term question?  10 x 2 = 20

Nope.  Just couldn't remember how many years a Rep's term is.

Ah, the math was so easy that I wasnt sure if you were joking.  That was the other possibility (you werent sure of 2, 4, 6 years )

Imagine a 10 term Senator (they serve for 6 years).

Actually, Strom Thurmond was on his 8th when he kicked the bucket (1956 thru 2003).  Robert Byrd is currently on his 9th term in the Senate (1959 thru Present).

In the Senate since the FIFTIES!  Crazy.

[cannon_fodder]

Can't say I'm surprised or really disappointed that Paul is taking a hike.  As I've said before - for every good idea he had he suffered from a pair of bad ones.  Nonetheless, I hope the Republicans consider every vote for him a vote against their current trend.
- - -

and oh yes, Strom Thurman.   His career was long enough to go from hating "N" words to disagreeing with the "Black Leadership."   Well, except for that black maid he knocked up.  Guess he gave her some lovin'.

[YoungTulsan]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

Can't say I'm surprised or really disappointed that Paul is taking a hike.  As I've said before - for every good idea he had he suffered from a pair of bad ones.  Nonetheless, I hope the Republicans consider every vote for him a vote against their current trend.

I havent gotten into extensive debates with you on here, but from your posts I've seen addressing various issues, I do not see how you disagree with Ron Paul 2 times for every 1 time you agree with him.  You've stated that you consider yourself libertarian leaning, you believe in liberty, the constitution, truly free markets, property rights, etc.  As a Paul supporter myself (I think I've made it obvious in a few posts ive made recently) I am just curious how someone who believes in the core principles of the founders also finds many (what you claim as a 2:1 margin) of his ideas to be bad, or otherwise unwise?

I know foreign policy and the war on terror is an issue people feel strongly about, no matter which side they stand on, so that is not going to be settled over the course of one or two internet forum posts.  What about pretty much everything else he says?

Here's what bugs me..  And I am in no way trying to say that you think like these guys, so chime in with your own opinion - but I hear the same thing on talk radio and in the media all the time:

I will listen to these talk show hosts on the radio or on TV just in AWE of how much the things they are begging for and dreaming about are in line with the actual policies that Ron Paul advocates.  Limbaugh railing on about small government and personal responsibility, lamenting about how no true conservative is running.  Hannity ranting about fiscal conservatism, Reagan Republicanism, our founding fathers' principles, and oh yeah, get your pocket constitution from the Heritage foundation.  Glenn Beck blathering on about how our financial system is doomed, debt obligations are astronomical, and the Federal Reserve's role in these bubbles and recessions.  Lou Dobbs acting like his reporting on CNN is the only thing out there fighting against a North American Union and the destruction of our national sovereignty.  Michael Savage spewing vitriolic angst towards all of the empty suits in Washington who are selling us all down the river, all the while crying for someone who is not part of the globalist elite to save us from the insanity.

Every one of those guys goes on and on, filling hours of air time up, sending out a preverbial SOS for a candidate who stands for true conservatism.  But for some reason when they get a glimpse of what true conservatism actually looks like, they get second thoughts.

"But he's got it wrong on Iraq" - So that is enough to just write him off as a kook who deserves no discussion whatsoever?

But back to you - and I hope I don't seem like I'm attacking you here because that isn't my intent.  I'm just curious to your thought process, especially now that this campaign seems to be coming to an end.  I'm wondering what exactly didn't work.  Because if anyone was going to catch on to the message of Ron Paul, I would figure someone who considers himself Libertarian leaning, free market guy, would be one of the first people to jump at the chance to support a Ron Paul for President.  (I guess you actually did, since you voted for him )

The main thing I am worried of is that most people don't have a full understanding of his policies, and are just going by the extreme stuff like "end the dept. of education" without knowing what exactly that actually entails.  Or thinking about all of the positions he holds without also knowing that he has very solid transition plans for all of them, not to just end everything overnight creating chaos.

[cannon_fodder]

YT, I'm merely over simplifying my position.  Probably too much and I think you're right to call me out on it.  I was probably just being lazy.

I agree with Ron on most issues including a limited government, reduced military spending(*), a balanced budget, limited entitlement programs, more states rights, the right to bear arms, reduced economic interference (ie make it easy to do business again), lowest possible taxes, a new approach to the "war on drugs," free trade, a free internet, opting out of social security and protecting individual privacy from big brother (innocent until proven guilty).

However, I strongly disagree with him on going to a Gold Standard (floating currencies serve an important purpose), I think any loving home should be able to adopt (married or otherwise), and his policy of non-intervention.  That ties in to military spending (see * above), I am in line with the theory of hegemony that befits the reigning with the duty of world policemen to some extent.  

A lack of an assertion of power is what led to WWI and WWII - where as conflicts in which the power asserts itself result in smaller wars.  This is a complex mixed bag, but in general I think the US needs more involvement in world affairs than Ron wishes.  Though I would very much like to see those efforts redirected (why do we keep ignoring Latin America?) and a focus more on an exertion of influence than overt force (and thus we would be able to reduce the military budget)... but I digress.

I stand corrected.  I support Ron Paul on far more issues than I disagree with him on.  Thank you for correcting my continued misstatements.