Presidential Campaign 08

[XB12Ss]

too bad he won't win. The smartest guy in the room never wins in this country. I'm not a republican but I agree with most of the stuff he says. And more importantly I think he actually believes what he's saying and not just saying what someone told him to say (a la George Bush).

Because of all the DUMBASSES VOTING!!!

[vectorvictor]

Fred Thompson is going to announce his run for office on Sept 6th and he

doesent have a bunch of nut jobs behind him saying that the government

crashed their own citizens into the world trade center in order to start the war on terror. Im all for many of the libertarian ideas but most of the supporters of Ron Paul are anarchists not conservative libertarians. Freds the real deal and Mr Paul wont run alone because he knows republicans wont follow him there.

[Benyen Soljax]

Im all for many of the libertarian ideas but most of the supporters of Ron Paul are anarchists not conservative libertarians.

anarchists have more fun!

[vectorvictor]

anarchists have more fun!

You say that until the government falls apart and you have no place to

ride your pretty motorcycle cause there arent any roads, and people run red lights all the time and you have to drive a tank to survive your commute.

People need guidance no matter how much they say they dont need direction and rules.

I do and it makes my life better that almost everyone stops at a stop sign

and very few people piss in the storm drains in front of the state house.

Take away all the rules and eventually you will get anarchy. We need leaders and followers and the constitution and the bill of rights to guide us.

Its just the way it is and nothing will change it. Im a constructionist conservative and I agree that the federal govt is too big and the local govts

are too weak. Put the power closer to the people and things will get better

because when you have to walk by the person your voting to screw over and look him in the eye and you know his family, you dont do it as often.

[Ludefreak]

God please no more clinton or bush presidents our country needs real leadership... Our country has been under these monarchies for to long!!

[thomez]

Fred Thompson is going to announce his run for office on Sept 6th and he

doesent have a bunch of nut jobs behind him saying that the government

crashed their own citizens into the world trade center in order to start the war on terror. Im all for many of the libertarian ideas but most of the supporters of Ron Paul are anarchists not conservative libertarians. Freds the real deal and Mr Paul wont run alone because he knows republicans wont follow him there.

Ron Paul and Fred Thompson: A Comparison

Much has been made lately of the impending entry of Fred Thompson into the Republican race for the nomination. The journeyman actor has precious face-recognition, a commanding presence and camera-smart charisma all on his side. Admittedly, it’s hard not to be drawn in by him. His most recent gig has concretized him as the Law and Order candidate, which I think effectively sums up what a fair number of my fellows are looking for. But what of his credibility as a conservative—a true honest to goodness conservative? Is he the champion of limited government that he makes himself out to be?

The former Senator says that federalism is his lodestar:

Republicans have struggled in recent years, because they have strayed from basic principles. Federalism is one of those principles. It is something we all give lip service to and then proceed to ignore when it serves our purposes … Those who are in charge of applying the conservative litmus test should wonder why some of their brethren continue to try to federalize more things—especially at a time of embarrassing federal mismanagement and a growing federal bureaucracy.

He has covered this ground elsewhere too, and in a fashion that actually sounds a lot like Ron Paul talking:

Our government, under our Constitution, was established upon the principles of Federalism—that the federal government would have limited enumerated powers and the rest would be left to the states. It not only prevented tyranny, it just made good sense. States become laboratories for democracy and experiment with different kinds of laws … Federalism also allows for the diversity that exists among the country's people. Citizens of our various states have different views as to how traditional state responsibilities should be handled.

“Limited enumerated powers”. Those are three words that we don’t hear so often anymore. The fact that someone of Thompson’s evident stature is saying them is heartening indeed. The federalist system we once had, with a very small central government rigidly defined in its jurisdiction, has in fact been turned on its head. It needs to be righted. Rep. Paul has been saying this for a good long time and I’m glad that Mr. Thompson is helping bring attention to it as well. None of the other candidates have shown much interest in the subject.

So how do these two, Fred Thompson and Ron Paul, stack up to one another? Judging strictly by the rhetoric, they don’t appear all that dissimilar. But of course it’s action that counts, and that’s where we should look to see who wins on the federalism front; to find out which one of them is really the most conservative. Luckily both have worked in Congress and have thereby provided us with a handy roadmap. Our comparison is abetted by the Congressional voting records published at Project Vote Smart.

Let’s start with Mr. Thompson. Out of some 50 appropriations bills the former Senator voted on between 1995 and 2002, he voted for all but 2 of them. These bills he voted to pass spent billions upon billions of dollars on, among other things:

* Agricultural subsidies (to dairy farmers, tobacco growers, livestock producers, peanut farmers, and others)

* Federal crop insurance

* Guaranteed subsidized loans to farmers

* Subsidized loans for rural housing, electricity and telephone service

* The National Endowment for the Humanities

* The National Endowment for the Arts

* The Peace Corps

* The Job Corps

* The Federal Railroad Administration

* Discretionary education spending

* School violence treatment and prevention

* The Commodity Credit Corporation (for the purpose of influencing production, prices, supplies, and distribution of agricultural commodities)

* The National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education

* The Smithsonian Institute

* The United States Holocaust Memorial

* The National Science Foundation

* The Dept. of Housing and Urban Development and its various community development initiatives

He also voted for the No Child Left Behind Act and the McCain-Feingold Act. He voted for increasing benefits to workers who have been displaced due to increased imports, voted for many tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid, and he voted to double the President’s salary. (On a side note, Mr. Thompson’s penchant for having the federal government underwrite insurance appears to predate his term in the Senate, going back to his lobbying efforts for the Tennessee Savings and Loan. I would ask Mr. Thompson how extending government support of the S&L industry through the FDIC figured into his concern for the principle of federalism).

Now let's look at Congressman Paul’s record. Out of 166 appropriations bills voted on between 1997 and 2007, Ron Paul voted against all but 6. His rare “yea” votes were reserved for bills which:

* Prohibited subsidizing crop insurance for tobacco farmers

* Reduced funding for the Dept. of Labor and the Dept. of Education

* Prohibited the use of federal funds to restrict travel to Cuba by United States citizens

* Prohibited federal funding of adoption in D.C. for couples not related by blood or marriage

* Allocated funds for the military quality of life functions of the Department of Defense (housing allowances, health services, veteran’s health benefits and pensions)

Paul also voted for a Constitutional amendment that mandated a two-thirds vote in both Houses of Congress in order to increase taxes (requirement waived if war is declared), voted against McCain-Feingold, against No Child Left Behind, and against the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill.

The two candidates’ records are almost exactly the reverse of each other. The answer to the question, “Who is the more conservative?” is clear. Fred Thompson talks a good game (and I for one do appreciate him for that), but his record reveals a tendency to stray far and often from those “limited enumerated powers” that he references in his TownHall.com articles. Probably no less than 95% of every non-military piece of legislation he’s ever voted for has been non-federalist and un-conservative, as well as blatantly unconstitutional, having no basis whatsoever in those particulars set forth for Congress in Article 1, Section 8. In this respect he may be no different than the vast majority of others who have spent some time on the Hill, but it will no longer do for him to use the rhetoric of federalism and limited government while the money hose still bears the impression of his grip upon it.

They say the problem with actors is that they never stop acting. This country needs a leader who actually lives his message.

http://republicanrenaissance.blogspot.com/2007/06/ron-paul-and-fred-thompson-comparison.html

Fred Thompson is a fake conservative, he voted to expand the federal government on a regular basis, even while paying "federalism" a lot of lipservice. He's just another one of the boys in Washington, says one thing, does another when given the opportunity. He does make a good conservative actor though. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zydAs5bRW1U

You shouldn't judge Ron Paul based on who supports him in the same way that you wouldn't judge a tv show based on who else watches it. What you are trying to figure out is which candidate best represents what you believe, if that coincides with what candidate best represents what some goofy others believe... all the better, because it is a better chance for your candidate to win.

[vectorvictor]

Even though he's not one of the top tier contenders, I thought it might be worthwhile to go ahead and write a short, but sweet primer that will explain why so many Republicans have a big problem with Ron Paul. Enjoy!

#1) Ron Paul is a libertarian, not a conservative: I have nothing against libertarians. To the contrary, I like them and welcome them into the Republican Party. But, conservatives have even less interest in seeing a libertarian as the GOP's standard bearer than seeing a moderate as our party's nominee. In Paul's case, his voting record shows that he is the least conservative member of Congress running for President on the GOP side. So, although he is a small government guy, he very poorly represents conservative opinion on a wide variety of other important issues.

#2) Ron Paul is one of the people spreading the North American Union conspiracy: If you're so inclined, you can click here for just one example of Paul talking up a mythical Bush administration merger of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, but you're not missing much if you don't. Reputable conservatives shouldn't be spreading these crazy conspiracy theories and the last thing the GOP needs is a conspiracy crank as our nominee in 2008.

#3) Ron Paul encourages "truther" conspiracy nuts: Even though Ron Paul admits that he does not believe in a 9/11 government conspiracy, he has been flirting with the wackjobs in the "truther movement," like Alex Jones and the "Student Scholars for 9/11 Truth." Republican politicians should either ignore people like them or set them straight, not lend credence to their bizarre conspiracy theories by acting as if they may have some merit, which is what Ron Paul has done.

#4) Ron Paul's racial views: From the Houston Chronicle, Texas congressional candidate Ron Paul's 1992 political newsletter highlighted portrayals of blacks as inclined toward crime and lacking sense about top political issues.

Under the headline of "Terrorist Update," for instance, Paul reported on gang crime in Los Angeles and commented, "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

Paul, a Republican obstetrician from Surfside, said Wednesday he opposes racism and that his written commentaries about blacks came in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time."

..."Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal," Paul said.

...He added, "We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."

Paul also asserted that "complex embezzling" is conducted exclusively by non-blacks.

"What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn't that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?" he wrote."

Ron Paul has since claimed that although these comments were in his newsletter, under his name, he didn't write them. Is he telling the truth? Who knows? Either way, those comments don't say much for Paul.

#5) A lot of Ron Paul's supporters are incredibly irritating: There are, without question, plenty of decent folks who support Ron Paul. However, for whatever reason, his supporters as a group are far more annoying than those of all the other candidates put together. It's like every spammer, truther, troll, and flake on the net got together under one banner to spam polls and try to annoy everyone into voting for Ron Paul (which is, I must admit, a novel strategy).

#6) Ron Paul is an isolationist: The last time the United States retreated to isolationism was after WW1 and the result was WW2. Since then, the world has become even more interconnected which makes Ron Paul's strategy of retreating behind the walls of Fortress America even more unworkable than it was back in the thirties.

#7) Ron Paul wants to immediately cut and run in Iraq: Even if you're an isolationist like Ron Paul, the reality is that our foreign policy isn't currently one of isolationism and certain allowances should be made to deal with that reality. Yet, Paul believes we should immediately retreat from Al-Qaeda in Iraq and let that entire nation collapse into genocide and civil war as a result. Maybe, just maybe, Paul's motives are better than those of liberals like Murtha and Kerry, who want to see us lose a war for political gain, but the catastrophic results would be exactly the same.

#8)

In the single most repulsive moment of the entire Presidential race so far, Ron Paul excused Al-Qaeda's attack on America with this comment about 9/11:

"They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years."

In other words, America deserved to be attacked by Al-Qaeda.

This is the sort of facile comment you'd expect to hear from an America-hating left winger like Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky, not from a Republican running for President -- or from any Republican in office for that matter. If you want to truly realize how foolish that sort of thinking is, imagine what the reaction would be if we had bombed Egyptian or Indonesian civilians after 9/11 and then justified it by saying "We attacked them because those Muslims have been over here."

#9) Ron Paul is the single, least electable major candidate running for the presidency in either party: Libertarianism simply is not considered to be a mainstream political philosophy in the United States by most Americans. That's why the Libertarian candidate in 2004, Michael Badnarik, only pulled .3% of the vote. Even more notably, Ron Paul only pulled .47% of the vote when he ran at the top of the Libertarian ticket in 1988. Granted, Paul would do considerably better than that if he ran at the top of the Republican Party ticket, but it's hard to imagine his winning more than, say 35%, of the national vote and a state or two -- even if he were very lucky. In other words, having Ron Paul as the GOP nominee would absolutely guarantee the Democratic nominee a Reaganesque sweep in the election.

Summary: Is Ron Paul serious about small government, enforcing the Constitution, and enforcing the borders? Yes, and those are all admirable qualities. However, he also has a host of enormous flaws that makes him unqualified to be President and undesirable, even as a Republican Congressmen.

Go ahead and vote for Ron Paul but I wont because he is only one notch

below the stupid nut tree from the Clintons and the Obama's.

I love small federal govt but I think the Reps. can get us there without getting everyone pissed off at us at once.

[Loud and Low]

To me, it's a comedy of errors, how everyone is racing to be the "conservative" now. Conservatism is a myth. And when a guy who embodies conservative values comes forth, he's attacked by "conservatives" as not being "conservative". What a stupid word. Only thing conservatives conserve is their ability to social climb and rape the working class.

Liberalism is equally non-existent.The "liberals" have to continually suck up to christian conservatives if they stand any chance to compete for votes.

I think Chris Rock said it very well.

" On some things I'm conservative.On some things I'm liberal".

Q.-Why does a candidate have to follow dogma to a tee to be taken seriously?

A.-Follow the money trail.Big Business controls politics and politicians use knee jerk stimuli to control voters. You wouldn't want to be called a "liberal" by Rush(the drug addict) Limbaugh, or Ann( neonazi) Coulter, would you? You wouldn't want to be in alliance with the plethora of "conservative" self loathing perverts would you?

As a voter, should we not look out side the two parties, who both subscribe to political dogma? Should we not look past the Liberal or conservative tag hung on everyone nowdays?

[v65rider]

After watching the Repub debate I will not be voting for Mr. Paul.

We can not afford to be the isolationist country that Mr. Paul wants us to be.

His expressed views are tottaly against the way I believe he came close to being a liberal in some of his views.

[vectorvictor]

After watching the Repub debate I will not be voting for Mr. Paul.

We can not afford to be the isolationist country that Mr. Paul wants us to be.

His expressed views are tottaly against the way I believe he came close to being a liberal in some of his views.

I totally agree with you. You cant stick your head in the sand and expect the

world to go along peacefully. WWI and WWII resulted in us staying out of others business and then we had to bring the world back from the edge with

even more blood than if we would have gotten in before the situation picked

up steam. "If you dont learn from history you are doomed to repeat it"

"Walk softly and carry a big stick" are two of my favorite quotes but you have to realize when to whip out your stick and smack around a few loud mouths when they get stupid.

Loud and Low.... I agree that govt is too big as Ron Paul does but Thompson belives the same about big govt but to a degree.

Throwing away the FBI, CIA, Homeland security and other big govt agencies

sounds like a good idea on the surface but then who is going to look at all the information and stop the terrorists. Being in a free and open society in the current time takes people to gather and investigate locally, nationaly, and world wide. We have to stay ahead of the terrorists and we cant depend on other countries to investigate arrest and jail all the bad guys before they get on to US soil. The IRS is the only major govt department that really needs to go now and others can be revamped or consolidated but just dumping intelligence departments in the middle of a global war ... yes it is global and none of us can change that... will only get us killed faster.

[thomez]

I don't have time to fully respond tonight, but Ron Paul is not an isolationist, although he does strongly believe in a policy of non-intervention.

Also, the large copy-paste job above about Ron Paul is so full of shit I had to get out my waders to continue reading it.

[vectorvictor]

Well, All I need to say is I watched the debates last night and I couldnt bring myself to vote for Mr Paul if he was the last republican on earth... Good ideas

in theory do not make good policy in all cases. Sorry but you will not convince me that the radical libertarian movement is the way to go when we are having a world war. In the perfect libertarian society the terrorist would hate us more than they already do because they believe anything goes in the social realm including gay marriage, drugs for any and all, and the worst of them all Child to Adult Sex.... If you believe in the ultimate libertarian beliefs

then you could do anything anywhere as long as it doesent physicaly hurt anyone unwilling to take part. Be my guest to live in that world but dont take me there cause I have a family that have eyes that I dont want to bleed everytime I take them out of the house. As far as the cut and paste, the quotes were what I was wanting from the article but I agree w the entire thing.

Next time you cut and paste why dont you just give me the address of the

tin foil hat wearing website that you pulled it from so I know who to credit.