An analysis of 20 debates by ThinkProgress* shows that Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul did not attack rival Mitt Romney once during those televised face-offs.
Ron Paul's campaign is touting the endorsement of Phillip G. Kayser, an Iowa pastor who believes in imposing the death penalty on homosexuals, reports Talking Points Memo.
"We welcome Rev. Kayser's endorsement and the enlightening statements he makes on how Ron Paul's approach to government is consistent with Christian beliefs," said Paul's Iowa chairman, Drew Ivers, in a recent press release on Paul's campaign website.
"Difficulty in implementing Biblical law does not make non-Biblical penology just," wrote Kayser in a recent pamphlet. "But as we have seen, while many homosexuals would be executed, the threat of capital punishment can be restorative." Kayser added that homosexuals could be prosecuted only after the law was enacted.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
In a hotly-contested Republican race, it appears that only about half of Paul's supporters are Republicans. In Iowa, according to Rasmussen, just 51 percent of Paul supporters consider themselves Republicans. In New Hampshire, the number is 56 percent, according to Andrew Smith, head of the University of New Hampshire poll.
The same New Hampshire survey found that 87 percent of the people who support Romney consider themselves Republicans. For Newt Gingrich, it's 85 percent.
So who is supporting Paul? In New Hampshire, Paul is the choice of just 13 percent of Republicans, according to the new poll, while he is the favorite of 36 percent of independents and 26 percent of Democrats who intend to vote in the primary. Paul leads in both non-Republican categories.
"Paul is doing the best job of getting those people who aren't really Republicans but say they're going to vote in the Republican primary," explains Smith. Among that group are libertarians, dissatisfied independents and Democrats who are "trying to throw a monkey wrench in the campaign by voting for someone who is more philosophically extreme," says Smith.
The paleo (libertarian) strategy was a horrific mistake, both strategically and theoretically, though it apparently made some folks (such as [Lew] Rockwell and Paul) pretty rich selling newsletters predicting the collapse of Western civilization at the hands of the blacks, gays, and multiculturalists. The explicit strategy was abandoned by around the turn of the century, but not after a lot of bad stuff had been written in all kinds of places. There was way more than the Ron Paul newsletters. There was the Rothbard-Rockwell Report, which was another major place publishing these sorts of views. They could also be found in a whole bunch of Mises Institute publications of that era... What the media has in their hands is only the tip of the iceberg of the really unsavory garbage that the paleo turn produced back then.
Through it all though, Ron Paul was a constant. He kept plugging away, first at the center of the paleo strategy as evidenced by the newsletters. To be clear, I am quite certain he did not write them. There is little doubt that they were written by [Lew] Rockwell and [Murray] Rothbard. People I know who were on the inside at the time confirm it and the style matches pretty well to those two and does not match to Ron Paul. Paul knows who wrote them too, but he’s protecting his long-time friend and advisor, unfortunately. And even more sadly, Rockwell doesn’t have the guts to confess and end this whole megillah. So although I don’t think Ron Paul is a racist, like Archie Bunker, he was willing to, metaphorically, toast a marshmallow on the cross others were burning.
Even after the paleo strategy was abandoned, Ron was still there walking the line between “mainstream” libertarianism and the winking appeal to the hard right courted by the paleo strategy. Paul’s continued contact with the fringe groups of Truthers, racists, and the paranoid right are well documented. Even in 2008, he refused to return a campaign contribution of $500 from the white supremacist group Stormfront. You can still go to their site and see their love for Ron Paul in this campaign and you can find a picture of Ron with the owner of Stormfront’s website. Even if Ron had never intentionally courted them, isn’t it a huge problem that they think he is a good candidate? Doesn’t that say something really bad about the way Ron Paul is communicating his message?
We can, however, take pains to make clear that some of Ron Paul’s past and current associations are rejected by libertarians who understand the “liberal” in libertarian and whose vision of a free society is one that is so clearly in conflict with racism, homophobia, antisemitism and all the rest that people like Stormfront would never even consider sending us a donation and we would recoil at being photographed with them.
It’s his foreign policy that’s the problem; not so much some stupid and whacky things on race and gays he may have said or written in the past.
Ron Paul is most assuredly an isolationist. He denies this charge vociferously.
But I can tell you straight out, I had countless arguments/discussions with him over his personal views. For example, he strenuously does not believe the United States had any business getting involved in fighting Hitler in WWII. He expressed to me countless times, that “saving the Jews,” was absolutely none of our business. When pressed, he often times brings up conspiracy theories like FDR knew about the attacks of Pearl Harbor weeks before hand, or that WWII was just “blowback,” for Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy errors, and such.
I would challenge him, like for example, what about the instances of German U-boats attacking U.S. ships, or even landing on the coast of North Carolina or Long Island, NY. He’d finally concede that that and only that was reason enough to counter-attack against the Nazis, not any humanitarian causes like preventing the Holocaust.
There is much more information I could give you on the sheer lunacy of his foreign policy views. Let me just concentrate on one in specific. And I will state this with absolute certainty:
Ron Paul was opposed to the War in Afghanistan, and to any military reaction to the attacks of 9/11. He did not want to vote for the resolution. He immediately stated to us staffers, me in particular, that Bush/Cheney were going to use the attacks as a precursor for “invading” Iraq. He engaged in conspiracy theories including perhaps the attacks were coordinated with the CIA, and that the Bush administration might have known about the attacks ahead of time. He expressed no sympathies whatsoever for those who died on 9/11, and pretty much forbade us staffers from engaging in any sort of memorial expressions, or openly asserting pro-military statements in support of the Bush administration.
On the eve of the vote, Ron Paul was still telling us staffers that he was planning to vote “No,” on the resolution, and to be prepared for a seriously negative reaction in the District. Jackie Gloor and I, along with quiet nods of agreement from the other staffers in the District, declared our intentions to Tom Lizardo, our Chief of Staff, and to each other, that if Ron voted No, we would immediately resign.
Ron was “under the spell” of left-anarchist and Lew Rockwell associate Joe Becker at the time, who was our legislative director. Norm Singleton, another Lew Rockwell fanatic agreed with Joe. All other staffers were against Ron, Joe and Norm on this, including Lizardo. At the very last minute Ron switched his stance and voted “Yay" (sic)...
He (Ron Paul) is however, most certainly Anti-Israel, and Anti-Israeli in general. He wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all. He expressed this to me numerous times in our private conversations. His view is that Israel is more trouble than it is worth, specifically to the America taxpayer. He sides with the Palestinians, and supports their calls for the abolishment of the Jewish state, and the return of Israel, all of it, to the Arabs.
Fmr. Senior Aide, US Cong. Ron Paul, 1997 – 2003
Campaign Coordinator, Ron Paul for Congress, 1995/96
National Organizer, Draft Ron Paul for President, 1991/92
Travel Aide/Personal Asst. Ron Paul, Libertarian for President 1987/88
"If she thinks we live in a dangerous world, she ought to think back when I was drafted in 1962 with the nuclear missiles in Cuba. And Kennedy calls Khrushchev and talks to him and talks him out of this and we don't have a nuclear exchange."
He calls the blockade "atrocious", "an act of war".
The Ron Paul campaign is really about re-educating America to what can only be called Neoliberalism. Which, based on the evidence and writings of its supporters, appears to be a thin gruel of free markets and non-interventionism seasoned heavily with anti-Semitism, morally obtuse Neo-Confederates, and an outspoken contempt for both conservatism and conservative leaders past and present....it resonated with something I had been contemplating for the last week or so, namely, how fervent Paul supporters are nearly indistinguishable from liberals when they visit conservative websites. Liberals and Paulbots are about the only two groups in the nation that lump all conservatives indiscriminately under the same label, as "Neocons", a term which they use (inaccurately) with great derision. Aside from the fact that I doubt more than a mere fraction of them actually know what a "neoconservative" is, they think using it makes them sound more intelligent. It doesn't. Secondly, liberals and Paulbots, after they have insulted us liberally (pun intended), go on to tell us how crappy all of our candidates are. Now, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. And in the marketplace of ideas, if some people choose to insult their opponents in lieu of actual arguments, that's their choice. And third, they all seem to cling to the same cookie cutter Conservative caricatures rather than address the substance of what is being discussed. I have long thought it odd, however, just how insulting Paul supporters have been towards conservatives, rather than trying to convince them to join their cause. More flies with honey than vinegar, don'tcha know? But, divide and conquer is as old as mankind. If say, a George Soros type wanted to fund a fringe candidate, and encourage him to run whether or not he received the nomination of his party. And let's say you send out your followers to attempt to split the conservative vote, but not by supporting anyone who actually has a prayer of a chance of beating your liberal candidate next November,how exactly would that look any different from the campaign Paul is running now? Now, I'll throw in the following disclaimer. I am in no way saying that there is a conspiracy or that the Ron Paul campaign is a wholly owned subsidiary of George Soros, I'm just asking if it was, how would you tell the difference? Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.
Newt Gingrich 23%
Mitt Romney 22%
Herman Cain 15%
Ron Paul 8%
Rick Perry 7%
Michele Bachmann 6%
Jon Huntsman 3%
Rick Santorum 2%
Newt Gingrich has catapulted to the front of the race for the 2012 Republican nomination while Herman Cain has lost ground with GOP primary voters. Mitt Romney, once again, is holding steady.
A Fox News poll released Wednesday shows Gingrich’s support doubling in the last three weeks. He stood at 12 percent in late October -- before the Cain harassment allegations and Rick Perry’s “oops” debate. Now the former House speaker is at 23 percent, essentially tied for the lead with Romney, with 22 percent.
*Iraq is actually exporting food, even though it says its people are malnourished...
*Baby milk sold to Iraq through the oil-for-food program has been found in markets throughout the Gulf, demonstrating that the Iraqi regime is depriving its people of much-needed goods in order to make an illicit profit.
*Kuwaiti authorities recently seized a shipment coming out of Iraq carrying, among other items, baby powder, baby bottles, and other nursing materials for resale overseas.
Saddam Hussein’s priorities are clear. If given control of Iraq’s resources, Saddam Hussein would use them to rearm and threaten the region, not to improve the lot of the Iraqi people.
There is ample proof that lifting sanctions would offer the Iraqi people no relief from neglect at the hands of their government
*Sanctions prevent Saddam from spending money on rearmament, but do not stop him from spending money on food and medicine for Iraqis.
*Saddam’s priorities are clear: palaces for himself, prisons for his people, and weapons to destroy Iraq’s citizens and its neighbors. He has built 48 palaces for himself since the Gulf War. He would not use Iraq’s resources to improve the lives of Iraqis. Saddam Hussein would use them to rearm and threaten the region.
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