Bloodthirsty Liberal

Ron Paul leads him in a hypothetical matchup.

…For the first time since late December 2011, Mitt Romney leads the president in a hypothetical 2012 matchup. Romney earns 45% of the vote, while the president attracts support from 43%. Romney holds a nine-point advantage among unaffiliated voters.

For the first time ever, Texas Congressman Ron Paul also leads the president. In that matchup, 43% prefer Paul and 41% Obama. Ten percent (10%) would vote for some other option, a figure that includes 17% of Republicans.

If former Senator Rick Santorum is the Republican nominee, the president leads by two, 45% to 43%. With former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as his opponent, the president enjoys a 10-point lead, 49% to 39%.

Some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed and put your golf clothes on, does it Mr. President?

- Aggie

Sorry for the title, don’t come after me, please, I’m hiding in a closet in an undisclosed place in.. uh… Maryland.. yeah… that’s the ticket.

It’s just that in addition to the obvious problems with Mitt as a candidate, the bigger problem could be Ron Paul.

Obama won the Presidency in 2008 because of the youth movement that he was able to put together. Long-time readers know that I view youth movements with horror. Think Nazi Germany, that was a youth movement. Communist movements are youth movements. This doesn’t mean that the leaders are young – although the oldest person in Hitler’s original cabinet was 40 – it just means that the followers are young and idealistic. Idealism in small doses is great. When it takes over, it is a mob and it tramples and destroys everything in its path.

Ron Paul is leading a youth movement. Many of his voters in New Hampshire, where anyone, even the dead, can get a ballot, told reporters that if Ron Paul isn’t the candidate, they will vote for Barack Obama. Ron Paul or Barack Obama. Sound strange? What do they have in common? Well, they are both leaders of a radical youth movement. The children of baby boomers have come of age.

The Democratic convention will be a tightly scripted TV extravaganza extolling the Prince and his wise and kindly rule. The Republican convention could conceivably feature a major address by Paul calling for the abolition of the Fed, FEMA and the CIA; American withdrawal from everywhere; acquiescence to the Iranian bomb — and perhaps even Paul’s opposition to a border fence lest it be used to keep Americans in. Not exactly the steady, measured, reassuring message a Republican convention might wish to convey. For libertarianism, however, it would be a historic moment: mainstream recognition at last.

Put aside your own view of libertarianism or of Paul himself. I see libertarianism as an important critique of the Leviathan state, not a governing philosophy. As for Paul himself, I find him a principled, somewhat wacky, highly engaging eccentric. But regardless of my feelings or yours, the plain fact is that Paul is nurturing his movement toward visibility and legitimacy.

Paul is 76. He knows he’ll never enter the promised land. But he’s clearing the path for son Rand, his better placed (Senate vs. House), more moderate, more articulate successor.

And it matters not whether you find amusement in libertarians practicing dynastic succession. What Paul has already wrought is a signal achievement, the biggest story yet of this presidential campaign.

You wonder how Obama can win Florida? This is how.

- Aggie

That’s the thesis

Texas Congressman Ron Paul is 76 years old, yet the demographic from which he attracts the most amount of support is voters less than half his age. Just what do young voters find so appealing about Paul?

In the latest Gallup results broken down by age of respondents, Paul does disproportionately well with voters aged 18-34, being the preferred choice of 20 percent of that demographic nationally, statistically tied with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 19 percent. But with older demographics Paul barely registers, being supported by 8 percent of the 35-54-year-olds, and 4 percent among those over age 55.
…

Mike Devanney, a Republican strategist, echoed that view, calling Paul “a bit of a counter-cultural figure.”

“He doesn’t usually fit into that Republican ideological box, and young people are regularly idealistic and look for things that are different, and, certainly, his political phenomenon is different,” Devanney added.

“Maybe it’s the rebel in him,” joked Republican consultant Jim Dyke.

Another aspect of Paul’s appeal is “the straight talk,” suggested Grayson. “He does exactly what he believes. He’s pretty consistent philosophically.”

“No caveats, no nuances, no ‘it depends’ — purity of beliefs is always a hit among young people,” echoed Republican political consultant Dan Hazelwood. “They want to be in the vanguard of the revolution. It’s why students on the left rallied to candidate Obama in ’08, and on the right they rally to Ron Paul. Also, in Ron Paul’s case, its hip to be for the square, grumpy old dude because he is an anti-establishment conservative.”

“I’ve noticed about the folks who are big supporters of Ron Paul, they feel like they’re part of a cause, they feel like they’re part of something greater than just backing a simple candidate,” Grayson observed. “In many ways, that’s somewhat similar to Obama in ‘08.”

“This is a cause; it’s a calling for them, in a way that Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry — none of them have that. And I think for the millennial generation that’s a big deal — making them feel like they’re part of something bigger. Obama captured it in ‘08, Paul might do it in ’12,” Grayson predicted.

I agree with the assessment and it concerns me. I have heard of young adults who are behind him because he doesn’t seem like he’s the product of a marketing campaign. He is dangerously naive – just like Obama – but is even more arrogant and less likely to listen to different viewpoints. He has had over seventy years to calcify his thinking.

- Aggie

Ron Paul as the Republican candidate would do it. And one poll now shows him in first place in Iowa.

To all the Ron Paul supporters out there, you should know that I am not alone. I will not vote for him. And I won’t not vote either. If he becomes the Republican nominee, Obama will win in the biggest landslide in American history. He will interpret that as a mandate to do as he pleases, rather than a sensible decision on the part of many conservatives to walk away from the Republican candidate.

(BTL, I added Ron Paul to the tag list)

- Aggie