Waking up to see the Stranger in the Mirror
Paulie Brading
Back in March of 2007 the statewide Republican Dorchester Conference was covered by an AP reporter who wrote, "Disenchantment with Senator Gordon Smith was palable." She quoted a Republican strategist, "My gut feeling is Smith is trying to make sure he gets re-elected, he's catering to the antiwar people." Fast forward to October 2007 when the Republican Party of Oregon selected Ron Paul in their first presidential straw poll. Paul continues to draw support from large numbers of Republicans across the state who feel the party has lost it's way. Many Republicans seem to view the 2008 presidential race as unwinnable. They say because they can't win, they'll vote with their "gut" and support Paul's call for a swift pullout from Iraq. So who is in the mirror looking back at the Republican voter? Is it Ron Paul or Gordon Smith? How far apart are their positions? Gordon Smith will spend millions in the general election telling voters why he is different. Is he? Senator Smith wearing camouflage. Who does he see when he looks in the mirror?
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Nov 18, '07
I wouldn't take too much from the fact that Paul won the straw poll. One of the Paul campaign's tactics for getting visibility has been to send a relatively small group of supporters to minor straw polls and overwhelm the vote. In this instance, there were 38 people who voted for all the other candidates combined. So the Paul campaign got about 6 dozen Paul supporters to come beat that. There's a lot of enthusiasm and self-organizing in the Paul campaign, but their overall numbers aren't that great, and they're not very representative of the average Republican voter.
Nov 19, '07
Maybe it's a division into folks that have become intolerant of talk and strategy in the face of the current realpolitik. "In the face of that which is great, one must speak greatly or be silent". Dem and Rep-as-usual strategizing has become obscene. Ron Paul's dictum is "First, be factually accurate. Second, require a demonstrated connection between action and desired outcome". As he is the only choice that has a demonstrated record of doing so- you can't talk about it and work from within the Dem machine- those who regard it as the sine qua non in a candidate, now, are shifting support. In a few weeks yer gonna get a shock when the polls open.
We are daily responsible for the rape, murder and torture of countless people around the world because their un-democratically elected leaders were stupid enough to claim to have WMD and not be able to actually back up the claim, while possessing strategic oil reserves.
You can address that as a systemic problem for a while, but at some point it becomes "how many kids ya gonna kill today"? Personally, I have the option, via marriage, to remove myself and family to Australia. I'm going now, in the next two weeks, for good. Yes, I have a sinking feeling that I'm just setting the clock back 50 years to relive, but at least I know that not one more penny of my hard earned money is going to support the agenda of the US government. At least not without a good healthy debate, and then it will be just my penny. Not my liberty and values as well.
Take a pie chart of the budget, and redo it as cents on the dollar, to see where your money is going. And you say you have no tolerance for people that financially support legitimate looking organizations that actually use the funds to engage in terror... What is terror? I still regard the best example as being Mormon breeding practices. Presumably, candidates with strong values want folks to subscribe. Would someone please ask Mitt Romney what his plan to tackle global warming is if the US population increased 6x in one generation? What about if everyone had 6 kids, because of their religion, Nancy? See, this is where the "can't say" people are about to confront the "must act" people, largely without respect to party lines.
10:37 a.m.
Nov 19, '07
Back when Gordon Smith decided the war wasn't worth his job he also may have inadvertently joined Ron Paul, Republican candidate for president who also calls for ending the war in Iraq. The average voter hasn't tuned into Smith's next 4 votes to continue to support the war soon after his infamous speech on the Senate floor deploring the war. That was the moment Gordon Smith began dressing like a duck hunter. Many Oregon Republican's considered Smith's anti-war speech to be his surrender to the Democrats speech; they were, and are, still miffed to say the least. Smith continues to try thread the needle between his conservative Eastern Oregon base and portaying himself as a moderate Republican to try to appeal to suburban middle-income Republicans. His strange, and perhaps unintended link of agreement with the Ron Paul campaign to end the Iraq War may play a role in his re-election. I look to the winner of the Democratic May primary, either Merkley or Novick, to explore Smith's link to a candidate that is viewed by many as the man who is taking away conservative dollars that aren't going to a top Republican candidate for president. Ron Paul's politics appeal the philosophy of individualism, particularly to those in rural areas...the 2nd Congresssional District of Oregon, Smith and Walden strongholds.
Nov 19, '07
Rural voters and Republican activists are not the only people interested in Ron Paul. Although I find his economic philosophy at odds with reality, his positions on civil liberties and military force are far better than those of the Democratic frontrunners, not to mention the other Republicans.
A progressive Democrat might wonder if progressive values would be better served with Paul in the White House than with Hillary Clinton there. A Democratic controlled Congress would prevent Paul's efforts to dismantle social programs, but only a committed administration could reverse the loss of constitutional civil liberties we have suffered under the Shrubbery [which began, by the way, with Bill Clinton's anti-terrorism legislation]. And only a committed administration could stop the US from behaving like a renegade empire in international affairs.
There has been murmuring about a Paul independent candidacy that would attract support from both progressives and conservatives. That would certainly make an interesting contrast to [if the frontrunners become the party nominees] Clinton's ultra-ambiguity and Guliani's paranoid monomania.
Nov 19, '07