Ron Paul Is Now the Republican Frontrunner
Of course, this only refers to the upcoming caucuses (cauci?) in Iowa. See the full story here: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/12/ron-paul-is-now-the-republican-frontrunner/
Remember 2008? The most exciting thing about the Republican campaign for the presidency was John McCain announcing his running mate, Sarah Palin, and we all remember how well that turned out. My how things have changed...or have they?
I'm fed up with the Romney/Gingrich/Perry non-choice, same old-same old, fat cat, nice-haired, smooth-talking Republican presidential front-runners. Our country needs change—real, difficult, hard to swallow, affecting all of us change—to avoid catastrophic economic times. What's being shoved down our collective throats are career politicians who bend to the wishes of the highest-paying lobbyist.
Oh, I won't kid myself into thinking Ron Paul will be the party's nominee. He doesn't have "good hair", first of all. He doesn't look polished in a suit. And, can you believe it, he wants to limit or totally abolish the Federal Reserve! Oh...my...God! The man is way off the deep end!
Or is he?
I won't be blindly pulling the "R" straight ticket lever this time. Can't do it and won't do it. Tell me I'm wasting my vote or whatever, but the Libertarian Party may receive a new member into the fold. I know, too many of us doing that may throw the results in favor of that other guy, but I can't in good conscience blindly keep on keepin' on in the same disastrous direction. We need much more than a change of tune; we need a change of the entire orchestra.
Of all the Republican candidates, Paul holds the most appeal for me. However, I can't square his politics with my acceptance of the parable of Good Samaritan or the OT prophets' admonitions about treatment of widows and orphans. I find the "anticipatory self-defense" beliefs of the others utterly reprehensible, but I have a problem with Paul's isolationism. And let's not even Donald Hair's possible intentions of running as an Independent. Personally, I consider myself a Radical Centrist (Tom Friedman's term) but we don't have a candidate yet.
ReplyDeleteAnd therein lies the problem, I'd say. Not one of these folks the Repubs have running is someone I could jump up and say, "YES, There's someone who speaks for me!?
ReplyDeleteOf all the thousands of qualified candidates, this is the best they can offer? Yes, Paul is my guy, too, but just as the article you shared ( http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/us/politics/ron-paul-disowns-extremists-views-but-doesnt-disavow-the-support.html?_r=1&emc=eta1 ) shows, he's not without huge question marks either. Surely from our 300 million folks we can come up with just one candidate that speaks MY language, shares MY views, believes that OUR Constitution is more than just an old piece of paper, can't we? It's pretty damn frustrating.