Where Will All The Paulistas Go?

HEY! We’re Willing to Say Some of the Things He Says!! Actually DO Them? What, Are You Crazy?!

As reported on 3/6/12 in NewsMax (newsmax.com), “A significant number of Ron Paul’s supporters are likely to exit the battlefield when the GOP nominating fight ends and not return for the general election. An exit poll of Michigan primary voters last week, for example, found that 35 percent of the Texas congressman’s supporters will not vote for another Republican, The Washington Post reported.

 ...

Regardless, other campaigns say some of Paul’s supporters can be won over and even the Obama campaign plans to make an effort.”

It seems to me Paul supporters voting for Obama is just too much like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football Lucy is holding. Talk about a fool-me-once situation...

Cross-Over Voting…

Michael Moore indicates all his friends in his native Michigan are voting in the Republican primary today for...Rick Santorum.

Any registered voter, independent, Democrat, or Republican, can vote in the Republican primary in Michigan (though not in AZ).

This has led to “strategic voting.” And Romney is complaining. It’s a close race and Romney doesn’t want to lose because of Santorum’s Democratic “support.” Statistical analyzes indicate as much as 10% of the votes in Michigan’s race might come from Independents and Democrats. Of these votes, as much as one-half would likely be cast for Santorum. In second place, with about one-fifth, is Ron Paul.

While Romney began complaining quite loudly on MI Primary Day about the unfairness of cross-over voting, Santorum correctly noted he didn’t complain in New Hampshire when he was the one benefitting from cross-over votes.

This is very much what upsets a growing number of voters, and Americans generally: the way these candidates for President change principles like they change ties. Sometimes, as with ties, they seem to wear none at all…

Of course, one can also complain of the lack of principle shown by the voters themselves if they engage in “strategic voting.” Michael Moore’s friends are voting for Santorum not because they like Santorum or what he stands for--no doubt they loathe him--but because they think, rightly or wrongly, that Obama can more easily best Santorum than Romney in November.

And here we get to the meat of the issue, overlooked so far by media reports on this topic. There is a MAJOR difference between Democrats and Independents crossing over in Michigan to vote for different GOP candidates.

The vast majority of Democrats voting in the GOP primary for Santorum are voting as a strategy. The vast majority of Democrats and Independents voting in the GOP primary for Paul are voting as a principle.

What’s the difference? The Democrats voting in Michigan on 2/28/12 for Santorum have no intention of voting for him in November. They are strict Obama voters. The Democrats and Independents voting in Michigan on 2/28/12 for Paul mostly want to vote for Paul in November. They are NOT strict Obama voters.

So one sad tale the Michigan primary vote tells is that even as we are burying ourselves under mountains of debt, as we look at Greece and reasonably wonder if we’re next, more people are still willing to vote strategically rather than on principle. And when you think about it, that’s not a very good strategy in the long run...

DOMA, the GOP, and the Constitution...

In the heat of the Republican primaries, it’s no surprise that DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, is once again coming to the fore. Marriage, it seems, is such a weak and vapid institution that only a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman will save it, according to both front runners in Florida, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former defender-of-gay-rights-while-Massachusetts-Governor-but-not-now Mitt Romney, who increasingly sounds like a line from a Whitman poem[1]…

Ron Paul, defending federalism over liberty on this issue, says that decisions on legalizing or prohibiting gay marriage should be left to states. This is not acceptable to that great conservative Rick Santorum who, like Gingrich and Romney, are eager to amend the Constitution of the United States before the demographics change and gay marriage becomes a done deal. In response to Paul, Santorum, in defiance of reality, says, "We can't have 50 marriage laws." 

Earth to Santorum: We DO have 50 different marriage laws, differing in such matters as what constitutes a common law marriage; the age of consent to marry, with and without parental consent; whether or not premarital medical exams are required, and if so the scope of the exam and the maximum allowable period between the exam and the subsequent marriage; the length, if any, of the waiting period between obtaining a marriage license and the marriage ceremony; the duration of validity of the marriage license before expiration; how marital assets are handled, among many, many other differences. Though no doubt shocking to Santorum--how did this guy pass the bar?--both the Republic and the institution of marriage have so far survived all these variations in marriage laws. (For God’s sake, DON’T anyone tell him marriage laws differ internationally. This is one man who doesn’t need another reason to start bombing other countries…)

From a libertarian perspective, all of these candidates are wrong, though admittedly Paul comes closest to being correct. The larger mistake regarding DOMA, however, belongs to Speaker of the House Boehner. Almost a year ago now (2/23/11), the Speaker became upset that the President, through his Attorney General and Department of Justice, announced their unwillingness to defend the legality/constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act passed by Congress in 1996. 

Some background here: For many years, through many administrations of both R and D stripe, the Justice Department has always proceeded on the assumption that, until the Supreme Court says otherwise, anything passed by Congress is constitutional and thus worthy of Department of Justice defense in court. This “Presumption of Constitutionality” was challenged last year by the Obama administration, refusing to defend DOMA in court against numerous judicial challenges.

On the practical side, this was a not unreasonable choice by Attorney General Holder, as DOMA has not done well in court. It is read by the court, not unreasonably, as prima facie designed to achieve an unwarranted disparate impact on the citizenry, and therefore suspect.

Also on the practical side, Boehner then and the Republican Presidential hopefuls now are foolish going to the wall to defend DOMA. Not only will they likely lose, but in the process they will turn off many independents who switched sides between 2008 and 2010 to give them the House, and may, if sufficiently turned off by Republican church dogma, switch back again in 2012.

But more importantly, this was one of those rare situations where the Obama administration is in the right. And this executive interpretation will be a helpful precedent the next time someone favoring limited government sits in the Oval Office (granted, a description no candidate save Paul falls under in this race).

Both Congress and the President swear to uphold the Constitution. The question then arises, how can one seriously attempt to uphold the Constitution if one refuses to hazard a guess as to what it means? Does Boehner seriously believe that “upholding the Constitution” is identical to “upholding whatever rulings the Supreme Court hands down?” If he doesn’t believe this—and his position on Roe v Wade certainly implies he doesn’t—then he must believe the Supreme Court is not the only source of constitutional interpretation. So what we have here is a difference of opinion between some members of Congress and the President on the constitutionality of DOMA. 

This is not a rare occurrence. The current Congress and the President also disagree on the constitutionality of the Obamacare legislation. The Supreme Court will rule at the end of the current session. If Obama and Biden suddenly died, and Boehner, as Speaker, assumed the Presidency, would he really feel compelled as President to say, “Well, I don’t believe in the constitutionality of Obamacare but of course I will defend Obamacare to the best of my ability in front of the Supreme Court.” Doing that would imply that an oath to defend the Constitution includes defending things one truly and strongly believes to be unconstitutional.

To think otherwise is to misunderstand the Founders’ concept of the division of powers. Giving the Supreme Court supreme judicial power doesn’t mean no other branch of government has a role in determining constitutionality. If Congress doesn’t think a bill is constitutional, it doesn’t pass it into law, so it never reaches the Supreme Court. If Congress thinks a former Congress passed an unconstitutional law, it repeals it. It doesn’t claim that the presumption of constitutionality requires waiting for the Supreme Court to rule. Similarly, if a bill reaches the President’s desk that he believes is unconstitutional, he doesn’t sign it into law. He doesn’t say, “Well, Congress thinks this is Constitutional; who am I to judge such things?” Conservatives rightly castigated President Bush II when he signed the McCain-Feingold bill into law even while explicitly saying he thought parts of it were unconstitutional. 

Just as signing bills into law, or refusing to do so, is part of the President’s executive powers, so is the way he chooses to run the Justice Department. Every government department, even today, has a finite budget. Decisions regarding priorities have to be made. If the President thinks the scarce resources of the Justice Department’s budget are not well spent by defending DOMA, why should Congress object? Surely using resources to defend a law one believes unconstitutional is a low priority use of funds. If the Justice Department indicated it didn’t feel it worthwhile to defend certain OSHA or environmental regulations, Republicans would rejoice. 

Former generations understood this. Laws do not enforce themselves. When the Supreme Court ruled on the rights of native Americans in a way that Andrew Jackson opposed, he said, “The Supreme Court has ruled. Now let them enforce their ruling.” Jackson is now considered retrograde for his position on the Indians, but his position on the law not enforcing itself withstands the test of time. Does anyone seriously believe that if the Supreme Court in the 1960s had determined the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional the troops would have been immediately withdrawn?

Everyone agrees the President has the power of the pardon. A blanket pardon for anyone incarcerated for violating certain laws—be it anti-war protestors during the Vietnam era or those politically prosecuted under the infamous Palmer laws of WWI; be it drunks thrown in prison during Prohibition or abolitionists violating Fugitive Slave laws—is well within the President’s authority. Would Boehner say this, too, is a violation of the will of Congress, a violation of the Presumption of Constitutionality toward anything Congress spews out?

Won’t this lead to anarchy? Not at all. It will lead to a divided, and thus limited, government. How are our freedoms maintained and protected? By restricting the rules that bind our actions. Therefore, it is right that a rule, to have societal impact, must be so correct, and so clearly agreed to, that not only can it get passed into law by Congress but it can also get enforced by the President and approved by the Supreme Court. DOMA got passed by Congress but federal courts routinely oppose it and it will likely not survive a Supreme Court ruling. Nor can it get enforced by the current administration. This is how the Founders conceived of things. 

No one should be surprised to find that in the months leading up to the repeal of Prohibition, the Justice Department did not work quite as hard as it had previously to enforce Prohibition, just as soldiers don’t risk all in the final hours before a peace treaty is signed. No one wants to be the last person to die in a war.

Boehner and the Republicans should be happy with this result. First it is the essence of limited government. Second, it allows a President more devoted than Obama to limited government to carefully pick and choose which laws he is willing to defend in front of the Supreme Court. 

But when it comes to the shameful stands the GOP Presidential candidates take on marriage equality, the best their supporters can say is, “don’t ask, don’t tell…”

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[1]: Song of Myself: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

All A-Twitter…

January 13, 2012

Ron Paul is 76 years old. But he has the energy of a much younger man...and the following. Here’s just one example:

I look at the national Twitter counts of the various Presidential candidates over the last week, the number of tweets mentioning each candidate:

Barack Obama        116,803

Mitt Romney            215,873

Rick Perry               68,638

Jon Huntsman        44,309

Rick Santorum        96,878

Newt Gingrich         65,906

Ron Paul                 279,839

Jon Huntsman, who bet it all on New Hampshire, has the fewest Tweets coming out of Granite State; he will be spit out by the Palmetto State. 

Newt Gingrich and the two Ricks can’t get out of 5-digit territory. 

Barack Obama, that darling charismatic leader of hope and change who so captivated the youth of only 4 years ago, barely passes the 6-figure mark. 

Ron Paul more than DOUBLES the number of weekly tweets of the President of the United States. Only Mitt Romney comes close, getting 77% of Ron Paul’s traffic.

Ron Paul, a bit of a grandfatherly crank, the oldest man in the race, a man who was born in 1935 and had an obstetrical degree before there was ultrasound, OWNS the Internet. Go to YouTube. Check out the hits on Paul websites and compare them to those of other candidates. Look at the pro-Paul Internet ads spreading like viruses. This man captures the imaginations of the youth more than anyone could themselves imagine...and more than Barack Obama could hope for, or change.

President Obama inherited a bad situation, the result of a big-spending Republican who frittered away two terms on foreign wars. Barack Obama made things much worse, spending to such an extreme the Bush II regime appears in retrospect humbly frugal, and extending but only barely revising what can now be called the Bush/Obama wars. As Peggy Noonan put it month’s ago, he inherited a bad situation, and he made it worse...much worse.

Barack Obama owns the moment, and has to take responsibility for it.

But Ron Paul owns the future. And as Nick Gillespie of Reason.com often reminds, the future’s so bright we’ll have to wear shades.

Why Did Ron Paul Come in Third in Iowa?

With 99% of the caucus vote reported, Ron Paul came in third at 21% compared to 25% each for Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. (At least, that’s how it’s being reported by most media; when you look at the actual numbers, that 25% each for Romney and Santorum is actually 24.5% each, and Paul’s 21% is really 21.4%. So he’s 3.1% behind them, not 4%. Funny, when I was in school we were taught that 24.5 percent is rounded to 24%; I guess times change.)

The big Iowa win of course belonged to Santorum, a religious conservative who curried the evangelical vote in Iowa and won with it much as Mike Huckabee did in 2008. Huckabee, of course, quickly lost ground in subsequent primaries. (Meanwhile, Santorum lost the vote of his nephew, who published an article explaining  why he’s supporting Ron Paul.) 

Ron Paul was in a tight race for first with Mitt Romney until only two days earlier. Of course, the difference in Paul and Santorum votes was less than 4,000 people, but still Paul’s last-minute drop needs analysis.

Here’s part of it. In 2008 at the national level the November Presidential vote broke down as follows for age: 

Per census data: Citizens 18-24 were the only age group increasing in turnout from 2004. Citizens between the ages of 45 to 64 saw their voting rates slightly decrease. Voting rates for citizens aged 25 to 44 and 65 years or older were statistically unchanged between 2004 and 2008. 2008 was the second straight presidential election year where young citizens significantly increased their voting rates. 

Obama did well among the 18-24 age voters, helping him win the general election. In Iowa, Paul polled first among 18-45 year olds. But looking at the voting distribution at the caucuses, only 31% of the voters were in the 18-45 age group. 68% were in the 45-older group. To the extent younger voters--who could easily vote for Paul over Obama in a general election but would never vote for Santorum over Obama--were under-represented in Iowa, Iowa downplays Paul’s strength, yet Paul still came in a close second after a tie for first. To put it another way: if the age distribution of the 2012 Iowa GOP vote was the same as the 2008 national vote, with nothing else changed, Paul would have come in first last night.

People are now asking whether Santorum has the organization, money, strength, etc. to win. These are the same questions asked of Mike Huckabee in 2008. He got 35% of the Iowa vote, yet he didn’t come close to winning. Neither will Santorum. This will become a two-man race: Romney and Paul. Fortunately, these are the two GOP candidates who do best against Obama. It’s turning, like 2010, into a choice between the GOP Establishment and the Tea Party.

Do Actions Speak Louder Than Words?

12/30/11

The blogosphere and MSM are spending an inordinate amount of time on the two-decade old scandal of Ron Paul’s eponymous newsletters. “Is Ron Paul a RACIST?” they indignantly inquire.

Short answer: No. No one who knows him--not a patient, not a fellow Congressman, not a constituent; neither political friends or enemies--is willing to make this claim for the camera. But, we’re nonetheless told, it’s important to look at the man’s record.

I agree. Let’s ASSUME he’s a racist. What follows? If you were black, whom would you rather vote for: a racist who nonetheless supports policies and programs that in fact benefit you, or a candidate who champions black equality but nonetheless supports programs that in fact harm you?

Let’s ASSUME Ron Paul is a racist; not, of course, a string-‘em-up lynch mob racist. But someone who makes broad and false generalizations about you and your character based on the color of your skin; who crosses the street at night to avoid you if he sees you approaching; who prefers not to deal with you as a customer, client, employee, or fellow club member. 

Such people should be shunned. But should they not be elected to high office? That would seem to depend on the policies they support. 

Ron Paul has strongly and almost alone called for ending the drug war. What has the drug war done to black America? According to scholar John McWhorter, writing for the Cato Institute (”How the War on Drugs Is Destroying Black America” , Cato’s Letter [Washington, DC: The Cato Institute, Winter, 2011, p. 1]

"The main obstacle to getting black America past the illusion that racism is still a defining factor in America is the strained relationship between young black men and police forces. The massive number of black men in prison stands as an ongoing and graphically resonant rebuke to all calls to “get past racism,” exhibit initiative, or stress optimism. And the primary reason for this massive number of black men in jail is the War on Drugs. Therefore, if the War on Drugs were terminated, the main factor keeping race-based resentment a core element in the American social fabric would no longer exist. America would be a better place for all."

The Drug Policy Alliance noted in March of this year:

"Mass arrests and incarceration of people of color – largely due to drug law violations – have hobbled families and communities by stigmatizing and removing substantial numbers of men and women. In the late 1990s, nearly one in three African-American men aged 20-29 were under criminal justice supervision,  while more than two out of five had been incarcerated – substantially more than had been incarcerated a decade earlier and orders of magnitudes higher than that for the general population. Today, 1 in 15 African-American children and 1 in 42 Latino children have a parent in prison, compared to 1 in 111 white children. In some areas, a large majority of African-American men – 55 percent in Chicago, for example– are labeled felons for life, and, as a result, may be prevented from voting and accessing public housing, student loans and other public assistance." [5 footnoted references in this quotation removed]

Even though Barack Obama is on record in his own autobiography as having used drugs when he was younger, he has done nothing to limit the harm to the black community, or Americans in general, from the drug war that he prosecutes as strongly as his predecessor George W. Bush. Meanwhile, Ron Paul, a physician on record as never having used illicit drugs and as counseling patients and political supporters not to use drugs, favors ending this blight on the black community. 

Black Americans make on average lower incomes than white Americans. Therefore the current recession--which Obama has been singularly unable to ameliorate--harms blacks to a greater degree; black unemployment is higher, and persistently so, than white unemployment. This is especially true of teenagers seeking their first step up the economic ladder to success. Economists across the political spectrum see increasing regulations on hiring, concerns about the as yet incalculable costs of Obamacare, and a high minimum wage as contributing to the black youth unemployment rate. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics black unemployment is almost twice that of the white youth unemployment rate--39.6% to 21.4%--under President Obama, who allowed the last increase in the minimum wage to go into effect in July, 2009, at the height of our recession. Obama supports expansive government regulations, increasing minimum wages, and Obamacare. Ron Paul opposes all these things. Therefore objectively blacks are economically better off under Paul’s economic policies than Obama’s nostrums.

The continued and persistent gap in black educational success in government K-12 schools is a moral blight on our nation. Ron Paul calls for major change in this area--ending No Child Left Behind, closing the Federal Department of Education, offering tax credits for education--while Obama wants to double down with more spending. Yet the government at all levels in the USA has doubled spending in inflation-adjusted per-capita education dollars over a generation, with NO change in reading, math, science or other basic skills. This, more than anything else, harms black America, and only Ron Paul wants fundamental change for the better:.

Blacks make up a disproportionate number of active service forces in the military. Since its an all-volunteer force, there is nothing wrong with that per se. But with 23% of active duty Army personnel being African-American, compared with 12.6% of the population as a whole, it follows that Blacks are disproportionately at risk when US politicians decide to go to war. Obama claimed he would end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq when he came into office in 2008. It’s taken him an entire first term to end the Iraq war, and only then because Iraqi Prime Minister Malaki refused Obama’s preference to keep American troops deployed in his country. Meanwhile, Obama is anticipating many more years of American troops in Afghanistan. Ron Paul, on the other hand, wants to end foreign wars and bring the troops home, arguing it is both safer and less costly to American blood and treasure...arguing, in effect, that we shouldn’t be willing to trade black blood for black gold.

I could go on, but here’s the hypothetical: ASSUME Ron Paul IS a racist. In that case he’s a racist with economic, civil liberties, educational, and foreign policy positions that happen in fact to benefit black Americans. Meanwhile, President Obama, whom we stipulate is NOT a racist, favors policies that in fact harm American blacks on many dimensions. 

If you were black, whom would you vote for?

Strassel’s Straddle

December 26, 2011

Kimberley Strassel writes the weekly Potomac Watch column for the Wall St. Journal. Her December 16th column contained her WSJ-obligatory “hit piece” on Congressman Ron Paul, who is gaining in the polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Her title, “Why Ron Paul Can’t Win,” said it all. . The term “ideological crank” was bandied about, and Strassel explained Paul “does himself in” when discussing foreign policy. He doesn’t support what Strassel, whose historical knowledge of foreign policy seems to begin in the 1940s, views as the “traditional” American role of world policeman and global-striding colossus. Such views, in Strassel’s opinion, cannot win in the Republican primaries. This creates a problem for Paul. But not only Paul, it seems...

In her very next column, 12/22/11,  “The GOP’s Message Problem,” Strassel discusses how the Republican candidates for their party’s Presidential nomination “are consistently failing to provide the sort of message that will resonate with those voters who will matter most in 2012.” Who exactly are these voters? Reporting on a Crossroads analysis of “18 in-depth focus groups in battleground states,” Strassel notes that Republicans are not reaching out to engage potential cross-over voters concerned about the federal debt, seen as completely out of control and evidence of a DC culture addicted to spending.

And Strassel has a point. Consider Congressman Paul Ryan’s proposed alternative budget, which doesn’t cut one cent. It merely increases government spending somewhat less rapidly than Barack Obama’s over the next decade. As pointed out by Keith Hennessey, among others, Ryan doesn’t move the federal budget from yearly deficits to yearly surpluses until 2040, almost 30 years from now. Strassel’s own WSJ calls that “Revolutionary” and candidate Mitt Romney initially refused to sign onto the Ryan Plan because increasing government spending slightly less fast than Barack Obama might be too extreme…

Well...there is ONE candidate who talks of shuttering FIVE cabinet departments and cutting $1 TRILLION in his FIRST YEAR in office. There IS one candidate who seriously discusses what that sort of cut implies: Not just cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Rather, a fundamental re-assessment of what our government should do, including policing the world and filling prisons with peaceful drug users. How is that candidate doing among the very cross-over voters who so concern the Kimberley Strassel of December 22nd?

Quite well. According to the latest Public Policy Poll, Paul is winning in Iowa, 23% to Romney’s 20% and Gingrich’s 14%. His support is deeper and more dedicated. A greater number of Paul supporters indicate they will not switch. Most importantly as regards those swing voters so important to Barack Obama in 2008, Paul carries 33% of the youth vote (those under 45), and 35% of the quarter of voters who call themselves either Democrats or Independents. 

So combining her December 16th and 22nd columns, Kimberley Strassel’s analysis is that the GOP, excluding Paul, can’t connect with the key subset of the electorate needed to win in November, and that Paul himself is not acceptable to enough GOP voters. The only GOP candidate that might take away key voting blocks from Barack Obama in November can’t, per Strassel, win the GOP nomination.

Against a generic Republican candidate, Barack Obama loses. Against each of the actual candidates, Obama wins, but Paul comes second closest to beating him (within 8% points; Romney is within 3%. These numbers are, of course, very fluid). We understand why Romney does well: he LOOKS Presidential. He is wealthy and successful, handsome and tall, speaks with confidence and sobriety, never saying anything that might get him in trouble. Just what the establishment thinks Americans want in their President. But why is Paul doing well? It can’t be the man himself. He IS somewhat crankish. He DOES tend to blather on a bit. How can HE possibly be doing so well. When you think about it, it MUST be his message.

In a rational world, this sort of thing would make establishment Republicans re-assess their aversion to Ron Paul. But in the WSJ’s worldview, nothing can allow re-thinking their “small limited government capable of policing the whole world” ideology. Nonetheless, they shouldn’t ignore the fact that, distorted and hysterically pilloried though it has been, Paul’s principled non-interventionism attracts support from the people actually fighting America’s wars. Paul receives more monetary contributions from US soldiers than all the other GOP candidates. As for traditional GOP voters, to judge by the applause he receives at the GOP debates he is gaining traction here as well. 

It would be tragic if Strassel were right, that the person best positioned to reach out to Americans sick of big government can’t win because he actually wants to cut big government.