Thursday, June 7, 2012

Ron Paul: I won't be the nominee

In an email to supporters last night, Ron Paul made clear he will not be the nominee of the Republican Party. Here is the full text of his email:
I wanted you to get an update from me personally, since we have some great news!

Due to the smart planning of our campaign and the hard work and diligence of supporters like you, we stand to send nearly 200 bound delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa. This number shatters the predictions of the pundits and talking heads and shows the seriousness of our movement.

What's more, we will send several hundred additional supporters to Tampa who, while bound to Romney, believe in our ideas of liberty, constitutional government, and a common-sense foreign policy.

When it is all said and done, we will likely have as many as 500 supporters as delegates on the Convention floor. That is just over 20 percent!

And while this total is not enough to win the nomination, it puts us in a tremendous position to grow our movement and shape the future of the GOP!

I hope every one of you continues the fight we have advanced so well this year. I hope you will finish your local and state conventions, and, if you were selected as a national delegate, that you will head to Tampa in August to force the Republican Party to listen to the voice of liberty.

We have never had this kind of opportunity. There will be hundreds of your fellow supporters in Tampa who will be ready and willing to push the Republican Party back to its limited government, liberty roots.

There are many issues to fight for in Tampa. Also, candidates like Justin Amash, Kurt Bills, and Thomas Massie need your support as we move into the fall. Across the country, supporters of liberty have won local office and leadership positions in the GOP, and we need to keep working.

Our delegates’ presence must be felt both in Tampa and in years to come.

Stand up for what we believe in. Be respectful. And let the establishment know that we are the future of the Party and of the country.

Our Revolution is just getting started. You'll be hearing plenty from me as we approach Tampa and the fall elections. You'll also be hearing of important developments on Audit the Fed and Campaign for Liberty.

I hope you'll continue to stand with me as we go forward. Our Revolution could not have come this far without you.

For Liberty,

Ron Paul
My only comment is that politics is a very dirty business, Ron Paul is unique. It is very unlikely we will see another like him anytime soon (I hope I am wrong). He is truly a man of principle. Thus, I do note with interest that RP mentions several other candidates, I do not know any of them, nor how strong or well informed they are on libertarian principles. All I know is that it is very difficult for someone to run for office and not bend a little here and a little there to get elected. Be very careful of anyone trying to get elected using the tailwinds of Ron Paul. Some are probably strong freedom fighters, but it is unlikely they all are.

22 comments:

  1. Sure glad I didn't waste what little money and time I have on that campaign. I knew that most Americans still have their heads 50 miles up their rears and still don't want their freedom.

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    1. So you're saying if you gave money to Romney instead, it would have been money well spent?

      I don't get you people who think you lost money when you give money to a losing candidate. You lost anyway by virtue of your preferred candidate losing.

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    2. "So you're saying if you gave money to Romney instead, it would have been money well spent?"

      Point to where I said it would have been money well spent if given to Romney. Show me where.

      Romney isn't any better than a public toilet seat. I wouldn't give him anything. Period. Now, what was that you were saying?

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  2. I know one way to find out how libertarian they are...do another Gary Johnsonesque interview with them! If nothing else, maybe you will spark them to read Rothbard or Hazlitt before they run for Prez so they'll be prepared for the main stage.

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  3. hopefully Justin Amash can survive his re-election bid!

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  4. I don't know that any of those candidates are libertarians, but they at least seem to be constitutionalists, which is as good as I ever expect (and rarely see) out of Congress.

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  5. I would settle for constitutionalists hands down. It's just a matter of time before they become libertarians.

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  6. I agree that Ron Paul is exceptional, and we rarely come across politicians with both his level of integrity and erudition. But it is also true that politicians of that sort are doomed not to reach the top in politics. Apart from those who only think of self-interest, it is not possible to get 51% of the population to agree on such a detailed ideological agenda. Nor is it desirable.

    An intellectual vanguard can lead the way, but they can only implement their program completely by the use of force which is exactly what the liberty movement is opposed to. Let us remember that Lenin's "vanguard" were technically anarchists who thought that they were leading the way to the destruction of the state.

    We should never forget what someone said, paraphrasing Kant: "The ends is baloney. The means are what we live with." We will promote liberty by building coalitions with others who may partly disagree. But it would be the death of the liberty movement if they were to gain unrestrained power.

    I know very little about Bills, but Amash and Massie are solidly supportive of the liberty movement.

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  7. Nobody cares about changing the GOP. If Paul isn't in there, we have no allegiance to the party. Its too bad that Paul doesn't understand this.

    @Weznel, how can we get Paul to form a new party? It doesn't have to be to run for president, but we can start with state elections and work our way up.

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    1. Paul already tried the third party route. The barriers to entry are 1000x bigger.

      An ideological takeover of one (or both) main parties is much more feasible and has already been done before (remember the socialist party? 90% of their program was implemented, but they never won an election in the US).

      That is why Ron Paul, after over 40 years of political experience, is betting on that strategy.

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  8. When I met Ron Paul (for a second time), I also met Justin Amash. He is a great Congress member and a true libertarian. Everyone knows that Ron Paul has pictures of Austrian economists on his wall in his congressional office. Justin Amash has more (Bastiat, Mises, Hazlitt, Hayek, and Rothbard, at least). I concur with Brad Dillon. I may oppose the existence of the state, but I support people like Paul and Amash who want to limit it as much as possible.

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  9. The GOP is the party of centralism, statism, militarism, and blind obedience to authority. Thoroughly un-American just like the Democrats.

    Sending those delegates - as conscientious as they are - to that police state convention is not worth endangering their lives. A political convention is worthless and pointless.

    If he must continue to use the inherently corrupt political apparatus, Ron Paul should right now abandon the GOP and run on a third-party ticket.

    But there really is no hope in trying to use a central planning federal government to restore our freedom. The first thing that needs to be done is that people need to withdraw their consent of their own serfdom to government bureaucrats. States need to secede as well.

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    1. I think the "inadvertent" publication of the Federal government's purchase of millions of bullets was intended to psychologically condition the public into thinking it's not worth it to secede.

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  10. Kurt Bills seems somewhat like an Austrian to me. This is an excerpt from his campaign website:
    "Prices are signals. The price of money is known as the interest rate. It is the most important price in a free enterprise system. The policy of printing more money decreases interest rates and the value of our dollar. This affects the ratio of dollars in circulation compared to the amount of goods and services available. It is the root cause of inflation and the business cycle. Monetary policy and devaluation of our dollar is a GIANT that we face. We all work for, spend, invest, or borrow money. Printing money causes the most regressive form of taxation…the inflation tax. Stealing the purchasing power of working class people by printing money keeps interest rates low and encourages people to go further into debt rather than save. This is one of the most morally corrupt policies I have witnessed in my study and teaching of economics. The solution is to audit the Fed and, at minimum, change its dual mandate from promoting full employment AND providing price stability to simply promoting price stability. I will work for a stronger approach to allow working class people to be paid in wages that maintain or grow their purchasing power." http://kurtbills.com/issues/

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    1. He seemed Austrian at first, but then said the solution was to "audit the Fed and, at minimum, change its dual mandate from promoting full employment AND providing price stability to simply promoting price stability."

      The solution is not auditing the fed. The solution is ending the fed. At a minimum, we should be auditing it. In addition, from an Austrian viewpoint, the mandate of the Fed really doesn't matter. If they are printing money for "price stablity", booms and busts will still occur, just as the Great Depression occurred after a decade of "price stability".

      It sounds pretty good other than that (minor annoyance that he says the "price of money" rather than the "price of money with respect to time"), but it seems to me that a lot of these people running for Congress/Senate as "liberty candidates" are having trouble chanting the words that have been chanted at so many Paul rallies. "End the Fed."

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  11. LB- Perhaps every candidate could be asked to take a modified Rothbard Pledge (http://lprc.org/pledge.html), omitting the third paragraph, which is oriented toward Libertarian Party candidates, as part of being interviewed. Here's what they might pledge:

    The Proposed Rothbard Pledge
    for candidates for public office

    I pledge that, in addition to explaining the undesirable consequences of the coercive actions by the State, I will also make the moral case for liberty and the rights of individuals to their person and property.

    I pledge never to call for an increase in the size or scope of government. I will not advocate more government intrusion in one area while calling for less in a related area. I will never imply that liberty is not desirable immediately.

    I pledge that whenever possible, I will widen the scope of debate to the larger issues of our time: war, loss of personal freedoms, and oppressive laws and institutions. I will not miss a chance, even in local races, to point out that the policies advocated by my opponents have created these manifestations of tyranny.

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  12. Our numbers are so small. I'm not that critical of people running for office who say they were inspired by Ron Paul at this point. We have ONE in Maryland, Eric Knowles.

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  13. Google: Justin Amash!!!! He is MI's only saving grace. We have Mike Rodgers, Stabenow, and Levin making us look like we breed parasites... but Amash is legit! He could use a shout-out, Mr. Wenzel.. and maybe an interview on your show????

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  14. His campaign met my expectations but not my wishes. Even still, I say that it was quite a success even though he didn't win the office, because now there are thousands more people reading Mises, Rothbard and the like. So, as far as influence goes, Ron's campaign went well beyond my expectations.

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  15. Amash is a rising star for the liberty movement. He posts all of his votes on his facebook page with an explanation and link to the roll call. From what I have seen, he is wise for his age.

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  16. I hate to be pessimistic, but I see evidence over at DailyPaul that the movement will quickly fracture into the typical squabbles that have engulfed the LP for decades. There will probably be lots of people vying to be "big fish in a small pond" who either consciously or unconsciously work to keep the pond small so they can continue to enjoy their status.

    And in the vein of squabbling, I have to admit that Rand Paul's endorsement of Romney really rubs me the wrong way. He's trying to "play nice" with the establishment. No matter what he thinks, they won't play nice back. My already small hopes for Rand diminished greatly today.

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  17. While all three candidates Paul mentions are good, I know most about Justin Amash. Mr. Wenzel, he is nearly a clone of Ron Paul, and you should become more familiar with him. You will be impressed.

    In his Congressional office hangs pictures of 5 economists: one of them is Rothbard.

    He would be a good guest for your show.

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