The Invisible Librarian‘s describing Presidential candidate Ron Paul, who I’ve been meaning to do a post about. But I’ve had real trouble getting a handle on the man other than that from what I’ve heard of him so far, he seems a bit of a crackpot libertarian.
Nevertheless he seems to be hitting a sweet spot with many Americans of all political stripes, sick as they are of the permanent folie a deux of a two party system and an entrenched media-political elite.
Even know sensible liberals like Glenn Greenwald are giving him credence:
…Glen Greenwald had to jump in and defend Ron Paul’s honor:
A “principled conservative” is someone who aggressively objects to the radicalism of the neocons and the Bush/Cheney assault on our constitution and embraces a conservative political ideology. That’s what Ron Paul is, and it’s hardly a surprise that he holds many views anathema to most liberals. That hardly makes him a “fruitcake.”
You’re right Glen. What makes Ron Paul a fruitcake is his desire to shut down the Department of Education, revoke Civil Rights, return us to the Gold Standard and use Letters of Marque and Reprisal to catch terrorists. His bid to defend the right to burn flags by proposing an amendment to make burning flags illegal and then arguing against his own amendment is just… no that’s nutty, too. Never mind.
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Ron Paul views women as baby making machines. He wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. He wants to put us back on the fucking Gold standard! The Gold standard! And just because misogyny, sex-phobia and Jesus are planks of the GOP platform doesn’t make them reasonable areas of dispute. That we accept it as such just illustrates how far around the bend we’ve slid when it comes to acceptable discourse in politics.
I’ve let Ron Paul slide under my political radar so far, taking the media spin at face value – that he’s a nothing candidate, a bit of crackpot, not a factor, nothing to consider. But this is the man that raised $4.3 million from a didaffected voting public in one day.
That says that, despite the official GOP trying to put a lid on his coverage, that he has a lot of potential votes in the Republican pimary.He’s not a nothing, or a nonentity and if he isn’t a nutter (though the omens don’t look good), well he certainly knows how to attract ’em.
