What's stopping them?

[Ready2Revolt]

Ok, first time poster, long time stalker. (Since the Guiliani exchange)

I've honestly believe that Ron Paul can win the primaries if his loyal obsessive followers get out to vote. (Myself included.) Mainly the rest of the candidates are sharing the same voter pool. When RP does get the nomination, what is stopping the mainstream Republican candidates from running independently? (Like what Lieberman did in CT?)

I think that in order for RP to get the presidency he will need the support of the current pro-war conservatives to get passed a Hillary or Obama ticket. A 3rd party Pro-war Republican 3rd party candidate will assure RP a loss, while they get another Washington insider, Hillary would be my guess.

These Candidates have the money. If they were focused to one candidate I think they might have the votes to atleast assusre RP a loss. I also believe they have the approval of the MSM that would allow them to participate in the presidential debates, which is unheard of for 3rd party candidates.

I hate to be a downer, but hopefully we can prepare for this.

[phixonpolitics]

I don't think that if RP wins the nomination that there would be anything to gain for the others to do 3rd party. If they do, then the deal's done on splitting the Republican base. I think rather they would try to do to RP what they did to Goldwater - leave him to hang because it's better for the other side of statism to win than for freedom to win. I imagine that the big boys in the RNC would donate to the Democrat nominee's campaign in order to defeat Dr. Paul.

[Dlynne]

I think the Republican party has too much invested in the 2 party system. Once they set a viable precedent for 3 parties, the neo-con's power would be over.

[jpa]

Welcome to the forums!

We really need the top 5 to stay in through Feb 5th. If they consolidate before that, we are in big trouble.

After the nomination, the neocons will support Hillary and the Reagan-era Republicans will support Paul (even if they didn't vote for him in the primary).
Do not underestimate the hatred they have for Hillary.

I seriously doubt any of the current republican candidates would run a 3rd party pro-war campaign.
1) It would end their career in the republican party
2) No party with 50 states ballots would take them, they would have to make their own
3) they would have a very hard time raising money for a pro-war 3rd party in 2008. Who would want to throw money at a really bad bet? (no matter how strongly they support the war)

[paulitics]

Ron Paul can win this with 20% of the vote. esp if he wins Texas.

Right now, if the primaries were today, we are probably 6% to 10%. I think the biggest hurdles are going to be getting people to switch parties in time to vote, and keeping Paul in the debates. The name recognition(which was the primary problem) will slowly take care of itself as we roll out of summer into the political season. Can we double?yes I believe the national polls may only show us 5% right up until January, yet we will we have a strong showing in Iowa, and a win in NH. Conservatively, true support is somewhere around 2.5 to 3 times what the telephone polls are suggesting. We need to understand this ourselves, if we are going to make our case to others before they attempt to exclude Paul from the debates.

[JosephTheLibertarian]

The Libertarian Party would endorse Ron Paul... The Constitution Party would endorse Ron Paul, and I know of many Green's that love Ron Paul ;)

[Richandler]

I really, really wish the Libertarian Party would just endorse Paul now. Potentially a couple hundred thousand voters would be able to get into this election and change things up. They are waiting to see if he wins the nomination.

[Karsten]

Welcome to the forums!

We really need the top 5 to stay in through Feb 5th. If they consolidate before that, we are in big trouble.

After the nomination, the neocons will support Hillary and the Reagan-era Republicans will support Paul (even if they didn't vote for him in the primary).
Do not underestimate the hatred they have for Hillary.

I seriously doubt any of the current republican candidates would run a 3rd party pro-war campaign.
1) It would end their career in the republican party
2) No party with 50 states ballots would take them, they would have to make their own
3) they would have a very hard time raising money for a pro-war 3rd party in 2008. Who would want to throw money at a really bad bet? (no matter how strongly they support the war)

I actually believe that if Ron Paul gets the nomination, the Republican party will split (by which I mean frustrated neo-cons will form a 3rd party). The neo-cons will certainly not want to vote for Ron Paul, and they won't want to vote for Hillary. Ron Paul will still win the general election, because he can pull in some Independents and Democrats, plus 70% of americans agree with him on foreign policy, compared to 30% for the neo-cons. This will be a major moment in American politics, comparable to when the Democratic party split during the civil war.

[JosephTheLibertarian]

I really, really wish the Libertarian Party would just endorse Paul now. Potentially a couple hundred thousand voters would be able to get into this election and change things up. They are waiting to see if he wins the nomination.

yup.. that's like 4-500,000 votes right there, let's not leave out the Constitution Party either. The CP supports him as well. Nice block vote, eh?

[BarryDonegan]

what we are witnessing right now, is a Barry Goldwater moment, where the Barry Goldwater in question, has the right policy on the War issue, which makes him very popular.

Barry Goldwater was a warhawk version of Ron Paul, and got popular in a similar way in the republican party, however got brutalized in the general election.

the Barry Goldwater moment, lead to the Reagan moment. Reagan was the electable, sensable version of Barry Goldwater, who promised to and effectively ended problems in the middle east. (at first, until he got neocons on his team because he needed them to counter the cold war. anyone who has studied LEO STRAUSS, understands that LEO STRAUSS, poppa neocon, was a trotskyist, who believes in permanent, worldwide socialist revolution, and their sworn enemy was STALINIST USSR).

this will not split the party, the warhawks will consider the neocons neutralized, and conform to a Paulist position where they appeal to a libertarian sensibility during the Primaries, and try to go middle(back to just voting for lobbies) during gen eds.