Badger Paul
11-10-2008, 05:52 PM
Ron Paul Republicans have to Stay the GOP Course
By Sean Scallon
http://www.etherzone.com/2008/scall110708.shtml
Election Night wasn’t a good night to be Ron Paul Republican, or any Republican for that matter. Most of the candidates that identified themselves with Congressman Ron Paul (who was re-elected himself in Texas handily over a Libertarian opponent) were defeated, including the most celebrated, House of Representatives candidate B.J. Lawson of North Carolina, who only got 37 percent of the vote against veteran Democrat Rep. David Price.
Ron Paul Democrats also lost too as Senate candidate Bob Conley fell to Lindsay Graham by a 58-42 split. Not great but, considering Conley had almost no money to spend against Graham’s fortune, not bad either.
Of course there’s not much to talk about with the non-major parties either. Although, to be fair, all of them did better than their 2004 numbers. Ron Paul endorsed Rev. Chuck Baldwin did finish fourth and did better than any Constitution Party candidate had ever done before even on only 37 state ballots. However, all were far away from the one million vote barrier.
In fact, the only non-major party candidate who gained over one percent in any state was Paul himself, 2.2% in Montana.
Nothing more shows how dominant the two-party system is in U.S. than the taxpayer bailout of financial institutions. Even though many American were angered by the thought of their tax money being used to bail out failed companies through no fault of their own, the issue never had legs powerful enough to affect the outcome of the election. Price himself, for example, supported the bailout and still won 63 percent of the vote in his district. Once the majority of both parties supported it, the issue died a silent death and with no centrist MAR (Middle American Radical) or populist candidate like Ross Perot, George Wallace or John Anderson out there making an issue of it, it could not be resurrected.
Such are the candidacies that make for powerful non-major party runs for President and yet what they all have in common is the fact that all of their attempts at organizing a party around such candidacies have failed miserably and thus are legacies to history.
The non-major parties that have stuck around over the years like the Libertarians or the Greens or the CP do so because they stick up for certain principles that a hardcore group of activists support. However, such devotion to principle at the expense of the diversity of cultural, economic and religious groups are why such ideological parties are so small and will remain that way.
Non-major parties can be effective on the state and local level but not so on the national. You don’t need to run any more elections to prove this point.
So for the million or so Ron Paul supporters out there, wondering what to do now that the election and the two years of their lives it took up are over with, the choice for the future is clear.
They have to remain Republicans nationally.
Like it or not.
You can still have some Paul supporters be LP activists or CP activists depending upon where they live and how strong their local parties are. But the majority of them have to maintain the work they’ve already begun back when Paul first announced his intentions to run for President in February of 2007.
The Republicans were beaten badly on Election Day, but not to the point where their short term future is threatened.
They still have decent enough numbers among governors, U.S. Senators, House members, state legislators, local officials, etc. Their party label is still strong in the interior South, the Plains and Mountain West. They were in worse shape after losses in 1992, 1976, 1964, 1948, 1944 and 1940. Heck, after 1936 they were on the real verge of extinction.
However, the long term future of the GOP is what is in question. Obama won overwhelmingly among voters under 30 and won among Hispanics, African-American, Asian-Americans, all those who are a part of the growing diversification of the country. The GOP is saddled with an aging, white base.
The only Republican candidate running for President in 2008 who had strong support of young voters and several minority groups was Ron Paul.
In a party bereft of new ideas, the only intellectually stimulating candidate was Ron Paul. In party that lacked the passionate support that the Democrats showed Hilary Clinton or Barak Obama, the only GOP candidate who had passionate followers was Ron Paul.
Now granted Paul’s vote totals in the primaries were pretty disappointing because for the most part his kind of voters were swamped by traditional Republican voters. But the candidate they supported was swamped himself in the general election no matter how much of a “maverick” he was.
A lot of people lamented the fact that Paul did not carry his campaign all the way to the fall as an independent and truth be told, it would have been fun to see him attacking Obama and McCain for supporting the bailout.
But in the end, 10 percent is 10 percent of the vote in a two-party system (the maximum that Paul would have carried in my view), nothing more nor less. Unless Paul tried to create a new party around his candidacy, an independent vote for him would have been as forgotten in the future as vote for John Anderson was.
Indeed, Paul was right to run in the GOP primaries. It got him TV time in the debates to get his ideas across. It made it easier for him to mobilize a voting base and raise money. It won him new respect from the mainstream media, all of these things he would not have received being an independent candidate no matter how well known.
And it also provided a foot in the door of the party for his supporters.
Now they need to take advantage of it.
When the new House of Representatives begins in January, no major urban area of this country will have a Republican member representing it. There will be no GOP members from New England, the party’s ancestral heartland and the party’s representation from the Upper Midwest will be at a low ebb as well.
But these are areas in which Ron Paul supporters can take control of the party because, to be frank, they now are the party or inherit what’s left of it.
Paul’s message of freedom, less government, End the Fed and no foreign interventionism is perhaps the only one that can sell in these areas and perhaps in some of these districts they can split the Democratic base. At the very least they can maintain the viability of the two-party system in such places.
And no doubt the whole party would appreciate their efforts.
Paul supporters have already taken over several such Congressional Districts and were able to run candidates for the House as well.
Now most of them lost (some Paul endorsed candidates did win), in some cases pretty badly to their Democratic opponents in admittedly Democratic districts.
But we have to keep in mind the GOP allocates delegates to its national convention by Congressional District. Each district gets three delegates.
Even the Democratic ones.
That’s a lot of delegates and it’s a lot of power to be wielded by Paul supporters that could very well influence the direction party in the years to come, especially its choice for President. Ideally, the candidates for 2012 will want their support and will tailor their message to support many of Paul’s ideas.
To some that may not sound like much or it just sounds like wishful thinking, But it’s sure is better than the alternative, continued division in non-major party ghettos.
As we saw in this year’s Presidential election, Paul’s movement was simply too diverse to be left on its own. It quickly divided itself and lost its cohesion and its effectiveness.
And as we saw with the senseless Paul-Bob Barr feud, such divisions benefit no one in the long run, except of course the powers that be.
Ron Paul proved he could get persons of various political stripes to work together for common cause if such persons all believed in a few principals and believed in the man offering them.
It’s not clear who will pick up that mantle by 2012. But it is clear that it can’t be done if Paul voters are separated by religious beliefs, economic and educational background, race, cultural values, and age.
As writer Harold Meyerson put it so well: “Third parties divide movements.”
They have to act as one and the only way they can do this nationally is within the GOP.
Like it or not.
"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
Sean Scallon is a freelance writer and newspaper reporter who lives in Arkansaw, Wisconsin. His work has appeared in Chronicles: A magazine of American Culture. and The American Conservative His first-ever book: Beating the Powers that Be: Independent Political Movements and Parties of the Upper Midwest and their Relevance in Third-party Politics of Today is now out on sale from Publish America. Go to the their website at www.publishamerica.com to order a copy. He is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.com
By Sean Scallon
http://www.etherzone.com/2008/scall110708.shtml
Election Night wasn’t a good night to be Ron Paul Republican, or any Republican for that matter. Most of the candidates that identified themselves with Congressman Ron Paul (who was re-elected himself in Texas handily over a Libertarian opponent) were defeated, including the most celebrated, House of Representatives candidate B.J. Lawson of North Carolina, who only got 37 percent of the vote against veteran Democrat Rep. David Price.
Ron Paul Democrats also lost too as Senate candidate Bob Conley fell to Lindsay Graham by a 58-42 split. Not great but, considering Conley had almost no money to spend against Graham’s fortune, not bad either.
Of course there’s not much to talk about with the non-major parties either. Although, to be fair, all of them did better than their 2004 numbers. Ron Paul endorsed Rev. Chuck Baldwin did finish fourth and did better than any Constitution Party candidate had ever done before even on only 37 state ballots. However, all were far away from the one million vote barrier.
In fact, the only non-major party candidate who gained over one percent in any state was Paul himself, 2.2% in Montana.
Nothing more shows how dominant the two-party system is in U.S. than the taxpayer bailout of financial institutions. Even though many American were angered by the thought of their tax money being used to bail out failed companies through no fault of their own, the issue never had legs powerful enough to affect the outcome of the election. Price himself, for example, supported the bailout and still won 63 percent of the vote in his district. Once the majority of both parties supported it, the issue died a silent death and with no centrist MAR (Middle American Radical) or populist candidate like Ross Perot, George Wallace or John Anderson out there making an issue of it, it could not be resurrected.
Such are the candidacies that make for powerful non-major party runs for President and yet what they all have in common is the fact that all of their attempts at organizing a party around such candidacies have failed miserably and thus are legacies to history.
The non-major parties that have stuck around over the years like the Libertarians or the Greens or the CP do so because they stick up for certain principles that a hardcore group of activists support. However, such devotion to principle at the expense of the diversity of cultural, economic and religious groups are why such ideological parties are so small and will remain that way.
Non-major parties can be effective on the state and local level but not so on the national. You don’t need to run any more elections to prove this point.
So for the million or so Ron Paul supporters out there, wondering what to do now that the election and the two years of their lives it took up are over with, the choice for the future is clear.
They have to remain Republicans nationally.
Like it or not.
You can still have some Paul supporters be LP activists or CP activists depending upon where they live and how strong their local parties are. But the majority of them have to maintain the work they’ve already begun back when Paul first announced his intentions to run for President in February of 2007.
The Republicans were beaten badly on Election Day, but not to the point where their short term future is threatened.
They still have decent enough numbers among governors, U.S. Senators, House members, state legislators, local officials, etc. Their party label is still strong in the interior South, the Plains and Mountain West. They were in worse shape after losses in 1992, 1976, 1964, 1948, 1944 and 1940. Heck, after 1936 they were on the real verge of extinction.
However, the long term future of the GOP is what is in question. Obama won overwhelmingly among voters under 30 and won among Hispanics, African-American, Asian-Americans, all those who are a part of the growing diversification of the country. The GOP is saddled with an aging, white base.
The only Republican candidate running for President in 2008 who had strong support of young voters and several minority groups was Ron Paul.
In a party bereft of new ideas, the only intellectually stimulating candidate was Ron Paul. In party that lacked the passionate support that the Democrats showed Hilary Clinton or Barak Obama, the only GOP candidate who had passionate followers was Ron Paul.
Now granted Paul’s vote totals in the primaries were pretty disappointing because for the most part his kind of voters were swamped by traditional Republican voters. But the candidate they supported was swamped himself in the general election no matter how much of a “maverick” he was.
A lot of people lamented the fact that Paul did not carry his campaign all the way to the fall as an independent and truth be told, it would have been fun to see him attacking Obama and McCain for supporting the bailout.
But in the end, 10 percent is 10 percent of the vote in a two-party system (the maximum that Paul would have carried in my view), nothing more nor less. Unless Paul tried to create a new party around his candidacy, an independent vote for him would have been as forgotten in the future as vote for John Anderson was.
Indeed, Paul was right to run in the GOP primaries. It got him TV time in the debates to get his ideas across. It made it easier for him to mobilize a voting base and raise money. It won him new respect from the mainstream media, all of these things he would not have received being an independent candidate no matter how well known.
And it also provided a foot in the door of the party for his supporters.
Now they need to take advantage of it.
When the new House of Representatives begins in January, no major urban area of this country will have a Republican member representing it. There will be no GOP members from New England, the party’s ancestral heartland and the party’s representation from the Upper Midwest will be at a low ebb as well.
But these are areas in which Ron Paul supporters can take control of the party because, to be frank, they now are the party or inherit what’s left of it.
Paul’s message of freedom, less government, End the Fed and no foreign interventionism is perhaps the only one that can sell in these areas and perhaps in some of these districts they can split the Democratic base. At the very least they can maintain the viability of the two-party system in such places.
And no doubt the whole party would appreciate their efforts.
Paul supporters have already taken over several such Congressional Districts and were able to run candidates for the House as well.
Now most of them lost (some Paul endorsed candidates did win), in some cases pretty badly to their Democratic opponents in admittedly Democratic districts.
But we have to keep in mind the GOP allocates delegates to its national convention by Congressional District. Each district gets three delegates.
Even the Democratic ones.
That’s a lot of delegates and it’s a lot of power to be wielded by Paul supporters that could very well influence the direction party in the years to come, especially its choice for President. Ideally, the candidates for 2012 will want their support and will tailor their message to support many of Paul’s ideas.
To some that may not sound like much or it just sounds like wishful thinking, But it’s sure is better than the alternative, continued division in non-major party ghettos.
As we saw in this year’s Presidential election, Paul’s movement was simply too diverse to be left on its own. It quickly divided itself and lost its cohesion and its effectiveness.
And as we saw with the senseless Paul-Bob Barr feud, such divisions benefit no one in the long run, except of course the powers that be.
Ron Paul proved he could get persons of various political stripes to work together for common cause if such persons all believed in a few principals and believed in the man offering them.
It’s not clear who will pick up that mantle by 2012. But it is clear that it can’t be done if Paul voters are separated by religious beliefs, economic and educational background, race, cultural values, and age.
As writer Harold Meyerson put it so well: “Third parties divide movements.”
They have to act as one and the only way they can do this nationally is within the GOP.
Like it or not.
"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
Sean Scallon is a freelance writer and newspaper reporter who lives in Arkansaw, Wisconsin. His work has appeared in Chronicles: A magazine of American Culture. and The American Conservative His first-ever book: Beating the Powers that Be: Independent Political Movements and Parties of the Upper Midwest and their Relevance in Third-party Politics of Today is now out on sale from Publish America. Go to the their website at www.publishamerica.com to order a copy. He is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.com