tangent4ronpaul
08-20-2011, 06:03 PM
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/128131593.html
You might not know it by the media coverage, but there are two candidates from Texas in the Republican presidential field. One finished sixth in Iowa's Republican straw poll last week with 4 percent of the vote. The other finished second with 28 percent.
The guy who finished just 1 percentage point behind winner Michele Bachmann was not Rick Perry, the newest entrant in the 2012 White House race. It was Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian lawmaker from Lake Jackson, Texas, and third-time presidential contender.
While Texas' tough-talking governor soaked up the media spotlight, the cerebral Paul continued to plug away as the outsiders' outsider in the 2012 presidential campaign. Paul, 75, with the message of less government and more liberty, has quietly built the largest grassroots network in the GOP field. And although he gets dismissed by pundits as a niche candidate, he remains a force in the Republican race.
Presidential scholars say Perry's best strategy would be to avoid engaging with Paul. The reason: He risks a confrontation that would elevate Paul to the top-tier stature Perry now has and could provoke a YouTube moment that Perry would later regrets.
"Perry should ignore him," said Merle Black, a political scientist from Emory University. Thus far, Perry is doing that. And so is much of the national media. Political commentator Jon Stewart took the TV networks to task this week for covering Paul less than every other major candidate, despite his straw poll finish and four recent national polls showing him in a virtual tie for third with Bachmann behind Perry and Mitt Romney. "How did libertarian Ron Paul become the 13th floor in a hotel?" Stewart asked on his Comedy Central show.
You might not know it by the media coverage, but there are two candidates from Texas in the Republican presidential field. One finished sixth in Iowa's Republican straw poll last week with 4 percent of the vote. The other finished second with 28 percent.
The guy who finished just 1 percentage point behind winner Michele Bachmann was not Rick Perry, the newest entrant in the 2012 White House race. It was Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian lawmaker from Lake Jackson, Texas, and third-time presidential contender.
While Texas' tough-talking governor soaked up the media spotlight, the cerebral Paul continued to plug away as the outsiders' outsider in the 2012 presidential campaign. Paul, 75, with the message of less government and more liberty, has quietly built the largest grassroots network in the GOP field. And although he gets dismissed by pundits as a niche candidate, he remains a force in the Republican race.
Presidential scholars say Perry's best strategy would be to avoid engaging with Paul. The reason: He risks a confrontation that would elevate Paul to the top-tier stature Perry now has and could provoke a YouTube moment that Perry would later regrets.
"Perry should ignore him," said Merle Black, a political scientist from Emory University. Thus far, Perry is doing that. And so is much of the national media. Political commentator Jon Stewart took the TV networks to task this week for covering Paul less than every other major candidate, despite his straw poll finish and four recent national polls showing him in a virtual tie for third with Bachmann behind Perry and Mitt Romney. "How did libertarian Ron Paul become the 13th floor in a hotel?" Stewart asked on his Comedy Central show.