Judge Napolitano As Best 2020 Candidate

[K466]

At this time I see no better option for us than Judge Andrew Napolitano to carry the message of liberty to the masses, as Ron Paul did, in the 2020 campaign. I regret that he wasn't part of the 2016 campaign, but whatever.

Here's my reasoning:

1. Napolitano has the right political strategy, the Ron Paul strategy. He would both educate others and excite us, re-creating the good times of Ron Paul's campaigns and building on his successes.
2. Napolitano has outstanding oratory skills and TV experience to be even stronger than Ron Paul in communicating and debating the message on MSM.
3. Napolitano has good name recognition.
4. Napolitano could appeal to a wide base of Republicans: conservative, evangelical, pro-life, libertarian, tea party, and even anarchists and liberals.

I'd love to have Ron Paul run again, but give the old man a break, it's not going to happen. With the Judge, it will be just like Ron running again, and he will be a mere 69 years of age in 2020. Who is overall more qualified, more able to re-kindle the movement and carry it further?

[jllundqu]

I'd support the $#@! out of a Judge run... big time.

[Peace&Freedom]

An outstanding option! But like Tom Woods, whose name has also been floated today, Nap has said he isn't interested in running, especially as a Republican. He'll get the LP and CP nomination in a hot minute if he did want it. In fact, there's still time in 2016 for him to announce and run this year on a third party basis.

[specsaregood]

The judge is horrible in debate or contentious interviews. I think he would get eaten alive.

[Krugminator2]

At this time I see no better option for us than Judge Andrew Napolitano to carry the message of liberty to the masses, as Ron Paul did, in the 2020 campaign. I regret that he wasn't part of the 2016 campaign, but whatever.

He was a not insignificant part of Rand's team. He was a debate coach and prepped Rand in mock debates. There is only so much he can do with his role at Fox. He can't be on the stump campaigning for Rand.

[K466]

The judge is horrible in debate or contentious interviews. I think he would get eaten alive.

Have I missed something... any video clips?

He was a not insignificant part of Rand's team.

I meant the Judge as a candidate himself.

[Chester Copperpot]

I'd support the $#@! out of a Judge run... big time.

+1

[idiom]

Run him for State Assembly or Congress. Get off the Presidential WANK.

[AngryCanadian]

The Presidential runs are a joke. And are staged, rigged as i stated a number of times.
He should run for congress or senate.

[K466]

Run him for State Assembly or Congress. Get off the Presidential WANK.

The Presidential runs are a joke. And are staged, rigged as i stated a number of times.
He should run for congress or senate.

It would be a waste of Napolitano's time to run for a small office. Presidential runs are not a joke or distraction: as a Ron Paul supporter you should know that already... we're trying to replicate and build on what Ron did, right?

Rigged or not it doesn't matter much, eventually we could grow the movement enough to get further. It's a pipe dream to think we could get into the white House without creating deep and broad national support, which is a loooong ways off. Since Ron's runs were the most successful means of growing the libertarian movement in the past several decades, I think we need to keep doing what worked. So, Judge Napolitano 2020!!!!

[idiom]

It would be a waste of Napolitano's time to run for a small office. Presidential runs are not a joke or distraction: as a Ron Paul supporter you should know that already... we're trying to replicate and build on what Ron did, right?

Rigged or not it doesn't matter much, eventually we could grow the movement enough to get further. It's a pipe dream to think we could get into the white House without creating deep and broad national support, which is a loooong ways off. Since Ron's runs were the most successful means of growing the libertarian movement in the past several decades, I think we need to keep doing what worked. So, Judge Napolitano 2020!!!!

What Ron did was spend 40 years in Congress voting No. That was the core of his Presidential run and of his general appeal.

[rg17]

Napolitano/Massie or Massie/Napolitano 2020!

[K466]

What Ron did was spend 40 years in Congress voting No. That was the core of his Presidential run and of his general appeal.

But what does that have to do with Napolitano. He is too old to run a 35 year career in the house and doesn't need it anyway; he already has an established record. That's the point, he is qualified to jump into this now. Who else is better positioned?

[idiom]

But what does that have to do with Napolitano. He is too old to run a 35 year career in the house and doesn't need it anyway; he already has an established record. That's the point, he is qualified to jump into this now. Who else is better positioned?

There isn't an environment to carry a candidate now. Nobody is positioned well enough. A quick and dirty run is 8 to 12 years in the making. Trump has been planning his for well over a decade. Hillary has been setting up for a good 16 years and still $#@!ing things up.

Given his age he should have been in this cycle if he wanted to run alongside, or better, instead of Rand, if we wanted a torchbearer of some description.

But people here all seem to think its easy and normal to win a nomination by popular acclaim by somebody circulating your name at the Convention.

[erowe1]

If he's our best, there's no point in trying.

[K466]

There isn't an environment to carry a candidate now. Nobody is positioned well enough. A quick and dirty run is 8 to 12 years in the making. Trump has been planning his for well over a decade. Hillary has been setting up for a good 16 years and still $#@!ing things up.

Given his age he should have been in this cycle if he wanted to run alongside, or better, instead of Rand, if we wanted a torchbearer of some description.

Whoa... you know I'm talking about the 2020 election? There's enough time to get ready for that. And by 2020 he will still be 3 years younger than Ron was in 2007.

So again... who is a stronger option? Or are we not interested in another Ron Paul style presidential campaign?

If he's our best, there's no point in trying.

Elaborate?

[idiom]

So again... who is a stronger option? Or are we not interested in another Ron Paul style presidential campaign?

Not really.

Much better off getting more Massies, Amashes, and Rands, along with state offices. This will permanently and much more effectively engage the average Ron Paul supporter.

Instead of thinking a Hail Mary pass is the only possible option, consolidate support, grow the infrastructure, build an alternate party within the GOP, outreach to new people with GOP support by targeting areas the GOP doesn't reach now. Build a deep bench, develop a roster of new talent. learn a lot more plays. You don't win the superbowl by running a hail Mary on every down.

It doesn't have the glory and the daydream wank material of an improbable Presidential run, but it will actually create the change we want.

[JSBach]

Beware of the Judge Nap! Nice man... well spoken... but that is the problem! He is all about self! All about the Nap! He is very careful what he says!

Further, he is sometimes completely constitutionally challenged... especially when it touches on something he secretly supports! Case in point... he is clueless, or pretends to be, on the Natural Born citizenship mandate to be POTUS! He supports Cruz's contention that Cruz is Natural Born! He went on to prove it by saying congress passed a law in the 19th century making it possible!?!?!? NO reference to the law, no explanation of or even a clue that there are SCOTUS cases which clearly delineate between Natural Born and naturalized! Nothing! He appeared clueless! That was at a critical moment when he could have contributed to the narrative that we should examine the constitutional requirements and understand them... no! He just punted with no depth or explanation at all! It is online I believe, on FAUX news... it went a long way towards promoting Cruz, and did nothing to support the constitution or the proper vetting of these faux candidates! Even I was stunned at his shallow statement!

At the 80th birthday celebration for Ron in Lake Jackson, which I attended, filmed and posted online originally at PopularLiberty (https://jsbach1775.wordpress.com/201...-legend-enjoy/), Lew Rockwell spoke briefly, introducing Tom Woods, who spoke briefly introducing Judge Nap... who was to introduce Ron Paul! After an interminable amount of time listening to all the famous people Judge Nap knows, and who recognize him in the airports, and how he is so fluent around green rooms and screens, etc. etc. etc., he finally introduces Ron. One would have thought the day was about the main card, the main speaker... Judge Nap!

I have met the Judge... have attended some of his speeches when he spoke at Ron Paul gatherings, either birthdays or otherwise; I have always held a wary contemplation and watched his nuanced comments online and on FAUX... in fact he is still on that FAUX channel... nevertheless, I advise a careful wariness about jumping whole heartedly into support him for actual office... let him demonstrate a boldness to defy the powers that pay his blood money first!

As long as he is at FAUX news or that type of disinformation channel, even for their version of keeping the Ron Paul faithful happy with their media coverage, I will not trust! Rand has my full support... still, and more! I say... caucus liberty and we may yet have the opportunity to affect the outcome... just as McCain did in 2008 after suspending his campaign! ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN BETWEEN NOW AND THE ELECTION! We are approaching the first, and the best opportunity ever in US history, to write in a national candidate for POTUS, at a time the people just might be faced with a set of Tweedledee and Tweedledum, neither of whom they want in office! If organized properly with a web presence for folks down to the precinct level nationally, it will be possible to finally light that brushfire for liberty which takes hold down to the roots of the land!

Either way, by convention or write-in, I am, like Ron Paul, optimistic, and do not waste time on predicting a future based on anything, in a day when excuses of those who give up are generated by emotion and lost hope! take a look at the potential... then work towards that goal! I will only stop and change direction, just as in 2008 and 2012, when the election is done and the next POTUS is sworn in! Then I will shift gears to the next hill ahead towards liberty!

(Don't get me wrong... I like much of what Judge Nap says... he is an apparent friend of many in the liberty and Mises movement... but he does not always always talk that way. Where is he really? I do not think for one moment he is as faithful to liberty as Ron Paul, or even his son Rand!)

[K466]

Much better off getting more Massies, Amashes, and Rands, along with state offices. This will permanently and much more effectively engage the average Ron Paul supporter.

Instead of thinking a Hail Mary pass is the only possible option, consolidate support, grow the infrastructure, build an alternate party within the GOP, outreach to new people with GOP support by targeting areas the GOP doesn't reach now. Build a deep bench, develop a roster of new talent. learn a lot more plays. You don't win the superbowl by running a hail Mary on every down.

It doesn't have the glory and the daydream wank material of an improbable Presidential run, but it will actually create the change we want.

It's nice to have better guys in these little offices, but come on, they have not grown the liberty movement from their small outreach platform. How can you dismiss the attention we can draw to liberty via the megaphone of a presidential campaign? What has grown the liberty movement more than Ron Paul's runs?

My view is that these lesser offices will not really be filled until we broaden the liberty movement, and we need more repeats of what Ron Paul did to accomplish that in a timely fashion.

As long as he is at FAUX news or that type of disinformation channel, even for their version of keeping the Ron Paul faithful happy with their media coverage, I will not trust! Rand has my full support... still, and more!

That's where your case completely falls apart... you don't trust the Judge's allegiance to liberty because of him working for Fox or not taking on the birther issue or talking about himself "too much", but you support Rand who endorsed Romney, is cozy with McConnell, and has watered down the liberty message in a now obviously failed attempt to broaden support.

I'm sorry, the Judge still seems to be by far the most qualified option we have, but I'm still open to hearing any good critiques of this view.

[Feeding the Abscess]

In terms of optics, Judge Nap is incredibly short. Rand towers over him, and Rand is only 5'8" or so himself. Judge Nap has an incredible hairline and a boomy voice, but he would look a child on stage next to even Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, let alone someone as tall as Jeb Bush.

As specsaregood mentioned, he's also not good in contentious debates and interviews. Whether it's lack of experience with confrontational interviews, or lack of command and comfortability with the core ideas of libertarianism, that's a major problem for a message candidate. Rand had problems with these interviews, and he came off as thin-skinned and could occasionally be bullied into abandoning the libertarian position - this is part of what hurt him this go 'round, but he was better in these situations than Napolitano has been.

[opal]

What Ron did was spend 40 years in Congress voting No. That was the core of his Presidential run and of his general appeal.

this statement needs to be in half a dozen threads I've just read
+1

[erowe1]

So again... who is a stronger option? Or are we not interested in another Ron Paul style presidential campaign?



Elaborate?

Rand is stronger. Amash and Massie are both stronger. Mark Sanford is stronger. Gary Johnson is stronger. And outside of people who have held elected office, there are probably 100's of others who are stronger.

Napolitano is an entertainer. He gets people to watch him by enthusiastically making outrageous claims that, when people scrutinize them they routinely discover them to be wrong. He has tons of fodder for negative campaigning just by making a collage of quotes. He would get crushed in the debates.

He might make a good House of Representatives candidate where the bar would be set lower and the competition not as sophisticated.

[TheTexan]

Is he gay though?

[idiom]

Maybe people don't remember well. A lot of Ron's supporters disagreed with him on a *majority* of issues. However the guy was the gold $#@!ing standard of integrity. You could go back 40 years and he was saying the same thing. He would tell you to your face your special interest was basically theft and unconstitutional. The thing was you could trust him to say that to every other out-stretched hand equally.

He was also a veteran which helped a lot on the foreign policy front, and an OB/GYN so you couldn't $#@! with him on Abortion, even pro-choicers had to respect his deeply thought out positions.

Unfortunately he hated campaigning and was pretty rubbish at selecting sub-ordinates. This made him an excellent message candidate, put maybe not a realistic candidate for the actual honest to God Presidency.

The contribution to his trust-worthiness of his depth of time in congress is deeply under-rated. Even his '88 LP run had basically the same stump speech.


To go beyond what Ron Paul did will take something quite special.

[K466]

In terms of optics, Judge Nap is incredibly short... someone as tall as Jeb Bush.

As specsaregood mentioned, he's also not good in contentious debates and interviews.

Height may help but that is the last thing we should care about. See how much good it is doing the Shrub.

Again, I may have missed some of those debate weaknesses... does anyone have a handy link to a video I would like to watch it. Of the many hours of him I have seen he is quite the speaker.

Rand is stronger. Amash and Massie are both stronger. Mark Sanford is stronger. Gary Johnson is stronger. And outside of people who have held elected office, there are probably 100's of others who are stronger.

Rand, Sandford, and Gary are not even an option because they would not use Ron Paul's strategy. Amash and Massie, I will have to look into more, but I don't think they would be ready for a 2020 run.

Napolitano is an entertainer.

So is Trump; it's a plus; and Andrew is much more than that.

The contribution to his trust-worthiness of his depth of time in congress is deeply under-rated. Even his '88 LP run had basically the same stump speech.

To go beyond what Ron Paul did will take something quite special.

Indeed. It's a key feature of his political strategy. That's what I'm looking for - someone who will take that and carry it forward in 2020 or beyond. A lot of us don't seem to understand or care about that strategy, though. I'm hoping that starts to change seeing how far a repudiation of that strategy got us in 2016.

Gee if I say strategy one more time I will sound like Marcobot

[fedupinmo]

I would have agreed, until I read how he explains Raffy Junior's eligibility, using only the Harvard Law Review spiel.
I believe someone offered him a job in the Canadian administration... the really sad part is, he seems to have accepted.
http://insider.foxnews.com/2016/01/1...nd-established

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX2vJVcmqWI

The judge :

"The issue has never come up... the Supreme Court has never ruled on this... "

The Supreme Court, 117 years ago and taught in every law school:

"But citizenship by birth is established by the mere fact of birth under the circumstances defined in the Constitution. Every person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization. A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized, either by treaty, as in the case of the annexation of foreign territory; or by authority of Congress, exercised either by declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens, as in the enactments conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens, or by enabling foreigners individually to become citizens by proceedings in the judicial tribunals, as in the ordinary provisions of the naturalization acts." United States v Wong Kim Ark (1898)

The Congressional Spiel on Why We Need Foreigners For President, 2011 version, recgnizes the SCOTUS acceptance of that by quoting an unnamed SCOTUS case from 1998:
As explained by the Supreme Court in 1998:

"There are “two sources of citizenship, and two only: birth and naturalization.” United States
v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 702 (1898). Within the former category, the Fourteenth
Amendment of the Constitution guarantees that every person “born in the United States,
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs
no naturalization.” 169 U.S. at 702. Persons not born in the United States acquire citizenship
by birth only as provided by Acts of Congress." Id. at 703.135
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42097.pdf

Now, what are the odds that Brother Andy hasn't read either of those?

[r3volution 3.0]

If he's our best, there's no point in trying.

Yea, I like the judge a lot, but he's got about the same chance of becoming the next POTUS as I do.

...and I'm not interested in a purely educational campaign, where we know from day 1 that there's no chance of winning.

If there's no realistic prospect of winning in 2020, then forget it and focus on other races: Congress, State, local.

Resources are scarce, we've got to use them prudently.

[K466]

I would have agreed, until I read how he explains Raffy Junior's eligibility,

Are we going to let a petty disagreement or two get in the way? If so you won't be able to support anyone ever as a messenger for the cause.

Yea, I like the judge a lot, but he's got about the same chance of becoming the next POTUS as I do.

...and I'm not interested in a purely educational campaign, where we know from day 1 that there's no chance of winning.

If there's no realistic prospect of winning in 2020, then forget it and focus on other races: Congress, State, local.

Resources are scarce, we've got to use them prudently.

I guess you were not interested in the Ron Paul campaigns at all?

[Feelgood]

Napolitano / Badnarik 2020

[fedupinmo]

Are we going to let a petty disagreement or two get in the way? If so you won't be able to support anyone ever as a messenger for the cause.

That's more than a petty disagreement... pretty close to fraud really...