Can Ron Paul be elected?

Posted by jerry as politics

The answer is: I don’t think so.  I’ve grown to equate the presidential selection process with the top 3 videos on each week’s edition of “America’s Funniest Home Videos”.  You sit and watch the show, and at the end, the producers pick three videos which will be voted on to determine the winner of $10,000, but the videos that are picked are typically lame and definitely not the funniest of the show, but the audience is forced to vote among that set.

The presidential race is not entirely different.  We sit and watch a lot of really interesting candidates, but in the end, we’ll end up having to choose from a select few that the “producers” have hand picked for us - Guiliani &  Romney on one side, Clinton and Obama on the other side.  The media is really the group that determines who gets to play and who doesn’t.  I don’t believe that they have a hidden agenda, are working as part of some covert society, or the like, just that they all want to focus on who they think are going to be the top contenders. In the process, they impact the outcome of the races.

 I was looking at the Ron Paul Money Bomb, and they have a great list of Ron Paul “commandments”:

01. End the Patriot Act Immediately.
02. End the IRS.
03. End the Homeland Security Department.
04. End the Iraq Police Action.
05. End the private ownership of the Federal Reserve.
06. End the national ID Card program.
07. End the sending of jobs overseas.
08. End the flood of illegal immigrants.
09. End preemptive military strikes.
10. End the “future” police state.(a)(b)
11. End nation building & defend OUR nation, not others.
12. End executive war powers. Congress alone can declare War.
13. End the North American Union. Preserve US sovereignty.
14. End the War on terror. Terror is not tangible. Therefore it cannot be won [EVER].
15. End the onslaught of our freedoms and liberties by the Federal Government.

 I definitely want to see most of these put into place.  They are all noble and sensible, but there is so much inertia behind almost all of them, that even if Paul were to be elected, I have no confidence that any of them could be accomplished.  However, there is value in slowing down the course that we’re on, so it might not be all bad. 

In the end, I believe the contortion of Paul’s views by opponents and media, such as abortion and affirmative action, will be his undoing.  I share them, but they will inevitably come across as “minority hating”, “women hating”, etc, even if that’s not the case.