Monday, December 12, 2011
'Ron Paul effect' has GOP worried
'Ron Paul effect' has GOP worried
Written by R. Matthew Poteat
Columnist
Given the erratic state of Republican politics these days, don't be surprised if a libertarian polls well -- very well -- in the January primaries.
Ron Paul won't win the Republican presidential nomination, much less the White House, but he is primed for a potentially big run in Iowa and New Hampshire: states that can give a boost to underdog, outsider candidates. Should this happen, Paul can push the Republican Party further toward his libertarian views.
Iowa Republicans are not libertarians, but they are uneasy with embracing Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich, and they are very conservative. Hawkeyes detest Obama's health care law, the Departments of Education, Energy, HUD, and Commerce, public broadcasting, and support for the arts. All of which Paul would not just cut, but eliminate outright.
New Hampshire Republicans generally agree, but they are cut from more libertarian cloth (the state's motto "Live free or die" sends libertarians into rapture). Granite State voters, especially younger voters and independents, are pro-choice, support gay marriage and drug liberalization. They also want defense spending cuts, all of which Paul supports.
But Democrats and Republicans have an uneasy relationship with libertarians like Paul. Democrats tend to like their views on national defense and civil liberties. Republicans are attracted to their economic views and limited government stance, especially when it comes to free markets, tax cuts and federal domestic spending.
The problem both parties have with libertarians, however, is that they are neither fish nor fowl. They are neither liberal nor conservative. They are a distinct hybrid that became disillusioned with the major parties and formed their own in 1971. As the conservative columnist Bruce Bartlett has noted, however, the Libertarian Party is essentially a high-school- level debating club where only one question is ever debated: Who is the purest libertarian, and what is the purest libertarian position?
This explains why Paul is a registered Republican. Although he did run for president in 1988 on the Libertarian ticket, he knows that it (and other third parties) are not taken seriously by most voters and cannot win big elections.
Moreover, libertarians like Paul are primarily motivated by economics and as a result tend to gravitate to the GOP, which has of late been in thrall to Freidrich Hayek and the Austrian school. They equate paying taxes with theft and slavery, and obsess over gold and the dangers of paper money. These issues are largely the extent of their philosophy.
Paul presents himself as a man of principle and as an intellectual devoted to liberty, and his legions of fans love him for it. While his personal integrity is beyond reproach, his intellectual views on liberty are pretty amateur. He writes books on liberty, but they are little more than trite panegyrics to the nature of freedom, which he defines simply as the absence of government. Hardly Lockean.
Paul, however, is not without courage. He stands alone among Republican presidential candidates in his condemnation of American military intervention abroad and he has a long record of voting against it. He voted against both Iraq wars and the war in Kosovo. Although he voted for the Afghanistan war after 9-11, he now regrets that vote and says the money was wasted. He also rails against American foreign aid, even when the aid is humanitarian or in America's security interests.
Such views, and especially his condemnation of America's relationship with Israel, have put Paul at odds with social and religious conservatives. At one recent debate, Paul vowed to cut all aid to Israel and said, "Why does Israel need our help? We need to get out of their way."
As a result, the Republican Jewish Coalition did not invite him to its December forum.
Yet, Paul's brand of libertarianism is more popular than ever and his influence on today's conservative movement is easy to see. Although he's a White House long shot, his impress on today's conservative will likely continue for some time to come.
http://www.newsleader.com/article/20111211/OPINION02/112110310/-Ron-Paul-effect-has-GOP-worried?fb_comment_id=fbc_10150520185765351_21054936_10150525916405351
Re: A computer could catch Newt and Mitt flipping and flopping
Paul Mulshine is obviously a Moonbat.
First, in Romney's hardcover edition of his book, Romney is discussing how the Massachusetts model "could" be utlized in other States.....Not by the federal government.
Second. Gingrich never, ever supported the Democrats version of "Cap And Trade". His group, American Solutions campaigned for and lobbied against Cap and Trade!
Gingrich advocated for a market based cap on particular emissions, much like what we have down here in Florida, with #4, #5 and #6 heavy fuel oils, that industry, power plants (and ships,.....There are other uses) utilize for keeping under a sulphur cap. It works tremendously for industry, and it is not something that the federal government is involved in!
Geesh! Moonbats! Never, ever do they get their facts right!
On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 10:37 AM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:
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A computer could catch Newt and Mitt flipping and flopping
Published: Saturday, December 10, 2011, 10:32 PM Updated: Sunday, December 11, 2011, 5:14 PM
By Paul Mulshine/The Star Ledger
If I were debating either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich I'd bring my laptop up there on the dais with me.
It takes two seconds on Google to reveal that what they're saying has no basis in fact.
Or should I say no basis in history? That's Gingrich's supposed specialty, though he seems not to have learned a lick in the area of foreign policy.
Saturday night in Iowa, both repeated some easily-refuted statements.
I can't find a transcript of his exact words, but I noticed that in deflecting charges that he pioneered Obamacare, Romney argued yet again that the difference between Obamacare and Romneycare is that Obamacare raised taxes but the health plan he implemented in Massachusetts did not.
Well, what the heck is this?
The 2011 tax penalties are:
Income and Age Tax penalty
150.1-200% FPG $19 per month/$228 per year
200.1-250% FPG $38 per month/ $456 per year
250.1-300% FPG $58 per month/$696 per year
Above 300% FPG Age 18-26 $72 per month/$864 per year
Above 300% FPG Age 27+ $101 per month/$1212 per year
Also check at the 1:40 mark of the video below where Mitt admits that his plan included "tax penalties."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y6DrH6P9OC0
As for Mitt's offer to bet Rick Perry $10,000 that he hadn't rewritten the references to the individual mandate on health care for the new edition of his book "No Apology," I say Perry would be $10,000 richer if he'd taken the bet.
Here are copies of the actual page at issue. The initial statement was "We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country, and it can be done without letting government take over health care."
Based on that, I'd have taken the bet. In the first part of the sentence Romney is clearly stating that the individual mandate that he pioneered should be extended to cover "everyone in the country." Otherwise there is no means of assuring all are covered.
In the second part he tries to say this would not represent a government takeover of health care. It certainly does to me. I imagine most conservatives feel the same way. If you can't draw a breath without buying a government-approved health-care policy, that's a government takeover.
No wonder he took that out of the paperback version of the book.
As for the other half of "Newt Romney," as Michelle Bachmann termed them, there's that statement by Newt Gingrich that he never supported cap and trade.
Politifact has him dead to rights on that one. The quote:
Newt's just plain lying on that one. And of course there's the infamous Nancy Pelosi commercial (below). Though Newt was not directly endorsing cap-and-trade therein, that's the context of the commercial. The only other method for reducing carbon emissions is a direct carbon tax, and he's certainly not endorsing that.
- "I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there's a package there that's very, very good. And frankly, it's something I would strongly support."
And of course he's been a total whore for the ethanol lobby, which exists only because of the same sort of government mandates that Romney implemented in the area of health care.
So if I were Ron Paul, for example, I'd have that computer up there and I'd be tapping away on it as these two spoke. That would be fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5RQKNH_nwM4
http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2011/12/mitt_romney_1.html
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Re: What the People Who Know Newt Gingrich Say About Him
SOURCE: U.S. News & World Report
On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 10:39 AM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:
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Monday, December 12, 2011
What the People Who Know Newt Gingrich Say About Him
Posted by Robert Wenzel
Over the weekend, WSJ carried this report from Peggy Noonan:http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/12/what-people-who-know-newt-gingrich-say.html
- What is striking is the extraordinary divide in opinion between those who know Gingrich and those who don't. Those who do are mostly not for him, and they were burning up the phone lines this week in Washington...
- Former New Hampshire governor and George H.W. Bush chief of staff John Sununu told The Wall Street Journal this week: "Listen to just about anyone who worked alongside Gingrich and you will hear that he's inconsistent, erratic, untrustworthy and unprincipled." In a conference call Thursday, Jim Talent, who served with Mr. Gingrich in the House from 1993 through 1999, said, "He's not reliable as a leader." Sen. Tom Coburn, a member of the House class of 1994, called the former speaker's leadership "lacking," and according to a local press report, he told Oklahoma constituents last year that Mr. Gingrich was "the last person I'd vote for for president of the United States."
- Sen. Lindsey Graham told a reporter that Mr. Gingrich could be a historic president if he has "matured as a person and is, for lack of a better word, calmed down." That is as close as most of those who've worked with him get to a compliment...
- The biggest fear of those who've known Mr. Gingrich? He has gone through his political life making huge strides, rising in influence and achievement, and then been destabilized by success, or just after it. Maybe he's made dizzy by the thin air at the top, maybe he has an inner urge to be tragic, to always be unrealized and misunderstood. But he goes too far, his rhetoric becomes too slashing, the musings he shareswhen he rose to the speakership, in 1995, it was that women shouldn't serve in combat because they're prone to infectionsare too strange...
- Those who know him fear -- or hope -- that he will be true to form in one respect: He will continue to lose to his No. 1 longtime foe, Newt Gingrich. He is a human hand grenade who walks around with his hand on the pin, saying, "Watch this!"
- What they fear is that he will show just enough discipline over the next few months, just enough focus, to win the nomination. And then, in the fall of 2012, once party leaders have come around and the GOP is fully behind him, he will begin baying at the moon...
- They're afraid he'll start saying, "John Paul was great, but most of that happened after I explained the Gospels to him,"...
- ...this is a walk on the wild side.
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What the People Who Know Newt Gingrich Say About Him
Monday, December 12, 2011
What the People Who Know Newt Gingrich Say About Him
Posted by Robert Wenzel
Over the weekend, WSJ carried this report from Peggy Noonan:
- What is striking is the extraordinary divide in opinion between those who know Gingrich and those who don't. Those who do are mostly not for him, and they were burning up the phone lines this week in Washington...
- Former New Hampshire governor and George H.W. Bush chief of staff John Sununu told The Wall Street Journal this week: "Listen to just about anyone who worked alongside Gingrich and you will hear that he's inconsistent, erratic, untrustworthy and unprincipled." In a conference call Thursday, Jim Talent, who served with Mr. Gingrich in the House from 1993 through 1999, said, "He's not reliable as a leader." Sen. Tom Coburn, a member of the House class of 1994, called the former speaker's leadership "lacking," and according to a local press report, he told Oklahoma constituents last year that Mr. Gingrich was "the last person I'd vote for for president of the United States."
- Sen. Lindsey Graham told a reporter that Mr. Gingrich could be a historic president if he has "matured as a person and is, for lack of a better word, calmed down." That is as close as most of those who've worked with him get to a compliment...
- The biggest fear of those who've known Mr. Gingrich? He has gone through his political life making huge strides, rising in influence and achievement, and then been destabilized by success, or just after it. Maybe he's made dizzy by the thin air at the top, maybe he has an inner urge to be tragic, to always be unrealized and misunderstood. But he goes too far, his rhetoric becomes too slashing, the musings he shareswhen he rose to the speakership, in 1995, it was that women shouldn't serve in combat because they're prone to infectionsare too strange...
- Those who know him fear -- or hope -- that he will be true to form in one respect: He will continue to lose to his No. 1 longtime foe, Newt Gingrich. He is a human hand grenade who walks around with his hand on the pin, saying, "Watch this!"
- What they fear is that he will show just enough discipline over the next few months, just enough focus, to win the nomination. And then, in the fall of 2012, once party leaders have come around and the GOP is fully behind him, he will begin baying at the moon...
- They're afraid he'll start saying, "John Paul was great, but most of that happened after I explained the Gospels to him,"...
- ...this is a walk on the wild side.
- Former New Hampshire governor and George H.W. Bush chief of staff John Sununu told The Wall Street Journal this week: "Listen to just about anyone who worked alongside Gingrich and you will hear that he's inconsistent, erratic, untrustworthy and unprincipled." In a conference call Thursday, Jim Talent, who served with Mr. Gingrich in the House from 1993 through 1999, said, "He's not reliable as a leader." Sen. Tom Coburn, a member of the House class of 1994, called the former speaker's leadership "lacking," and according to a local press report, he told Oklahoma constituents last year that Mr. Gingrich was "the last person I'd vote for for president of the United States."
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