I enjoy following several blogs, among them bella gerens, a well-written libertarian one, and The Devil's Kitchen, also well-written and libertarian. Both focus more on British issues, but two recent posts in The Devil's Kitchen caught my eye: The Mitt Romney Problem and The Ron Paul Solution, (particularly the latter)--both written by The Nameless Libertarian (A Brit, but not the Devil)--as analyses of American politics. And both posts show Nameless to have a pretty good understanding of the current presidential campaign.
Nameless writes that Ron Paul has some problems in the campaign, including his personality (he's not particularly presidential) and his unfortunate choice of friends (who wrote racist comments in a newsletter that Paul published).
I think that the Republican Party, due to internal divisions between the religious and social right elements (un-electable minorities) and mainstream elements (no real difference from the Democrats) will in the next couple of decades disintegrate out of existence, leaving a void that will be filled either by several competing minority parties--allowing the Democratic Party to dominate American politics for at least as long as the nation lasts (because they will destroy it)--or by a party that espouses libertarian principles and provides a clear alternative to the statist government we have now.
It would be better if the Republican Party would adopt libertarian principles, saving itself in so doing, and clarifying the paths toward liberty or statism. That won't happen, though, because of the Republican right wing's intransigence and its left wing's irrelevance. So the best thing at this point is to hope that Ron Paul, who will not be the Republican nominee, will actively support Gary Johnson and throw his entire and enthusiastic support to Gary Johnson in the general election. In doing that, Paul will bring not only his supporters to Johnson, but potentially draw both Republicans and Democrats into voting for an appealing alternative to Obamney. As Nameless says,
Nameless writes that Ron Paul has some problems in the campaign, including his personality (he's not particularly presidential) and his unfortunate choice of friends (who wrote racist comments in a newsletter that Paul published).
But by far the biggest problem Paul has is that he’s ahead of the debate. What this primary season for the Republicans is boiling down to is what the last one was about as well; namely, the fight between mainstream statist republicanism and the more extremist Christian fundamentalist wing of that party. Last time it ended up being McCain vs Huckabee; this time it’s Romney vs Santorum. And there’s Paul, stood on the sidelines, making genuinely radical proposals with the mainstream just not listening to him. And because he stands alone among the candidates, he’s painted as some sort of an extremist when all he is really saying is “the state can’t cope with what we want it to do and therefore we should rely on it less”. I hope that there will come a point when Paul’s basic politics is considered the common sense mainstream; unfortunately, that time is not now.That shows real understanding of the situation here in the States. Nameless goes on to write,
So he’s not going to win either the nomination nor the presidency. So what should he do? Pack up and head back to Texas to chill with the idiotic Rick Perry? No. He should do something far more radical. He should run for President. As an Independent.No argument there. But he would face a problem in doing so. Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, like Paul, a much more qualified candidate than either Obama or any of the Republican candidates other than Paul, is running for president on the Libertarian Party ticket. So if Paul runs a 3rd-party campaign, he will not compete just with the Republican and Democratic candidates, but with Johnson, and that would pull votes away from Johnson rather than effectively denting the vote counts of the major-party candidates.
I think that the Republican Party, due to internal divisions between the religious and social right elements (un-electable minorities) and mainstream elements (no real difference from the Democrats) will in the next couple of decades disintegrate out of existence, leaving a void that will be filled either by several competing minority parties--allowing the Democratic Party to dominate American politics for at least as long as the nation lasts (because they will destroy it)--or by a party that espouses libertarian principles and provides a clear alternative to the statist government we have now.
It would be better if the Republican Party would adopt libertarian principles, saving itself in so doing, and clarifying the paths toward liberty or statism. That won't happen, though, because of the Republican right wing's intransigence and its left wing's irrelevance. So the best thing at this point is to hope that Ron Paul, who will not be the Republican nominee, will actively support Gary Johnson and throw his entire and enthusiastic support to Gary Johnson in the general election. In doing that, Paul will bring not only his supporters to Johnson, but potentially draw both Republicans and Democrats into voting for an appealing alternative to Obamney. As Nameless says,
Paul has cross party support. He can win over small-state Republicans but, with his foreign policy, he can also win over younger people who stand against US bellicosity and who have been bitterly disappointed by a President who has, among other things, left Gitmo open. Put crudely, he could take votes from both left and right, and thus form a radical alternative that hits the vote tally of both the Republicans and the Democrats.
