He is not even on the radar, Edwards dropped out today, and had a better showing than Paul. I dontated in December to Ron Paul, but he is making zero progress. I will not make anymore donations, even though he keeps asking for more. http://www.ronpaul2008.com/
Well even though he has no shot at getting the nomination, or even a consideration for VP, I'm still glad he is running and taking part in the debates. If nothing else, he is still getting the message out. If you keep beating the drum, eventually it sinks in to people.
I donated in December too and still support him. He is trying to spread his message to as many people as possible regardless of the outcome of the Republican nomination. That is to be commended because an idea will live longer than any person ever will. Also, he could be testing the waters to run as an independent. I wouldn't count that out just yet.
The problem with Ron Paul from the beginning was the right message from the wrong messenger. Now if it were his ideas coming from a Romney or an Edwards, it'd be game over.
will he run in the Indep. party and create a Ross perot deal or Howard Dean deal and take away votes only...from McCain...
You're probably right about that, although to a degree, I feel like the American people do not want to hear the hard truth. They typically prefer the message that sounds the best to them. Dems love to hear their politicians say they are going to give them more free stuff and punish the rich/corporations with higher taxes. The Reps love to hear their politicians say that they will lower taxes, which means they borrow the money from future tax payers because there is not much talk of reducing spending. Ron Paul's message ends up being "tough medicine to swallow" for both sides because he advocates reducing spending and taxes. Some of that spending would be in our foreign presence militarily, which would definitely piss off many on the right.
Right on for every point. Most don't understand the consequences of maintaining a large enough military to assure "everybody behaves". Military expense is like consumer spending. When a bomb is made it eventually either is exploded and is therefore "consumed", or it sits at the ready long enough to become obsolete and is destroyed. And while we're spending massive amounts on a military budget, the rest of the world is spending their money on infrastructure and building commerce. Being "policeman" to all the world is VERY expensive.
Same here. In a way it's unfortunate that the republican race has been as muddied as it was. McCain, for all his faults, is the acknowledged leader of the Greater America concept pushed by Bill Kristol and the Weekly Standard crowd and Fox News. They are in favor of preemptive war, keeping troops all over the globe and taking a belligerent stance against Russia. Paul, Pat Buchanan and other traditional conservatives see nothing but trouble from empire building and playing world policeman. Unless we can get other countries to subsidize us, we can't afford it. They are not pacifists like the democrats but they feel our foreign policy is needlessly provocative. It would have bben nice to have a rational debate over this, but instead we get McCain and Rudy calling anyone who is the least bit skeptical a traitor and Paul's views being marginalized or censored.
Preemptive war was the right thing to do, unless you drive by looking at the rear view mirror, and I don't need to name all the democrats who authorized it with a senate vote. As far as being the world's policemen, where in the world do you get the idea that this is a neocon concept? The Clinton era had us joining UN troops all over the world to be policemen. So they call them "peacekeepers". Is that supposed to mean they're not policemen. Of course the whole world that bitches about empire building, policemen, etc., thinks that the US is supposed to "police" Israel into giving up everything it wants. Look, if you want the US to stay in it's own backyard, just say so, and stop being an itteration of a McCain and saying that it's all republicans fault.